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.
“Besides 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?”
“Well,” Shoe’s father said slowly, hesitantly.
“What?” Lewis asked.
“Howard,” Shoe’s mother said. “Those were simply ugly rumours spread by people with nothing better to do than think the worst of others.”
“Sorry, 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.
“Howard,” Shoe’s mother said sternly. “I’m not a child to be sent to her room when the grown-ups want to talk.”
“What is it?” Lewis asked, unable to hide her impatience.
“Well,” 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.”
“God,” Rachel said. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
“Cartwright was a suspect?” Lewis asked.
“A lot of people in the neighbourhood seemed to think so,” Shoe said.
“Damn fools, if you ask me,” his father interjected.
“If 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 interviewed most of the men and older boys in the neighbourhood. The thing is, to the best of my recollection, there were no more assaults after Cartwright moved away.”
“Did you know any of the victims?”
“I was acquainted with three of them,” Shoe said.
“How many were there?”
“Four, that I’m aware of.”
“What can you tell us?”
Shoe cast his mind back. “The first victim was a girl I knew from junior high school. Her name was Daphne McKinnon.” Shoe recalled a shy, slightly plump girl, a talented musician who played the violin in the school band. “She was a year behind me, which would make her thirteen or fourteen. One evening in late May or early June she was in the woods when she was attacked from behind, her shirt pulled up over her head, and raped. Her attacker then tied her up with her clothes and left her. She managed to get loose and go to the nearest house to report the attack. She wasn’t able to identify her assailant.”
Lewis wrote in her notebook, then said, “Go on.”
“The second attack was two or three weeks later. The victim was a teacher from the junior high school named Hahn. I never knew her first name. She was my ninth-grade English teacher. About twenty-four or twenty-five. Similar MO, except that it happened at midday and in a different part of the conservation area. Her attack was more brutal than the first. She wasn’t able to identify her attacker either.”
Shoe paused while Lewis scribbled in her notebook. When she nodded for him to continue, he looked at Rachel.
“What?”
“The third victim was Marty,” Shoe said gently.
“Oh, Christ,” Rachel said, the skin around her eyes turning pale. “That’s right. Marty — Martine Elias — was a friend of mine,” she added to Lewis. “But she wasn’t raped, was she, Joe? Just molested.”
“She got away from her attacker before he could rape her,” Shoe said.
“Not that it was any less traumatic for her,” Rachel said.
“How old was she?” Lewis asked.
“Same age as me. Eleven.”
Lewis’s face tightened. “She wasn’t able to identify the person who attacked her?” she said.
“No,” Shoe said.
“Poor Marty,” Rachel said. “She was my ‘bestest friend,’ as we used to say, until she was attacked. Then we kind of drifted apart. She — ”
“Excuse me, Ms. Schumacher,” Lewis interrupted. “I’ll ask you more about your friend in a minute. First, though,” she said to Shoe, “tell me abut the last victim, the one you didn’t know.”
“I don’t remember her name,” he said. “She was a university student who worked part-time for the city parks department. It happened in late July or early August.”
“Same MO?”
“As far as I know,” Shoe said. “Except that she was strangled to death, perhaps because she saw her attacker.”
Shoe didn’t remember much about Marty Elias’s attack or the park worker’s rape and murder. He’d been too upset by Miss Hahn’s attack. She’d been one of his favourite teachers, and because she’d been young and pretty, he’d had a massive schoolboy crush on her. The whole school had been in shock; her attack had occurred just weeks before the end of the school year.
“Did Marvin Cartwright know any of the victims?” Lewis asked.
“He knew Marty,” Rachel said.
“She was one of the kids he invited into his house?”
“Yes.”
“Does she still live in the neighbourhood?”
“I don’t know where she lives now,” Rachel said. “Like I said, we fell out of touch after her attack,” she added. “It … changed her. She was always a little precocious, but afterwards she turned slutty. She dropped out of school at sixteen and started hanging out with a pretty rough crowd.” She looked at Shoe. “What was the name of that biker gang she ran with for a while?”
“The Black Skulls,” Shoe said. “They were mostly weekend warrior types, though. Rough enough, but hardly Hells Angels material.”
“Are her parents still alive?”
“I don’t know. They retired to Florida or California, I think.”
“Did
