Hour Game (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 2)

As the car ahead of him pulled into a long driveway heading up to a large brick colonial, he turned off on a side road, parked the truck and pulled down a pair of earphones that had been hidden under his hat. He tinkered with a receiver on the front seat, found the correct frequency to the transmitter he’d hidden in the Canney home, settled back and waited for the show to begin.

CHAPTER

47

“SO WHAT DOES ROGER

Canney do?” asked Michelle as she looked around the impressive home. A housekeeper had let them in and gone to get her employer.

“I don’t know, but whatever it is, he does it well,” answered King.

“What did his wife die of?”

“I don’t know that either. I’m not friends of theirs.”

Michelle kept looking around. “You know what I’m not seeing?”

King nodded. “There are no family pictures.”

“What do you make of that?”

“Either they were recently pulled because of the father’s overwhelming grief or they were never here.”

“Overwhelming grief? Essentially, he buried his only son under cover of darkness.”

“Everyone exhibits their emotions differently, Michelle. Some people, for example, kick wooden posts in half when they’re upset.”

Roger appeared a minute later, a tall, craggy man with stooped shoulders and an unhappy, wan expression. He motioned them to sit on the couch in the living room, and he sat across from them. The man didn’t bother to look at them when he spoke, instead resting his gaze on the beamed ceiling.

“I’m not sure why another interview is necessary,” he began.

King said, “I know this is an awfully difficult time—”

Canney interrupted. “Right, right, let’s just get on with it.”

They went through the standard questions, to which Canney answered in extremely unhelpful monosyllables.

Frustrated, King asked, “So no enemies at school that you know of? Or that your son might have mentioned?”

“Steve was very popular. Everyone just loved him. He could do no wrong.”

This was not said in the tone of a proud father, but in a mocking manner. King and Michelle exchanged puzzled glances.

“Had he ever mentioned that he was seeing Janice Pembroke?” asked Michelle.

“Steve didn’t confide in me. If the kid was screwing around with some slut, that was his business. He was seventeen with raging hormones. But if he’d gotten some girl pregnant, I would have been more than upset.”

“How long ago did your wife die?” asked Michelle.

Canney’s gaze dropped from the ceiling to her. “Why is that relevant?”

“Just curious.”

“Well, confine your curiosity to the matter at hand.”

“Okay, can you think of anything at all that Steve might have told you or that you might have overheard him say, or even one of his friends mention, that could shed some light on his murder?” she asked.

“Look, I already told you that we weren’t exactly chums. We lived in the same house, but that was about it.”