Читать книгу Shallow End - Brenda Chapman - Страница 10

Gundersund slid into the front seat and handed Kala a travel mug, keeping a second one for himself. “My way of saying thanks for picking me up,” he said. “Did you get Rouleau’s email?”

She inhaled the smell of roasted coffee and took a sip before saying, “He’s going to speak with the Etons while Woodhouse and Bennett go door to door. You and I start with Jane Thompson’s sister, Sandra Salvo, before we carry out interviews at the school.”

“I take that as a yes.”

“Sorry. I meant yes.” She smiled and set the mug in the cup holder and began backing out of the driveway. She stopped the truck before backing onto the main road and looked over at him. He appeared to have had a rough night, the scar on his cheek redder than usual against his pale skin. He’d tried to tame his blond curls but not quite succeeded. Gundersund would have been a Viking back in the day — a giant man with unruly locks and scarred face. She forced herself back from an image of him on the prow of a dragon boat. “Did you get Sandra’s address?”

“She’s in a new subdivision in the east end on Rose Abbey Drive.”

“I wonder why Jane didn’t move in with her sister when she was released.”

“Good question. We’ll have to ask her.”

Sandra’s house was a taupe and brown two-storey with double garage on a street tightly lined with similar homes. A plump woman with grey-blond hair to her waist opened the door before they had a chance to knock. She looked past them as if searching for somebody before hustling them into the hallway. A black cat with frostbitten ears nearly made it through their legs and outside to freedom, but Sandra slammed the door shut in time.

“Popcorn tries to get out every chance he gets. You’d think he hates living here.” She laughed and held out her hand. “I’m Sandra. Thanks for coming by. Going into the station would have been problematic for me.” She led them into the kitchen, which fed into a family room. Kala blinked. Two babies were crawling around a penned-in area and three more pint-size children were eating cereal at the kitchen table.

Sandra jumped when the doorbell rang and a relieved smile crossed her face. “My helper just arrived. We can meet in the den once I let her in.”

Gundersund looked at Kala and mouthed, “Why Jane chose to live elsewhere.”

The den was a cramped room with a desk and office chair taking up half of the space, and two leather chairs in front of a window that looked into the neighbour’s kitchen, where Kala saw a man in a housecoat pouring a cup of coffee. Two walls of Sandra’s den were lined with bookcases overflowing with paperbacks. Kala and Gundersund squeezed past the desk and sat in the leather chairs to wait for Sandra.

“Doesn’t look much like her sister,” Gundersund said. “She appears to be a lot more wholesome. Do you want to take the lead on this one?”

“If you like.”

A baby’s crying filled the house but didn’t last long. Sandra appeared a moment later and shut the door. She took the desk chair and rolled it a few feet toward them. “Sorry about that. Luckily, two of the kids are home sick today and I get three more four-year-olds at lunch hour, and even though my second helper shows up at eleven thirty, as I explained to your sergeant, this really is the best time for us to meet. Now, I believe you have questions about my sister, Jane?”

Kala glanced at Gundersund and back at Sandra. “Are you aware that Devon Eton was murdered two nights ago?”

“Of course. I read the paper but I haven’t spoken to Jane about it, as you requested. I can assure you though that she didn’t do it.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“Jane didn’t hate him, although I must say that I would have in her shoes. I mean he was responsible for ruining her life.”

“You don’t agree that Devon was the victim?”

“Jane is not a child rapist nor is she a killer.”

“Did you speak with Jane by phone on Monday night?”

“Yes. I called at seven as I usually do. We, or I should say I, talked for half an hour. Jane never says very much. She’s been depressed since she got out because that prick Adam has been keeping the kids from her. Olivia is eight and Ben is twelve so they need their mother now more than ever especially since that tramp he’s dating isn’t much older than Ben. I imagine Adam will be using this kid’s death as another reason to keep them apart. I’m angry as hell about all this. The so called friends who just turned their backs. After all that Jane did for …”

Kala was beginning to understand why Jane let her sister do all of the talking on the phone. Sandra was like a nonstop wind-up toy without an apparent need for air. Kala cut in. “What kind of childhood did the two of you have?”

“What, me and Jane? Not great, but thanks for asking. Our mother was old school. She believed in beatings and God — not the usual combination, but we always got an earful of scripture after our punishment. Jane took the brunt of it being the oldest and the one who daydreamed when she should have been doing chores. Drove my mother half around the bend. You wouldn’t believe how wild my mother got when Jane discovered boys, or maybe it was the other way around. I mean, have you seen my sister? She had them lining up in grade school.” Sandra clamped a hand over her mouth. “I didn’t mean that like it sounded,” she said through her fingers.

“Did you visit your sister in prison?”

“I tried to get there once a month. It’s hard with this daycare business I’m running. I take in kids most weekends too and a few of the parents work shifts.” Her head snapped toward the door. A child was screeching and shortly afterward a second child started screaming uncontrollably.

Kala raised her voice. “Just a few more questions. Have you seen Jane since she got out of prison?”

“I invited her for dinner a few times but she never came. As I said, she was depressed, hanging around her apartment after work, waiting for Adam to let her see her kids. Tragic how far she fell in life. Everything my mother said about Jane came true.”

“What would that be?”

“That she was living in a dream world. Getting above herself and heading for a fall. I’m just glad my mother’s in a home now with Alzheimer’s so she can’t yell ‘I told you so’ at Jane anymore. It was bad enough when Jane was found guilty of having sex with that kid.”

The screaming had grown louder and moved just outside the door. Gundersund spoke for the first time, raising his voice above the child’s. “For the record, where were you Monday night, Sandra?”

She thought for a second. “Why, right here. I didn’t have any kids staying over so I had a bath after I spoke with Jane and called it an early night.”

“Can anyone vouch for you?”

“No. I live alone. I only have a helper come to work when I have more than four kids so neither was here that day because most of the kids were off with the flu.”

“How close are you to Jane?”

“Are you asking if I’m close enough to kill on her behalf?” Sandra smiled and suddenly Kala saw her resemblance to Jane in their identical expressions that could have been taken as mischievous but came across as secretive. “My sister and I had to learn to band together when we were kids to survive in my mother’s house of spare the rod. I’d take a bullet for Jane but that doesn’t mean I’d commit murder for her.”

Gundersund was writing down details of their visit in his notepad while Kala drove toward the school. The sky had brightened since their morning drive to Sandra’s house and Kala felt her spirit lift. At this time of year, a warm, sunny day was to be savoured. The warmth had to carry them into the winter months that were just around the corner.

Gundersund clicked the pen with his thumb a couple of times and set the notepad on his knees. “What’s your take on Jane and Sandra?”

“Their childhood would make an interesting study. They both chose to work with kids even with a lousy role model. I find that interesting.”

“I hadn’t made that connection. You’d have to wonder how much impact their mother’s discipline and preaching had on them and on the way they interact with kids. Did the mother’s parenting come up at the trial, do you know?”

“Not sure.”

“Yeah. I’ll make a note to check. From what I’ve been reading in the file, Cathy Bryden kept meticulous notes. Sandra doesn’t have an alibi but she doesn’t seem high on the suspect list. For one, she could have killed Devon at any point over the past three years if she’d wanted to and wouldn’t have implicated Jane since she was in prison.”

Kala pumped the breaks as she eased up to a stop sign. She looked over at Gundersund. “Unless she wanted Jane to be implicated. Who knows what’s really going on between the two of them? The fact Jane hasn’t been to see her a month after her release and appears to barely tolerate her phone calls makes me wonder how close they really are.”

“Layers inside of layers.” Gundersund picked up the notepad. “Never trust anyone.”

“That’s right. Jane Thompson may very well have killed this kid, but it’s also possible that somebody was waiting for her to get out of prison so they could pin this on her. That leaves the field wide open.”

“But why? The only ones I can see who would want revenge would be family and friends of Devon. They’d hardly kill him to get back at Jane Thompson. Makes no sense.”

“Well, there’s Jane’s sister Sandra as we just discussed and an ex-husband, for starters. Sounds like Adam Thompson is keeping Jane from their kids. Maybe he wants her back inside so he never has to deal with her again. He kills the boy she was having an affair with and vents some pent-up anger from their affair that must have made him look less than manly. What was the name of the street the school’s on?”

“Kingston Collegiate. Make a left here on Frontenac. It’s that three-storey red brick building at the end of the block.”