CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Detective Connery paused when a knock came at the library door. It was a gentle rap, quite possibly as meek and as shy as the person on the other side. Elaine was reminded of the approach of the raven in Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. The Raven had also started off quietly, but the tale certainly ended with a bang.
“Come in,” Connery said, and then waited as the door eased open.
Silas stepped inside, standing in the doorway. “Officer Blanchard said you wanted to see me, sir,” he said, glancing at Elaine.
“I do,” Connery said, getting up and putting another chair in front of the desk. “Please, sit down, Silas.”
“Okay.”
“You remember Detective Slye…?”
“Yes,” he said, gazing at the man as if he found him rather distasteful. Silas always had been a perceptive boy.
Elaine looked from Silas to Connery, not sure about whether to leave or to stay. “Would you like to speak to Silas alone?” she asked so that there would be no doubt.
“If you could, I’d hoped you’d stay,” Connery said. “I’d like you to hear this conversation.”
“All right,” she said, sitting back. She looked at Silas and smiled, and he managed to return it.
“How are you feeling, son?” Connery asked him.
“Much better. Thanks.”
“I hear that you diagnosed yourself. Is that right?”
Shrugging, he said, “It was no big deal. I got these red, pinhead-sized lesions that started spreading all over me, mostly on my chest. I had a fever and my throat was sore. I felt very tired, and I couldn’t keep anything down. My symptoms were pretty textbook. You know.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Are you up to answering a few questions?”
“I’m up to it,” Silas said, raising his chin and appearing extremely attentive. “Whatever I can do to help.”
“Was Tasia McAvoy and your father related?”
Silas hesitated, slouching again. “Yes,” he said.
“How so?”
“My father was her uncle.” He paused. “She and I are first cousins.”
“Her last name is McAvoy and not Kastenmeier.”
“It should’ve been Kastenmeier, but Uncle Vic and Tasia’s mom Roisin McAvoy never got married.”
“Her mother’s dead?”
“Yes, she died fourteen years ago from some sort of bacterial infection. The doctors weren’t able to tell exactly what she’d contracted.”
“I see,” Connery said, pausing to jot down some notes. “What happened to Tasia after her mother died?”
“Uncle Vic wanted to take her in, but my father asked the court to allow her to come and stay with him.”
“Why did your father do that?”
“He considered Uncle Vic unfit to care for a child. You see, Uncle Vic lived in a slummy part of Detroit, in a row house. He resided in squalor, and Dad convinced the judge that she’d be better off staying with him.”
“How did your mother feel about taking in a child?”
“My parents weren’t married then. Tasia came to live with my father six years before my parents ever met. Dad has a house in Texas, and they lived there until my parents got married. Then they moved to Michigan.”
“Roisin McAvoy lived in Texas?”
“Yes. Dad thought Tasia would have an easier time adjusting to the new living arrangements if she didn’t have to be uprooted to a different state.”
“How old was Tasia when she came to live with your father?”
Silas glanced at Connery’s tie before answering. He hunkered down lower in his seat. “She was five,” he said.
“Five,” Slye said reflectively, as if he couldn’t help himself. Connery looked up at him, telling him to be quiet.
“How was your relationship with your father?” Connery asked Silas.
“It was good.”
“Good?” Connery said.
“It was as good as any relationship Dad ever had,” Silas qualified.
“Tasia had been with him years before you came along. Was there a rivalry between you two?”
Biting his lip, Silas said, “I guess not.”
“You guess not? A smart boy like you has to guess?”
Silas closed his eyes and looked away for a moment. His pretty blond lashes brushed against his cheeks. He looked at Connery again and said, “For awhile there was some animosity between us, but we learned early on that we needed each other. We found out the hard way that our lives were much better working together rather than always being against one another.”
“How did you feel about your father’s insisting that you memorize information?”
“I hated it. I mean, what does memorizing a bunch of facts prove, anyway? Even Einstein couldn’t make sense of people telling him to do that to prove how intelligent he was.”
“You memorized facts for your dad even though you hated doing it. Why bother if you didn’t want to?”
“Because I could. It was easy for me, and it made him happy. So why not?”
“And you thought you could earn his love that way. Isn’t that right?”
“Yes, I guess so.”
“But no matter what you did, you always felt second best. Second to Tasia.”
“I was second to her. Everybody was.”
“Would it help if I told you that she never wanted to be your daddy’s favorite? She never wanted all of his attention.”
“I know that,” he said, “and that’s exactly why she got it.”