Brian Freeman - The Bone House

He took his coffee into the interview room, where Tresa and Troy waited in silence, ignoring each other. Tresa sat at the interview table and drank a can of Diet Sprite. Troy, who was a fleshy sixteen year old, drank root beer and leaned against the wall. To Cab, the silence between them felt hostile. They weren't friends.

'Your mom's on her way,' Cab informed Tresa. 'She'll be here in an hour or so.'

Tresa didn't look happy with the news. Cab guessed that the girl would bear the brunt of guilt and blame when Delia arrived. As the older sister, she'd failed. I trusted Glory with you, and now she's dead.

'Troy, I'm going to ask you to wait outside,' Cab told the boy. 'Hang around, though, because I need to talk to you, too. Ask one of the officers to fix you up with some chips or a sandwich if you're hungry.'

Troy grunted and pushed himself off the wall. He put down his empty bottle of root beer and left the room without a word. Tresa's eyes followed him, and Cab thought his first impression about the two of them was correct. Tresa didn't like her sister's boyfriend.

Cab sat down at the interview table opposite Tresa and gave the girl a reassuring smile. At nineteen, Tresa still had a naive way about her that made her look younger than she was. She was extremely skinny for her height, which made Cab wonder if she had an eating disorder. She played with her straight red hair between her fingers and stared vacantly at the wooden table. Her pretty blue eyes were rimmed in red, and her face was marked with streaks of tears. Talking with her earlier, Cab had found her to be painfully shy, a loner without a support network of friends. He'd offered to ask some of the other dancers from River Falls to stay behind with her, but Tresa hadn't given him a single name of someone who was close to her. It was also obvious in her answers about her family that her sister Glory got most of the attention from their mother. Tresa, who was clearly artistic and smart, had been left to live in her own world.

'I know it's been a long day,' he told her. 'I appreciate you being patient with us. It probably seems like we cover the same stuff over and over, and you know what? We do. But that's usually how we find the details that help us figure out what really happened.'

'Do you have any idea who did this to Glory?' Tresa asked. Her voice was barely louder than a whisper.

'I wish I could say yes, but we don't, not yet,' Cab admitted. 'I'd like to make sure that we haven't missed anything important. OK?'

Tresa nodded without enthusiasm. 'OK.'

'You came down on a university bus from River Falls with the rest of your team last Monday and Tuesday, is that right? And Troy and Glory drove down from Door County on Tuesday and Wednesday?'

'Yes, they took turns and drove straight through,' Tresa answered. 'They got here around ten o'clock Wednesday morning.'

'Did anyone else from Door County come down at the same time?'

'No.'

'Did Glory and Troy bunk with you in your room?'

'Uh huh.' She added quickly, as if her mother were already listening, 'Glory and I shared the bed, and Troy took the couch.'

Cab noticed the girl fidgeting. She was hiding things, and she wasn't good at it. 'Tresa, I need to know who your sister was, even if there's stuff that wasn't so good. Understand?'

Her eyes narrowed. 'What do you mean?'

'I mean, teenagers do things that their parents don't always know about. I don't care about that. I just need to know if Glory was involved in anything that might have gotten her into trouble. See?' 'Yeah, I get it.'

'So it doesn't matter to me who slept in what bed, but I would like to know if Glory and Troy were having sex while they were here.'

Tresa hesitated. 'What difference does that make?'

'Maybe none at all,' Cab admitted, 'but I need to get the whole picture.'

'OK, yes.'

'You know that for a fact?'

'Yeah, I came back from practice once, and they were in bed together.' Her tone was pinched and unhappy.

'You sound like you didn't approve,' Cab said.

'It wasn't any of my business.'

'Did you not like the idea of your little sister having sex, or did you not like the idea of her having sex with Troy?'

Tresa shrugged. Her grief couldn't overcome years of sibling rivalry. 'Glory's been having sex since she was thirteen.'

'With Troy?'

'No, Troy's just the latest.'

'What about drugs?' Cab asked.

'Yeah, Glory liked to do grass. That was her, not me. I'm not into it;

'OK. How about this week? Did Glory use any drugs while she was here?'

Tresa nodded. 'She and Troy scored some on the way down. I told her not to use it in the room, because I didn't want to get in trouble. But I smelled it. I told Troy to get rid of it, but I don't know if he did.'

'You don't like him, do you?'

'Who, Troy? He's OK, just dumb. He's a stupid puppy dog, and Glory liked to yank his chain.'

'Was it serious between them?'

'He thought it was, but I don't think she did.'

'Did you see Glory with anyone else while she was at the hotel? Did she hook up with any other boys?'

'Not while I was around, but I wouldn't put it past her either.' Tresa lowered her eyes and looked guilty. 'I shouldn't talk like that. I'm sorry. You must think I'm a shitty sister.'

'No, I don't. I asked you to be honest with me.'

Tresa nodded. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

'Would Troy get jealous if he saw Glory flirting with someone else?' Cab went on.

'You mean, would he hurt her? I don't think so. Troy's a big kid, but he's a wuss. Everybody treats him like dirt.'

Cab thought that was an interesting comment. In his experience, when you poked the bear long enough, eventually it poked back. 'When you woke up early this morning and Glory wasn't in bed, was Troy in the room?'

'Yeah, he was zonked out on the couch, snoring away.'

'Was he there all night?'

'As far as I know.'

'Could he have left and come back without waking you up?'

'I don't know. I guess. I don't think he did, but I can't be sure.'

'Let's start at Saturday night and move backward, OK? I know we've covered some of this before, but bear with me. Was Glory in your room when you went to sleep?'

Tresa sighed. 'No. Last time I saw her on Saturday, she was swimming in the hotel pool. That was around nine o'clock. I went back to the room to read. Troy came back about half an hour later by himself, because he wanted to watch a movie on HBO. I crashed around eleven thirty, and Glory wasn't back yet. Troy had already fallen asleep in front of the TV.'

'Were you worried that Glory hadn't come back?'

'No. Glory stays out late a lot.'

'Was she hanging out with anyone else at the pool?'

'Not while I was there. There were a few girls from the various teams in the water. Some guys, too. Glory didn't know any of them, but I don't know what happened after I left.'

Cab nodded. They were still trying to identify the other teenagers who'd been in the pool on Saturday night, but so far, they'd had no luck. 'You told me earlier that Glory was acting strangely on Saturday.'

'I guess so. Yeah.'

'Describe it again for me, OK?'

Tresa rubbed her eyes with both hands, fighting off exhaustion. She looked upset. Kind of angry, too. She snapped at Troy a lot during the day. I wasn't really paying attention. I was upset, too, because I choked during my performance on Friday, so I kept to myself that day. I just figured Glory was pissed off because we had to go home, you know? No more sunny Florida, back to dreary cold Wisconsin.'

'Did she say anything to you about what was bothering her?'

'Glory wouldn't do that.'

'What about on Friday? How did she seem to you then?'

'During the day, fine.'

'And at night?'