Harm's Reach

56

Ren and Janine sprinted after Jesse, following him down the hallway toward Kristen’s office.

‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘Stop! Put your hands where I can see them!’

He kept running.

‘Jesse!’ said Ren. ‘You don’t want to do this. You really don’t want to do this. You’ll be in bigger trouble.’

He started to slow.

Do the right thing, Jesse. Do the right thing.

Jesse stopped. He turned around. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

Rinse, repeat.

Jesse Coombes did not have the physique for fighting, nor the face, nor the demeanor. Nothing about the cuts and bruises looked right. He didn’t even seem to know how to hold himself as an injured person. He was almost hovering on the chair.

‘Jesse, where is Conor?’ said Ren.

‘I don’t know,’ said Jesse. He was tilting his head up, so his good eye was facing her. The other was swollen shut.

Ren slammed her hands on the table. ‘Where is he, Jesse?’

‘I told you, I don’t know.’

They both looked up as rain began to pour down on the skylight above them.

‘How was he when he left?’ said Ren. ‘What was his state of mind?’

‘He was angry,’ said Jesse. He looked away. ‘I told you. Conor’s always angry.’

‘About what?’ said Ren.

Jesse wouldn’t shift his gaze from the floor.

Ren turned to Janine. ‘We’re not getting a lot here, Detective Hooks. Would you mind staying with Jesse, while I go talk to Mrs Faule?’

‘No problem,’ said Janine. ‘Go ahead.’

Kristen Faule was standing outside the room with one of the young residents beside her, another boy of around Jesse’s age.

She turned to him. ‘Could you give us a moment, please?’

He walked a little way down the hallway.

‘What’s going on?’ said Ren.

Kristen leaned in. ‘Conor Gorman’s in a lot of trouble. Even more so, now, after what he did to Jesse. We found out three days ago that Conor desecrated a grave in the abbey’s cemetery—’

‘That was him...’ said Ren.

Kristen nodded.

‘How do you know that?’ said Ren.

‘He didn’t do too great a job of washing the dust out of his hair, off his sneakers... washing the hammer he used, putting it back properly in the tool shed...

Isn’t that Covering Your Tracks 101?

‘We tried to contact Robert Prince,’ said Kristen, ‘but we couldn’t get hold of him because he’s away on business and isn’t taking calls. We did get in touch with Ingrid Prince who said she would fly in from New York yesterday afternoon and pick Conor up last night. We decided to terminate his stay here.’

Wow.

‘Did she come?’ said Ren.

‘She called last night to say that she was delayed,’ said Kristen. ‘She was packing up the house in Golden and said that she would come by in the morning instead. This morning. She still hasn’t showed.’

‘Do you think Conor was happy or reluctant to leave?’ said Ren.

‘I... don’t know,’ said Kristen. ‘He seemed neutral on the topic. Apathetic.’

‘He’s a smart kid,’ said Ren. ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that he didn’t make more of an effort to hide what he had done?’

‘I hadn’t thought about it,’ said Kristen. ‘I put it down to an angry outburst — hot-headed lack of thinking, more than anything.’

‘So, what happened between him and Jesse?’ said Ren.

‘That’s why I brought Kyle. Kyle, can you please come speak with Agent Bryce? Thank you.’

The boy walked over.

‘Nice to meet you,’ said Ren. ‘Can you tell me what you saw?’

‘Conor and Jesse got into a fight in the men’s room,’ said Kyle.

‘Do you know why?’ said Ren.

‘It was, like, different things. Conor was giving out to Jesse about what he did to the cemetery—’

‘What Jesse did?’ said Ren.

‘Yes,’ said Kyle.

Ren and Kristen glanced at each other. Shouldn’t it have been Jesse giving out to Conor?

‘Then Jesse was calling Conor a liar,’ said Kyle. ‘He pushed Conor, he told him he had betrayed him again, he said that’s all anyone does. He told Conor that he was fucked up, that he lied to him, he’d used him, and he’d promised he wouldn’t leave. Conor said it was none of Jesse’s damn business what he did with his life.’ He paused. ‘They were talking about a phone. Conor was going crazy about that.’

The confiscated cell phone.

‘Is there anything else you can think of?’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Kyle. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Do you know where Conor might have gone?’ said Ren.

‘No,’ said Kyle. ‘I don’t really know Conor.’

‘OK,’ said Ren. ‘Thank you.’

‘Please wait down the hallway, Kyle,’ said Kristen.

‘I’m going to go back in to talk to Jesse,’ said Ren. ‘If you hear anything, please report to me immediately.’

‘I will,’ said Kristen.

Ren stuck her head into the interview room and called Janine to the door to quietly fill her in.

They went back in to Jesse and sat down opposite him.

‘Can I get a drink?’ he said.

‘No,’ said Ren. ‘OK, Jesse — you were overheard saying to Conor earlier that he betrayed you “again” — what did you mean by that?’

‘Just that he was leaving the ranch,’ said Jesse. ‘He’s my only friend. I need a friend right now... with my dad and everything...’

‘Were you trying to stop Conor from leaving today?’ said Ren.

‘He attacked me,’ said Jesse. ‘Anyone who was there saw that.’

‘And why did he do that?’ said Ren.

‘Just because I asked him about leaving,’ said Jesse. ‘He’s been acting really weird. Since you interviewed him... it was like you’d given him a really hard time or something — I don’t know. He came out of there mad.’

‘We did not give him a hard time,’ said Ren. ‘I can promise you that. Quite the opposite. We offered our condolences about his Aunt Laura. We were respectful. We were trying to gather information for our investigation, and he thanked us at the end. I’m having a hard time believing that he could have walked away from that interview angry.’

Jesse shrugged. ‘I’m just telling you what I saw. He didn’t say that you had given him a hard time — that was just my understanding of it.’

‘From now on, I need you to stick to the facts,’ said Ren. ‘Your understanding of events might not reflect the reality, OK?’

Jesse nodded.

‘Why was Conor talking about the cell phone?’ said Ren. ‘I’m presuming that was the one we got today from Kristen Faule.’

Jesse went very still. ‘Yes. He wanted to use it, but I told him I didn’t have it any more. I had let him borrow it a few times before. The Saturday before his aunt was killed, I heard him talking to her about Robert Prince, about fraud, about Robert probably going to jail, about how it was Conor’s chance to leave the ranch, to start a new life...’

‘So you did think he was planning to leave,’ said Ren.

‘Yes,’ said Jesse, ‘but I swear to God, I didn’t do anything...’

‘Did you see his Aunt Laura as the person who would take him away from you?’ said Ren.

Jesse frowned. ‘No. It sounded like Conor wanted to leave. It didn’t sound like anyone was forcing him.’

‘You burned the journal two days later, you burned the photos of Conor — are you sure that wasn’t because you were mad at him?’ said Ren.

‘No — he was leaving, he said he didn’t need the photos any more,’ said Jesse.

‘Why did Conor run away today?’ said Ren.

Jesse shrugged. ‘Because of what he did to me, how he would be in trouble because of the grave... and I guess he doesn’t want to go back to the Princes.’