Putting a hand on Cel’s back, I steered him after the detective and wound up, along with the others, in an interrogation room on the left. It was bare inside except for a table with a microphone on it and five wooden chairs that looked to have been made at the turn of the century. They looked terribly uncomfortable. Of course, that was the point. You weren’t supposed to be at ease when you were questioned by the police.
One of the people with Cel was a lawyer—the two-thousand-dollar suit was a dead giveaway—and the other was the ballet mistress of the CBC, Nura Karimi, whom I’d spoken to on a number of occasions. The third person was another detective—I saw the badge on his belt when he turned. The lawyer ushered Cel to one side of the table and had him sit between him and Ms. Karimi as Oakes and the other detective took seats in front of them.
“You know,” Ms. Karimi said, standing suddenly and addressing the lawyer, “perhaps Cel would prefer if Eli sat where you are, Mr. Tildham.”
“Thank you,” Cel whispered.
The lawyer looked at her, then at Cel, then at me, and stood up. Since I was hovering, having no place to sit, I waited while Oakes got up, left the room, and returned with another chair. Once we were all seated, Oakes turned to the man I assumed was his partner.
“I’m Detective Jamie Brewster,” he told me, “and you’ve met my partner, Detective Bill Oakes. We’re investigating the killing of Senan Weaver a few hours ago.”
“What happened?” I asked Cel.
He took a shuddering breath as I put my arm around his shoulders, and instead of resisting comfort like he normally did—he was always steely strong in the face of any kind of pain, be it grief or injury—he leaned into me.
“Don’t you mean assassination?” Ms. Karimi said sharply, placing her clasped hands gently on the tabletop. “He was shot, in the head, through a window on the fourth floor of our building.” She took a shaky breath. “That’s not a random killing. That’s deliberate, premeditated murder.”
Oakes cleared his throat. “We’re still investigating the crime scene and—”
“Have you found where the shot that killed Mr. Weaver originated?” Tildham asked. “Do you know if it was a professional hit or a crazed fan or—”
I cleared my throat. “Fourth floor, through the window”—I turned to look at Ms. Karimi—“in the head”—then turned to Tildham—“is a professional hit, sir.” I met Detective Brewster’s gaze. “The question is why, beyond Mr. Harrington being a principal at the company, is he here answering questions?”
“He was in the room,” Brewster stated.
“Were you the only one in the room?” I asked Cel.
He shook his head, and I looked back at Brewster. “He wasn’t the only one there, so now what?”
“He was the closest person to Mr. Weaver.”
“That is true,” Cel conceded, sighing heavily before standing up so he could pace.
He needed to move. He wasn’t the kind of person who could sit for prolonged periods of time. Stretching, walking, doing a handstand on the wall, it was all normal for him. “I was right in front of him.”
“So you think what?” I asked Brewster. “That because they were standing so close, whoever shot Mr. Weaver was aiming for Mr. Harrington instead?”
“We’re not ruling anything out.”
“Where was the shot taken from?”
“The building right next to the CBC. It was recently sold, and the new owners are doing renovations, which means a lot of construction to the interior of the building.”
“Which also means a lot of people to keep track of.”
“That’s correct,” Oakes replied, sounding unhappy about that. “It’s crazy over there with people going in and out with no log and no cameras.”
Which meant that the odds of catching the shooter were slim to none.
Brewster said, “What we’re trying to discern is who, precisely, the shooter was trying to kill and why. Because even though Mr. Weaver is dead, he was, by Mr. Harrington’s own admission, in a place within the building where one could expect Mr. Harrington instead.”
Oakes continued, “We have to include the possibility, at this point, that Mr. Harrington was the intended target and not Mr. Weaver. And if that’s correct, we need to find out from Mr. Harrington who would want to hurt him.”
Which answered the question of why they were grilling Cel, but that would lead to no viable suspects. No one, besides maybe other dancers, would want to hurt Cel, and even those people would never want him dead. He wasn’t universally hated like Senan Weaver had been.
“Could we get him a bottle of water?” I asked Brewster.
“Oh yeah, sure.” Brewster glanced around the room. “Can I get the rest of you some water as well?”