What Janie Saw(26)

                “Jimmy and Derek didn’t spend much time together,” Mrs. Chaney admitted, “unless we were doing family things.”

                “Why is that?” Rafe asked.

                “There’s a ten-year difference in their ages,” Mr. Chaney said. “And we adopted Derek. He’s my brother’s son. By the time the boys got comfortable with each other, Jimmy was heading off to college.”

                “Jimmy’s going to be a doctor,” Judy added. “He has little tolerance for anyone he suspects of dabbling in drugs.”

                Rafe wanted to jump on that comment, but the kid had just died in a meth explosion. He could read about Derek and drugs in Nathan’s report without putting the Chaneys through more grief.

                “What were the circumstances of the adoption?”

                “Derek’s mom is in prison. She’s not in the picture and she won’t be getting out anytime soon. My brother passed away when Derek was six.”

                Rafe noticed Janie walking over to the picture, staring at Derek, and looking incredibly sad. She’d been taken in by relatives, too, Rafe remembered.

                It hadn’t gone well, either.

                “So none of Derek’s issues can be directly related to his birth parents?” Rafe asked. “Maybe something to do with his mother?”

                “No, we’ve had him since he was eight. For the two years after his dad’s death, he was pretty much neglected by his mother. Besides, if any of his mother’s friends came looking for him, they wouldn’t know to search for him under our last name. Once we got his anger issues under control, he fit right in. We were thrilled. We’d wanted five of our own.”

                The Chaneys were good people. They were doing what innocent people did, sharing everything, trying to be helpful, wanting to understand how things could go so wrong.

                “He didn’t realize how good he had it,” Janie whispered.

                Rafe thought the same about many of the juvenile delinquent cases he handled.

                Getting back on task, though, he said, “There’s a chance that Derek had information about another case we’re working on. On the phone, you said you’d let us go through Derek’s room?”

                “Of course,” Mrs. Chaney said. “We will do all we can to help the police so some other kid doesn’t become a victim like Derek.”

                Mr. Chaney ushered them up the stairs and opened the door into a room almost the size of the living room. “My wife can’t bear to see all this,” he said. “It’s exactly the way Derek left it.”

                A mess, typical teenager. The bed was unmade, the floor littered with clothes and books and video games. A flat-screen television was against one wall. Shelves of books were on two others. A whole row was designated for textbooks. Rafe noticed math, sociology and lots of English. Well, that made sense. According to Janie, Derek also had a gift for writing. Posters, of bands Rafe didn’t recognize, graced the wall.

                “He used to be a reader,” Mr. Chaney said. “Up until about eighth grade.”

                “What happened?” Janie asked softly.

                “First sports, then girls,” Mr. Chaney said. “They wouldn’t leave him alone. Once he got to high school, it was a strange herd of friends.”