The Frailty of Flesh (4 page)

At times Tain’s gaze seemed to have the force of a magnetic pull. Sixth sense kicked in, and she knew he was watching her with those dark eyes. She looked up.

He tipped his head to the side, just a bit. A nod toward the couple. She looked at Mr. and Mrs. Reimer.

They walked down the driveway solemnly. Although she’d been deep in thought, Ashlyn had been aware of them the whole time, of Mr. Reimer telling his wife it was time to go, of their lawyer advising them it was best they take some time to discuss things privately. Of Mrs. Reimer’s wide-eyed expression, as though her revelation about the weather would somehow change things. The break in the stream of tears that had finally come, long after Christopher had blurted out the news, hinted at misplaced hope, as though it were possible to unwind time and do things differently, summon the rain in the morning and save her child’s life.

The woman was in denial, not that Ashlyn could blame her.

Mr. Reimer hadn’t said a word. His eyes hadn’t widened or narrowed. No color dissolved from his cheeks. He had remained expressionless the entire time, and now he gripped his wife’s elbow and steered her toward the car.

TV camera crews had descended in the past half hour. News had leaked out somehow, and Ashlyn had been forced to call in patrol cars to keep the press off the Reimer property, which had prompted the lawyer’s decision to take the Reimer family away from their residence for the afternoon.

Christopher was already in the back of the vehicle. Once Mr. and Mrs. Reimer were strapped inside, doors closed, Byron Smythe walked back to the sidewalk where Tain and Ashlyn stood.

Even the way he carried himself made Ashlyn nauseated. Mr. Tall, Dark and God’s Gift to Women with the cocky grin and what she thought of as rented biceps. Kind of guy who went to the gym and did his thirty minutes five days a week just to keep the image, but had never done any manual labor in his entire life.

Style over substance.

He flashed her his custom-designed smile. “I trust you’ll keep me apprised of all developments on this case.”

“You’ll be notified of anything relevant to your clients immediately.” She pushed the corners of her mouth up deliberately. “Assuming, of course, we can reach you.”

He took a small silver case out of his jacket pocket and removed a card. “Work and personal numbers. Day or night, Ms. Hart.”

“Constable Hart.”

“Funny, I thought you’d been known to let the personal and professional intersect from time to time.”

“It’s the line between respectable and repugnant I don’t cross.”

He flashed his smile again and held the card out to her. “We’ll have to assess your boundaries another time.”

She bit back her retort and took the card.

Once Byron Smythe had returned to his car and driven away Tain said, “You know, it could be fun to slap a sexual harassment charge on that bastard.”

“Fun for you, maybe. I’d rather not deal with the pompous ass, myself.”

“Maybe I’m scarred because he didn’t leer at me and give me his phone number.”

“Oh, that’s rich, coming from the guy who smacked my ass at a crime scene last summer.”

Tain cracked a smile. “Guess I never could make that fly.”

“And I hate to tell you this, but you aren’t living up to your reputation as a sexist pig these days, either.”

“You know how it is. If I come off as nice and reasonable for a while the women lower their guard.”

Ashlyn laughed.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Tain’s smile faded. “But then you start to feel guilty.”

Ashlyn looked back at the Reimer family home, at the upstairs window to what had been Jeffrey Reimer’s bedroom. Now it was just a painful reminder.

“I don’t think we’ll have much to feel good about with this case,” she said.

Tain looked up at the window as well. “No, I don’t suppose we will.” He reached for his ringing cell phone. After a few one-word responses he hung up and paused as he looked her in the eye.

Ashlyn groaned. “Don’t tell me.”

Tain nodded. “Sergeant Zidani wants to see us in his office.” “May as well get this over with,” Ashlyn muttered as she followed him to their car.

Craig felt the knots in his shoulders loosen when he saw the familiar figure leaning over his desk. He bent over her shoulder and glanced at the note she was writing.

“I know you can’t make lunch. That’s why we’re eating out.”

She turned and gave him a look. “Very funny.”

He held up his hands as he sat down. “It wasn’t a shot at your culinary skills.” He smiled. “Or lack thereof.”

Ashlyn’s eyes pinched as she leaned back against his desk and glared at him. “My peanut butter sandwiches are as good as anyone’s.”

Said with jest, but there was something in her eyes. A weight. “You guys catch something bad?” he asked.

“A murder. Four-year-old boy.”

“Domestic?”

She opened her mouth to answer, but said nothing. Craig was used to the vacuous look she got when she was deep in thought. In as much time as it took to snap your fingers the look was gone. She glanced at Luke and shook her head. “It’s…messy.”

Craig looked at Luke, who was again avoiding eye contact. He seemed to have an endless supply of fascinating paperwork to read. Couldn’t the guy take a hint and go find himself a cup of coffee or a window to stare out of?

“And you haven’t got time to eat?”

A thin smile. “We’ve been summoned to the sergeant’s office.”

“Lucky you.”

Her eyebrow rose and the hint of a real smile tugged at her mouth for a few seconds, then faded. “It’ll probably go further than that. This one’s bad.”

Children always were, for a variety of reasons, but something about the way she said it made him suspect this one was more complicated than usual. “You know where to find me.”

She nodded. “What about you? Working on something interesting?”

He surveyed the thin pile of paperwork on his desk. “More annoying than anything.” Craig made the mistake of looking up in time to see the softening around her eyes. The longer he was kept on the sidelines at work the more she worried about him.

Tain approached them and Craig offered a quick nod. “Tough case, I hear.”

No hint of emotion on Tain’s face, just a one-word reply. “Yeah.” Tain had a way of packing so much meaning into one single syllable. When Craig, Ashlyn and Tain had first worked together Craig and Tain had barely moved from open hostility to thinly veiled loathing.

In the end, they’d both earned a grudging respect for each other. Then, when they’d all been transferred to the Tri-Cities they’d ended up working together. Ashlyn and Tain had been partnered, and when the case was finished they continued working together.

Once Ashlyn had been cleared to return to active duty.

“Zidani’s waiting for us,” Tain said as he glanced at his partner.

“Lambs to the slaughter.” She straightened up and followed Tain out the doorway.

Craig rolled his chair toward his desk and picked up the note she’d started to write. She’d only written that she couldn’t make lunch, nothing more. He’d interrupted her before she’d even had a chance to sign it.

She’d never leave anything too personal for him at work anyway. It wasn’t her style.

He crunched up the slip of paper and tossed the ball in the garbage can beside his desk and was about to pick up the phone when he took a second glance.

Other than the note he’d just thrown in, the garbage can was empty.

A quick glance at the can sitting beside Luke’s desk confirmed it was half-full.

He looked up. For once, Luke had made himself scarce and disappeared so quietly Craig couldn’t even be sure if he’d left when Tain had arrived, or afterward.

Craig decided to take the opportunity to make one quick call before his partner returned. It only took a few seconds to dial his stepmother’s phone number.

And it only took a minute to confirm there was still no answer.

When Ashlyn and Tain arrived at Sergeant Frank Zidani’s office—his temporary office, which still had the name
Steve Daly
posted outside—Zidani didn’t invite them to sit down or even offer a casual greeting. Instead, he glared at Ashlyn.

“Have you screwed this up already?”

Her only response was to stare back. The muscles in the back of her neck pulled tight, and she knew her instinctive retort would lead to more trouble than it was worth, even if it would feel so good for a moment to tell Zidani off, just once.

“Well, what have you got?” It was supposed to be a question, but he had a way of growling the words so they sounded aggressive, accusing.

“Four-year-old boy named Jeffrey Reimer. Found at the water park in Rocky Point Park in Port Moody. He—”

“How’d the call come in?”

Ashlyn swallowed. Zidani refused to just let them run through the details. He had to keep them off balance and jump all over the place.

“He was located by Port Moody police officers after an anonymous 911 call about an assault at the park.”

“I take it you haven’t tracked the source of the call yet.” Zidani leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, scowl firmly in place.

“We located a witness who’s identified a possible suspect.”

“Who’s this witness?”

“Christopher Reimer, the older brother o—”

“How much older?”

“He’s eleven.” Ashlyn bit back the urge to slap a sarcastic “sir” on the end of that.

“Who’d he identify as the killer?”

“Shannon Reimer, age sixteen.”

The scowl deepened. “Motive?”

Ashlyn paused. “We haven’t been able to establish that yet.”

Zidani leaned forward. “Constable Hart, what exactly have you been doing all this time?”

“What do you think?”

Zidani pounded his fist against the desk and then pointed a meaty finger at her. “I asked you a question. I expect a direct answer, not some smart-ass remark.” He leaned back in his chair and proffered a heartless smile. “Now, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just get mouthy with a superior officer. Let’s try this again. What have you been doing all this time?”

“My job.” Ashlyn felt her chin jut out. As hard as she tried to stay calm she could feel her cheeks flush with anger. Zidani had no right to question the quality of their work. A few hours into the call and they already had an eyewitness who’d identified a suspect. “We worked the scene and did an extensive search. Constable Sims is still on site, in charge. Once we located the witness and identified the victim and potential suspect, Constable Tain and I went to the Reimer house to make notification to the parents, but they insisted on calling their lawyer before we told them their daughter is a suspect and—”

“Who’s the lawyer?”

“Byron Smythe.”

“The dead kid…” Zidani snapped his fingers a few times. “What’s his dad’s name?”

Tain answered. “Richard Reimer.”

Zidani didn’t acknowledge Tain and kept his gaze on Ashlyn. “Known criminal connections?”

“We haven’t been able to check yet. We didn’t know Smythe was the family lawyer until he arrived and right after they left you called us in.”

“What about the daughter? Is Smythe bringing her in for questioning?”

“She’s missing.”

“She’s missing? What the hell are you doing here?”

“You called us and ordered us to report in.” Before he could do more than snarl at her Ashlyn continued. “We have her photo and information in circulation. We’re going to check her friends, extended family talk to the teachers. A teenage girl is more likely to go to someone she knows, and the uniforms have the streets covered.”

Zidani glowered at her for a moment. It appeared he couldn’t think of a way to argue with that, but guessing what was going through his mind wasn’t her main concern.

“How was the boy killed?” he asked.

“Beaten to death. Possibly a baseball bat. We’ll be waiting on the coroner’s report, but there was a note made at the scene about a splinter of wood in one of the wounds. Speculation is a blow to the back of the head is what ultimately caused death.”

“Reporters are going to be all over this.” Zidani tapped his fingers on the desk. “It may be best to reassign the case.”

“On what grounds?” Ashlyn demanded. She felt her body stiffen.

“Are you questioning me?” Zidani stood, the scowl deepening.

“Damn right I am,” Ashlyn said, ignoring the light touch of Tain’s hand on her arm. “We’ve handled this case like professionals, and you have no grounds to remove us.”

“What about the little matter of a series of child murders you two worked? Didn’t end so well, did it? You shot the suspect, Hart, and he jumped out a window. To his death. And as though that wasn’t enough for one day, you killed a cop.”

“You make it sound like I’m trigger happy and reckless, and you are way off base.” She could feel the heat in her cheeks. “I was cleared of any wrongdoing in both incidents, and you have no right to stick that in my face.”