Bitch Factor

by Chris Rogers

  “I mean Rebecca—Oh, hell, I don’t know what I mean. Nothing, I guess. It’s just that Rebecca only fought me on it for spite. I don’t believe she ever really wanted kids. She, well, when she got pregnant with Ellie, we’d been having problems. I was ready to file for divorce, but how could I when she was carrying my child? After Ellie was born, we actually got along better… for a while.”

  Something was going on here, something dark that Dixie couldn’t quite get hold of. This man might be every bit as sensitive as he appeared. But maybe not.

  “Did Rebecca ever mistreat the children?”

  “Mistreat? You mean, like abuse them?” He shook his head. “No, she took good care of them. She never hit them or screamed at them or anything like that. At least, if she did, I didn’t know about it. You can bet I’d have used it in court. Rebecca’s just… indifferent, I guess.”

  “Indifferent.” That was mild compared to what most divorced men said about their ex-wives. Mild for a man who’d fought his ex-wife fiercely for custody of her children by a former marriage.

  “Did you think Rebecca was an unfit mother?”

  “Listen, what I sued for was joint custody. I wanted a role in their lives, wanted to help them grow up, become young women. Rebecca doesn’t have a lot of patience with kids. Don’t get me wrong on this, she fulfills her motherly duties, feeds and cares for them, but she was never pals with the girls. I enjoyed taking them places, doing things together as a family. One reason for our divorce was Rebecca’s jealousy when I paid what she considered too much attention to Betsy and Courtney. She’d send them to her mother or off to camp at every opportunity.”

  Pals? Dixie knew her own background was once again causing her hackles to rear up, and she had to resist letting her personal feelings distract her, but damnit all, even in her professional experience she’d seen too many men unnaturally attracted to children. Keyes would not be the first man to adopt his own private sex toy. And when abused children matured, they often became confident enough to speak out against their abusers. Maybe Keyes created “accidents” to keep his stepdaughters from talking.

  Nothing in Belle’s notes had mentioned sexual abuse, though, and Dixie hadn’t seen the police file yet. She needed to keep an open mind concerning motive.

  “With Betsy and Courtney dead, your child-support payments are considerably reduced.”

  Keyes’ head snapped around. His face flushed.

  “You meddling bitch! You really are trying to pin something on me. Get out. I wouldn’t have told you a goddamn thing if I’d known what you were up to.”

  “Why did you talk to me, Mr. Keyes? You certainly weren’t obligated to.”

  He stood up, stared at her silently for a moment, then calmly picked up the ballpoint pen and dropped it in his pocket.

  “Why shouldn’t I talk to you?” His voice was controlled now, deliberate. “There’s not a chance in hell Parker Dann is going to walk. And Courtney’s death? That was an accident. Case closed.”

  The Houston Chronicle Building was twenty minutes from Keyes’ office. On the way, Dixie phoned Rashly from her car phone. She wanted his personal take on Jonathan Keyes, but Rash was out. A friend of Dixie’s who worked in the newspaper’s file room quickly found the article about the drowning death at Camp Cade. The two-inch blurb carried no new information.

  Dixie’s friend telephoned the Conroe Courier, Conroe being a substantial community only five miles from Camp Cade, and cajoled a file clerk into pulling the early August issue and reading the related article over the phone. After giving the camp location and describing the swim event that led to the drowning, the writer cited counselor Edith Frey as the person who found Courtney.

  Courtney Keyes was known to be a good swimmer. Therefore, when the ten-year-old girl failed to appear at breakfast, and it was learned she had gone for an early swim, no one was immediately alarmed. A bunk mate was dispatched to find the girl, however, and when she couldn’t be found, it became evident something was wrong. A search party covered the area in and around the lake. Counselor Edith Frey dove repeatedly for almost an hour. Finally, she located the child’s body entangled in vegetation growing near the bank.

  The piece went on to mention the excellent rating the camp maintained, stating that this was the first serious accident in nineteen years. Dixie took down the counselor’s name and called Conroe directory assistance for her telephone number. A mellow woman’s voice said, “Frey.”

  The one-word greeting was difficult to read. Dixie decided to play it straight, more or less, as she had with Keyes.

  “Ms. Frey, my name’s Flannigan, and I’m doing some background work for the law firm of Richards, Blackmon and Drake. You were present at Camp Cade last August at the time of the drowning death of Courtney Keyes. Were you aware that Courtney’s older sister was killed in a hit-and-run accident only three months earlier?”

  “Good Lord, no! I thought she had only the one sister, the little five-year-old.” Ellie was six now—must’ve had a birthday. The woman’s gentle drawl brought visions of frosty mint juleps, magnolia trees, and women with big skirts and frilly white parasols.

  “The newspaper account of Courtney’s drowning,” Dixie said, “mentioned she was a good swimmer. Was she familiar with the lake?”

  “Heavens, yes. Courtney had been swimming in it every day for two weeks.”

  “Would you tell me in your own words exactly what happened?”

  Frey recounted the story much as the newspaper had, adding that Courtney had been hell-bent on showing her mother she could beat the previous year’s champion swimmer, and she’d had a good chance of doing it.

  “As it turned out, though, her poor mother had to be called with a grim message that morning,” Frey recalled.

  “You told her over the phone?”

  “Actually, no, but we tried,” she admitted. “You see, parents are invited to spend the last day with us at Camp Cade. To watch the sporting events and have lunch. It’s a big family day. We didn’t want Courtney’s mother walking in unaware of what had happened.”

  “When did she arrive?”

  “We’d barely finished cleaning up after breakfast—though I suppose that took longer than usual. Apparently, the lady had gone to her restaurant before her staff arrived that morning to prepare enough food so she could take the day off. By the time we connected with someone at the restaurant, Mrs. Payne was already on her way to camp.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “Oh, lordy. I was the one who had to tell her. At first, that poor lady insisted we were wrong, that Courtney was too good a swimmer, it had to be some other child. Finally, she let me drive her to the hospital.”

  “Ms. Frey, were you satisfied with the explanation of how the girl died?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dixie hesitated. Sometimes her questions didn’t make a lot of sense, even to her; they just seemed to need asking.

  “If Courtney was familiar with the lake, and a good swimmer—?”

  “Even the best swimmers can get a leg cramp. We caution the girls not to swim alone, but…” Frey sighed, the weight of a thousand “should’ves” behind it.

  “Ms. Frey, I appreciate your being frank with me. I know it can’t be easy, going over all this again. I won’t take any more of your time—”

  “Wait, there’s one other thing that’s been bothering me. I didn’t tell the police because I didn’t find out until later, and it might have been nothing important…. Courtney told her bunk mate she’d seen someone prowling around camp that morning. The girl said Courtney left the cabin before sunup, following this… person.”

  “Did she describe the prowler?”

  “No. The bunk mate thought Courtney was imagining the whole thing, but… I have to tell you, Courtney wasn’t a child who spooked easily. She was a tough little girl.”

  An image came to Dixie of another tough little girl, spunky, even when sick with the flu. If the accidents that killed Courtney an
d Betsy were not truly accidents, if the girls were murdered, could spunky Ellie Keyes also be in danger?

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Ellie squirmed, trying to find a cool spot under the covers of the roller bed in Daddy Travis’ storeroom. She didn’t want the covers off, because then she felt shivery. The air squeezed under her jammies and made her teeth chatter.

  Her foot tangled in the sheet. She kicked, trying to get it off. For a while she had slept, dreaming she was a princess, dressed in a white nightie and standing on the edge of a volcano, like in Rings of Fire, the museum movie she saw with Daddy Jon. There weren’t any princesses in the movie, but there were volcanoes spitting fire and spewing hot oozy stuff. Somebody wanted Princess Ellie to jump in the fire, but she ran away instead and hid behind a rock.

  The sheet was tangled more than ever, and now her other foot had slipped outside the covers.

  If Daddy Jon were here, she would sit on his lap to hear a story. He’d make the voices funny and squiggle his fingers up her back in the scary parts. If it got really scary, like in “Jack and the Beanstalk” when the giant went, “Fee fi foe fum! I’ll grind his bones,” Daddy Jon would tickle her till she wet her panties.

  Ellie wriggled the foot that was outside the covers so her toes could breathe. When the cool air touched her foot, she didn’t feel so hot. Only now she had to cough. Coughing made her throat hurt. Maybe a drink of water would keep her from coughing.

  But her water glass was empty. She must have drunk all the water Mama brought.

  She wondered what had happened to the box of candy Daddy Jon tucked in her Christmas stocking. She knew it was from him and not Santa, ’cause she’d seen the same wrapping paper in Daddy Jon’s closet. Had she eaten it all before she got sick?

  Daddy Travis had brought some cough drops, the cherry kind that didn’t taste icky. Opening her eyes a sliver, Ellie pulled the cover back and felt around on the table until she found one of the cough drops. She didn’t like to open her eyes wide, ’cause they burned. Anyway, her lashes were stuck together with something oogy. Fingers shaking, she unwrapped the cherry drop and sucked on it. Maybe now she wouldn’t cough.

  Oooo-ooh. But now she was cold, her teeth chattery, from having her arms outside the covers. It made her bones hurt.

  She kicked at the tangled sheet and wished Courtney were here. Courtney would make things better.

  Ellie scrunched into a ball, pulling her foot free of the sheet finally and pulling the other foot back under the covers to get warm. Scrunching a corner of her pillowcase, she wiped away the tears that oozed through her lashes.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Dixie left the Houston Chronicle Building, and picked up the van parked in a truck zone, with her mind darting about like a runaway balloon on a windy day. She’d learned more in two hours than she had in two days. Jonathan Keyes. Counselor Frey.

  She wanted to know more about Keyes.

  Frey’s story about the prowler Courtney saw the morning she drowned had more than half convinced Dixie that both Keyes girls were murdered. And Jon Keyes, on his way to Austin that morning by car, would’ve passed within twenty minutes or so of Camp Cade. After talking to Counselor Frey, Dixie had sat with her finger on the DISCONNECT button, a gnawing uneasiness in the back of her mind, wondering if she should call Rashly and tell him what she’d learned. She couldn’t help worrying that Ellie might also be scheduled for an “accident.”

  But Ellie was Jon Keyes’ blood daughter, which could mean she was safe—at least for a while. Even if Keyes had been molesting his adopted daughters, he might never be attracted to Ellie in the same way. Yet, Dixie’s uneasiness persisted. Pedophiles were unpredictable. Sometimes one child in a family would be singled out, while siblings went untouched and were totally unaware of what was happening. Other times, children became desirable when they reached a certain age, and were discarded after they passed that age. Some molesters preferred boys, some liked both sexes as long as they were tender and unspoiled. It was a sick, sick, sick mind that found children sexually appealing. Dixie had studied the subject, but didn’t begin to understand it.

  Pointing the gray van toward North Houston, toward Keyes’ home address, according to the file, she dialed Southwest Airlines on her cell phone. He’d been nervous when Dixie asked where he was the morning Betsy was killed. His alibi may not be as tight as he hoped it was.

  A flight for Austin, the ticketing agent told her, left Hobby Airport every morning at 8:35, another at 9:05. Betsy had died around 7:30. With precise timing, Keyes could have taken Dann’s car, waited at the intersection he knew Betsy would cross on her way to school, killed her, returned the car to Dann’s driveway, and still made the 9:05 flight to Austin.

  Jon Keyes also had the perfect opportunity to arrange for the younger girls to get sick at the party the night before—a mild food poisoning, perhaps—assuring Betsy would walk to school alone. And since Dann often ate at the Garden Cafe, Keyes might have seen him there, heard Dann talking to Betsy, maybe even learned that he lived nearby. Keyes’ flexible work hours provided the opportunity to follow Dann and discover his habit of stopping at the Green Hornet on Thursday nights. Meeting up with him at the bar could’ve been planned. Encourage Dann to drink—maybe even slip a few sleeping pills into his glass.

  Dixie drummed the steering wheel, waiting for a light to turn green. Her pulse refused to slow down. For the first time since she’d heard about Courtney’s death, she felt close to learning the truth.

  The tough question was motive. If Keyes was the sick son-ofabitch Dixie suspected, he killed Betsy to keep his dirty secret from being discovered. Maybe he turned his attentions to Courtney only to discover she wasn’t as reluctant as Betsy about speaking out.

  Horns blared, and Dixie looked up to see the signal light had changed. She stepped on the gas.

  Suspicion wasn’t enough to reopen an accident investigation and call it murder. If she went to Rashly with her half-baked story about Jonathan Keyes, he’d laugh her out of his office. Somehow she’d have to dig up solid evidence first. Keyes’ neighbors, his partner, his clients… none would know the man’s sick sexual preferences… that’s what made such cases almost impossible to prove in court. Pedophiles didn’t brag to their friends.

  Worrying about Ellie made Dixie think of Ryan. She put in a call to Amy.

  “He’s feeling much better already,” Amy told her. “Well enough to complain about missing your visit.”

  When Ryan came on, his voice sounded muffled and conspiratorial, as if he’d put his mouth close to the phone.

  “You have about a hundred pieces of E-mail on my computer.”

  “From that ad you put on the Internet?” Dixie sighed. “Ryan, I wish you’d—”

  “Some of them sound pretty good. And a couple are really interested. We need to E-mail some answers before the best ones get away. If you don’t have time, maybe I could—”

  “That’s all right! I’ll make time.” She promised to drop by that night to empty the E-mail box.

  A Metro bus stopped to pick up passengers, and Dixie was trapped behind it, cars speeding past in the next lane. The smell of diesel exhaust invaded the van’s cockpit.

  Ryan was certainly determined to find a boyfriend for her. Apparently, dating was no longer a private matter. Personal columns in newspapers. Video dating services. Now the Internet.

  She wondered if Jon Keyes had a normal dating life. Girlfriends… who would know about his girlfriends? She picked up the cell phone and punched in his office number.

  “Keyes and Logan.” The receptionist’s cold sounded less nasal. Maybe she’d taken some decongestant.

  “Hi, Sheri. This is Dixie Flannigan. I was in earlier today, to see Mr. Keyes. How’s the book?”

  “The hero’s in jail! They think he killed a man, beat him to death with his bare hands. Can you believe that? Somebody’s framing him. I just know it! And I think it’s Joanna’s father, that old miser!”

  �
�Must be some hunk of a man, to even be suspected of beating someone to death.”

  “Strong… but gentle when he’s with Joanna.” The woman’s voice held a dreamy quality that reminded Dixie of Carla Jean.

  “Speaking of hunks, I noticed Jon Keyes wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.”

  “Nooooooo.” The girl lowered her voice. “He’s been divorced since before I came here.”

  “Anybody in the wings?”

  Sheri hesitated. “You know, I’ve never seen him with anybody steady. We have company dinners once or twice a year, and Jon always brings somebody different. Once he even brought his daughters, and no date at all.”

  “Daughters? They don’t live with him, do they?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t bring it up, if I were you. It’s really sad.” The woman told Dixie about the accidents, pretty much the same version she already knew, with one addition. “Jon had been working really hard all summer on the Zimmerman account in Austin—you know, that big new mall going in downtown—and when that poor little girl drowned, Jon just about lost it.”

  They chatted for a few more minutes. Dixie managed to learn that Morey Zimmerman was the contact at Zimmerman-Fogarty Enterprises. She disconnected, then immediately dialed information for the number and spent the extra buck to have an operator make the connection.

  “Mr. Zimmerman’s secretary, please. This is Sheri, from Keyes and Logan.” Dixie squinched her nostrils to sound congested. When a mature female voice came on, Dixie improvised: “We’re backtracking on some airfare overages, and I’m hoping you can verify a couple of dates for me. Would your records show if Mr. Keyes arrived in your office as scheduled at eleven o’clock on the morning of August first? That was a Saturday.”

  When Dixie disconnected a few minutes later, she had learned that Keyes arrived on time for a noon luncheon appointment with Zimmerman. Austin was about three hours from Houston by car. He’d have lost maybe forty-five minutes by detouring east to Camp Cade that morning. And on May first, he had arrived a few minutes late for the meeting scheduled at ten o’clock. Perhaps taking the 9:05 flight had been cutting it close.