Fifth Son by Barbara Fradkin

and melancholy room. The room had a makeshift feel, as if Robbie had never wanted to live there.
    Slowly, Robbie shook his head. “I thought it might be Tom, because he lives on the streets, and I imagine washing facilities would be somewhat limited.”
    â€œThe streets here in Ottawa?” Sullivan asked.
    â€œToronto. Last I heard he was living in a cardboard box under the Gardiner Expressway.”
    â€œHow old would Tom be?”
    â€œWell, he’s twelve years older than me, so that makes him forty. In fact—” Robbie looked surprised, “his fortieth birthday was just last week.”
    â€œBut you don’t think it’s Tom?”
    â€œIt’s hard to tell from this, but Tom has a scruffier look, like he’s been battered a thousand times. He’s an alcoholic.”
    â€œThe photo’s been touched up, so that might not show,” Sullivan said. “Did Tom ever sustain any broken bones, because those can be identified in the post mortem. As can scars or tattoos.”
    â€œI only saw him every few years, usually when he was in trouble. I confess I never looked very closely.”
    â€œWhat about your other brothers? I understand there are five of you?”
    â€œOne’s dead. Died in a car crash fourteen years ago.” A spasm of pain crossed Robbie’s face. He withdrew a photo album from the bookcase beside the TV . “I haven’t seen the other two since I was eight, but I do have some pictures we can look at.” When he flipped open the album, the two detectives crowded around him, curious to get initial objective impressions of their own. Robbie leafed slowly through the pictures of smiling clusters of boys surrounding birthday cakes, perched atop tractors, posing with prize calves. Not exactly the cursed and tragic family that Sandy and the villagers had described yesterday, Green thought.
    â€œI haven’t looked at these in a long time,” Robbie said. “It always feels surreal to me, like someone else’s family.” He gestured to a photo of a smiling blonde woman showing off her dress. “I can’t believe my mother ever smiled like that. As a child, all I remember are long stares and silence. Hours and hours of silence. Anyway...there’s Tom.” He stopped at a photo of a teenage boy, handsome in the slick, big-haired style of the eighties. He had a saucy grin on his face and a possessive arm around a girl with stunning black hair cascading to her waist.
    â€œGood-looking guy,” Sullivan observed.
    â€œYeah. Dad always said Tom had a mesmerizing way with women, which somehow passed me by.” He managed a smile that warmed his mournful eyes. “Although I don’t think he’s had much more luck keeping them in the long run than I have.”
    â€œWhat about Derek?” Green interjected, unable to restrain his curiosity. “Any pictures of him?”
    Robbie flipped through some pages. “His university graduation picture is the last—ah-hah!” He spread a page in triumph. A proud, self-conscious grad smiled out of the picture. The deep-set blue eyes were almost identical to Tom’s, although the hair was lighter brown and the jaw line softer. But the striking difference was in the personality. Tom shone through as cocksure and sensual, Derek as quiet and deep in thought.
    Sullivan held the photo side by side with the dead man’s, and they all studied it in silence. “How old would Derek be now?” Sullivan asked.
    Robbie narrowed his eyes to calculate before replying forty two.
    â€œWhen was the last time you heard from him?”
    Robbie shrugged. “I’ve never heard from him. I was only eight when he went away to graduate school in California, and we had no real relationship. My parents heard from him every now and then, but I don’t know when was the last time.”
    â€œPerhaps we might ask your father if he’s heard from him