Habit by T. J. Brearton Read Free Book Online Page B

coop made out of stacks of cages, banded together by some simple one-by-four lumber. “Did your sister keep chickens?”
    At first he thought Kevin would answer, but then the young man put his forehead in his hand. His elbow was propped on the passenger door. The wind slamming by sucked at his hair and pulled it out the window. A moment later and he had both of his hands covering his face, leaning forward.
    “I’m very sorry for your loss,” Brendan said. He realized that while he’d always winced at such generic phrases, there was nothing else to say in moments like this.
    “She never should have come up here,” said Kevin through his hands. He snuffled back some tears and wiped a hasty hand across his face. He looked out at the scenery rushing by; corn, barns, silos, gnarled oak trees, a long swath of pines in the distance.
    “Where did she come up from?” Brendan asked, emphasizing the last word. “On your driver’s license, it says you’re from Scarsdale. That where she’s from, too?”
    Kevin cut his eyes over to look at the detective, then turned to look back out the blustery open window. He didn’t seem to want to answer the question.
    “I’m from Westchester County, too,” Brendan offered.
    Another sideways glance from the young man. “Oh yeah? Where?”
    “Hawthorne.”
    Brendan had tried not to leap to an instant assumption about where Kevin was from, but Scarsdale meant money. It was the richest city in one of the richest counties in the country. The last he’d checked the statistics, Westchester was second only to Fairfax County for per capita wealth. It was hard not to connect the young woman, who had an entire farm to herself with an Audi parked in the driveway, to a wealthy family supporting her. He tried to proceed tactfully.
    “Scarsdale is nice,” he said.
    “I went to school in White Plains.”
    “College?”
    “High school. We were right along the edge of that district.” He paused and added a little defensively, “I didn’t go to college.”
    They were just a couple miles from Remsen. Brendan let off the gas just a little. “No, huh? You seem educated.”
    “I educated myself.”
    Brendan could tell this was sensitive territory, and imagined heated conversations Kevin might have had with his parents.
    “Are your parents together?”
    “That’s hard to say.”
    “But they’re not divorced.”
    “No.” Kevin finished his cigarette and pitched the butt out the window.
    Brendan took a breath. “Do they own the house where your sister was found today?”
    He nodded.
    “Well, we need to talk to them right away. The coroner is obligated to call them, and he will, within the next few minutes, I’m sure. Maybe you’d like to call them. Maybe it would be better if they heard it from you.”
    “No,” said Kevin with little hesitation. “It wouldn’t.”
    Brendan considered this. Maybe the kid wasn’t prepared to go through it. Family brought out the strongest emotions. Or maybe it would be tough in another way – maybe they would blame him, maybe he was the family whipping boy, who knew?
    Or maybe he had something to hide from them.
    Brendan, changed tack. “How long has your family owned the place?”
    “Uhm, I don’t know. Three years? More? I’m sure Bops bought it because he was trying to hide money. Avoid capital gains tax.”
    “Bops?”
    “My father. We call him Bops because . . . Well. Let’s just say my parents got into the family game late in life. Both Bops and Ma’am are career-driven people. Bops was in his mid-forties when Rebecca came. He’s seventy-one now. Maybe seventy-two; I don’t know.” Kevin surprised Brendan by cracking a smile. “Man, she was a fucking surprise. Maybe Ma’am’s body had rejected the pill by then – she was thirty-five or thirty-eight or something. Ma’am is in publishing. For whatever reason, they started having kids. I’m the last in a line of fucking token children.”
    Brendan absorbed all of this. The kid