Page 23 of The Burnt (The Declan Hunt Mysteries #3)

Declan stood at the front desk of the police station. The cop on duty didn’t even look up. “Take a seat.”

Declan turned around and sat in one of the available chairs. Across from him there was a young mother with a baby on her lap, a toddler on one side and a smelly old man on the other. Declan glanced at the baby, who beamed a brilliant, toothless smile at him. He couldn’t help but smile back.

“Oh no, you didn’t,” the mother said, picking up the baby and sniffing its diaper. “Of all the times to…”

She glanced at Declan. “I know the washroom’s too tight for me and both kids.

I’ll only be a minute. Would you mind?” She nodded toward the toddler, then headed off to the washroom with the baby and a large diaper bag.

As the washroom door was closing, she poked her head back out and hollered, “Her name is Susie!”

Susie stared up at him and smiled. Declan stuck his thumbs in his ears, waggled his fingers and made a silly face. The smile on Susie’s face instantly disappeared and turned into a pout that was far too large for such a little head. Then she began to cry. No, not cry…wail.

Declan instinctively picked her up and stared into her eyes. “Shh, shh, you’re okay. You’re okay.”

The cop at the desk lifted his head. “Could you please do something about your child?”

“She’s not mine,” Declan responded. This might have been the wrong thing to say.

Another cop showed up on the scene. “If you can’t control your child, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“He says it’s not his,” said the cop at the desk.

“Then whose is it?”

“The mother just up and left,” the smelly man said.

The second cop looked carefully at Declan. “Hey—aren’t you—”

The baby was now in full ‘scream’ mode.

“What the hell’s going on out there?” a voice shouted. It was Gary Sawchuck.

“Declan?” Sawchuck said, taking the toddler away from him and raising her up in his arms. She began to calm down.

“Uh, her name is Susie,” Declan offered.

“Professor Diller?” the second cop called out. “If you’ll come with me, please.”

The smelly guy stood and followed the cop, but not before he turned to Declan and said, “You’ll make a terrible father.”

Declan was relieved when the bathroom door opened and Susie’s mother returned.

“You have a beautiful daughter,” Sawchuck said, handing Susie back to her.

“Thank you—hey, has anyone seen my father? He was just there.” She pointed to the now empty chair across from Declan.

“The professor?” Declan asked.

“Yes!”

“They just came to collect him. They went that-a-way,” he said, pointing down the nearest hall.

“Oh, Jesus.” She slung the baby bag over her neck and took a child in each arm, then ran down the hall. “Dad, don’t say anything until the lawyer shows up!”

Sawchuck shook his head. “See. Things haven’t changed much since you left, have they? Come on. Let’s go to my office where we can talk in private.”

Declan walked through a tightly packed series of desks. He vaguely recognised a few of the officers.

“What’s he doing back?” one said.

“In for questioning, probably,” the other replied.

Then he heard it—“Fag.”

Declan turned around and caught the eye of the officer who had whispered the last word. “You should know.”

The guy leapt to his feet but Sawchuck intervened. “At least try to behave like adults!”

Declan followed Sawchuck to his office and took a seat.

“Like I said—some things never change.” He moved behind his desk and sat down.

“Let’s get down to business. I wanted to check in with you on the investigation of Archie Whitcher’s murder.

As I told you last night, we’ve had the house under surveillance. ”

“Oh?” Declan replied.

“Yeah. That neighbour of his has been coming and going from Archie’s house on a regular basis.”

“And you didn’t try and stop her?” Declan asked.

Sawchuck paused. “We were more interested in watching from a distance to see what she was up to. Got any ideas?”

“Well, I can tell you, she’s got a key. She said she was going over to make sure the heat was on so the pipes wouldn’t freeze.”

Sawchuck leaned forward. “How very neighbourly of her. And of you, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, other than that first time you said you went into Archie’s house, you’ve been there two other times since we started surveillance.”

“Not to Archie’s house, I haven’t,” Declan deflected.

“No. You were visiting Kathrine O’Grady. You seem to be getting kinda chummy with her.”

“I’m just trying to clarify information that may help with my enquiries. She phoned me because she was scared. She said she thought she saw the man in the brown coat come back and it made her nervous. Have you had any luck tracking him down?”

Sawchuck frowned. “Not enough to go on. You say he came back?”

“Yeah.”

Sawchuck picked up a folder and flipped through some pages. “I’ve had no report of anyone matching that description calling on her. Are you sure about that?”

“That’s what she said. Maybe your watchdog took a nap.”

“Hmm. I’ll look into it. What else can you tell me about her?” Sawchuck asked.

“She knows how to handle a gun. She pointed one at me when we first met.”

“Oh?”

Declan cocked his head. “What kind of gun did you say Archie was shot with?”

“I didn’t. But it was a nine-millimetre handgun. Why?”

“Katherine’s is a shotgun.”

Sawchuck nodded. “Okay, I’ll make a note of it. Anything else?”

“You might find it interesting that she’s the executor of Archie’s will.”

Sawchuck looked up from the file. “Now that is interesting.”

“And she doesn’t know a Milo that was associated with either Freddy or Archie,” Declan added.

“She told you all of this?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why didn’t you tell us sooner?” Sawchuck asked.

“I only found out yesterday.”

Sawchuck stared at Declan. “Anything else?”

Declan considered telling him about the licence number of the car that she had photographed, but he decided to hold onto that for the time being until he knew if it was important or not. “That’s it.”

Gary sighed. “So, you have a woman who is familiar with firearms, denies all knowledge of who might have wanted to kill her shady neighbour, sees mysterious men lurking about that none of our officers have seen and who is the executor of the deceased’s estate…

Do you think it might just be possible that she’s lying to you?

Because to me—and let’s ignore all of my years of policing—to me she’s starting to look like a prime suspect. ”

“Do you really think she could have done it?”

Sawchuck looked intently at Declan, “I don’t think she’d have the physical strength to inflict the beating Archie took before he was shot.

And she had no gunpowder residue on her hands…

and yes, we tested. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t involved.

So I just want to be clear, that if you have any other insights, you should share them with us. Got it?”

Declan nodded.

“Now, get out of here before you get us both into trouble.”

Declan rose from his seat and headed to his van. If Sawchuck’s men were telling the truth, it was possible that Katherine O’Grady was playing Declan for a fool. But why?