The Dells Read Online Free

came andpacked everything up. The people who bought the house, the Bronsteins, said that except for a broken basement window it was like no one had ever lived there. No one ever saw Mr. Cartwright again.”
    Rachel came into the kitchen, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her dark hair brushed back from her face. Shoe was struck by how much she resembled their mother when she was younger: her compact physique, her broad cheekbones, dark eyes, and slightly square jaw.
    â€œFor the record, Ms. Schumacher,” Lewis said. “Where were you between midnight and 2:00 a.m. last night?”
    â€œI was here,” Rachel replied.
    â€œYou live here?”
    â€œSort of,” she replied. “I have a house in Port Credit, but — ”
    â€œThinks we’re gettin’ too old to take care of ourselves,” Shoe’s father grumbled.
    Rachel sighed. “That’s not it at all, Pop. It’s just easier this way.”
    â€œHumph,” Howard Schumacher said.
    â€œWhy do you think Cartwright came back after all these years?” Lewis asked.
    â€œI haven’t any idea,” Rachel said.
    â€œYour mother told the officers that there was a homecoming festival this weekend. Could he have come for that?”
    â€œI suppose. We ran some ads in local newspapers. We also have a website. Maybe he saw it, but he wasn’t registered.”
    â€œHave you been in touch with him at all since he left?”
    â€œNo.”
    Lewis studied her notebook, ostensibly reviewing her notes in preparation for her next question. Shoe recognized it as a common interview technique. Many subjects,to fill the silence, will volunteer information, often taking the interview in unexpected directions. It wasn’t a tactic that was likely to work well with his parents, however, especially his mother. She had inherited her Native ancestors’ distrust of unnecessary talk, and had passed the trait on to Rachel and him — he wasn’t sure about their older brother, Hal. To some degree, it had also rubbed off on his father.
    â€œBesides the boys who played practical jokes on him,” Lewis said after a moment, “was there anyone who particularly disliked him or who had a run-in with him? Maybe someone who didn’t like the little kids visiting him in his house?”
    â€œWell,” Shoe’s father said slowly, hesitantly.
    â€œWhat?” Lewis asked.
    â€œHoward,” Shoe’s mother said. “Those were simply ugly rumours spread by people with nothing better to do than think the worst of others.”
    â€œSorry, Mother,” Shoe’s father said uncomfortably. “It might be important.” Shoe knew what his mother was referring to and didn’t blame his father for being uncomfortable. “Maybe we could go into the other room,” Shoe’s father said to Sergeant Lewis.
    â€œHoward,” Shoe’s mother said sternly. “I’m not a child to be sent to her room when the grown-ups want to talk.”
    â€œWhat is it?” Lewis asked, unable to hide her impatience.
    â€œWell,” Shoe’s father said again.
    Shoe put his hand on his father’s shoulder, and said to Sergeant Lewis, “That summer, before Cartwright moved away, there were a series of sexual assaults in the woods. One of the victims died. The media dubbed the perpetrator the Black Creek Rapist. As far as I know, the case was never solved.”
    â€œGod,” Rachel said. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
    â€œCartwright was a suspect?” Lewis asked.
    â€œA lot of people in the neighbourhood seemed to think so,” Shoe said.
    â€œDamn fools, if you ask me,” his father interjected.
    â€œIf for no other reason that he was different,” Shoe continued. “A forty-year-old single man, with no apparent means of support — apparent to his neighbours, anyway — and living with his invalid mother. But the police