Together we mounted the brick front steps to the white clapboard house with black shutters, the remains of the Schein family’s life as they had known it.
Now a couple of cops were going to talk to this family in the worst hour of their lives.
Chapter 18
We rang the front doorbell. We knocked. We rang the bell again before Melanie Schein, a distraught woman in her midthirties, opened the front door.
She looked past us and spoke in a frantic, disbelieving voice. “My God, my God, this can’t be true. We’re having chicken and potatoes. Barry likes the dark meat. I got ice cream pie. We picked out a movie.”
Richie introduced us, said how sorry we were, that we knew Barry, that this was our case.
“We’re devastated,” Richie said.
But I don’t think Barry’s wife heard us.
She turned away from the door, and we followed her into the aromatic kitchen and, from there, into the living room. She looked around at her things and bent to line up the toes of a pair of men’s slippers in front of a reclining chair.
I asked her the questions I knew by heart.
“Do you have a security camera?”
She shook her head.
“Has either of you received any threats?”
“I want to go to him. I need be with him.”
“Has anyone threatened you or Barry, Mrs. Schein?”
She shook her head. Tears flew off her cheeks.
I wanted to give her something, but all I had were rules and platitudes and a promise to find Barry’s killer. It was a promise I wasn’t sure we could keep.
I promised anyway. And then I said, “Witness Protection will be here in a few minutes to take you and the children to a safe place. But first, could we talk with Stevie for just a minute?”
Mrs. Schein led us down a hallway lined with framed family photos on the walls. Wedding pictures. Baby pictures. The little girl on a pony. Stevie with an oversized catcher’s mitt.
It was almost impossible to reconcile this hominess with the truth of Barry’s still-warm body lying outside in the cold. Mrs. Sche
in asked us to wait, and when she opened the bedroom door, I was struck by the red lights flashing through the curtains. A little boy sat on the floor, pushing a toy truck back and forth mindlessly. What did he understand about what had happened to his father? I couldn’t shake the thought that an hour ago Barry had been alive.
With Mrs. Schein’s permission Richie went into the room and stooped beside the child. He spoke softly, but we could all hear his questions: “Stevie, did you see a car, a truck, or an SUV?…Car? What color car?…Have you seen it before?…Did you recognize the man who fired the gun?…Can you describe him at all?…Is there anything you want to tell me? I’m the police, Stevie. I’m here to help.”
Stevie said again, “Was a gray car.”
Conklin asked, “How many doors, Stevie? Try to picture it.” But Stevie was done. Conklin opened his arms and Stevie collapsed against him and sobbed.
I told Mrs. Schein to call either of us anytime. Please.
After giving her our cards, my partner and I took the steps down to the halogen-lit hell in front of the lovely house.
In the last ten minutes the street had thickened with frightened neighbors, frustrated motorists, and cops doing traffic control. The medical examiner’s van was parked inside the cordoned-off area of the street.
Dr. Claire Washburn, chief medical examiner and my dearest friend, was supervising the removal of Barry Schein’s bagged body into the back of her van.
I went to her and she grabbed my hands.
“God-awful shame. That talented young man. The doer made damned sure he was dead,” said Claire. “What a waste. You okay, Lindsay?”