The yellowjacket returned, and Stern swatted it away. ‘Aren’t delusions a symptom of his illness?’
‘They can be. But that doesn’t mean everything he says or remembers is false, or never happened.’ She let this sink in.
Another yellowjacket arrived to join the first, and settled on a drop of spilled tea. Stern squashed it with a napkin and flicked it to the ground.
The photos from the crime scene scrolled through Erin’s head. The splattered walls. Stern’s wife lying in a pool of blood. Who wouldn’t lock their door at night with Tim in the house? Perhaps she was being too hard on him.
Lydia leaned forward and touched Stern lightly on the arm. ‘I can only imagine how upsetting this is for you, but it would be a great help if you could tell us exactly what happened on Saturday last week.’
Sweating profusely in the muggy air, Stern wiped his brow with a napkin. Even on the patio, in the shade of the sycamores, the heat was suffocating. The metallic buzz of a cicada broke the stillness.
‘The day started out fine,’ he said, rubbing his eyes. ‘I got up early to work in the garden. Tim was still asleep at nine when I went in to check on him. He likes to sleep late, but I try to get him up by ten. I don’t think letting him sleep all day is a good thing, and the social worker from Burlington said it was important to establish a daily routine.’
From her shady spot under a sprawling blue hydrangea, Lulu loped towards them and rested her head on Stern’s knee.
‘We had lunch here on the patio at twelve on the dot, the time Tim prefers. After lunch, he walked over to the pond with some stale bread and fed the ducks, then he took a nap in his room. Dinner at six.’ Stern stroked Lulu’s velvety ears.
‘In the middle of the night, I woke to hear Tim shouting. When I went into his room and switched on the lamp, he was sitting bolt upright in bed, a look of terror on his face. When he saw me, he started yelling, go away, go away. So, I closed his door and locked it from the outside, so he wouldn’t hurt himself. Then I called an ambulance. It took nearly an hour for them to get here. The whole time, Tim was shouting and pounding on the door. When the paramedics arrived, they held him down and gave him an injection.’ Stern’s face was pinched, his eyes bloodshot. ‘As soon as he settled down, they took him away.’
Erin studied the trail of sugar crystals on the table before looking Stern in the eye. ‘Tim said you came into his room holding a pillow. That you tried to smother him.’
Stern jerked back in the chair. ‘Why would he say such a thing?’ He covered his face with his hands and shook his head. ‘Poor Tim, he was doing so well. Kept his room clean, helped me with the chores, and he really bonded with Lulu.’ He patted the dog’s head on his knee. ‘He was in charge of filling her bowl with kibble and making sure she had plenty of water to drink.’ Lulu, upon hearing her name, looked at Stern with hopeful eyes. He rubbed his forehead as if something occurred to him. ‘I don’t understand why this happened. Do you think his medication stopped working?’
Medication only works when you take it, Erin thought. Surely, he knew that. She was having trouble breathing in the sweltering air. ‘Was he taking his meds?’
‘Every night, right after dinner. I watched him swallow the pills.’
Lydia wrote something in her notebook.
‘I’d like to have a look at Tim’s room.’ Erin stood up too fast and her head spun.
‘By all means.’ He led them through the kitchen and into the hallway. A quick glance confirmed that the door to Stern’s den was firmly closed. What she wouldn’t give to get another look at that photo. Or anything else that provided a clue to what this man might be hiding.
Upstairs, the door to Tim’s room was shut. Stern twisted the knob and pushed it open. See, not locked. ‘Feel free to look around.’
A single bed, covered with a white cotton blanket, a desk and chair, a chest of drawers. Two sturdy rugs, blue and green, on the oak floor. No busy patterns or pictures on the walls. No mirror. Surely the advice of the social worker.
Erin crossed the room to check the window. It opened with ease for a few inches and stopped. Two brass knobs were screwed into the sash, the kind of safety device someone might use in a child’s room. The six-inch gap, while allowing the free flow of air, was barely wide enough for a cat to slip through. Directly below, the slate tiles of the patio glinted in the sun.
‘The social worker suggested the security pegs on the window,’ Stern said, moving next to her, so close she caught a whiff of his aftershave. ‘As you can see, it still opens to let air in.’
She turned and looked at the door. No key in the lock. But that didn’t mean anything. It could have been removed for their visit.
Stern invited them to look into his own bedroom on the other side of the hall, with an expression that declared he had nothing to hide. The room was as she remembered. Bland as a hotel suite, seemingly unchanged from their first visit. The only new addition was a solid brass bolt fastened to the inside of the door.
As Erin scanned the room, her attention was caught by a row of framed photos on the dresser. The one with three men in camouflage vests jumped out at her. One of the men – a boy, actually – with blond hair and a square jaw looked familiar. But before Erin could get a closer look, Stern ushered them out of the room.
Something about the photo, and the camouflage vests,
