Let me know as soon as you find him. We’re looking for an absolute positive sighting in the past forty-eight hours to rule him out.”
Green rang off and found Hannah eyeing him with the faintest smile on her pixie face. She was so tiny and innocent looking, it was hard to believe she packed such a punch.
“If I hadn’t been in Alternate Ed, I wouldn’t have met Kyle. And if I hadn’t met Kyle, you’d never have found out the truth about that gold crucifix.”
“Okay, I’ll bite. What did he tell you?”
“Without his mother breathing down his neck, he told me the truth about where he found it.”
It was Green’s turn to smile. “I thought he might.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Green’s smile broadened. “He found it in the woods on the way to the village, didn’t he?”
She nodded. “There’s a path running along the river, which starts at the next farm and runs past the McMartin farm into the village. He found it somewhere near the village.”
“On the ground?”
“Yes, just lying in the leaves.”
Green considered the implications. If Derek had lost that chain twenty years ago, it would probably have been found by other travellers or buried under layers of leaves and debris during the intervening years. To be found so easily by a boy strolling along the path, it had to have been dropped there recently. Perhaps on the very day the mystery man was spotted at the farm by Isabelle Boisvert.
Green winked at her. “I’ll make you a sleuth yet. Do you mind a little side trip?”
“Where?”
“To talk to Kyle’s older half-brother. He was a friend of the Pettigrew brothers years ago.”
“But Dad!”
It was the first time she’d called him Dad, and his jaw dropped before he could stop himself. Quickly, she scowled. “I’ve got homework to do and friends to call.”
“Fifteen minutes, tops. Promise.” And without giving her time to protest, he pulled into Sandy’s drive.
The realtor was even more frazzled than he had been a day earlier. Before Green could explain his visit, Sandy launched into a grilling of his own.
“It is true? They’re saying it was Derek in the church yard!”
“Who’s saying?”
“Everyone. I heard it from Harvey at the grocery store, who heard it from my stepfather.”
“You saw the picture. Did it look like Derek?”
“I haven’t see him in twenty years, and I was only seventeen when he left.” Sandy scrubbed his hands over his face distractedly. “I always assumed Derek was off having a successful life somewhere. But all the boys looked alike. Miniature clones of their father. It was their personalities that differed a great deal.”
Green settled into one of the client chairs and pulled out his notebook casually. He’d left Hannah in the car, blasting out the latest Disturbed album. “I understand you were Lawrence’s friend. What can you tell me about him? What was life like back then?”
Sandy drew two deep breaths as if forcing himself to settle. He twirled his pen restlessly while he gathered his thoughts. “Lawrence... Such a sad case. We used to play together all the time, build forts in the woods and pretend they were starships. He was a gentle, sensitive, imaginative boy who was cruelly teased, not only by the other boors around here but by his own brother Tom. Tom was all brawn, no brains, and proud of it. He ran with a pack of troublemakers in town who used to beat Lawrence and me up regularly.”
“Did Lawrence become schizophrenic?” It was a diagnosis that seemed to fit the symptoms Green had heard.
Sandy’s face hardened in anger. “It was his father drove him over the edge. The old man shoved religion down all the kids’ throats, but some of them took it more to heart than others. Lawrence started obsessing about sin and worrying that people were damned to hellfire and brimstone if they didn’t purify themselves. Can you imagine—a house full of healthy teenage boys and Lawrence was obsessing about sin? He used to hide their condoms and spy on them. I tried to help, but as he got sicker, he started to retreat more and more. Stopped coming to school, shut himself up in the shed for hours on end, performing his rituals. It was spooky. Finally, it got so bad the family just snapped and committed him.”
“Was this before or after Derek went away?”
“Right after. I think that’s why they went ahead with the hospital. Derek had always protected Lawrence and stood up for him, especially against Tom. Look, these were country people, they didn’t understand what was happening to Lawrence. None of us did. It’s only afterwards I did some reading about schizophrenia, but back then we were just scared and angry at him.”
“Except Derek?”
“Well, Derek was—” Sandy paused as if searching for words. “I was only a kid, but I remember how smart he seemed. He was in university, and he knew so much about the world. When he left, I think Lawrence probably flipped out, and the family grabbed the chance to ship him out of their hair.”
“Have you seen or heard anything about him since?”
Sandy shook his head. Green sensed a little regret, even shame, in his tone. “Not a word. Sometimes folks would ask the Pettigrews how he was doing, but they never said much, just that it wouldn’t be good for him to have visitors. Not that anyone wanted to visit the poor guy.”
“What about Derek? Ever see him?”
Sandy’s expression grew shuttered. “No, but he always said he wouldn’t come back.”
“You mean he discussed it with you?”
“Oh no, that’s just what I heard. He hated the farm. Country wasn’t his thing. Beneath him.”
“Did he have any friends here that he might have kept in touch with?”
“University friends, maybe? But no one here in the village. Although of course, I hardly knew him.”
Outside, Hannah leaned on the Subaru horn, making Sandy jump. Green moved to get up and fancied he saw relief cross the other man’s face. Green thanked him for his help and then paused for one last question.
“Can you think of any reason or circumstance that would have drawn any of the brothers back home right at this moment, after an absence of twenty years?”
Sandy had risen to usher Green out, and now he hovered restlessly in the doorway. “Their father’s illness, perhaps? Or selling the family farm?”
It was possible, Green thought as he made his way out to confront Hannah. But as far as anyone was willing to admit, only one of them besides Robbie knew their father was ill and the farm sold.
Tom
* * *
Isabelle
