The Tanglewood Murders by David Weedmark

Author:David Weedmark
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC 022000
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2010-10-08T04:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Kumar drove his car two hundred feet up the laneway and turned off his engine near the Voracci home. He sat in his car for several minutes. Crickets sang in the darkness. He checked his watch. It was nearly nine thirty.

The Voracci home was larger than most in the area, almost stately in its presence. While it was over a century old, it had been built well and had been nurtured over the years to ensure it remained comfortable. It had a charm that was not shared by the modest Wagner bungalow. It had the quiet air of wealth behind the familiar veneer of a modest lifestyle.

Aside from the fluorescent lights of the warehouse some five hundred feet away, the only light Kumar could see from this angle came from the back porch behind the fenced yard. He wondered if anyone was still up. The people here seemed to live by the amount of work that needed to be done, and the rising and the setting of the sun, with little regard for clocks. He had been thinking a lot of Ben Taylor’s respect and affinity for the farm workers here, and he was beginning to understand why. The concept of an eight-hour day was as unfamiliar to the people here as it was to Kumar himself.

Michael Voracci’s vehicle was not in the driveway, but a quick check in the window of the split-shingled garage revealed to Kumar a second vehicle, a light-coloured, late model Volkswagen Beetle— Jennifer Voracci’s car. There was no sound from inside the house, but lights glowed faintly from two rooms. Kumar fumbled with the latch on the gate before stepping onto the porch. He knocked gently on the wooden screen door.

He could hear footsteps inside and a woman saying quietly, “I don’t know,” from behind the door. Then the inside door cracked open an inch, and a woman’s eye peered up at him.

“Mrs. Voracci?”

“Yes?”

He extended his ID. “Police, ma’am.”

The door opened another couple inches. He could see her full face from the porch light overhead. She looked as if she had just woken up.

“You’re here about Anna,” she said.

“That’s right, ma’am. I’m Inspector Walter Kumar with the OPP.

I’m investigating the death of Anna Wagner. I’m sorry for catching you at an inopportune time. Were you and your husband asleep?”

“No,” she said. “He’s out of town. I was just getting ready for bed.”

“I apologize for that,” he said. “I know it’s probably late for you.

Everyone in the country seems to get up earlier than we do in the city…”

“No, no,” she said. “That’s fine. Really. I don’t usually go to bed so early, but it’s been a terrible week, you know. But I thought I covered everything with the town police when she disappeared.”

“Yes, I know. But this is a separate investigation.”

“Well, can we do this in the morning?”

“I’m afraid not. It won’t take much of your time.”

The door opened further. “But there really isn’t that much to tell you. I honestly don’t know anything.”

“You would be surprised at how helpful people can be, even when they don’t believe they know anything at all.

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