“Look, I admit I was in the house, okay? I steal stuff once in a while and the place looked empty. But I didn’t have anything to do with any killing. I didn’t know any of those people. I was checking the place out when I heard voices, and I hid.”
“Where’d you hide?”
“Under a bed.”
“How’d you break in?”
“What?”
“How’d you break in, Samantha?”
“The back door. I used a credit card. So I heard these voices and I hid under the bed. It sounded like the guy was trying to sell them the house, pointing out all the good points and stuff. I figured they’d be there a few minutes and then go, but then there were gunshots. I thought, That’s it, I’m outta here. So I smashed the window and climbed out.”
“How’d you smash the window?”
“I used a chair. I swung it as hard as I could.”
“Which is how you cut your knee. Climbing out.”
She nodded. “I jumped out and ran. He came after me. My car was a little ways up the road.”
“At the hydro turnoff?”
“Yeah. I got to it and he actually shot at me. He hit the car a couple of times and I took off. I don’t know if he got my licence plate or what. I lost my phone when I jumped and I’m pretty sure he has it. I’ve been getting calls.”
“What kind of calls? Threatening?”
“Hang-ups. He stays on the line awhile but doesn’t say anything.”
“Do you know for a fact these were from your cellphone?”
“The number was blocked. But who cares what phone he used? You’ve got him locked up, right? You better. He cuts people’s heads off, for God’s sake.”
“The man who attacked you is under guard and handcuffed to a hospital bed-you don’t have to worry about him right now. But listen, Samantha, only part of what you’re telling me is true. I know you hid under the bed, and you ran like you said. And damage to your car matches our findings at the scene. But I also know about Randall Wishart, so you don’t have to hold anything back in order to protect him.”
Her eyebrows went up, her dark eyes went perfectly round. “I’m not protecting anybody.”
“Samantha, I know you’re not a thief. And I know you didn’t break into that house with a credit card. You went out there with Randall, who of course has a key.”
The innocent expression vanished. She looked at him with dark, implacable eyes.
“Wishart got a friend to cover for him, in case his wife found out. Troy Campbell? To say they were watching the game together. But it turns out Troy was actually at work that night.”
Cardinal waited. Eventually she said, “We didn’t have anyplace else to go. We didn’t take anything or hurt anything. Randall was super careful about stuff like that. Even the bed-we put a blanket over it so it wouldn’t get messed up.”
“I know you did. A blue blanket.”
“It sounds bad. I know it sounds bad. But it isn’t like that. Do you know what it’s like to be in love and not be able to see each other?”
“Why don’t you tell me.”
“It’s horrible. It’s agony. I hate it. Everybody else gets to go places together, do things together. Kiss. Hold hands in public. Whatever they want. Even couples that aren’t that happy together. But here we are, crazy about each other, and we have to skulk around like criminals and wait until some special opportunity comes up. We get to see each other like every three weeks or so. I can’t even call him hardly. And he can’t call me too often either.”
“You ever wonder why Randall doesn’t leave his wife?”
“He’s going to. He just doesn’t want to hurt her, and he’s waiting for a good moment. He has to be careful-I mean, he works for her father and all. It’s not like it’s something he can do right away.”
“Samantha, you’ve been through a lot, but I’m afraid I have to tell you something that’s going to upset your life even more.”
The dark eyes lost their implacability. The black eyebrows went up again, and suddenly she was a kid and Cardinal wished he could protect her from what he was about to say.
“You’re right that the man who attacked you wasn’t a complete stranger. It wasn’t out of the blue. But it wasn’t the man who chased you out at Trout Lake.”
“It was. He kept saying, ‘You didn’t see anything! You don’t know anything!’ Who else is going to come after me with a crowbar, for God’s sake?”
“Well, you’re right-it was definitely because someone doesn’t want you to testify. Someone who knows where you live. Someone who knows what time you got off work. Someone who knew you’d be taking the bus home.”
“I told you-the guy has my cellphone.”
“Which might give him your name and address.”
“The other stuff too. Champlain’s number is on there.”
“What’s it listed as? ‘Where I work on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, from six to ten p.m.’?”
“What are you getting at? I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me. Will you please just tell me?”
Cardinal could hear the rising panic in her voice, the same panic he had heard in her phone message. She gripped the edges of the exam table, and her mouth opened as if she would say more-something that might stop this horrible cop from ruining her life. But some other emotion-perhaps her sense, not yet acknowledged, that dread was about to be transformed into grief-made her lower lip tremble and the dark eyes fill, and Cardinal could not remember the last time he had seen a human being so vulnerable.
20
“How am I supposed to get down?” Nikki said. She was hanging by her knees from a tree branch. She was high enough that, even upside down, her face was a foot higher than Lemur’s. He was looking up at her, shaking his head in his solemn way. A frigid breeze blew across her belly where her jacket and sweater had fallen open.
“Cover yourself up,” Lemur said. “Your stomach. Don’t show yourself like that.”
“Perv. You getting turned on?”
“It’s not our way. You’ve heard Papa talk about modesty.”
“You just don’t like to look at girls cuz you’re a faggot.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Chill, Lemur-I’m just kidding.”
“Don’t call me names. I don’t call you names. We’re here to respect each other. You’re not gonna get a lot of that outside the family, and neither am I. Not yet, anyway.”
Nikki didn’t like that talk of respect. The only thing people had ever respected about her was her ass. Soon as they saw her face, it was a whole other story. She pulled herself up so that she was sitting on the branch. The sensation of all the blood now draining from her head made her woozy. She looked up to where she had climbed to loop the rope over a high branch. “I can’t believe I went up that high. I haven’t climbed a tree since I was a kid.”
“You’re thirteen years old. You still are a kid.”
“You’re three years older. Big deal.”
“Toss me the rope, then come on down.”
“I told you, I don’t know how.” She let the rope go and it slithered down through the branches.
“Just swing down and hang from the branch by your hands.”
“Uh-huh. And if I break my ankle? Papa will kill you. You’re supposed to protect me.”
“You’re family, Nikki-I will always protect you. But you have to be self-reliant, too.”
Still holding tight, Nikki slid back and down until her heels caught on the branch so that she was swinging
