Page 41 of Death in the Family
There was wariness in his eyes all the same. It turned the honeyed irises black. As he rose from his seat Abella did the same, the two of them twin puppets on a string. She looked up at his face, imploring him to stay. Abella was being truthful when she said she and Ned were close. Both were outsiders trying to navigate a family that doubled as an active minefield.
I have a method, as all investigators do, for interrogatingwitnesses. Rarely do I get straight to the point. I’ve learned it’s better to ease in and look for ways to make connections that coerce an interviewee into sharing everything. Back at the academy, someone once showed me the transcript from a police interview with Robert Pickton, the pig farmer turned serial killer who murdered dozens of women in western Canada. The detective spent hours chatting with Pickton in an effort to eke out the truth. The endurance that investigator displayed was a thing of beauty.
Right off the bat I could see that’s what it would take to get Ned to talk. He knew he was the last person to visit the library, and that put him on edge. I had to gain his confidence, but this posed a problem. The more I hacked away at the family’s tangled lives, the more rot I turned up. Everyone on the island was guilty of something, to the point where I didn’t know which trail to follow. And then there was Carson. I’d always thought of him as a touchstone for my sanity, but what he’d said about Tim and the way he said it threw me off. If I could sense Ned’s anxiety, he could surely feel mine.
The coffee stain was still conspicuously present on the library rug. It must have killed Norton that I sent him back to the parlor without allowing him to assess the damage. When the doors were closed behind me, I turned to Ned.
I started by asking about his family, steering as far from Jasper as I could. Ned was born in Ghana but grew up in the South Bronx, in a working-class family of six that still lived in the same two-bedroom Prospect Avenue apartment they’d rented upon their arrival. All the money Ned made stocking shelves at the bodega downstairs went toward paying a monthly rent that could have gotten the Yeboahs a four-bedroom new construction in Accra. When he wasn’t staying at Flynn’s place, Ned lived with his familyeven now. On the weekends, Ned told me, he still made time to volunteer at an animal rescue in Brooklyn. I couldn’t picture this buffed and polished man de-fleaing mutts and hosing down cages, but the skin around his eyes relaxed when he told me about the dogs he cared for, and I took him at his word.
Ned hadn’t been an especially good student, but he knew how to entertain and he got involved with a friend’s YouTube channel at a young age. Soon Ned had a channel of his own and was amassing a fan base by sharing fashion tutorials and lifestyle tips.
It was a shock when Ned realized he could make more from the ads associated with his videos than he could earn at the bodega, and even more of a surprise when a talent agency came knocking. The next thing he knew, his agent had received a message from Jasper Sinclair. An exclusive contract with the company would establish Ned as a major influencer. He didn’t hesitate to take it, and before long, he and Jasper were friends.
“We’re a lot alike,” Ned said of Jasper. “I’m sure you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”
“No, I get it. He may not have to worry about paying the rent, but he suffered in his own way. It isn’t easy losing your parents at a young age. At least he has a brother and sister to lean on.”
“Whatever,” Ned said with a shrug.
“Are they not close?” I said, feigning confusion.
“I’m not the person to answer that.”
Though the library was chilly, Ned’s forehead shone with sweat. He’d dressed as any respectable fashion vlogger would for a weekend getaway to a luxurious rustic home: woolen plaid shirt, thick tan pants, suede slip-ons in a fetching shade of loden green. Several of his shirt buttons were undone and I could see sweat on his breastbone, too. I’d arranged the overstuffed chairs across fromeach other so we were knee to knee. It’s how I used to sit with Carson in his office when we talked about Bram. Carson said it was conducive to sharing and created a balance of power that helped people relax. With Ned, the arrangement made me apprehensive. We were a mirror image of each other, our feet firmly planted on the soiled rug, and in that moment Ned and I were equals. So why did I feel so unstable? Nothing I knew about him indicated he was violent, yet I didn’t like being alone with Ned. As I watched him joggle one knee and then the other I realized it wasn’t the man I feared, but the possibility he’d bolt.
Holding him in my gaze, I leaned forward and pushed a piece of hair from my brow. I was so close I could see Ned’s pulse in his neck. His eyes moved to the scar on my cheek, widened at the faint stitch marks that gave it a centipede look, and cut away. “You and Jasper are pals,” I said.
“That’s right.”
“For his sake, help me figure this out. Something happened here yesterday. We both know it involves his family.”
I was throwing it all out there, hoping to gain purchase. Now Ned’s hands were twitching, too. As he rubbed his palms up and down his muscled thighs I saw his nails were polished to a high shine.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He wouldn’t look at me.
“You and Flynn haven’t been getting along.”
“Flynn’s a salty bastard. We argue. So what?”
“My fiancé and I argue, too. Sometimes those arguments escalate, make us say and do crazy things. Has that ever happened with you and Flynn?”
“Have we ever argued and ended up killing someone? Nah,” he said, “we usually stick to armed robbery.”
“If Flynn’s such an asshole, why did you get together with him at all?” I couldn’t conceive of a more unlikely match, or understand what anyone could see in Flynn that had the potency to spark romantic attraction, let alone sexual desire.
“Domineering brutes are my type.”
“Are they?” I said. “Just men, or women, too?”
“What business is it of yours?” Ned dragged a hand across his forehead with a sound like sandpaper on wood. “Look, Flynn wasn’t always this way. He treated me like royalty. I cared about him, okay?”
“You realize I’ve spoken with everyone but you. There are some disadvantages to being last. The others already had their chance to shape the story. Do you get what I’m saying, Ned? Whatever you aren’t telling me, the secret you think you’re hiding? I already know.”
“Jesus Christ, it doesn’t fucking matter. We should be looking for Jasper! What if he’s still on the island, hurt or...” His voice trailed off. “What if he needs help?”
My visions of Jasper out there in the storm... Ned saw them, too. They stretched his mouth into the shape of a scream. He wasn’t wrong with thosewhat-ifs. I’d searched bits and pieces of the three-acre island alone. I could easily have missed something. Jasper might still be shivering in the mud while his blood turned the yellow leaves black. Knowing Ned was thinking the same thing softened me, but only a little. As he spoke Ned folded his arms across his chest, a demonstration of his refusal to tip his hand.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” I said with frustration.“Everything matters—every act, every look, every word. We’re not going to find Jasper until we know who hurt him. He could be dying out there.”He could be dead.
