Time of Death

‘Mom made that suit, before you ask.’

‘Who’s this dude?’ said Billy, smiling back at her.

Ren leaned over to see where he was pointing. ‘That would be my eldest brother, Jay.’

‘You’ve never mentioned him. So tell me – did he run away and join the circus in those pants and you’ve never seen him again?’

Ren laughed.

Billy sat down beside her. Ren slid back into the corner of the sofa and turned to face him. ‘Jay and I…don’t really get along.’

‘Ah,’ said Billy. ‘Why?’

‘Well, he broke my cardinal rule. He betrayed my confidence a few times too many. And I…don’t trust him. We just clash. Much like our outfits in that picture. I never realized that. There it is, preserved in a photo – Jay and I clashed from very early on.’

‘Go on,’ said Billy.

‘OK, this sounds petty, but it sums him up…when he was fifteen, he started drinking, just a little, because our parents were so strict. But then he was like all his friends and he’d go out and get wasted every weekend. He drafted me in to lie for him, hide empty bottles, distract my parents when he was climbing in or out his window. I defended him if they asked too many questions. I hated it. I’m a bad liar and I used to be so stressed out because of it. Like, physically sick with worry. Then, when I was sixteen, I went to my friend’s house and we had two beers from her parents’ liquor cabinet. Two beers. On the way back to my house, I met Jay. The following day, I had to sit in my living room with my parents, my best friend and her parents to listen to this lecture on the dangers of alcohol and the disappointment they all felt in knowing that their daughters had been stealing. I found out later from Matt that Jay had gone to my parents and said “I think Ren has been drinking.” Can you believe that?’

‘That’s pretty shitty. But it can’t have been the only reason you’re not close.’

‘It just shows the type of person he was,’ said Ren. ‘And still is. He over-rides everyone. He decides what is right. So if you tell him not to tell someone something, he will say “sure” and then you’ll find out he has told them, because he believes they should know. I tell him almost nothing any more.’

‘That’s a shame.’

‘I know. I’ve tried to reach out. He’s…he’s just in his own world.’

‘Right.’

‘I just think you have to accept what’s important to other people and respect it, whether you understand it or not. Trust and confidence are important to me, so Jay should respect that. Even if I tell him something and he is thinking “Wow, why would Ren not want to tell X about her promotion in work?” He should just know by me telling him to keep something quiet, that I have a reason for that. And it’s a reason I don’t have to tell anyone if I don’t want to.’

‘Do you two talk much?’

‘We talk when people die.’

‘Any people?’

Ren smiled. ‘I know it sounds terrible, but even when Jay asks me how I am, it just seems weighted with…I don’t know…judgment.’ She shrugged.

Billy said nothing.

‘Maybe he needs to get to know you a little better,’ he said.

‘But if he did, he’d walk away thinking he knew more about me than I did. I swear to God.’

‘Aren’t you being a little hard on him?’

‘Aren’t you being a little annoyingly on-his-side about him? I don’t want to talk about Jay any more, because I don’t want to get mad at you.’

‘OK. I’m just trying to show you his side.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t have brothers and sisters, so I guess—’

‘You romanticize them. I love Jay dearly. I wish we got along, I wish it more than you do.’

‘OK.’

‘He’s teetotal too.’

Billy laughed loud. ‘And so we come to the real problem. He makes you feel bad for drinking.’

‘Very funny.’ Ren let out a breath. ‘His last hurrah was at Beau’s funeral. In spectacular fashion. Enough to make him never want to drink again.’ She paused. ‘I’m surprised anyone who witnessed it ever wanted to drink again.’

‘Ooh,’ said Billy.

‘I have to say – I can’t blame him. Beau’s funeral was so weird.’

‘How?’

‘It kind of drew some people to it and repelled others. And there was this strange sense of shame hanging over the whole thing. I remember sitting in the church and wanting to get up on the altar and just shout at everyone, “What is wrong with you all? This is not shameful. It’s tragic, it’s devastating, it should not be how anyone’s life ends, but it’s a fact. And Beau is not the only depressed person in the world and there are probably people sitting here today who have thought about committing suicide. Yup, he committed suicide. Everyone – after me – Beau committed suicide. You can say it. No one’s going to die.”’

Ren glanced at Billy. ‘You know what I mean. And the worst part was the people who didn’t show. I mean, sure, they may have seen this big black sinful cloud hanging over our family, but what happened to compassion and kindness? These were some of the people that Mom had been so good to. Or Jay had mowed their lawn or Beau had taught their grandchildren…’

Ren sat in silence. Her mind wandered to another funeral – Douglas Hammond’s – and the shame-free sorrow that everyone was free to feel because his death wasn’t ‘at his own hand’. People had no problem showing up at that funeral.

Ren paused.

But still, why was Lucinda Kerr there? Lucinda Kerr who had been married to Peter Everett who had been dating Helen Wheeler who had been murdered and whose files had been due to go to Douglas Hammond who was murdered and whose wife had been murdered almost thirty years previously.

WTF?

32

Mia Hammond was a twenty-nine-year-old orphan. There was something so poignant about it. Ren didn’t want to intrude on her grief, but if she ever let that feeling stop her, she would get nowhere. Sifting through wreckage was all part of the job.

When Ren introduced herself, Mia Hammond looked like she could have laid on the ground right there and curled up into a ball.

‘I’d just like to speak with you about your father’s funeral, please,’ said Ren. ‘It won’t take long.’

Mia looked surprised. ‘His funeral?’

Ren nodded. ‘I saw that Lucinda Kerr was there. Can I ask how you know her?’

‘I don’t, actually,’ said Mia. ‘I recognized her, obviously, because of who she is. I just thought that maybe she knew my father through work. But she came up to me afterwards and said that she remembered me from when I was a child. She and her husband used to live on our street. I had no idea.’

The Everetts lived on the same street as Douglas Hammond?

‘Did she say when this was?’

‘She said I was a toddler. So that would have to have been around 1983, because we moved shortly after mom died. Obviously, my father didn’t want to stay in the house.’

‘That’s understandable,’ said Ren.

‘Sorry, but what has Lucinda Kerr got to do with anything?’

‘I’m information-gathering at this point,’ said Ren.

‘For what?’

‘I can’t say.’ I’m not sure myself…