‘After calling for backup, we searched the rest of the house, but there wasn’t anybody alive in there. I found the two girls in their beds, the sheets covered in blood. I assume you know the details of how each of them died?’
She nodded. The crime scene would forever be imprinted in her mind.
‘Okay, so after seeing the bodies, Danny and I stared at each other, both thinking the same thing, that some maniac was on the loose, and we needed to move fast before he struck again. From the squad car, I called in the forensic unit. At the time, I had no idea how many people were living in the household, so we couldn’t be sure who, if anyone, had escaped the carnage.’
He smoothed the creases on his trousers. ‘Mr Stern pulled into the driveway just after eleven,’ Talbot said. ‘By that time, forensics had arrived and the whole place was taped off. We took him down to the station to break the news and to ask him some questions.’ Talbot drained his glass. ‘He kept asking about his son Tim, if we’d found him.’
Erin paused in her note-taking and studied his face. ‘Tim wasn’t a suspect at that point?’
He shook his head. ‘It crossed my mind that the kid might’ve done it, but it was too early to say. Being a small town, I knew who he was, of course. Used to work at the movie theatre on the weekend. Adele and I would take the kids on Saturday afternoons. He seemed polite enough, if a bit shy and awkward. Never would have pegged him as a killer. But then again, it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?’
‘How did Mr Stern react when he heard the news?’
‘He was pretty calm, considering. He’d only just driven up from Portland after meeting with a client. I didn’t think lawyers kept office hours on a Saturday, but what do I know.’ He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘When we questioned him about his whereabouts the night before, Stern said he’d driven down to Portland on Friday afternoon and checked into a hotel. When he called his wife at six, the two girls were at home, and the boy was working his shift at the movie theatre in town. Mrs Stern called him back a couple of hours later. Something about a dress pattern at a local shop. According to Stern, she sounded fine.
We have the records from the phone company, and it all checked out. Stern said he called the next day around ten to remind his wife to pick up his suits from the dry-cleaner’s, but there was no answer. When we asked if that was particularly worrying, he said no. She was often out in the mornings doing errands, and the girls would be at their various activities. Tim usually slept in late.’ He stood and massaged his hip. ‘Are you a golfer, Dr Cartwright?’
She shook her head.
‘We’ve got this nifty little putting green right here in the complex. Would you mind if we went over there so I can putt a few holes?’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Helps me think.’
*
With a straw sun hat belonging to Talbot’s wife perched on her head, Erin hovered at the edge of the putting green. The heat was ferocious, and she wondered how long she’d last before collapsing to the ground. Talbot bent at the knee and swung the putter, missing the little hole by a whisker.
Beads of sweat formed on her upper lip. ‘What about Stern’s alibi?’
He set up the shot again and got ready to putt. ‘Well, like I said, he checked into a hotel in Portland just before six on the Friday, and two of the staff confirmed they saw him at breakfast on Saturday morning. The client meeting checked out too. An older gentleman confirmed that he met with Stern at the firm’s office on Saturday morning at nine-thirty.’
In the distance, the pastel bungalows shimmered in the heat. ‘What about the woman whose name was removed from the police report?’
Talbot set up another shot and moved his hips into position. ‘Her story checked out too,’ he said, driving the little white ball cleanly into the hole. ‘She confirmed she was with Stern the whole night. After Tim was found and arrested, her name was removed from the report at her request. She was worried the media would get wind of it, and she’d have reporters camped out on her front lawn. Didn’t want her children finding out she had shacked up with a married man.’
‘Seems unorthodox to me,’ Erin said, fanning her face. ‘Altering a police report on a murder case.’
Talbot shouldered his clubs and heaved himself into the driver’s seat of the little golf cart. ‘Times have changed, Dr Cartwright. But back then, in a place like Belle River, with its small-town morals, a woman admitting she’d spent the night in a hotel room with someone else’s husband would have destroyed her reputation. She was only a summer resident but still quite worked up about anyone finding out. She had family living in town, over on Gardiner Road. I could see how it could make things difficult for her, if it got out.’
Gardiner Road? She shivered. It could be any of a dozen houses on that road, but Erin somehow knew which one it was.
‘Besides,’ he said, manoeuvring the golf cart along a gravel path, ‘when the boy was picked up by state troopers, covered in his mother’s blood, the issue of Stern’s alibi became rather moot, don’t you think?’
No, she didn’t. When was an alibi ever moot? ‘Who questioned Tim when he was first picked up?’
‘The troopers who found him took him to the nearest hospital. When the docs there checked him out and pronounced him okay, he was taken into custody at the local sheriff’s office. Questioned there too, but
