“Well, that’s good,” the woman says, though her shoulders relax a little.“ ’Cause he seems like an okay guy.”
Rachel’s instincts tingle.“What’s his name?”
“Greg,” the woman says.“Gregory Little.”
CHAPTER 42
RACHEL
“It’s just off the highway, I think,” Stevens says, a map of southwestern Ontario spread out on his lap in the passenger seat.It’s so well-worn that it hardly even crackles anymore; it’s closer to fabric than paper at this point.
Their upcoming interview with Gregory Little should be the last one of the investigation before they compile their report for Green and put this case—and Annie Little’s remains—to rest.They reach Cambridge around ten-thirty after a quick stop for coffee in Stratford.
They pull up at the curb of the treed suburban street and get out.Rachel scans the road and spots the black Volkswagen parked across from them.A young girl is down on her knees on the sidewalk near the car, a plastic bucket of chalk beside her.Her friend or sibling dangles from a tire swing on the lawn ten feet away.Both girls look up at the police, mouths hanging open a little.They have a half-hearted lemonade stand at the bottom of the driveway, currently unmanned.
Rachel squints at the driver of the black Volkswagen, gives a wave, then leads Stevens up the path to Gregory Little’s house.
He answers the door immediately; he’s clearly been waiting on the other side.He looks like your average fifty-year-old guy; clean-shaven in faded jeans and a nondescript dark-grey golf tee.
“Officers,” he says.“Come on in.”
“I’m Detective Mackenzie, this is Officer Stevens,” Rachel says, pulling out her notebook as they step over the threshold.“Thank you for taking the time, Mr.Little.”
“Of course.”
They settle on the sofa across from him in the comfortable living room.Rachel can tell there’s a Mrs.Little somewhere.The room isn’t dissimilar to Emily Radcliffe’s, and a stack ofChatelainemagazines rests on the glass coffee table beside the TV Guide.Despite the gravity of this interview, Rachel has to push down a smile.
“So,” Gregory Little says.“I have to say, this was a bit of a surprise phone call.”
“I can imagine it’s difficult for you,” Rachel agrees.“As Stevens told you on the phone, we’re just tying up an investigation into the discovery of Annie Little’s body in the Millgate Cemetery.We know there was no foul play—in terms of the body’s location, at least,” she adds.“No one is in trouble here.We mostly just need your statement about what you knew of your mother’s life, death, and, most importantly, her body’s removal to the cemetery by your maternal grandmother, Helen Sharrock.”
“Yeah,” Gregory says.“Sure.Uh, well…” He looks from one of them to the other.
“Begin at the beginning, if that makes it easier,” Rachel prompts him.“We’ll just take what we need for our notes.”
He nods.“Well…when she was alive, my grandmother told me all about my mother, from her childhood until she was married.And then everything she knew about what happened when, uh, when I was born.And after.”He takes a deep breath.“It was really difficult to hear it all, to realize that my father basically had her locked up for being sick.I didn’t want to believe my grandmother.She was just a woman I’d seen from time to time in my childhood, like one of those distant aunts you see at someone’s Christmas get-together every few years, you know?I didn’t really appreciate that she was my real mother’s mother until my teens sometime.But I guess kids don’t…I don’t know.”He shifts his legs, staring at his jeans.
“I grew up with my stepmother as the only mother I knew, and she loved me.She wasn’t, you know,warm, but she loved me, and her own kids, my two sisters.I thought when I was younger that she preferred the girls just because I was a boy, and she was more interested in girly things.But the pieces started to fit together as I grew up.”He clears his throat.“My father never really sat me down to explain it all, I just kind of figured it all out on my own, that my stepmother wasn’t the woman who had given birth to me, that there was some other person who had done that.No one talked to kids about that kind of stuff back then.”He grunts.“Anyway, when I grew up, I guess I started asking my grandmother more questions when I’d see her, and she told me my mother was unwell after she had me, and that my father had her committed to an institution.I could tell she resented him for it, but I figured things must have been bad for him to do something like that, right?”
He waits for Rachel to answer.She nods.“I think your motherwasin bad shape, Mr.Little, yes.From what I understand.At first, anyway.”
“Well, that’s just it!”he says, voice rising now.His hands pop up from his lap for a moment, then quickly curl back into fists.“My grandmother told me she got better, but my father wouldn’t ask for her release because he’d divorced her.That’s all he ever said to me when I’d ask, just ‘she wasn’t my wife anymore, she wasn’t my concern.’ ” He pauses.“So my grandmother kept asking a judge to let my mother out, but the prison doctor kept denying it.”He shakes his head and shifts again, agitation building.“I knew from my grandmother that she uh, she died.Killed herself, not long before that place shut down.I kept in touch with my grandmother for a long time after that, until she died, actually.And then she left me their house in Millgate.”
Rachel makes a note.“And did she tell you where your mother was buried?”She watches him closely.
He looks up at her now, sorrow and guilt in his eyes.After a moment, he nods.“Yes.I knew she was buried in an unmarked grave there.And why.”
Rachel waits for him to say more.
“I never moved into the house my grandmother left me, but I also didn’t want to sell it.”Gregory shrugs.“I’d heard stories about my motheras a kid, and having the house let me sort of…walk through those memories a bit.But my wife and I live here with our kids, we didn’t want to move to Millgate.”Another shrug.“I’ve been able to rent it out most of the time.We usually get tenants for the summer.Cheap rent fifteen minutes from the lake isn’t bad, right?I go every once in a while, to check in on the place, do some landscaping or whatever.I visit my grandparents’ grave while I’m there, tend to the weeds and stuff.And I visit my mother’s, too.Such as it is,” he adds.He’s quiet a moment before he continues.“You know why she was buried unmarked, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
He nods.“Makes sense for the time, I guess.Things were different.And maybe things were bad enough at that jail that it made sense she’d kill herself.I can’t really know.I try not to judge it.But I wonder what she would have been like, if she’d just been able to hold on for a few more months.That place got shut down in, like, the early sixties or something, right?”
“Yes, it did.”
“I guess she couldn’t have known it was going to get shut down, though,” he says, looking to Rachel imploringly.“Otherwise I’d hope she would have held on, to be able to see me.I was almost grown by then, we could have…” He shakes his head.
