Текст книги "Cruelest Month"

Автор книги: Aaron Stander

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

3

The next morning, Tuesday, Sue started her exploration at the County Clerk’s office of the death of the teenager who’d washed up on the shoreline at the Hollingsford Estate. The youngest elected official in Cedar County, Julie Sutton, a woman of boundless energy and enthusiasm, greeted her.

“Hey, Susan, great tan. How was Florida?”

“It was good. I need a favor.”

“A favor or a miracle?” Sutton shot back.

“How do I…?”

“You need some information?”

“Yes.”

“A favor request would be something we’ve got on the computer, something that’s happened in recent decades. A miracle request is a birth or death record from 120 years ago. In fact, I just completed one. Been working on it off and on for weeks. This lady in New York, one of those ancestry.com addicts—most of them need a Twelve-Step Program—contacted me about a distant relative, a great-great grandmother twice removed, with three or four possible spellings of the last name, who may have been born in this county around 1880 and may have died around 1920. With a lot of digging I solved the case,” Sutton said, beaming. “Someday I will have this all computerized, and a search like this will be just a few key strokes.” She paused for a moment and smiled wistfully. “And it won’t be near as much fun. Now, what can I do for you?”

Sue took a deep breath. “I’m searching for the name of a boy, 15 or 16. He died about 20 years ago, probably in May or June. I think that it will be an accidental death, a drowning. He may have lived around Sandville.”

“That should be easy,” said Sutton. “Give me a few.”

Sue had barely started checking her e-mail on her iPhone when Sutton reappeared. “I think this is what you’re looking for,” she said, placing a death certificate on the counter at an angle where they could both read it.

Sue quickly scanned the document. “Terry Hallen,” she said.

“Yes,” said Sutton. “We usually only have a few drownings a year, and sometimes none. This is the only one from that time that fits.”

“Why all the blanks?” asked Sue. “This form is only partially filled out.”

Sutton chuckled. “It’s from the bad old days when one of my bungling predecessors didn’t mind the store.” She pulled the form to her side of the countertop and looked at it closely. Then she pointed to a signature. “Here’s part of the problem—your department. Look at the signature for the person who completed the ‘cause of death’ section, Dirk Lowther. There was a real piece of work.”

“You didn’t like my departed colleague?”

“What a scum ball. A total sleaze and a poster boy for Grecian Formula. Don’t get me started.”

“I think I have,” said Sue.

“You know, I first worked here when I was in high school, the co-op program. If Dirk came in when no one else was around, he would hit on me. Real aggressive, obscene, like he believed every high school girl wanted to drop her pants for him. Hell, he was lots older than my father. After I repeatedly insulted him, he finally left me alone.”

Sue pulled the death certificate back to her side of the counter. “So a physician signed here, but it doesn’t look like there was an autopsy.”

“That’s correct. It was pro forma. My understanding is that back in the day, a body would be turned over to the undertaker, and he would look at it after getting a doctor’s signature on the form. If there weren’t any gaping knife wounds or bullet holes, there was seldom an autopsy. Things were pretty casual.”

“Can I take this with me?”

“Yes, it’s a copy.” Sutton stood back and crossed her arms. “Why the interest in something that happened years ago?”

“It just came up in another investigation, and I was a bit curious. You never know what you’re going to find. Thanks.”

Driving toward the south end of the county, Sue felt a pang of regret that she had been less than honest with Ray. Yes, she had spent part of a week visiting her parents in Florida, but she’d also enjoyed a long weekend in Chicago with Harry Hawkins, a man she’d met earlier in the fall during a criminal investigation.

Initially she’d found Hawkins, a lawyer, pompous and distant, but as she got to know him better, she’d started to see a very different person. Over the past several months he’d kept in contact via phone and e-mail, and he’d invited her several times to spend a weekend with him in Chicago. She had finally surrendered to his persistence.

Hawkins met Sue at O’Hare and took her to dinner and a movie before escorting her to his apartment in a Mies van der Rohe building on Lakeshore Drive. The next morning they jogged along the beach before breakfast. Then they spent the afternoon at the Art Institute, followed by an intimate dinner in a small French bistro. That evening he arranged for front row, mezzanine seats at the Lyric Opera for an especially steamy version of Carmen.

When Sue awakened on Sunday, Hawkins had just returned from picking up fresh croissants filled with a buttery dark chocolate. They ate, drank coffee, and read the Times in the sun-flooded living room. All too quickly the weekend reverie was shattered by the dash back to O’Hare.

Sue felt a warm glow and glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. Harry Hawkins knew how to treat a woman. But is there anything really there? she asked herself, then started at the sound of her voice. She frowned. It was lovely spending time with a smart, interesting man. And for months she’d been struggling with the feeling that she needed to take her life in another direction. But while becoming involved in a good relationship might be part of moving her life forward, Sue wasn’t waiting for some Prince Charming to play “Misty” for her. She was also looking at graduate programs in art and public administration and considering law school.

Sue parked in the Visitors Lot near the entrance to the administrative offices of the school district, a small red brick building across the parking lot from the new middle and high school complex. Once inside the building, she identified herself to the receptionist, a perky high school girl with short black hair and a pleasant manner. Sue was guided to a work area where the receptionist announced her presence to a woman who had her back to them. She was bent over a large computer screen and hammering away on a keyboard.

“Helen, someone is here to see you.”

The keying continued for a long moment before the woman swiveled her chair in their direction.

“Oh,” she said, rather unsettled by the appearance of a stranger.

“Mrs. Schaffer, I’m Sue Lawrence.” Sue passed a business card across the desk.

Helen Schaffer held the card by the corner, lifting her head to use the bottom lens of her trifocals. She looked at Sue for a long moment, studying her face. “You weren’t ever a student here, were you?”

“No, I was not.”

“I didn’t think so, but my memory isn’t what it used to be.” She opened a drawer and placed the card inside. “How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for information on a former student, Terry Hallen. Do you have any of his records, or do you remember anything about him? He would have been enrolled here about 20 years ago.”

“Terry Hallen,” Schaffer mused. “I haven’t thought about him for a long time, but he’s not someone I will ever forget. Just a beautiful kid: big blue eyes, a shock of brown hair. He supposedly drowned. I could never quite believe it. Didn’t seem right.”

“How so?” asked Sue.

Schaffer didn’t respond immediately. “Well, maybe that’s the way I feel when any of our kids die or get killed. It’s not right. It’s not natural. And Terry was special. His people were so poor. We were always looking for clothes for him and his sister—they didn’t have anything. But they were smart, sweet kids. They were the kind of kids that get beyond their circumstances and do something with their lives. And then he was suddenly gone. It made no sense.”

“How did it happen? Our records of Terry’s death are very incomplete.”

“One story was that he was fishing off the pier near the lighthouse and got washed off by a rogue wave. As I remember it, he was missing a few days before they found his body miles up the lake.”

“You mentioned a sister,” said Sue.

“Yes, she was a sweetie, too. Let me think—Caitlyn.”

“Did she graduate?”

“No. As I recollect, it was the end of the school year when Terry died. I don’t think his sister even finished her exams that year. I do remember calling the home. Her mother told me that Caitlyn and her younger sisters, twins they were, elementary, fourth or fifth grade, had gone off to stay with a relative. The next fall I called again before the fourth Friday count. The phone had been disconnected. That happens, you know. People disappear. Sometimes we get requests for records from their new school district. Not always.”

“Could you check that?”

“Yes. It will take me a few minutes; we have the old records stored in an annex.”

“I’d appreciate it. Is there anything else can you tell me about Terry or his sister?”

Schaffer stood up and began to move toward the door. “They were from Sandville. Not much of a town then, almost nothing left today. That’s the poorest part of our attendance area, right on the county line. Lots of problems, most connected to poverty. And kids aren’t always kind; I mean other kids. If there’s someone slightly lower on the ladder, they think it’s okay to dump on them.”

“Are you talking about bullying?”

“That’s the term we use today. I’m sure the students from Sandville got more than their share of abuse. They were at the bottom of the heap.”

“Do you think Terry or his sister were bullied?”

“I don’t know specifically, but I wouldn’t be surprised. We’re more sensitive to that kind of thing these days. But so much goes on that’s beyond adult supervision. You know, on the bus or at the bus stop, in bathrooms and hallways. It’s like we’re on different planets, the adults and kids, and unfortunately we’re never able to control some of the bad stuff that happens in their world.”

“Do you remember anything more about Terry’s death?”

“There were a couple of articles in the paper. And there were some rumors. People always talk. I can’t tell you if there was anything to them. I’m sorry, that’s all I can remember,”

“Rumors, what kind of rumors?”

“Like I said, I can’t remember details, but some people thought it didn’t quite add up. They said maybe he was killed. Why would anyone kill him? Anyway, they didn’t have anything more than feelings. There was no evidence. ”

“One more question,” Sue said as Schaffer put her hand on the door. “What else can you tell me about Sandville?”

“Not much. Some,” she said, shrugging. “I guess it was a flourishing village back in the lumber days. A hundred years ago, there was a railroad and two or three mills, a store, post office, a saloon, and a couple of churches. When the lumber was played out, the land was sold off cheap for farms. You know, the soil is so fragile up here. But the immigrant settlers were lured by cheap land. They pulled out the stumps and built farms and had a few good years growing potatoes. It wasn’t long before the soil was depleted and people started drifting away. Then some businessman from down south, maybe Ludington, bought up most of the land east of town and started what they called a sand mine. They hauled out millions of tons on the railroad. I think that lasted until sometime in the 50s. It tore up the terrain something awful, just like strip mining. That area is mostly overgrown now. It’s worthless land. And almost nothing is left of the town now—a cemetery and a few old houses. There used to be lots of vacant houses, but they had some arson a decade or so ago. People said it was one boy, others thought it was a gang of them that liked to see things burn. Since they were unoccupied, pretty much worthless, I don’t think anyone cared. Anyway, Sandville is little more than a ghost town. Sorry I can’t tell you much else. We haven’t been very good at writing down local history.” Schaffer smiled sadly.

“On the contrary, you’ve been most helpful. Could I see Terry’s records, and would you check and see if there was a request for the girls’ records?”

“Yes. This will take a few minutes.”

While she waited, Sue pulled her laptop from a backpack and typed notes about her conversation with Schaffer. Then she read through them, making revisions and corrections.

Finally, Schaffer returned, a little out of breath. “I have the folders for Caitlyn and her sisters,” she said, settling back at her desk and opening the top folder. She shifted through the contents, then she did the same for the other two. She peered up at Sue over the top of her glasses and shook her head. “Nope, nothing. It doesn’t appear that there were any requests for records. But like I said, that’s not uncommon.”

“So you’ve got the folders for Terry’s siblings. I’d be interested in seeing Terry’s school records, too.”

“I’d planned to bring his, but…” She opened the top folder distractedly.

“But what?”

“I couldn’t find his CA60, his file that is. It doesn’t seem to be there.”

“Maybe it was moved after he died?” offered Sue.

“We’ve never done that. We’ve always kept every class year together, A to Z. I’ll do some more checking. I don’t understand it.”

“Do you have an address for the family, the Sandville address?” asked Sue.

Schaffer opened the top folder again and scanned with her finger. “Yes, it’s 411 North Second Street. I doubt if there is still a structure there.”

“You have my card,” said Sue. “If anything else occurs to you about Terry or his siblings, please give me a call. And I’d like to know if you find his records.”

“I’ll look for them,” she said, shaking her head again. “This is most peculiar.”

4

Ray sat at his conference table, the 10 pages of a Missing Person Report laid out in two sets of five. Ray couldn’t remember ever having any previous contact with the woman sitting on the other side of the table, but she looked vaguely familiar. She’d identified herself as Joan Barton, and appeared to be in her middle to late 50s. Her long black hair, streaked with gray, was pulled into a loose bun. A tight black jacket covered a maroon turtleneck.

“There’s a lot I didn’t fill in,” Barton said, her hands grasped together in her lap.

“I understand. It’s a generic form. Only a fraction of the information applies in this case.” Ray looked at second page the form, “And you’re Vincent Fox’s daughter, Ms. Barton?”

“Yes.”

Ray slid the first page of the report across the table. “Would you put your e-mail in the margin next to the phone numbers. We need to get this form updated.”

“Can you read it?” she asked, sliding the form back.

“No problem, you have beautiful handwriting.” Ray sat back and took a breath. “When did you last see your father?”

Speaking quickly, Barton said, “It was this past Wednesday. I took him grocery shopping and to the bank. Then we had lunch at the Last Chance. He loves their cheeseburgers and fries. That’s not what I think he should be eating, but when you’re pushing 90 it probably doesn’t matter much.”

“And you’ve had no contact since then?” he asked, noting the shade of her eyes, a mahogany brown.

“I call every day to check on him, but quite often I don’t reach him. I don’t bother to leave messages because he refuses to learn how to use voicemail, says he doesn’t want to talk to a machine. I even got him a cell phone and he wouldn’t use it.” She shrugged, tugged at her collar. “So it’s no big thing if we miss a day or two, sometimes three. Like I said, I was with him on Wednesday. He didn’t answer on Thursday. We did connect on Friday and Saturday morning. But then I couldn’t reach him Sunday or yesterday morning. I went downstate to visit one of my kids; my daughter’s having a rough time with a pregnancy.” She lifted her chin. “I help her with housework and look after my two very energetic grandsons. Then I called him several times as I was driving north this morning. And instead of stopping at my house in Traverse City, I just drove right up to his place. His little dog was there, cold and hungry. He almost never goes anywhere without her. His bike was there, too. That’s how he gets around. And now that the snow is mostly gone, he’s been using it again.”

Barton was looking agitated. Ray smiled and said gently, “So you went to his house. Tell me what you did then, step by step.”

“I parked in the drive. His dog came out and yapped at me—there’s a dog door and a small fenced area off the kitchen. I don’t know if I’m over-reading the situation, but the dog seemed more hysterical than usual. Dad’s very hard of hearing, but the barking is usually enough to bring him to the door. I knocked and knocked, and when I didn’t get a response, I let myself in.”

“The door was locked?”

“Yes, he’s very compulsive about that, keeping the place locked up. He’s afraid of getting robbed,” she scoffed. “Not that there’s much anyone would want. I had a lock put on his door with one of those keypads about a year ago. I programmed his birth year as the entrance code, something he wouldn’t forget. Before that, he kept losing his key and then the backup, which he would invariably forget to return to its hiding place in the shed. He’d go to the neighbors and call me and ask me to drive out and open the door. That gets old real fast.”

“Why didn’t you give the neighbors a key?”

“I did,” she said, raising her hands in the air. “He would get that key, also, and forget to return it.” She sighed and shrugged back in the chair. “So, like I said, I let myself in. By this point, I was getting scared, like what if he’d died a few days before and I’d stumble over his body. I don’t like him living alone. For years I’ve been trying to get him to move to a senior apartment, but he’s such a stubborn old coot. He insists on staying in that tumbled down shack. When my mother was alive, they had a cute little house in town. After she was gone, he moved to the cabin. It was his ‘getaway in the woods.’”

Ray took a moment to type a few notes, letting her simmer down. “Any ideas about when he might have last been there?”

“I don’t know. Hard to tell. Some of the food we bought on Wednesday was gone from the refrigerator. So I think he was probably around till the weekend.”

“He doesn’t drive?”

“Not in recent years. His driving was getting pretty scary, so I was happy when he let me sell his car before he got hurt or injured someone else. Like I said, in warm weather he uses a bike. It’s a big old black Schwinn he’s had for decades.” Barton passed her hand over her forehead. “I take him on errands at least once a week,” she said, almost whining. “And there’s a neighbor down the road, who will drive Dad to appointments and things when I’m not available.”

Ray nodded his head, encouraging. “And his name, the neighbor?”

“It’s Henry Seaton.”

“Did you check with Mr. Seaton about your father?”

“I stopped by there after I left my father’s house. No one was home.” Barton stood up suddenly. “And let me say one more thing: I looked in my father’s house, then I checked the garage, and finally I walked around the perimeter. Everything seemed normal.”

“Sit down, Ms. Barton. How about friends, someone he might have gone away with?”

“He used to have a lot of friends, but not so much anymore. They’d drink beer and play euchre at the Last Chance, or go to the casino when they got their Social Security checks. Most of them are gone now. There are still a few people around the village he spends time with. I’m not sure who they are, but I can’t imagine anyone who he would take off with.”

“How about relatives?” Ray asked.

“No, not up here. I mean, it’s just me and my sister. And she lives down in Livonia. She only makes it up occasionally, mostly in the summer. I would know if she was here because she stays with me. We don’t have any other relatives in the area.”

Ray slid the second to the last page of the form in front of him and studied it. “Was there anything missing from his house?” he asked.

“Not that I noticed.”

“Did your father keep any cash there?”

“Not any big money, if that’s what you mean. Just 50 or 60 bucks, a hundred at the most. Grocery money, beer money, something for the slots.”

“How about the bank? Does he have substantial assets?”

“No, he has a checking account, a small savings account, and a few CDs. I have power of attorney and look after that for him. He gets on quite well on Social Security and a small annuity. When he needs money, I get it for him.”

“And there’s been no recent withdrawal of funds?”

“No. I was paying a bill for him this morning. They all come to me, and I pay them electronically. Everything is in order.”

Ray ran his fingers over the pages of the form again, then gathered them into one pile. “Now tell me about your father, the kinds of things that aren’t here,” he said, placing his index finger on the top of the pile.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, looking genuinely perplexed.

“I need a sense of the man. Tell me about your father as a person. Give me a sense of his character.”

“Where do you want me to start?”

“During his working years, what did he do? Tell me about the connections that he has, or has had, with other people in the community.”

Barton relaxed. “Character, that’s the word. My dad is a character, a real storyteller. At times he embarrassed me,” she laughed. “Then I just sort of accepted him for what he is.”

“I’m not quite following.”

“Do you know my father?” she asked.

Ray shook his head, thinking. “I don’t believe so.”

“Well, even though you don’t know his name, I’m sure you’ve seen him around the village. For the last ten years he’s been wearing his Native American costume—a buckskin jacket with fringe, usually over a flannel shirt and worn-out jeans. Those jeans are too long when they’re new. He just grinds them away with the heels of his boots. He stopped getting haircuts years ago. One of his women friends showed him how to make pigtails. And he wears this big old felt hat with a couple of eagle feathers in it. In the summer he’s got these old moccasins that run to his knees with some beadwork on them. In the winter he wears a pair of Bean hunting boots, the kind with the rubber bottoms and leather tops.” Barton smiled across the table at Ray. “Now you know who I’m talking about?”

“Yes, from your description, I know who you are talking about.”

“Did you think he was a member of the band?”

“No, I just remember the costume,” said Ray. “Is he? A member of the band?”

“Not a drop of Indian blood.” Barton grimaced. “My mother had some, not much, maybe a 16^th from her mother’s side, way back in lumbering days. What my father is, is a storyteller. He has been for as long as I remember. When we were kids—my sister and me—he would read us stories at bedtime, but he would change them; he put himself in the story as a knight, or prince, or pirate. It was terrific. We loved it. As I grew up, I could see that his stories were just part of his life, that he didn’t separate fact and fiction very much. I mean, nothing malicious or bad, like he didn’t cheat anyone in his business or anything, but he was always telling stories.”

“What kind of business was he in?”

“He was a mechanic, a really gifted mechanic. For years he ran Vinnie’s Import Auto Repair in Traverse City. Back in the day he was the only one in town that worked on the exotics. You know, for the summer people who would bring their Jaguars, Porsches and Mercedes up north. When they had problems, he was the only one around who could fix them. Dad was in the Army Air Force during World War II. That’s where he learned mechanics. He was stationed in England.” Barton paused and frowned across the table at Ray. “And here’s a perfect example of what I’m talking about, the storytelling. When we were growing up, he always told us that he had been a bomber pilot, that he had flown dozens of missions over Germany. A number of years ago, his old unit had a reunion, it was down in Florida. I told him that I would drive him there—he doesn’t like to fly anymore. He said he wasn’t interested, but I sensed that he wanted to go. So I called the organizers to get some more details, thinking that I could persuade him. I knew he’d like it once he got there.” Barton shifted in her chair, but kept her eyes on Ray. “But when I was talking to one of the organizers, I found out that my father had been a mechanic. The guy went on and on about how he was the best mechanic in the group, how he could fix anything. I asked if my father had ever been on a mission, had flown over Germany. He said that occasionally a ground crewman would sneak on an aircraft so he could experience combat. But he had no knowledge as to whether my father had ever truly participated on a mission.

“And his Indian get-up,” Barton said, nodding. “It’s just another story. And if you talk to him, he is not part of the local band. He is a descendent of what I like to call the movie Indians, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. And then there’s Al Capone.”

“Al Capone?”

“Yes. One of Dad’s stories is that he was the driver for Al Capone, and not only in Chicago, up here, too. I’ve checked, not that I ever believed it would’ve been possible. The dates didn’t match up. He wouldn’t have been old enough. He did grow up in Chicago, that’s his only connection. But he’s got this great story of how he worked for Capone. When big Al was under pressure from the Feds, my father helped him hide millions of dollars in northern Michigan. In fact, he wrote a book about it. He’s even sold a few copies.”

“Let me have this again,” said Ray. “Your father wrote a book about Al Capone stashing money in northern Michigan? When did he do this?”

“Just in the past few years. He said he wanted to write his memoir before he died. He took one of those life story classes at the library a few winters ago. My sister and I bought him a Mac. He loves that machine. He had no trouble learning how to use it. Occasionally he’d get in a bit of a mess, and we would sort it out for him.” Barton laughed, this time to herself.

“When I started to read the stuff he was producing, I was amazed. It wasn’t a real memoir. It was all about Al Capone. Of course, I confronted him, but he just laughed. He said the stuff he was writing was a lot more fun than what actually happened to him, growing up poor in Chicago. When he finished it, he found a woman who does this kind of thing, you know—helps people put together memoirs and family books. She formatted the book for him. Initially, he got 10 copies, print on demand. Dad buys a lot of stuff at that little bookstore in the village. He got the owner to take a copy or two on consignment. Turns out Dad has sold or given away a couple of dozen over the last six months. He’s been having so much fun with this. I hope people don’t start digging up the beaches….”

“Does he give locations? Are there maps?”

“No, nothing like that. But he hints at what the places look like. You know, sand and beaches, headlands, and islands.” She laughed. “Almost everything around here fits that description.”

Ray took another moment to make notes.

“Has your father ever gone missing before?” he asked.

“Never,” she responded emphatically.

“How’s your father doing cognitively?”

“What do you mean? Like is he getting senile? Alzheimer’s?”

“Yes.”

She shrugged. “Other than his rather bizarre fantasy life, he’s pretty sharp.”

“Has he ever had a stroke, anything like that?”

“No, not that I’m aware of. But he’s close to 90.”

“How about his spirits? Depression?”

“No. He’s one of the happiest people I’ve ever met.”

Ray nodded. He could see it in the daughter as well. “There’s just one more thing. I need to clarify something, When you got to the house, was the door locked?”

“Yes, like I said. I used the keypad to get in.”

“Did you check other entryways, the doors and windows? Any evidence of forced entry?”

“Quite frankly, I didn’t look that closely. I think I was in panic mode by then. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“Do you have a photo of your father?”

“Not with me, but I can get you one. I’ll put it in an e-mail as soon as I get home.” She stood up again, slowly this time. “What happens now?”

“We will alert our officers and other police agencies to be on the lookout for your father. We can request help from the media. We usually get the best response from local TV news.”

“I’ve seen those stories about some poor old soul who wanders away from a nursing home in their PJs. I don’t think my father falls into that category.”

“Something has obviously happened, Ms. Barton,” said Ray, standing up as well. “Your father’s unique style of dress will have put him on the radar of lots of people around here, even if they don’t know him. I think we should request help from the public. The media is always ready to cooperate.” Barton was silent for a few moments, staring at her hands, left over right on the conference table. She looked up at Ray. “Okay, let’s do it. What else?”

Ray glanced at his watch. “I’d like to go over to your father’s house, with your permission and in your company, to have a quick look around, and then make sure the place is secure.”

“Yes. Then what?”

“First thing tomorrow morning, Sue Lawrence, our detective who does crime scene investigations, will carefully check your father’s house and the surrounding grounds to see if there’s anything that might give us a clue to his disappearance. I’ll also organize a search of the immediate area, starting with a tracking dog, and then a search team. Give me about five minutes to write a press release. I’ll send it out immediately, and later I’ll add his photo to a revised release. If it starts running on the eleven o’clock news tonight, we’ll be getting calls and e-mails from the public in the morning. How about your father’s dog?”

“Big Al? I’ve got him in the car. He’s pretty frantic.”

“What type of dog is he?”

“He’s a papillon mix who thinks he’s a great Dane. He and Dad are so close, I can’t…” Her eyes suddenly overflowed with tears.