Tell Me

by Lisa Jackson

  “So what have we got here?” Using the beam of her flashlight, Morrisette walked to the stairs, tested them, then started up the rough-hewn steps to the loft. “Oh, man, take a look at this.” She was halfway up the flight when she stopped and stared at the wall and stairs: dark stains were splattered against the wall and risers.

  Reed’s stomach turned.

  Morrisette’s attitude changed. “When I think of my kids and realize what that little boy and girl saw.” Shaking her head, she stared at the twenty-year-old blood, then made her way up the remaining steps to the loft. Reed, more somber than before, followed her to the wide-open area with its open railing and dusty plank floors. In one corner, a bureau was still standing and supported a cracked, fly-spotted mirror.

  So the little ones were up here. The frame of an old bed still stood, mattress long gone, but Morrisette ran the beam of her light over the rusted rails. “Damned nightmare for those kids. The way Blondell told it, she was surprised by an intruder with a gun, they wrestled for it, she got shot, and then he hit Amity. The kids up here, hearing the commotion, started running down the stairs, despite her yelling at them to stay where they were. The killer spied Niall running down and hit him midway. Where we saw the blood.”

  “And the girl comes to the top of the stairs, sees her mother, and somehow falls over?” Reed said, stepping to the rail.

  “Gets hit, slips through the spindles, I think . . . see, they’re handmade, not up to code, if there even was one when this place was constructed. She slides through and falls the eight feet to the floor below, breaking her back.” Morrisette’s jaw tightened, her lips becoming a razor-thin line as she met Reed’s gaze. “A damned shame all the way around.”

  “Even if Blondell didn’t try to kill them.”

  “Oh, she did. Her story is just that, a massively sick and tall tale.” Morrisette was convinced. “Why in the world would a stranger follow her to the cabin? No one was supposed to know she was here, spending time with the kids, sorting out her life or some such tripe. So let’s just say that she’s telling the truth. Someone comes in, to what? Rob her? Nothing was taken. Rape her? Didn’t happen, no matter how wounded she was. Wipe out her whole family? Why? Because they saw his face? Nuh-uh. It was dark. The kids can’t even remember if another person was here or not. And then there was that damned snake. Maybe it was nothing, just a weird anomaly. But I don’t like it. And it bothers me that Calvin married a woman who’s into a church where they handle poisonous snakes.”

  Reed had seen the notation in the file about the Pentecostal church June O’Henry belonged to and their strange practices. In the file, Flint Beauregard had simply written “snakes” in a notation beside June’s name, but if he’d further connected it to Amity’s death, the detective hadn’t left a record of it.

  “You think June Hatchett or Calvin O’Henry brought a snake to the cabin, then proceeded to shoot Amity?” Reed asked now, trying to keep his skepticism to a dull roar.

  “I know it doesn’t make any sense, but still it’s weird, something to consider, and we’re running out of time. Jada Hill is pushing for Blondell’s release. Could be any day now.” She glanced around the loft one last time and said in disgust, “Let’s go.”

  At the base of the staircase, Reed peered into a small bathroom. Once a minuscule “three-piece,” the room was now composed of a tiny shower without fixtures, a basin that was as dry as a bone and held rusted pieces of pipe and dead insects, and a toilet with no lid on the tank that no longer held water, just showed rings and dirt from a time when it had actually functioned.

  “Lovely,” Morrisette said. “Reminds me of Bart’s place.” At least her black humor had returned. Bart Yelkis was one of Morrisette’s exes, the father of her children, and a deadbeat who was always late on his child support.

  “Oh, come on,” Reed countered, “his apartment couldn’t be this nice.”

  She spit out a humorless laugh as they headed into the kitchen, which was small and rundown, like the rest of the place, the warped linoleum looking as if it was pre–World War II and the windows leaking.

  Opening a drawer, Reed thought about that night so long ago.

  “Hoping to find a murder weapon?” Morrisette asked.

  “Would be nice.”

  Another snort. “That’s part of the big mystery, what the hell happened to the .45? We found the slugs—in the wall, in Blondell’s right arm, in Amity and Niall and Blythe—but no damned weapon. Blondell claimed the stranger who attacked her took off with it.” She looked through the grimy kitchen window over the sink. “My guess is it’s out there in the water somewhere.”

  “The whole area was searched.” Reed walked out through a swollen back door to a rickety porch with rotten boards and a view of the lake that stretched for at least a quarter of a mile. Reeds, marsh grass, and a few cypress trees grew around the banks of the rippling water. “And not just searched once, but over and over again.” He’d read Beauregard’s notes and the reports in the case file. This cabin, property, and lake had been scoured.

  “Yeah, well, I’m saying that Blondell could have ditched the gun anywhere around here, or stopped somewhere on her way to the hospital. It wasn’t as if she sprinted there, y’know.”

  That much was true: though she’d claimed she’d managed to get her kids into her car, then drove “like a madwoman” to the hospital, it had taken nearly an hour for her to arrive at the emergency room. If she were truly racing the clock, the trip should have taken less than half that. Would the extra time have saved her daughter and granddaughter’s life? Who knew? As far as Reed was concerned, even considering hitting the tree and her own injuries, the length of time for the journey was a serious flaw in Blondell’s testimony that she’d done everything possible to get her kids to safety.

  Staring across the lake, he wondered what really had gone down. A flock of wood ducks swooped onto the ruffled waters of the lake. They seemed to glide on the surface, then, one after the other, tails up, dipped their heads beneath the surface.

  “I guess we’ve seen all there is,” Reed said as he and Morrisette headed around the exterior of the cabin. In the office, he’d viewed diagrams and pictures of the place, of course. The drawings were made by the investigating officers, and the photographs were taken the night and day after Blondell reported the attack, but actually walking around the cabin gave him a new perspective, and he now felt more connected to the case.

  He checked his watch as he climbed into Morrisette’s car. “We’d better get a move on. Blass is bringing in Niall O’Henry in about an hour.”

  “Good. This I gotta see.” She frowned as she slipped behind the wheel. “I won’t lie about it, I’m pissed as hell that he’s recanting. You know, now that he’s a full-fledged adult and all, but”—she slid a final look at the dilapidated cabin—“he was just a scared kid back then, terrified out of his frickin’ mind and not much older than my Toby. Niall witnessed something unimaginable, so it’s hard to be pissed at him.” Flicking on the ignition, she said, “So let’s go see what he has to say.”

  CHAPTER 11

  With her recent string of bad luck, Nikki wasn’t expecting much as she parked at Blythe O’Henry’s apartment building in one of the five spots marked GUEST. The phone calls she’d made to Blondell’s “friends” and family members had, for the most part, been busts. Half of them she couldn’t find; the others didn’t want to talk to her and wished no one remembered that they’d been associated with a woman convicted of such heinous acts.

  As for the people besides Blythe who’d actually been at the cabin on the night Amity O’Henry was murdered, she hadn’t been able to speak with either Blondell or her son. Grabbing her purse and recorder, Nikki bolstered herself with the old adage “The third time’s the charm,” while ignoring the “Three strikes and you’re out” rule.

  “Think positively,” she told herself as she slammed her car door shut.

  Blythe lived in a modern, two-story apartment building wi
th a brick facade and white trim. Each unit, including Blythe’s ground-floor apartment, faced a central garden area with azaleas surrounded by snaking tendrils of ivy. She found her way to apartment 1-D and rang the bell.

  For a second, she heard nothing. “Come on, come on,” she said under her breath, crossing her fingers. Surely she would get lucky.

  Still she heard nothing, but the blinds in the front window fluttered a bit.

  Knocking loudly, she waited again, and this time the blinds definitely moved as a black cat with tuxedo markings wedged himself between the slats and the window, hopping onto the sill, where he stared at her with round, green eyes.

  “Well, at least I know someone lives here,” she said just as the blinds snapped open, the cat jumped down, and Nikki found herself staring into the elfin face of Blythe O’Henry, who was glaring up at her through the window. Her lips were pursed, her eyes nearly hidden by a fringe of bangs, but she looked mad as hell as she let the blinds drop. A few seconds later, loud clicks indicated that locks were being sprung. The door opened, and Blythe, now twenty-five and still ensconced in a wheelchair said, “You’re Nikki Gillette and you’re with the paper, I know. You wrote those books too. I’ve seen you on the news.”

  Such was the price of fame in a small town. “I came here because—”

  “Because of Niall’s testimony. Oh, I know,” she said heatedly on the other side of the screen. She was a tiny woman, her frame as small as her mother’s, and her blond hair, razor cut and straight, feathered across her forehead in side-swept bangs that partially hid large, hazel eyes. “My phone’s been ringing off the hook ever since my brother decided to change his story. Reporters, like you. The police. All of a sudden I’m the most popular girl at the prom.” To add credence to her words, her cell phone began to play some classical piece, and she plucked it from a bag snapped to the rail of her chair, checked the numbers on the screen, and raised an eyebrow as if to say, “See?” Then she dropped her phone into the bag again. “I don’t want any part of it.”

  “I understand, really I do,” Nikki said quickly before she lost any chance of the interview. “I’ve been on both sides of this. Yes, I’m a reporter, and I would love to interview you, but I know what it’s like to be the victim, to be mobbed by the press.”

  Blythe hesitated. “The Grave Robber, I know.”

  Nikki was nodding, trying to come up with a reason for Blythe to allow her an interview. “I was lucky, not only that I survived, but that I worked for the newspaper and knew what to do, whom I could trust.”

  “Fine. But I really don’t have anything to say.” She moved to shut the door.

  “Your story’s important,” Nikki said.

  “Oh, mine is?” Her lips thinned. “Don’t try to con me or flatter me or tell me any lies. I’ve had enough of that all my life.”

  “I just meant—”

  “What do you want from me?” she cut her off.

  “Insight, I guess. For a series I’m doing. I also want to write a book about what happened that night.”

  “Whoa! What? You think I’d agree to that? I’m not interested in any part of it! My father already sold his side of the story to some tabloid, and it was a nightmare. I was just a kid, but I remember. All the questions. The poking into my family’s life, looking for dirty, scandalous secrets they could exploit.” She shook her head violently. “I’m out.” She started to slam the door.

  “But I was Amity’s friend,” Nikki persisted, desperate to speak with Blondell’s daughter. “We hung out together all the time. In fact, she called me that night. Wanted me to sneak out and see her.”

  “That night?” Blythe repeated suspiciously. But the door remained open. “And you never told anyone?”

  “She asked me not to.”

  “But she was killed. We all nearly died, and you didn’t come forward?” Revulsion twisted her small features.

  “Nothing she told me would have made any difference.”

  “You don’t know that. What did she say to you? What did she want?”

  “She asked me to meet her at the cabin. Sneak out. But I couldn’t get there. My parents were up and fighting, and I fell asleep.” The old pain returned, and it must’ve registered on her face because Blythe hesitated, her hand still on the door.

  “Why did she want you to meet her?”

  “If you let me come in, I’ll tell you all about our conversation.”

  “Oh, for the love of God.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Look, I’ve felt awful about it ever since.”

  “But not bad enough to go to the police.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped, but, yeah, I probably should have done something. I am now.”

  “Twenty years later. Wow. How heroic,” she said as she eyed Nikki.

  “But it’ll change everything, you know. Even if Niall’s new testimony doesn’t get my mother out of jail, when the press gets wind that the daughter of the judge and the niece of the defense counsel withheld evidence, this whole thing is gonna blow up in your face.”

  “Probably.”

  “So how are you going to do it? Come clean in one of your articles?”

  Nikki’s guilt was nearly palpable, but she set it aside for the moment. “I’m really sorry for what happened to you and your siblings. What you went through was unspeakable, and I won’t even suggest that I know how you feel, because I don’t. But I’d really like to tell your side of the story.”

  “Back to that.” Her smile was a smirk.

  “Well . . . yes.”

  She inhaled and then exhaled slowly, giving Nikki a long look. “I’m going to have to talk to someone eventually, I suppose, and I can’t stand that reporter from WKAM. Lynnetta What’s-her-face.”

  “Ricci.”

  “Yeah, that one.” Blythe rolled away from the door, leaving it open, a tacit invitation. “So I guess it may as well be you. At least you knew Amity. My only thing is this: it’s got to be exclusive. I’m not going to talk to anyone else. No one. It’s just too hard.”

  “I’m just saying that I was wrong. I got the facts mixed up in my mind. I was just a kid!” Niall O’Henry’s voice was clear if sibilant and raspy, sounding a little like a snake, Morrisette thought. She reminded herself that he had only been a boy of eight, a little kid who had witnessed something out of a horror movie on the night he’d been shot, but as he sat in the interrogation room, with his high-dollar lawyer at his side, she couldn’t help but doubt his motives. She’d been born suspicious, and a string of loser men in her life, along with her job in law enforcement, hadn’t added to her trust factor.

  In fact, she thought she had a pretty good handle on knowing when she was being peddled a load of bull, and right now, staring at Niall O’Henry—watching him fidget in his suit, and cast his nervous gaze to his attorney, and lick his dry lips—made her think he wasn’t exactly opening up with the whole story.

  “Why the change of heart now?” Reed asked. He too was in the room, seated across the table from Niall while Morrisette preferred standing by the wall. Cameras were running, of course; everyone in the room knew about and had agreed to the recording. They were also being viewed by others in the department, their faces hidden by a two-way mirror.

  Niall pulled at his shirt and tie, as if they were suddenly too tight, while beside him, David Blass, imposing as ever, showed no emotion whatsoever. He was taciturn and stoic, not one strand of his thick, white hair so much as moving in the warm breeze created by the heating system.

  Niall’s skin was beginning to glisten with sweat. The guy was nervous as hell. “I just . . . I just feel it’s time. I’ve found Jesus Christ, and I can’t live the lie any longer.”

  “It’s been twenty years,” Reed said.

  “I know! I’ve been struggling with what happened that night all my life.” Niall stared at Reed and didn’t blink, as if his contacts were holding up his eyelids. “I’m sorry, but I have to do this. It’s the right thing. I’ve . . . I’ve . . .” Anot
her furtive glance at his attorney, which warranted an almost imperceptible nod from Blass. “I’ve been seeing a psychologist, and she’s been working with me. Repressed memory treatment. I’ve seen doctors and hypnotists, psychiatrists and acupuncturists—you name it—to deal with my injuries from that night, the physical and the mental.” His voice had taken on a wheezing tone as he became more agitated, serving to remind everyone of the trauma he’d gone through. “Finally, I found Dr. Williams with the All Mental Health team, and she’s been wonderful.”

  Morrisette said, “I thought you found religion.”

  “Yes, yes, I did. I mean, I have.” He was nodding enthusiastically.

  “I’ve always been surrounded by Christians. My stepmother has a very strong faith.”

  “That would be June O’Henry?”

  “Yes. She married my father not long after . . .” His eyebrows pulled together as he thought. “Well, I think it was during Mother’s trial.” Nodding now, remembering, he added, “June always forced us, me and my sister, to go to church service, and Bible study and Sunday school and everything”—he waved a hand as if to indicate that everything was all-inclusive as far as religion went—“well, all the services associated with the church, but I was a kid and I thought it was all baloney.” He looked down, ashamed, a bit of red creeping up the back of his neck and then crawling across his cheeks and flushing his skin. “I was acting out, didn’t like my new mom. Her faith was strong, rock-steady, and she was strict, not afraid to use the hickory switch, if you know what I mean. Of course, I wasn’t happy and . . . well, I was confused. Rebelling. I know that now.”

  “And now you’re not?”

  “Of course not. I’m a grown man.”

  “And you go along with a religion that uses venomous snakes in its rites?”

  “Last I heard, Detective, there was freedom of religion in this country,” Niall said.