Cheryl Bradshaw - Sinnerman

The lights were on when we arrived at Decklan Reids’ house. We approached the front door and knocked. A thin woman with short white curly hair in a crisp sundress with an apron over the top that was tied in a bow opened the door.

“Can I help you?”

“Is this the home of Decklan Reids?” I said.

“It is.”

“I hoped I could speak with him,” I said. “Is he here?”

She wiped her hands on her apron and said, “Just a moment. Let me see if he is available.”

She left us at the doorway and a minute later a man arrived at the door. He was taller than most men I’d met and had the body of a runner. His hair was grey and it blended well with his sleek frame. He glanced at me and then Giovanni but did not speak—he just stood there, like he waited for one of us to say something first. So I did.

“Mr. Reids, I hoped I could speak to you for a moment.”

“About?”

“Can we come in? I’d rather discuss it inside if you don’t mind,” I said.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

I brandished my card and gave it to him.

He held it about four inches away from his face and squashed his eyes together while he gazed at it.

“What are you investigating?”

Giovanni and I exchanged glances. I didn’t want to blurt out that I was investigating the Sinnerman murders, but I had to compel him enough to let me through the front door.

“I’m looking for Laurel Reids. I believe she was your wife,” I said.

“Ex-wife.”

“I’m sorry, yes. That’s what I meant.”

“That was a long time ago. And I can’t see what use I would be. Why?”

“One of her art students is trying to reach her,” I said.

Oh what a tangled web we weave.

“After so long?”

I nodded.

“Any help you can give us would be appreciated.”

He pondered it for a bit and then backed away a few steps.

“Come in.”

We followed him through the parlor and into the living room. It was decorated in rich tones of navy blue and tan with deep brown accents. My first impression was that the guy was still a bachelor. The furniture was rustic and reminded me of something I would see in a log cabin. In the center of the room a knotty log hearth was placed over an unlit fire and above it on the wall was the biggest moose head I’d ever seen in my life.

Decklan beamed and said to Giovanni, “Shot that one myself.” Giovanni didn’t seem the least bit interested, but he nodded and smiled.

“It’s umm…”

For once he couldn’t think of what to say and looked to me for some words of encouragement.

“Do you hunt often?” I said.

“Every chance I get. Been on every continent and hunted everything from elephants to javelinas. Care to see my trophy room?”

I was certain Giovanni lacked interest in a room full of stuffed dead animals, but he also seemed aware of the fact that I would seize any opportunity to snoop, so he nodded a reluctant yes.

“And you?” Decklan said, and turned to me.

“I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind.”

Decklan shrugged his shoulders.

“Suit yourself.”

Once they were out of sight, I made my move. Ever since we’d arrived I had my eye on a room down the hall. While we stood in the living room and chatted, I could see the entrance of what appeared to be a boy’s room, and that’s all it took for my curiosity to be piqued. With no one in sight, I booked it down the hall. I passed a bathroom on the left which I made note of; it could serve me well if Giovanni and Decklan decided to hike back up the stairs early, although I was certain Giovanni would keep him at bay. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to flex his persuasive muscle if needed.

The door at the end of the hall was slightly ajar when I reached it. I nudged it with my arm just enough that I could slide in and out with ease. Once inside, I glanced around. The blue and green plaid twin comforter had been made up to perfection, and it matched the tab-topped curtains that hung over the two oversized windows in the room. There was a single wood dresser that was brown with black metal circular knobs that lined the front, two on each drawer. The walls were sparse with little adornment, but there were holes to indicate things had been hung on them at some point in the past. Some of the holes were spaced apart in a square pattern, the exact size of a poster. It made me curious about what hung there at one time.

On top of the dresser there were several framed photos of a child at various stages of life. In one, he looked to be about four. He held up a giant fish attached to a long rod. A much younger Decklan stood next to him with the proud parent smile plastered across his face. And there had been a third person in the photo, but it had been ripped, and all that remained was a hand from the person on the boy’s arm. His eyes were darted downward and fixed on the fish with an innate fascination, but he didn’t express a smile like his father. His face was stolid and emotionless.

In another photo the boy was older. He posed with a deer of some kind, or maybe it was an elk. I’d never been around anyone that hunted before, and I couldn’t tell the difference. From the look of it, the animal was dead and the boy was covered in blood. But that wasn’t what stood out to me the most. My eyes were drawn to the boy’s hands, his left one in particular. In the photo at four years of age, his hands were perfect. But something happened between the first photo and the second. A few of his fingers were bent over in such a way they appeared to have been mangled, almost like he’d contracted some sort of disease that caused them to degenerate. The only problem with that theory was, his other hand looked just fine.

Behind the photo of the boy and the animal was an album. I grabbed it and flipped through its pages. It was a timeline of photos at every age in school that started with Kindergarten. In the first three his hand was visible and looked fine, but once I got to his second grade picture it was obvious that great effort had been made to conceal it. And there was something else. The boy no longer smiled as he had in the first couple of pictures. He looked solemn and detached. I turned a few more pages and immediately recognized the photo before me. I’d seen it at the art institute earlier that day. Thoughts flooded my mind, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. The girl in the painting hadn’t been a girl at all, it was a boy.

“What are you really doing here?” a voice said from behind me.

The woman who first greeted me at the front door stood in the doorway. She’d been so quiet, I hadn’t heard her approach.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I was just—”

She shook her head at me and entered the room.

“There’s no need for excuses, dear. But I would like to know the real reason you’re here.”

“What’s your relationship to Decklan?” I said. “I can tell you’re related in some way.”

“I’m his mother. And,” she said and pointed to the album I still clutched in my hand, “I’m that boy’s grandmother.”

CHAPTER 43

“He always could hit every target he aimed at,” the old woman said about the photo of the boy with the dead animal. “Won his first award when he was ten. I’ve never seen anyone who could hit a bull’s eye the way he could.”

“What’s his name?” I said.

“What’s yours?”

“Sloane.”

“And you’re a PI?”

I nodded.

She sat down on the bed and placed one hand behind her to brace herself.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t stand for long periods of time anymore. My back isn’t what it used to be. Let’s sit a minute and have a little chat woman to woman while the boys run around being boys.”