The Boy Must Die Page 5

  “Fill me in on Sheree,” said Billy.

  “I’ve met her only once before. Investigating the Cody Schow hanging. Youth care worker, got downsized, according to her boss at family services. They weren’t too keen to give out much more information. She and her boyfriend seemed pretty close. He’s a professor at the university.”

  “How’s he connected to the Cody Schow case?”

  “He was there with Sheree, in the house, staying over when the first body was found in the basement.”

  “They were in the house?”

  Butch nodded.

  “Sound sleepers?”

  “They both claimed they heard nothing. Sheree Lynn said she always left the back door unlocked. . . .”

  “Even after the Schow suicide?”

  “Seems so. She says the kids came and went. Half the time she never knew if they were out or in.”

  “How did she know this Schow boy?”

  “Before Sheree left family services, she met Schow and the Riegert kid. Her job was to assist the head psychologist looking into allegations of abuse brought forward by the boys’ school. Riegert and Schow followed Sheree to her house one day, what we call Satan House now, Marion Bartlett’s old place on Ashmead. According to her, they asked if they could see her and be counselled. We questioned Riegert after the Schow suicide and found that Sheree often let the two of them sleep over. She made them meals once in a while.”

  “How many times did you talk to the Riegert boy?”

  “Just the once.”

  “And your impressions?”

  “Shy, withdrawn, unhappy.”

  “Suicidal? Any follow-up done on him after the Schow hanging?”

  “Not much. We contacted the school counsellor, and he kept close watch on the boy for a month or two but never reported back to us with any matter of concern.”

  “How about Sheree? Did she report anything? Was there any need for intervention or further counselling?”

  “I spoke to her a few times. She claimed Darren had adjusted well. I had doubts. Hell, the cable TV people grabbed hold of the story. They went nuts, calling the house a drug hangout, a nest of Satan worship. The local school boards even put out a bulletin warning parents to keep their kids away from Satan House. I was surprised no one trashed the place. Darren, though, got through the mess, so I let the matter go.”

  “This morning, did Sheree offer any theory about how or why Darren ended up dead in the same basement as Cody Schow?”

  “No. She wasn’t too clear on anything. Her boyfriend, Randy, was with her again trying to calm her. She was pretty broken up.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “The boyfriend.”

  Billy paused.

  “I asked Dodd about Sheree Lynn. He blushed.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Butch grinned.

  “Surprised?”

  “You can judge for yourself, my friend.”

  Butch steered the Ford cruiser to the curb in front of a tall white mansion covered in peeling paint. Satan House sat east-west on Ashmead Street. Two tree-lined avenues, Baroness and Dufferin, stretched southward from Ashmead. Their old-money homes had three storeys, big fences, and back gardens that butted up against each other. Satan House had a pitched roof with two identical A-frame dormer windows. Stucco and wood slatting decorated the upper half of the once-proud façade, while on the first floor bay windows with cheap curtains bordered the front door. Billy remembered the place as a grand home on a select street. There had always been flowers and a clipped lawn. Stories, too, about the rich eccentric Bartlett spinster who lived alone and refused entry to all visitors. A long pillared porch once skirted the ground storey. All that was left was the line of its former roof running across the slatting like a crusted scar.

  As Butch was about to switch off the engine, a compact woman with curly brown hair emerged from the front door of the house. She marched towards them carrying a black briefcase and a 35mm Nikon slung over her right shoulder. Billy noted her powerful stride as she crossed the dirt yard. The fullness of her breasts was evident beneath her uniform jacket. She passed around a small group of people gawking at the fluttering barrier tape. At the passenger window of the cruiser, she peered with blue eyes into the shadowy interior. Butch lowered the window.

  “Afternoon, Chief,” she said. “We’re wrapping up.”

  “Meet Billy Yamamoto. Constable Gloria Johnson.”

  Johnson extended her hand and with a firm grip shook Billy’s.

  “Billy was chief homicide detective with the Vancouver city police force for twelve years,” Butch said. “He’s agreed to join us on the investigation, if you have no objections. In fact, I want Billy to take charge of what we’re doing here since he has offered us his time.”

  “Fine with me, sir,” said Johnson. With quick eyes, she looked Billy up and down.

  “What have you found, Johnson?” Billy asked.

  “We’re done with the dusting and the rest of the photos and the site sketch, sir. I got up and took a look at the overhead pipe. Lots of rust. Tommy — he’s our medic — got blood samples from the floor. We also went around the neighbourhood like you suggested, Chief. No one home at one place. But Mrs. Aileen Moore, who lives with her teenage son next door, claimed she saw and heard nothing. The neighbour on the other side is bedridden, and his nurse said she sleeps in the basement and can’t hear street noise.”

  “What did the teenager see?” asked Billy.

  “Pardon me?” Johnson replied, her voice rising a little as her lips parted in a sudden smile.

  “You said a Mrs. Moore lived next door with her son. Did he see anything? Did you meet him?”

  “Actually, no, Inspector. At the time, Mrs. Moore said he probably was still asleep.”

  “He may have been up in the night though. Or in late. Get their number and have the son come down to the station. Just routine. Get a hold of the nurse again, and the other neighbour, and have them come down, too.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Johnson smiled again. Billy liked the way she spoke. He liked the way her face took on colour when she smiled.

  “Can you leave behind your kit, Johnson? Billy and me’ll need tweezers and Ziplocs.”

  “And gloves.”

  “And gloves.”

  “She’s yours, Chief.” Constable Gloria Johnson lay the briefcase down on the sidewalk by the cruiser, then took out a couple of large envelopes. “Got the prints here. I’ll take ’em over to the lab. And do some cross-checks with the Schow case.”

  At first glance, Gloria Johnson had seemed older than she was. Billy gazed now at a woman no more than twenty-five, a staff constable with an important job, forensics being only one part of it.

  “You may need some more consent-to-search forms, Chief. They’re in the kit, too.”

  “Thanks, Johnson.”

  “Better go gentle with her, sir. She’s still shaky from this morning. And the attack. Her professor boyfriend had to go off for a meeting. I gave him permission to leave. He’ll be back as soon as he can since he knows you need to talk to him again.”

  “What attack?” asked Billy.

  “Chief, you want to, or shall I?”

  Butch coughed. “Go ahead.” Butch pulled out a pack of cigarettes for the first time since he’d been with Billy and lit up. He lowered the window on his side of the car and blew the smoke into the open air.

  “The mother, this morning, when she got here, caused a ruckus. She’s a hard one. We were chalking off the scene when she comes screaming down the basement stairs. Right, Chief? She was crying. Tommy and me had to hold her back from tearing the body down. Then Miss Sheree appears. All polite and trying to comfort. The mother goes at her. Spits in her face. Calls her a bitch.”

  “Thanks, Johnson.”

  “Did she get near the body?”

  “No. She was restrained by Tommy. There was no tampering from her or her male companion. Quite a lad he was, eh, Chief?”

 
; Butch nodded, then thrust open the driver’s door.

  “Come on.”

  “Nice meetin’ you, sir,” Johnson grinned.

  “You, too,” Billy smiled back.

  “You be back after lunch, Johnson?”

  “If you need me, Chief.”

  “On your way back, drive over to Professor Mucklowe’s apartment. Check up on his story this morning. Talk to the landlord.” Butch turned to Billy. “Mucklowe claims he and Miss Bird were talking to the landlord before they got here. Tap on a few doors around, see if anyone’s home for lunch who may have seen them earlier on.”

  “Done.”

  Johnson waved and headed off down the sidewalk in the direction of the police station. She turned suddenly.

  “Chief? I left the keys to our cruiser on the hall table in there. I can pick up another at the station.”

  Butch nodded and waved.

  As they approached the house, Butch did some explaining. Billy moved beside him, listening and looking around at the dirt yard, the broken tree stump, the general dereliction.

  “The spitting this morning was the second time something has happened.”

  “Oh?”

  “Cody Schow’s mother shoved Sheree at her son’s funeral. Called her a demon.”

  “What had she done?”

  “Nothing except threaten the mother with removal of her kid to a foster home. Cody Schow, like Darren Riegert, was underage — legally. Still classed as a child by Children’s Aid. Schow’s mother was a drunk. Claimed Miss Bird was putting a cross on her son’s coffin. A devil jewel, she called it.”

  The shadow of the house fell over them as they climbed the steps.

  “Here we go,” Butch said. He reached for the handle of the broken screen door. Billy looked up at the twin dormers. Only the stucco, stippled with thousands of sharp peaks, had defied time and neglect. The doorbell rang with a muffled jangle. Butch pressed it one more time, as a gesture of courtesy, then entered into the fetid, bare-floored front hall. Billy suddenly imagined a ghostly Marion Bartlett standing there, her sad voice imploring them to leave, the oak staircase behind her rising into mournful shadow.

  A door opened. Behind it, there was a room painted orange with furniture draped in madras cloth. A woman appeared holding a lit cigarette in her left hand. She cocked her head. Billy couldn’t help but notice her smooth white skin and her almond-shaped green eyes. No wonder Dodd had blushed. She was lithe, like a dancer. Her breasts pressed firmly against the folds of her white muslin gown. Her feet were bare; her neck was decorated with silver and wooden beads. Flowing chestnut hair framed her high cheekbones and small chin. Sheree Lynn Bird was no more than twenty-four. Billy resisted the desire to run his eyes again over her body and face.

  “Please come in,” she said. “Why have you kept me waiting so long?” Her voice quivered, and Billy caught in it a dark sensual sound. “Your constable has been keeping me company. He complimented me on my new dress.” Billy approached her. She followed him with her eyes. A shudder of fear crossed her face.

  The attending constable rose. The room harboured an oak dining table-and-chair set, and by the fireplace sat a small television. Butch nodded to the constable to leave as Sheree Lynn Bird settled at the table, a cup of coffee in front of her. She drew an ashtray full of butts up to her right elbow. Through the bay window, Billy noted a sagging wooden garage with leaning doorframes and a row of shattered glass panes. Light from the June afternoon stretched across the floor now. It promised to be a long day of dry heat.

  “Miss Bird, please meet Detective Inspector Billy Yamamoto.”

  “Can you call me Sheree, please? You make it sound like I’m on trial or something.”

  Billy sat down across from Sheree and pulled out his ballpoint and his new notebook. He laid the notebook flat on the table and wrote the date and time in the top left corner of the first page.

  “I don’t use this room much, Inspector. I got a deal on this place. The bank leased it to me for next to nothing.” Sheree retrieved her cigarette and relit it with a blue plastic lighter. “Mainly I stayed upstairs. The boys used this room. To chill as they would. . . .”

  Sheree Lynn Bird bent her head forward and covered her eyes with her left hand. Billy reached into his pocket. But he’d forgotten to put tissues there this morning. In the old days in Vancouver, he always put tissues in his pocket. Sheree lifted her cigarette to her lips and took a long drag.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sheree, I have to ask you some questions.” Billy broke into a polite smile. Sheree Lynn beamed back at him. Billy read this gesture as one of panic. Here was a woman still in shock, he reminded himself, a woman who may be a suspect. Yet her fear, he saw, did not overcome her need to show off her beauty.

  “I really want out of all this, Inspector. You don’t know what it’s been like here.” Sheree breathed in. “You’re Japanese. At least your last name is.”

  “Yes.”

  “Your family from here?”

  “Yes. My father lived here most of his life.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She died when I was an infant. I never knew her.”

  “Seems like I keep meeting a lot of abandoned boys. I’m sorry. You don’t find me rude, do you?” Sheree Lynn moved her eyes over Billy’s face.

  “No, Sheree. Not at all.”

  “Good,” she said. She shifted her upper body, glancing briefly at Butch.

  “Tell me about yourself, Sheree,” Billy said. “How did you meet Cody and Darren?”

  Sheree Lynn’s face looked pale, and as she began again, her voice lost its coquettish tone.

  “I was a youth care worker at family services. Chief Bochansky probably told you that already. Two years. I got the job right out of community college. I met Darren and Cody on referral, and mainly did their paperwork. It hurts to talk about those boys. I can’t believe this has happened. I always hated the name Cody gave to this house. And the way those reporters made it sound so evil. It’s like a curse on me.” Sheree Lynn took a breath and waited. She looked up at Billy and brushed back her hair from her face.

  “Go on.”

  Sheree smiled. She relaxed her shoulders and butted out her cigarette.

  “Marilyn, our psychologist, did the interviews for the boys. I filed the reports, but I got to talk to them about their parents. I got to help them fill out the forms and take their pictures. Marilyn let me escort them home — that’s where I met Sharon Riegert and Cody’s mom. I tried to be understanding. Marilyn told me not to say anything, but I felt I, well, never mind. The boys and I got along.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We talked. They liked me. Everything was fine until I got downsized.”

  “When was that?”

  She looked at Bochansky. “You didn’t tell him?”

  Butch blinked and sat forward.

  Billy said, “I’d like to hear it from you, Sheree.”

  “Last October.”

  “Budget cuts? Reduced caseloads?”

  “That’s what they told me.” She broke into a nervous laugh. “Sure!”

  “You didn’t believe them?”

  “I had no choice, did I, Billy? May I call you that?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Look at me. People like me. I do a good job.”

  Sheree shook her head and rubbed her hands together.

  “I was hurt. Very hurt, believe me.”

  “You’ve been unemployed for over six months by now. How do you pay the rent for this place? And buy groceries?”

  “Randy, my boyfriend, helps out, and I have some savings.”

  “Butch told me you took in these two boys, is that right?”

  “They stayed here once in a while. Yes.” Her voice began to quiver. “I gave them meals. Why?”

  “You did this all for free?”

  “Yes. Is that against the law? I am a very giving person, Inspector. Cody and Darren begged me to help them. To let the
m come here and talk and hang out.”

  “Weren’t you supposed to keep professional distance from clients?”

  “But they weren’t my clients anymore. Not after I left. I felt they needed me as a friend and not just a case worker who cross-examines them and then lets them go home to get beaten up.”

  “Cody was into drugs and Satan worship. Did your psychologist guide you in matters of counselling and giving advice?”

  “I knew Cody had a problem. I helped him down once from a bad acid trip. They liked me, Inspector. That means a lot to a person, to share and feel comfort. I admit they were difficult, sometimes. I wanted to try soft love on them rather than tough love, which is the only thing the service ever tries. Those boys needed me. I wanted to prove I could help them. I have the right to show people that I am not a useless person.”

  Sheree was almost in tears. She lit a cigarette and sat back in her chair.

  “Did it ever occur to you,” Billy continued after a pause, “these boys were using you? Taking advantage? Staying here so they could take drugs and not be disciplined?”

  “I didn’t allow drugs here. None.”

  “Did they ever steal from you?”

  “No. Never.”

  Sheree refused to look at Billy or at Butch. She sat slumped down, and her mouth had formed into a pout.

  “How was it both these boys ended up in your basement?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Yet you said you were friends. You liked them, and they liked you. You didn’t see any signs, any indication, that they might be depressed? Surely this was the first thing you should have noticed.”

  “I felt they needed a mother, Inspector, not a policeman.” Sheree’s voice was shaking with passion. “I had a lot of sympathy for Cody and Darren,” she went on. “I latched on to them is the best way to put it. When they came to me and asked if I’d still see them, talk to them, I couldn’t say no. I did what I could to help Cody. I never imagined he would hang himself. Maybe that’s my fault.”

  She stopped suddenly. Billy looked at her in silence.

  “You must think I’m irresponsible, Inspector,” she said before Billy could frame another question. “I assure you I intended only the best for those boys.”