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“I don’t know,” he replied. “Just going on gut instinct at the moment. But you have to admit, something felt a little off in there today.”
Lacey studied him for a few seconds across the cabin. “Yes,” she finally agreed. “But I’m not sure it’s enough to dredge up that family’s pain all over again.”
He grimaced at her words. As usual, Lacey was being the caring one; the considerate one. Worried more about what it might do to the mother if he decided to reopen the case and then found nothing. Perhaps that was the difference between her and him. He’d do whatever it took to get to the bottom of a case. Maybe that was why he made such a good detective. But Nico wasn’t sure if it was such an admirable trait or not. He decided not to mention the other question floating around in the back of his mind. Was the mother covering up details because she had something to do with her daughter’s death? The idea was ridiculous, especially when he could see the raw pain in her face when she talked about Tia. But still…stranger things had happened.
“Let’s go and talk to the brother, then we can make a decision,” he said.
“Agreed,” she finally replied.
Nico checked the information Sally-Ann had sent to his phone. “Looks like he’s a carpenter by trade. Works for a place called Complete Builds, a joinery and cabinetmaking business.” He rang the phone number and talked to the receptionist at the kitchen cabinet company. The young woman was hesitant at first to give out the address where Taj was working today, but after Nico explained who he was, she readily complied. Plugging the residential address into the screen in his dashboard, he buckled his seat belt and started the car.
“Let’s go see this guy,” he grunted.
“Yes, boss,” Lacey said with a smile. It was the first time she’d smiled at him all day, and he secretly relished the tingle in his guts. On the strength of that smile, he decided to leave any more discussion about Marietta and previous marriages until later. They had a tentative connection reestablished—admittedly, it was work related—and he didn’t want to spoil that.
Taking a turn to the left, he guided the car through the suburban streets of Burnie. This area was full of red-brick houses built back in the sixties and seventies. Solid, dependable, but very middle class. He much preferred his little wooden cottage out on the headland.
On the drive over to Park Grove, a newly established suburb where lots of huge, modern houses were going up everywhere, he asked about how Linc was doing, and she told him about the pile of rock cakes they had waiting for them when they got home, courtesy of a visit from Margie.
Taj Brown looked surprised to see them when they strolled into the brand new house at the end of a lot. But his face quickly shuttered when Nico held up his badge, taking on a resigned countenance. The supervisor gave them a suspicious look, but told Taj to take as long as he needed as he led them out the back into a large, unfinished yard.
“Mum already called me,” he said with a snarl. It seemed the son was going to be just as prickly as the mother had been. “Why are you digging around again? Can’t you people just leave it alone?” From the file, Nico knew the young man was twenty-four years old, but he looked older somehow. As if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. His short, cropped hair was the same dirty blond as his sister’s had been, and there was a definite likeness in his features to the photos of Tia Nico had seen on the mantelpiece. But unlike Tia’s almost angelic smile from the photos, Taj scowled at them from behind lowered eyebrows. Nico could see a barrage of tattoos up his left arm, disappearing into the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“We’re just following up on a few things,” Nico replied cooly, not surprised that Sandra had forewarned her son. “There are some similarities between your sister’s death and these new murders, and we’d like to make sure there’s nothing from your sister’s case that might be a clue to the killer.”
Taj gave a rude grunt. “I can already tell you, there won’t be.”
“What makes you say that?” Nico queried.
“Because I read the note Tia left behind. She was one screwed up kid. There’s no doubt in my mind that she topped herself,” Taj replied, kicking the sand with his steel-capped boot.
“I’m sorry. That must’ve been hard to deal with,” Lacey said, stepping around Nico so she could look Taj in the eye. “Were you guys close?”
“Not really. She was three years younger than me, and I was…focussed on my own shit, I guess. I’d just started my carpentry apprenticeship, and I’d broken up with my long-term girlfriend.” His shoulders dropped as he spoke and once again, Nico was shocked by how Lacey’s sympathetic approach seemed to break down barriers. Taj was still belligerent, but now it seemed to be aimed inward at himself, rather than at them. “I wish I’d known she was struggling. I could’ve done something. But Mum just wanted to sweep it under the carpet. If I’d known earlier about those girls tormenting her, I would’ve told them to piss off.”
Nico’s radar started to jangle. What had this kid just said? He looked at Lacey expectantly. Had she picked up the same thing?
“What girls,” Lacey prompted gently, and Nico gave her a mental high five.
“What?” Taj looked up, his eyes refocussing, and he suddenly looked guilty, as if he’d said too much. “Oh, nothing really. Mum told me about six months before she died, that Tia was being hassled by a group of girls. I don’t know if they had anything to do with her suicide, but I’m sure they didn’t help her peace of mind,” Taj said through gritted teeth.
“Do you know who they were? What their names were?” Lacey prodded him again.
But Taj seemed to have had enough of the interrogation and he stood up straight, the belligerent scowl returning to his face. “Nah, I don’t know much. Mum assured me that she’d dealt with it. She never told me the details, just that Tia didn’t need to see them bitches anymore, so the problem was solved.” He glowered at them for a second. “Can I go back to work now?”
After a quick glance at Nico for confirmation, Lacey stepped out of his way, then said, “Of course.”
They were quiet as they walked back through the house and out the front to the cruiser.
It wasn’t until they were safely out of earshot back inside the vehicle that Lacey voiced the question that’d been bugging them both.
“Was any of that information about her being bullied in Tia’s files?”
“I don’t know,” Nico acknowledged. “But it’s the first thing I’m going to get Sally-Ann to check when we get back to the station.” He started the car, and they drove off slowly down the road. If it wasn’t in the files, then it made Nico wonder why not. Why would the mother withhold that sort of thing? Especially when Lacey had asked her point-blank if Tia had been bullied at school.
“You don’t think the brother had anything to do with Tia’s death, do you?”
“Not sure,” Nico tapped the steering wheel with his finger as he drove. “Does he know more than he is letting on? Probably? Did he murder her and cover it up to make it look like suicide? Less sure about that one.”
