The Bone House (10 page)

    'What
about the thing with his wife?' Amy asked.

    'Wasn't
that an accident?'

    'There
were rumors.'

    'I
think you're getting paranoid.'

    'There's
more,' Amy said. 'There's something else.'

    'What?'

    Amy
could see the back of Gary's head. A reading light bounced off the pate of his
skull. It was almost as if he could feel her stare, because he looked up into
the driver's mirror. She saw his pupils glow the way a cat's eyes shine at night,
and she felt a shiver of fear as their eyes met. He reached up and turned off
the light above him.

    'My
room was next to his,' Amy said.

    'Yeah,
so?'

    'I
couldn't sleep last night. I was awake sometime after three in the morning, and
I heard footsteps in the hallway. I didn't look out, but I heard Gary's door.
He was going back into his room in the middle of the night.'

    Cab
sipped a Starbucks iced latte through a straw and watched Tresa Fischer and
Troy Geier behind the window of the interview room. It was late afternoon on
Sunday, and the police headquarters building on Riverside was uncomfortably
warm, the way it usually was. The counselor who had been with the two teenagers
for most of the day had departed ten minutes earlier, leaving them alone. Cab
had received word that Delia Fischer, Glory's mother, had landed at the Fort
Myers airport, and he wanted a chance to sit down with Tresa and Troy
individually before Delia arrived. He knew that once the victim's mother was in
the building, the two kids would be more guarded with their answers.

    He
took his coffee into the interview room, where Tresa and Troy waited in
silence, ignoring each other. Tresa sat at the interview table and drank a can
of Diet Sprite. Troy, who was a fleshy sixteen year old, drank root beer and
leaned against the wall. To Cab, the silence between them felt hostile. They
weren't friends.

    'Your
mom's on her way,' Cab informed Tresa. 'She'll be here in an hour or so.'

    Tresa
didn't look happy with the news. Cab guessed that the girl would bear the brunt
of guilt and blame when Delia arrived. As the older sister, she'd failed.
I
trusted Glory with you, and now she's dead.

    'Troy,
I'm going to ask you to wait outside,' Cab told the boy. 'Hang around, though,
because I need to talk to you, too. Ask one of the officers to fix you up with
some chips or a sandwich if you're hungry.'

    Troy
grunted and pushed himself off the wall. He put down his empty bottle of root
beer and left the room without a word. Tresa's eyes followed him, and Cab
thought his first impression about the two of them was correct. Tresa didn't
like her sister's boyfriend.

    Cab
sat down at the interview table opposite Tresa and gave the girl a reassuring
smile. At nineteen, Tresa still had a naive way about her that made her look
younger than she was. She was extremely skinny for her height, which made Cab
wonder if she had an eating disorder. She played with her straight red hair
between her fingers and stared vacantly at the wooden table. Her pretty blue
eyes were rimmed in red, and her face was marked with streaks of tears. Talking
with her earlier, Cab had found her to be painfully shy, a loner without a
support network of friends. He'd offered to ask some of the other dancers from
River Falls to stay behind with her, but Tresa hadn't given him a single name
of someone who was close to her. It was also obvious in her answers about her
family that her sister Glory got most of the attention from their mother.
Tresa, who was clearly artistic and smart, had been left to live in her own
world.

    'I
know it's been a long day,' he told her. 'I appreciate you being patient with
us. It probably seems like we cover the same stuff over and over, and you know
what? We do. But that's usually how we find the details that help us figure out
what really happened.'

    'Do
you have any idea who did this to Glory?' Tresa asked. Her voice was barely louder
than a whisper.

    'I
wish I could say yes, but we don't, not yet,' Cab admitted. 'I'd like to make
sure that we haven't missed anything important. OK?'

    Tresa
nodded without enthusiasm. 'OK.'

    'You
came down on a university bus from River Falls with the rest of your team last
Monday and Tuesday, is that right? And Troy and Glory drove down from Door
County on Tuesday and Wednesday?'

    'Yes,
they took turns and drove straight through,' Tresa answered. 'They got here
around ten o'clock Wednesday morning.'

    'Did
anyone else from Door County come down at the same time?'

    'No.'

    'Did
Glory and Troy bunk with you in your room?'

    'Uh
huh.' She added quickly, as if her mother were already listening, 'Glory and I shared
the bed, and Troy took the couch.'

    Cab
noticed the girl fidgeting. She was hiding things, and she wasn't good at it.
'Tresa, I need to know who your sister was, even if there's stuff that wasn't
so good. Understand?'

    Her
eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean?'

    'I
mean, teenagers do things that their parents don't always know about. I don't
care about that. I just need to know if Glory was involved in anything that
might have gotten her into trouble. See?' 'Yeah, I get it.'

    'So
it doesn't matter to me who slept in what bed, but I would like to know if
Glory and Troy were having sex while they were here.'

    Tresa
hesitated. 'What difference does that make?'

    'Maybe
none at all,' Cab admitted, 'but I need to get the whole picture.'

    'OK,
yes.'

    'You
know that for a fact?'

    'Yeah,
I came back from practice once, and they were in bed together.' Her tone was
pinched and unhappy.

    'You
sound like you didn't approve,' Cab said.

    'It
wasn't any of my business.'

    'Did
you not like the idea of your little sister having sex, or did you not like the
idea of her having sex with Troy?'

    Tresa
shrugged. Her grief couldn't overcome years of sibling rivalry. 'Glory's been
having sex since she was thirteen.'

    'With
Troy?'

    'No,
Troy's just the latest.'

    'What
about drugs?' Cab asked.

    'Yeah,
Glory liked to do grass. That was her, not me. I'm not into
it;

    'OK.
How about this week? Did Glory use any drugs while she was here?'

    Tresa
nodded. 'She and Troy scored some on the way down. I told her not to use it in
the room, because I didn't want to get in trouble. But I smelled it. I told
Troy to get rid of it, but I don't know if he did.'

    'You
don't like him, do you?'

    'Who,
Troy? He's OK, just dumb. He's a stupid puppy dog, and Glory liked to yank his
chain.'

    'Was
it serious between them?'

    'He
thought it was, but I don't think she did.'

    'Did
you see Glory with anyone else while she was at the hotel? Did she hook up with
any other boys?'

    'Not
while I was around, but I wouldn't put it past her either.' Tresa lowered her
eyes and looked guilty. 'I shouldn't talk like that. I'm sorry. You must think
I'm a shitty sister.'

    'No,
I don't. I asked you to be honest with me.'

    Tresa
nodded. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

    'Would
Troy get jealous if he saw Glory flirting with someone else?' Cab went on.

    'You
mean, would he hurt her? I don't think so. Troy's a big kid, but he's a wuss.
Everybody treats him like dirt.'

    Cab
thought that was an interesting comment. In his experience, when you poked the
bear long enough, eventually it poked back. 'When you woke up early this
morning and Glory wasn't in bed, was Troy in the room?'

    'Yeah,
he was zonked out on the couch, snoring away.'

    'Was
he there all night?'

    'As
far as I know.'

    'Could
he have left and come back without waking you up?'

    'I
don't know. I guess. I don't think he did, but I can't be sure.'

    'Let's
start at Saturday night and move backward, OK? I know we've covered some of
this before, but bear with me. Was Glory in your room when you went to sleep?'

    Tresa
sighed. 'No. Last time I saw her on Saturday, she was swimming in the hotel
pool. That was around nine o'clock. I went back to the room to read. Troy came
back about half an hour later by himself, because he wanted to watch a movie on
HBO. I crashed around eleven thirty, and Glory wasn't back yet. Troy had
already fallen asleep in front of the TV.'

    'Were
you worried that Glory hadn't come back?'

    'No.
Glory stays out late a lot.'

    'Was
she hanging out with anyone else at the pool?'

    'Not
while I was there. There were a few girls from the various teams in the water.
Some guys, too. Glory didn't know any of them, but I don't know what happened
after I left.'

    Cab
nodded. They were still trying to identify the other teenagers who'd been in
the pool on Saturday night, but so far, they'd had no luck. 'You told me
earlier that Glory was acting strangely on Saturday.'

    'I
guess so. Yeah.'

    'Describe
it again for me, OK?'

    Tresa
rubbed her eyes with both hands, fighting off exhaustion. She looked upset.
Kind of angry, too. She snapped at Troy a lot during the day. I wasn't really
paying attention. I was upset, too, because I choked during my performance on
Friday, so I kept to myself that day. I just figured Glory was pissed off
because we had to go home, you know? No more sunny Florida, back to dreary cold
Wisconsin.'

    'Did
she say anything to you about what was bothering her?'

    'Glory
wouldn't do that.'

    'What
about on Friday? How did she seem to you then?'

    'During
the day, fine.'

    'And
at night?'

    Tresa
shook her head. 'I don't know. I didn't see her in the evening. I mean, I saw
her right after I blew it in the competition, but I didn't want to talk. She
gave me a hug, but I needed to get out of there. I don't know what she did
after I split. I went off on the beach by myself, and I didn't get back to the
room until real late. She was already in bed.'

    'Was
Troy with Glory at your performance on Friday night?'

    'Troy?
At a girl's dance show? No way.'

    'Where
was he?'

    'In
the room, I guess.'

    'I
talked to a hotel employee who saw Glory at the event center on Friday night,' Cab
told her. 'He said she ran past him, and she was crying, and she looked scared.
Do you have any idea why?'

    'I
already told you,
no
,' Tresa insisted. She twisted the loose fabric of
her T-shirt into a knot, and her eyes grew teary again. 'Don't you think I'd
tell you if I knew what happened? When I left her, she was fine. I was the one
who was upset.'

    Cab
eased back in the chair, his long legs stretching out, his arms behind his
head. He watched the girl in front of him, and he thought about all of the
messes, insecurities, fears, jealousy, pettiness, and traumas of being young.
There were so many nicks and cuts that felt deep even when they were shallow
and left scars that you could pick at years later. To him, Tresa looked like a
typical teenage girl, screwed up in all the ordinary ways, but looks could be
deceiving.

    He
brought his arms back on to the table and leaned forward. 'Tell me about Mark
Bradley,' he said.

    Tresa
recoiled in surprise. 'What about him? How do you know about him?'

    'It
doesn't matter.'