by Lisa Jackson
Hale made a sound of disgust, but Savvy found herself riveted. On the heels of Catherine’s revelations about her relationship with Declan, and the son of Mary’s who she believed was responsible for Kristina’s death, now Janet was saying Hale’s father, Preston St. Cloud, had had an affair with Mary Beeman? She was afraid to meet Hale’s eyes, so she just kept her gaze pinned on Janet.
“I know, I know,” Janet said. “You think I’m making it all up. But Mary had sex with both of them. I already knew about Declan, but then I caught Preston with her, and the look on his face . . . And this was years after they’d had the affair. We were in a coffee shop, and she walked in, and he . . . he was still dying for her. And she was so fucking smug.” Janet bared her teeth at the memory. “I went through school with that sick bitch, and she stole every boy I ever had a crush on. Preston wasn’t from here, but we stupidly stayed around Deception Bay, even though I begged Preston to leave, but no . . . Declan talked him into working for him at Bancroft Development. Just like he did Hale. And when Mary found out I loved Preston, she took him, too. Just because she could.”
Janet almost echoed Catherine’s words to Savvy about Mary, how Mary had warned Catherine to let Declan go, or she would take him from her. How Mary had gathered men like trophies all her life. Just because she could.
“It’s lucky she’s dead, or I don’t doubt she would have come for you, too,” Janet said to Hale.
“You’re obsessed with this. Let it go,” Hale told her flatly.
Savvy saw that he’d never credited anything his mother had said before; maybe he’d even felt she divorced his father for crimes he’d never committed. She wondered what he was thinking now, after the things she’d told him about Declan and Catherine and Mary.
“Your saintly father screwed Mary Rutledge,” Janet declared coolly. “I know you never wanted to believe it, but I’m not making it up. I didn’t find out myself about Preston until years later, but when I did, I left him and your grandfather and Deception Bay. Thank God for Peter. He took me away from this hellhole before Mary could find out about him, and I still won’t bring him anywhere near that lodge and her demon-seed daughters.” She drank half the glass of wine as if it were water, looked down into the wine that was left, then knocked the rest back. “God, I forgot what it feels like being so close to them. You’ve got to move, Hale, before one of them turns into their mother and comes for you.”
“You’re really over the top,” Hale told her.
“I wish that were true,” she answered, then held out her wineglass for a refill.
Ravinia riffled through the pages of her mother’s journal. She’d skipped around, letting the book open to its most used places, but now she ran back to the beginning, examining her mother’s younger entries. The “J.” she’d written about, Janet Bancroft, was featured prominently when they were in grade school and high school. “J.” could easily stand for jealousy, too, Ravinia realized, because her mother was consumed with it whenever Janet was mentioned, which was on a regular basis for a number of years.
From Mary’s point of view, Janet Bancroft had everything. She was beautiful and rich and looked down on Mary and Catherine, who were considered outcasts by virtue of their odd family history. It must have shown in their dress, because Mary accused Janet of calling her “tawdry and embarrassing” and, later, “a psycho whore” and “sick in the head.” Ravinia found herself stirred to anger at Janet, but then her mother certainly had had her issues. Mary had then zeroed in on Janet as her enemy. She cast her web on every boy who showed an interest in Janet, though she clearly wasn’t interested in them herself. She called them “stupid larvae” and “immature sperm,” which Ravinia found kind of creepy when she considered this was her own mother’s writings.
The journal entries about “J.” slowly trailed off as Mary grew older. But then she found one passage that was full of her mother’s excitement.
J. got someone to marry her, and he’s here! Preston St. Cloud. He’s working for Declan. Cathy, are you reading this? I’m going to take them both.... I swear I will, if you don’t give him up. You’ll be sorry.
Ravinia shut the journal and set it aside. She hated to admit it, but she was kind of seeing Aunt Catherine’s side a little bit. No wonder her aunt had tried to shelter them so much. Screwed up as Aunt Catherine’s plan had been, maybe it was all she could come up with, and given what a complete nut job Mary was, it wasn’t half bad.
Savvy finished pumping both breasts, set the bottles aside, then rinsed out the equipment in Hale’s master bath before putting it all away. Grabbing up her bag, she headed down the hall and toward the front door. Janet had ranted on a while more, but the wine and the long day had finally done their job, and she was now either asleep or watching television in the den.
She moved quietly to the front door, but Hale suddenly materialized before she could twist the knob.
“You sure you don’t want to stay?” he asked with concern.
And stay where? she thought. In bed with you?
“I’d better get home. It’s after midnight, and there are things I need to do tomorrow. Oh, I left the breast milk in your bathroom.”
“I’ll get it.” Then, “It’s dark and wet and cold outside.”
“And I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Thanks, Hale. Good night.”
“Nothing I can do to get you to stay . . . ?”
He had no idea how tempting the thought was. Or maybe he did.
Her cell phone rang at that moment, muffled inside her messenger bag. It brought her back to her senses, as she’d been teetering. Recognizing Lang’s ring tone, she reached inside her bag. Given the time of night, that didn’t bode well.
“Hey, Lang,” she answered.
“Savvy, I just got a call from Trey Curtis. I asked him to go to DeWitt’s apartment and see why he hadn’t answered any of my calls.”
His unemotional tone told her more than she wanted to hear. “Uh-oh . . .”
“DeWitt’s dead. Stabbed in the chest. The doer put the knife in and sliced upward in a way that . . . Well, Curtis thinks he liked what he was doing. I’m going to Portland in the morning.”
“When . . . did this happen?”
“Not sure yet, but the body’s passed through full rigor. Yesterday sometime, probably.” A pause. “You sound wide awake. You’re not in bed?”
“Not yet. I want to meet you. I can come to Portland tomorrow.”
“Nah, stay put. But it looks like you may have stirred up a hornet’s nest. I know, with everything, you probably haven’t had time to write up a report on the interview with DeWitt, but do it now. And all the other interviews, too. Something happened when you were in Portland. Something that got somebody worried. Let’s figure out what it is.”
CHAPTER 27
Savannah was at her desk by eight thirty, too tired to think straight, too tense to sleep. She knew Charlie had killed Owen DeWitt. Knew it like she’d never known anything else. But Good Time Charlie was practically a figment of the imagination, a faceless demon with a Cheshire cat grin, a wizard who had cast a spell on Savvy’s own sister and then had murdered the only man who could finger him and therefore possibly bring him to justice.
Was Charlie Mary’s son, Declan Jr.? The more time that passed since Savvy’s improbable talk with Catherine, the more she wondered if she hadn’t checked her sane cop brain at the door when she entered Catherine’s hospital room and listened to more of her tales of strange and awe-inspiring psychic gifts, some with their own terrible backlash. Dark magic. That was what it all felt like now.
To hell with it all. She’d skipped breakfast this morning, a first since the onset of her pregnancy, and now, as she typed in her report on the interviews with the Bancroft Portland employees, she was feeling low on energy. She’d been staring at the computer screen for a solid fifteen seconds without moving, and now she saved the file and swung away from her desk. She’d laid her cell beside her desk phone, and now she looked a
t both phones, willing Lang to call her with more details, even though he probably hadn’t even made it to Portland yet this morning.
Stretching, she walked into the break room and raided the vending machine for a bag of potato chips. She grimaced, realizing she was going back to some of the bad habits she’d had before her pregnancy. Not good, but chips were what she felt like. Breaking the bag open, she headed for the coffee machine and poured herself a large cup of decaf. She dug into the bag of chips, munching slowly, contemplating the steaming cup of coffee she’d just poured. A few minutes later she crumpled the bag and tossed out the rest of the chips, then picked up the decaf and threw it down the drain. She then got herself a cup of regular coffee. She needed something. Good news would be the best antidote, but she couldn’t even think what that might constitute beyond the capture and conviction of Kristina’s killer.
She wanted her sister back.
An hour went by, and Savvy finished up her report. She stared into space for a moment, reviewing what she’d written, trying to put things together in her head. Outside the windows wind and rain were still lashing violently, but she’d caught an early morning weather report, which said that things were supposed to dry out by sometime tomorrow.
She slowly remembered that she hadn’t called Paulie Williamson. Like everything else the past few days, it had fallen through the cracks when she’d been distracted, and she’d been constantly distracted. Maybe it was finally time to follow up.
Plucking her notebook from her messenger bag, she flipped to the list of names and numbers she’d written in for Bancroft Development. Picking up the desk phone, she placed a call to the number Clark Russo had given her for Williamson. The phone rang on and on, and she prepared herself to leave a voice mail. Instead, after a long, long time, a man picked up and said, “Hello?” in a cautious voice.
“Mr. Williamson?”
“Yes.” More cautious.
“I’m Detective Savannah Dunbar with the Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department. I’m doing follow-up interviews on the Marcus and Chandra Donatella homicides, which took place at Bancroft Bluff in Deception Bay.” She paused, but when all she could hear was his breathing, she went on. “I understand you were the manager of the Bancroft Development Portland office at the time.”
“That’s right.” Again, very cautiously.
“Clark Russo, the current Portland manager, gave me your name and cell number. Do you have a minute?”
“Look, whatever it is, I can’t help you with it. I’m at a job site now, and I’m busy.”
And he hung up.
Huh.
Burghsmith and Clausen entered the squad room in the midst of a loud discussion in which Burghsmith, deep into a new diet regime, was extolling the virtues of gluten-free doughnuts and Clausen was talking over him with a series of rude noises and comments.
She almost missed Hale’s ring tone in the midst of Clausen’s contention that Burghsmith had “been taken over by faddist aliens and had moved to the dark side.” Sweeping the cell from her desk, she turned her back to the argument and answered, “Good morning. Everything okay?”
“I was just going to ask you the same thing. . . .” He trailed off, then asked, “You’re at work?”
“Had to write up a report, and I couldn’t sleep much, anyway. How’d it go with little Declan last night?”
“Victoria actually got up and fed him, but my mother took over this morning. Declan seems to be taking some formula.”
“Good,” Savvy said, though she felt a twinge of what? Jealousy? Down, girl, she told herself.
Hale was going on, “She was holding him and actually crooning to him when I left. Can’t tell if she’s really into the baby, or she just wants me to get rid of the nanny.”
“Maybe a little of both,” she said. “So, you’re at work, too.”
“I feel like I’ve been on a sabbatical. I needed to refocus.”
“Yeah.”
Savannah’s desk phone suddenly rang. Clausen and Burghsmith had moved down the hall to the break room, but the doughnut discussion had yet to abate. Burghsmith had made some insulting comment about Clausen’s waistline, apparently, because the discussion was quickly turning into a heated argument.
“I’ve got to go,” Savvy said.
“Do you have a plan for today? About the baby?” he asked.
“I want to stop by this evening with more breast milk, but if he’s taking formula better, then I don’t know. . . .”
“Come for dinner,” he said. “I’ll pick up from Gino’s. Chicken and artichoke linguine . . . ?”
She almost asked if his grandfather and his mother would still be there, but they probably would, and, anyway, what did it matter? She wanted to go. “I can’t say no to that. Thanks. I’ll see you later.” She clicked off and grabbed her desk phone receiver. “Detective Dunbar.”
“There’s a Nadine Gretz calling for you,” Cho’s voice said. “She wanted to know if this is where you worked.”
“Put her through,” Savvy said. Nadine Gretz. Bancroft Development’s ex-employee to whom Savannah had spoken through Henry Woodworth’s cell phone.
“Hello?” Nadine’s voice asked uncertainly.
“Hi, Nadine. This is Detective Dunbar.”
“Look, this is going to sound weird, and I probably called too early, but something’s happened to Henry.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were supposed to meet Sunday. He said he was on his way, and he never showed. He didn’t go to work yesterday. I’ve called and called, and he hasn’t picked up. I actually went over to the work site. RiverEast? They start at seven or seven thirty, but he’s not there today, either.”
“Have you talked to Mr. Russo?”
“I tried to reach Clark yesterday, and I tried again just now. I just know something’s happened. And it was after you were here,” she said with an accusing tone. “He said . . . he said, I should’ve been nicer to you. That you were just doing your job. Well, I don’t know, but maybe you doing your job is why he’s missing!”
“Have you been to his home?”
“Of course I have! He doesn’t answer my knock! He’s not there!”
“And you reported him missing?”
“God! That’s what I’m doing now!”
Savvy said, “I’ll talk to the Portland police and let them know. Can you give me Henry’s address?”
“Yes . . .”
When the call ended, Savvy started to call Portland, then stopped, thinking back to her conversation on Saturday with Henry, and then Nadine, through Henry’s phone. She’d just written up a report on that interview and call, so they were fresh in her mind, and the gist of it was Henry had been friendly and not too informative, and Nadine had gotten on the phone and accused Kristina of slavering all over Marcus Donatella and coming on to other Bancroft employees, including Henry. She’d also blamed Hale and “that old lech” Declan of knowing about the dune’s instability and building Bancroft Bluff, anyway.
Now Savannah pulled up the file on her computer again and looked at what she’d written. Grimacing, she changed a few words, putting in Nadine’s “slavering over Marcus” comment, knowing that trying to protect her sister’s memory and Hale’s reputation wasn’t going to help find Kristina’s killer.
As soon as she finished, she put in a call to Lang and left a message on his voice mail that included Henry’s address and Nadine’s fears about him being missing. Lang was headed straight for the Portland PD and could deliver the message in person.
For a moment, she recalled the Bancroft worker who’d stared at her at the job site. It had seemed so pointed at the time, so intent. Who was he? And was that simple curiosity she’d felt, or was it something else?
Going back to her notebook, she looked down the list of temporary employees. Henry Woodworth’s name was at the top of the list; she recalled that he’d been angling for Neil Vledich’s job, according to both Vledich and Russo. They’d both made disparaging
remarks about Henry. The other employees’ names were listed with their phone numbers. Maybe she should start with the name under Henry’s, Jacob Balboa, and go down from there.
She picked up the receiver, then glanced back to her notes on Russo and Vledich, wanting to see if what they’d said about Henry Woodworth was how she remembered it. Yep. They weren’t fond of him, and he hadn’t been of them, either.
A notation in her own handwriting suddenly caught her eye. It was small enough that she had to take a moment to decipher it. She saw the notation Williamson a friend of DeWitt’s.
Savvy’s brows rose. She glanced rapidly over her notebook again. Clark Russo had given her the previous manager, Paulie Williamson’s, phone number. Williamson had quit and moved to Tucson soon after the dune debacle. Russo had then taken over Williamson’s vacated job in Portland at Sylvie Strahan’s recommendation.
Savannah’s pulse sped up as she concentrated hard on exactly what Russo had said in that conversation with her about Williamson.
What was it?
Working on his tan and drinking mojitos . . . ran like a rabbit after the Donatellas were killed . . . He’s the one who awarded the engineering job to DeWitt. . . .
Was that why he’d hung up on her? Because he knew something?
Quickly, she phoned Williamson again. Once more she was made to wait long, anxious minutes for either Williamson or his voice mail or an answering machine to pick up. To her surprise, it was Williamson himself who answered, and she realized this time she’d called him on her cell. His caller ID hadn’t given him any information other than her phone number, and he hadn’t realized who was calling.
“Mr. Williamson, this is Detective Dunbar again. I need to talk to you, and if you can’t find the time, I’ll have someone from your local precinct get in touch with you in person.”
