“Seeing if I can stand, you mean.”
I pass him a smile. “You should be able to. You just might need help.”
“Braces,” he says. “Lots of rehabilitation. Possible permanent loss of some motor function.”
I nod. “As soon as we see what’s what, we can transfer you down south. The council would ensure you have access to full medical care and physiotherapy.”
“And if I don’t want that?”
“Don’t want physio?”
“Don’t want to leave.”
“If Oliver Brady hadn’t shown up, you’d be gone by now, Kenny,” I say. “Your term ended. You were packed and ready to go.”
“And if I’ve changed my mind? If I want to apply for an extension?”
“I don’t believe this town is equipped to provide either medical care or rehabilitation,” April says. “I could not, in good conscience, advise that you stay. Nor could I support such a course of action.”
He looks at me. “Eric said I could get an extension. My carpentry skills plus my militia training meant I qualified to stay the full five years.”
Yes, they had discussed it … before that bullet meant Kenny might not be such an asset to Rockton. That’s what it came down to, as horrible as that sounded. We had no capacity to accommodate anyone with serious medical, psychological, or intellectual issues.
“Let’s see how it goes,” I say.
* * *
I leave April with Kenny. As soon as the initial stress of testing him—and talking to him—passes, it’s obvious she wants me gone. I could hope, like with Phil, that airing our differences would lead to a breakthrough. But life doesn’t always work like that.
We see others through a window fogged with condensation, catching only a warped and shadowed image and presenting the same. We squint to see through that condensation, but we use our fog, too. We hide behind it. Wiping it away lets us see clearly … and lets us be seen clearly.
For better or worse. I see my sister better now than I ever have, and I understand, too, that the damage goes both ways. The damage our parents did. The damage we did—however inadvertently—to one another. I can also see that it might not be the kind of damage we can ever repair. We are two people who wouldn’t have had anything to do with each other if not for kinship. That isn’t hatred or even dislike. It is a simple lack of common ground. I see my sister clearly now, and I still don’t understand her, and I know she looks back at me and says the same.
I have not ruled April out as a suspect. That is painful to admit. I realize, too, that in saying that, I wipe away the condensation between myself and the world, and I expose myself for what I am. A detective first. And maybe, yes, a person second.
Nothing my sister has said clears her of the charges. She’s given me no excuses, no explanations that I can rely on. I would love—love—to think she came to Rockton for me, but that is not the April I know, not the one I have ever known, and so I cannot trust even this new image I see. I cannot pretend to miss the blur of condensation lingering at the edges.
I spend the rest of the evening alibiing those I can. I?
??ve worked through the militia, dividing them into those with clear alibis and those without. The former will be given shifts guarding the clinic, and the latter will not. That’s the only distinction we make for now.
Once the militia and patrol volunteers are covered, I move on to friends. That feels biased. Everyone is waiting for their chance to tell me where they were. Many have excellent alibis, having been at work with others when the shots rang out.
To begin with my friends smacks of favoritism. It’s not. These are the people I rely on, the ones I ask for help and advice on a case. As Dalton says when we pause to share updates, “Gotta know who you can trust.”
“In Rockton? That’d be you and…” I look around. “You.”
He chuckles and kisses the top of my head. Then I continue on.
Nicole has an alibi—she was on patrol as part of the militia. So was Jen. Mathias was in the butcher shop serving two people when the shots fired. Diana and April had been in the clinic. The list goes on, those with—and without—alibis.
It’s after eleven. Dalton is off putting out a fire. A figurative one, fortunately. But the fact that we’re hunting a killer doesn’t mean the town stops to let us investigate. While he’s busy, I’m walking Storm and joining Nicole on patrol. Or that was the plan. I’m heading into the woods with her and one of the militia guys when Isabel strides from nowhere.
“Walking the pup?” she says.
“While patrolling.”
“Excellent. I will join you.” She falls in step, and I know that means she wants to talk, so I send Nicole and her militia partner the other way.