Dan Sharp Mysteries 4-Book Bundle (92 page)

Rouleau watched while Fiona Gundersund finished her examination of Brian Munroe’s gaping wound. Munroe lay in a pool of blood on the top landing outside the master bedroom. Blood splatter painted one wall and the beige carpet. The hammer that caused the damage had already been bagged and sent to the lab.

Fiona stood slowly from where she crouched next to him, her hands on the small of her back. She rolled back her shoulders before she turned to look at Rouleau. The pain on her face reminded him that she’d been off work the month before with a lower back injury. A car had sideswiped her bike on a downtown street and she’d gone for a tumble.

“Della hit him with enough force to crack his skull. If that wasn’t enough, she hit him a second time. She made a real mess of his brain. The wife’s confessed, I gather?” Fiona’s blue eyes gave nothing away.

“She has. She’s claiming self defence. She’d taken out a restraining order just yesterday morning after she charged him with rape.”

“A marriage gone horribly wrong, I’d say.”

“Evidently. Safe to move him?”

“Yeah. I’ll be doing an autopsy first thing. You’re keeping me busy this week.”

“Not on purpose, believe me.”

“It’s unusual but not unheard of to have two murders back to back like this. Kingston isn’t known for its homicides.”

They started walking down the stairs together. Rouleau noted the angle of the sun slanting through the window on the landing. People would be up getting ready for work now. They’d been here close to four hours. He could use some sleep.

Fiona stopped at the bottom of the staircase and looked back up at him. Her blond ponytail had come undone and tendrils of hair fell loose. Fatigue lines on her face had deepened from the day before.

“Will Paul be working this one too?”

“He’s on his way to the station to interview Della.”

“I hear you finally snagged him a new partner. Word around the station is that she’s attractive … and young.”

“Kala Stonechild’s a good cop.”

“But not too good I hope.” Fiona flashed him a wide smile, but her eyes were giving a different message. She turned toward the front door without waiting for him to respond.

Rouleau followed slowly. He’d been unable to avoid the stories circulating around the station about Fiona’s treatment of Paul Gundersund. She’d left him the year before for a married doctor who’d also left his wife. Apparently, this hadn’t been her first extramarital fling, but it was the first time she’d left home. Odds in the office pool were weighted on the side of him taking her back by Christmas. Everyone agreed that he was better off without her. By what he’d seen in Fiona’s eyes, he wouldn’t bet against her if she decided to reel Gundersund back in.

Della Munroe’s hands shook as she lifted the coffee cup to her lips. She was wrapped in a blue wool blanket, sitting forward, her eyes staring at nothing. Kala nodded at the officer sitting next to Della on the couch and they exchanged places. Gundersund hung back near the doorway as he and Kala had agreed he would before entering the room.

Kala knew on paper that Della was young, but was surprised by just how young she appeared. Della’s long black hair hung loose around her face, her pale skin flawless and unlined. The blue eyes she raised to Kala were red from crying but still brilliant blue. Dressed in a white T-shirt, jeans, and sparkly pink flip flops, she looked closer to a teenager than a woman approaching thirty. Della would make for a sympathetic accused if the case came to trial. Kala had doubts that it would get that far given the circumstances.

“How are you doing, Della?” Kala asked. “Is there something I can get you? Anything you need?”

“No, thanks.”

“I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, but I need you to tell me exactly what you remember about tonight and what led up to your husband’s death.”

“Am I under arrest?”

“No, we’re just trying to find out what happened at this point. Can you take me through your evening? Take your time. I need you to know that we are recording what you say. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Della took a deep, shuddering breath and hunched deeper into the blanket. “I put Tommy to bed around seven and crawled in to read him a bedtime story. I must have fallen asleep because next thing I knew, it was ten o’clock. I got up and checked that the doors were locked and poured some milk for Mr. Paws.” She smiled. “Tommy named him when we picked up the cat from the humane society.” Her face crumpled and she picked up the coffee cup, letting her hair fall across her face. She raised the cup to her lips and sipped. A portion slopped onto the blanket as she lowered the cup to her lap.

“You’re doing fine,” said Kala. “What happened next?”

“I had something to eat, I think a muffin and milk. I’d hardly eaten since the night before when Brian … when Brian raped me. I lay down on the couch in the living room and dozed for a while. A noise woke me up. It was glass shattering in the kitchen. At first I thought I was dreaming.” She stopped talking, and tucked her chin onto her chest.

“What did you do next?” Kala asked.

“I lay there for a few moments getting oriented. It was dark — I hadn’t turned any lights on before I lay down — and then I saw him in the hallway.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, “Brian.”

“Did he see you?”

“Not at first. He started for the stairs and my first thought was Tommy. I got up and asked him what he was doing. He turned around and said he’d come to take Tommy away from me and not to try to stop him. I ran toward him and grabbed his arm, pleading with him to talk to me. He hit me across the face.” Della raised her face and pushed back her hair. An ugly bruise had spread across her forehead.

“Has that been tended to by anyone?”

“It’s nothing.” Della let her hair swing back across her face. “I fell on my knees and landed on the floor next to the hammer. I’d been putting up a mirror at the bottom of the stairs and left the hammer beside the hall table. I don’t remember picking it up, but I must have. I called to Brian to stop. We needed to talk, but he told me to go to hell. He said that he was done talking and now he and Tommy were going to disappear. He’d kill Tommy before I would see him again. I … I panicked. I climbed the stairs after him, but he refused to stop. He was going to take Tommy and maybe kill him. I swung the hammer at Brian just to slow him down.”

“You hit him twice on the back of his head.”

“He … he didn’t fall right away. I was scared. I don’t remember hitting him a second time, but I must have. I didn’t mean to hit him so hard.”

Kala looked across at Gundersund. He stood leaning against the wall near the door. He nodded his head, encouraging her to continue. She detected kindness in his eyes before his face cleared of expression.

“There was a lot of blood,” Kala observed mildly, looking back at Della.

“I know.” Della’s sobs began softly under the black curtain of her hair. “I thought he was going to take my baby.”

Kala waited until Della composed herself. “Only one last question for now, Mrs. Munroe, and then I think we should have someone check you over just to make sure your head is fine as you say. What did you do right after your husband was lying on the floor bleeding?”

“I called for an ambulance and the police from my bedroom as soon as I checked on Tommy. After I called, I went back to Tommy’s room and picked him up to take him downstairs. We waited on the couch after I unlocked the front door. Tommy didn’t wake up the whole time.”

“You didn’t try to stop Brian’s bleeding?”

“No. I just wanted to be as far away from him as I could. I was sure he was going to wake up and come after me again.”

“You didn’t check to see if he was dead?”

“I didn’t think I’d
killed
him. I thought he’d wake up and come after me.” Della moaned and began rocking back and forth on the couch.

Kala turned off the tape recorder and looked over at Gundersund. He signalled to her that he was stepping outside to call for a doctor. They’d gotten what they needed but she still felt a twinge of disgust at herself for putting the woman through questioning when she’d just lost so much: a marriage that started out hopeful with love, and was now nothing but pain, loss, and that worm of guilt for no longer having to deal with an abusive husband. Kala reached over and touched Della’s shoulder, the only gesture of comfort she could allow herself as the constable investigating his death.

“So what do you think?” Gundersund asked. He set a cup of coffee on the desk in front of Kala. She looked up from her computer screen. Gundersund was sipping from his cup, looking at her over the rim. His eyes had that curious look in them again that she found unnerving.

“Thanks.” She picked up the mug and forced herself to focus on the case. “Della sounds credible. Combined with the alleged rape and bruises from this encounter after he broke in, I can’t see enough for a prosecution. What do you think?”

“Same as you. It probably won’t go to trial.”

“Rouleau should give this to Chalmers and let me get back to the Sampson murder.” She set down the coffee cup and resumed typing. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Gundersund return to his desk. He sat down and began talking on his cellphone. He swivelled his chair around so that he had his back to her. Kala lifted her head and watched him for a moment. Whoever he was talking to was causing him grief. His shoulders had hunched forward and the fingers of his right hand tapped staccato against the side of his desk. His voice rose angrily and she heard him tell the person at the other end to just let it go.

Kala dropped her eyes back to the report on her screen. Most curious. Gundersund had somebody in his life who had the power to upset him.

Chapter Fifteen

 D
alal Shahan woke up early, just as fingers of sunlight broke through the darkness of her room. She lay on her side with her eyes open, watching the sunbeams dance through the flimsy curtain onto the hardwood floor.
It would be nice to be a sunbeam,
she thought. Sunbeams made people happy.

Already, she could hear her mother moving around in the kitchen preparing breakfast. The spicy smell of beef haleem — wheat, lentils, and beef with coriander, cumin, and turmeric — drifted up the stairs and made her mouth water. There would be leftover samosas too, with green chutney from supper the evening before.

Dalal stepped out of bed and looked down at Meeza, still sleeping so peacefully with one arm flung over her head on the pillow. Meeza’s other arm was wrapped around her stuffed teddy bear, Boo. Meeza had her own room but sometimes came to sleep with Dalal in the middle of the night when she got lonely. Meeza didn’t like being alone much.

Dalal kept her eyes on Meeza’s face as she skirted around her bed to the bookcase near the closet. She knelt and reached her hand behind the Quran her parents had given her on her tenth birthday. She let out a breath of relief to feel the thin diary still in its hiding place.

Ghazi hadn’t found it on his last search of their room because she’d carried it to school in her knapsack two days before. Immediately upon arriving home after school, she’d told her mother she needed to use the bathroom upstairs. She’d tucked the book inside her underwear under her dress before getting off the bus. It had felt strange but comforting to have it next to her skin. She’d hurried upstairs and hidden the diary in the bookcase before scurrying across the hall into the bathroom. By the time Dalal entered the kitchen, her mother had already emptied her knapsack onto the kitchen table as she did every day when Dalal came home. Dalal felt a flush of guilt at this small rebellion but if she had to do it over, she would not change one thing.

Dalal pulled out the diary and straightened the books in an even row as they had been. She tucked the book under her arm as she crossed back to her bed and got under the covers. She rolled onto her side so that she faced away from the door and pulled the sheet over her head. When she was sure nobody was stirring across the hall, she opened the diary and squinted at the delicate swirls and loops in blue ink. The scrap of paper she used as a bookmark was still in place and she flipped to the spot she’d left off. She began reading.

I got up this morning and heard them talking in the kitchen, like old women conspiring. Odd. They looked at me with guilty eyes when they saw me standing in the doorway. I pretended not to notice and ate my breakfast even though I wasn’t hungry. I put on the black hijab and ugly long coat as expected and hurried for the bus. I prayed I wouldn’t meet Susan and Josy and I was lucky today. If they saw me in the head scarf and coat, they’d tell all the other girls. I hate, hate, hate their sly looks and superior way of looking at me. Brit met me in the park with my jeans and T-shirt. I changed behind the trees while she kept watch. She brought lip gloss and eye shadow and a little mirror. I’ll have to remember to rub the makeup off before I leave school. Ghazi is hanging around more, spying on me and reporting back. If they knew, well, I won’t think about that today. Chad Stephens smiled at me when I walked into history class. My heart is singing.

Oh joy of joys! Brit told me at our lockers this morning that Chad wants to take me out this Friday to the movies!!!! My heart is going to burst wide open, I am so, so happy. There has to be a way to be allowed out without them suspecting. I will go no matter what. I will find a way to have a night away from them if it’s the last thing I do. I will have a life.

Dalal jumped as Ghazi’s alarm clock began its wake up beeping in his room next to them. The wall muffled the annoying sound but Ghazi would let it go on a while before he woke enough to hit the snooze button. Dalal quickly closed the diary and decided she’d hide it in the bedclothes and take it to school again in her knapsack. She didn’t trust her brother to stay out of their room today because he only had one class at the university this morning. He had all afternoon to search while she and Meeza were in school. He had all day to plot and scheme.

Chapter Sixteen