The Boy Must Die Read Online Free Page B

sir, like I said. He was real upset. Shouting and slamming doors. We had him restrained upstairs while she talked for the camera. He was drunk, I think. Smelled of rye when he came in. Chief said we could do him later. Now he’s got the two of them together.”
    Billy sat still and thought for a moment. He straightened his back.
    “Okay. Thanks, Dodd.”
    They went back upstairs by a different hall and staircase. Dodd pointed out two interview chambers and the records room. There was a computer and three vertical filing cabinets. “We are on-line now with every police station — both civic and RCMP — in the province.” Dodd beamed. The window in the door showed a narrow room no bigger than a horse stall. The computer sat against one wall. Maps of the city and the province were tacked up by a filing cabinet. Also, there was a desk the size of a TV table cluttered with paper. At it a woman sat alone staringinto the computer screen. “She’s the best computer jockey and filing clerk at the station.” Billy quickly memorized the room number. As they continued, he decided to get some professional history from Dodd.
    “You’ve done homicide before, Dodd?”
    “A couple of cases. But mainly I do commercial crime.”
    “What were the cases like?”
    “The homicides? Husband shot his wife last October, hid the rifle in the basement in the washing machine, then turned himself in. Worst case was the postman. He’d been having an affair with a woman on his route. When wifey found out, she went off the deep end and stabbed the man in his privates.” Dodd laughed.
    “You think homicide is funny, Dodd?”
    Dodd’s expression stiffened. “No, sir. I didn’t mean any harm.”
    Billy wondered if the man’s awkwardness might be a cover for naïveté or disdain.
    Dodd’s young face reddened. “I meant no harm,” he said again.
    Billy nodded. You can let it go for the moment, he thought. They moved on, stopping by reception, where Dodd picked up the mail for Butch. “So,” said Billy, “why is this mutilated body promising trouble?”
    Dodd stopped. “From what I saw, this was no normal killing.”
    “What do you mean, normal?”
    “The blood, the . . . it was like a lynching, sir. Like someone was crazy or enraged. It sure spooked the chief, I can tell you.” Dodd went silent for a second. “It was one of the worst things I ever saw.”
    “Yes, Dodd. I can imagine.”
    “What’s your take so far?”
    “Let me see the site first.”
    “Even after the body’s been removed?”
    “All the more reason. A body can be a big distraction. If your site is intact, you’ll sometimes find clues.”
    Dodd raised his eyebrows. “Is that so?”
    By this time, they had stepped through the swinging door leading to the main hallway. It was quiet as Dodd and Billy went to knock onButch’s office door. Billy hardly had time to step out of the way as an overweight blonde wearing a pair of dirty jeans pushed by him, her face reddened from crying. Sharon Riegert. With Darren’s mother was a tall thin man hunched in a leather jacket. He sported a short ponytail. He glared at Dodd and Billy in passing. A constable came up the hall and took firm hold of Woody Keeler’s elbow and led him and Sharon Riegert down the hall. Billy took note of the hair band around the ponytail: red elastic, the kind Safeway uses to hold together fresh spinach.
    Billy gazed at last into Butch’s office. Chief Bochansky was a big man, over six feet and built broad and round, a foil to Billy’s compact, slender frame. Lorraine, his wife, once described him to Billy as chunky, by which she meant, Billy presumed, overweight and needing a good diet. “No,” she said when Billy asked her to explain. “Not at all. Chunky means hunky to me.” She then remarked with pride on Butch’s huge upper arms, a legacy from his boxing days. Butch’s eyes were blue and frequently flashed with sudden temper. He was standing beside his metal desk crumpling up a