‘Do you have any whiskey?’ she asked. ‘And please. Call me Harper.’
On the way back to Savannah across the marshes later that night, Harper thought of what Sterling had said. About his wife. And Marie Whitney.
She kept thinking about how he compared her to a poisonous spider. The more she learned about the murder victim, the more she agreed.
In the end, she’d stayed at the beach house for another hour, drinking whiskey sodas and dissecting Marie Whitney. She told Robinson her theories, leaving out the part about her mother.
At her request, he produced the private investigator’s reports, and spread them out on the coffee table. In them, she found the senator’s name, and the lawyer’s, along with the names of several other powerful Savannah glitterati.
But no Larry Blazer. In fact, no police at all.
‘Are you certain she was involved with a detective?’ Sterling asked, seeing the disappointment in her face.
‘I’m not certain of anything any more,’ she replied.
Kneeling on the floor next to the over-sized coffee table, her hands filled with papers, Harper looked down at the names of all the people Whitney had damaged in her short, dangerous life.
How was she going to figure out which one of them had killed her? And what, if anything, connected them to her mother?
Every day seemed to throw another of her theories out the window. Now, she felt like she was flailing blindly for some idea of what happened. Some clue as to why Whitney’s murder looked so much like her mother’s.
Sterling shook his empty glass, watching the clear ice cubes dance.
‘Marie was very intelligent. Extremely adept at judging the men she went after,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘She would have known a detective could see through her more easily. Maybe after the first thrill of it, she realized he could threaten her meal ticket. Police officers don’t have much money to spare. She’d have little to gain from that relationship. As soon as she figured that out, she’d have walked away. If he did kill her, the key is what he had to lose. What could she threaten him with?’
Taking off his glasses, he rubbed the bridge of his nose. Harper noticed his eyes were an unusual gray – clear as water.
‘Why did you never try to ruin her?’ Harper asked. ‘After what she did to you?’
‘I always thought that, one day, I would,’ he said, with disarming frankness. ‘I intended to build a relationship with the university president and have her fired, her career demolished.’ He straightened the papers. ‘But she had a child, who she was raising alone, and I didn’t want to harm the child. I wanted to be better than her. So, I decided to wait.
‘But then,’ he leaned back against the sofa cushions, ‘someone killed her first.’
At the mention of Whitney’s daughter, Harper saw Camille’s face in her mind. Stricken brown eyes filled with tears. Clinging to Smith.
‘I’m going to see her,’ she announced. ‘Camille Whitney. Find out what she knows.’
He cocked his head. ‘You know where she is?’
She nodded. ‘With family. Not far out of Savannah.’
‘She probably doesn’t know much,’ he told her. ‘Whitney didn’t introduce most of her lovers to Camille. I only met her once at a charity function for children. She never knew about her mother and me, as far as I know.’
Somehow this didn’t come as a surprise.
‘I’m all out of options,’ Harper had confessed then. ‘I’ve got this one last shot. If nothing comes of it …’ She pushed the papers back to him. ‘I’m in trouble.’
Now she thought about his cautioning words. Whitney had introduced him to her daughter, but not as a lover. Just another man at a charity party.
The odds of Camille having met Marie’s cop boyfriend – if there ever really was a cop boyfriend – were slim.
Worse still, tonight had made Harper even more doubtful of the whole idea of Blazer as someone Whitney would have dated. Blazer’s bachelor apartment in the suburbs wasn’t in the same league as Sterling Robinson’s palatial home. What would Whitney have seen in him? What could he have that she wanted?
Still, there was nowhere to go but forward. Camille Whitney might know something. And she was going to arrange to meet her.
Soon.
Chapter Thirty-five
Vidalia, Georgia, is one of those country towns you’ve driven through a thousand times without ever paying much attention.
Main Street was also Highway 280, and it rumbled fast past the chain restaurants, pawn shops and big box superstores that fill most farm towns these days.
The old downtown, though, was nicer – lined with neatly pruned trees, it still had some charming l940s shopfronts, but Harper didn’t notice them at all.
Because she was lost.
‘Stupid, damned redneck town,’ she muttered, as she U-turned for the third time.
Pulling abruptly into the parking lot at the Dairy Queen, she parked and punched numbers into her GPS harder than necessary, grumbling under her breath. Soft rain misted the car windows, turning the town gray.
Why couldn’t she find this house?
It had been five days since her meeting with Robinson.
Five days without work. Five days of isolation and self-doubt.
Day after day, with nothing to do, she’d talked herself into, and out of, this trip a million times.
In the end, though, she honestly felt she had no choice. She couldn’t walk away from the Whitney case without trying absolutely everything.
With all that had happened, though, she couldn’t show up at the Whitney house as Harper McClain, currently suspended newspaper reporter.
When she called James Whitney to arrange a visit, she introduced herself as a state-appointed counselor.
It had been surprisingly simple to get him to accept this, and then to agree that she should visit his daughter.
In fact, he’d seemed almost eager for her to come.
‘I’m worried sick about Camille,’ he’d said on the phone. ‘She’s lost in her own head. Won’t do anything at all. She stares into space. I sure do hope you can help her.’
Behind his soft, Georgia accent she could hear the undertone of fear, a shiver in his breath. It was, she suspected, the only hint he’d give of the pain he was dealing with, and his worries for his daughter.
‘I’ll do all I can,’ she promised him.
At the time, she’d felt a stab of guilt. After all, she had no professional skills in dealing with traumatized children.
Now that she was here, though, her inability to find the place was, if nothing else, tempering her other emotions. She was already ten minutes late, and why hadn’t she thought to ask if he’d hidden his house in a tree, or buried it in a culvert?
She’d driven up and down the wide, flat streets that crisscrossed the town, and still couldn’t find the number she was looking for. Each house was virtually the same – low-slung, post-war houses with sprawling unfenced yards, grass turning brown as summer burned the green away, and a pickup truck in the driveway.
Maybe she hadn’t gone far enough. She would try again, this time going all the way to the end of Bromley Street.
As she prepared to pull out onto the highway again, she caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror and recoiled. The dark brown wig, cut smooth and straight so the hair brushed the tops of her shoulders, completely altered her appearance.
It was Bonnie, of course, who’d loaned it to her. She had a closet full of cosplay gear and preferred ‘real hair’ wigs, which she usually bought, horribly, on eBay. God only knew where they came from.
‘This one, I think,’ she’d mused, plucking the glossy brunette option from atop a disturbingly blank Styrofoam head.
By then, Harper had already tried a long blonde wig (disaster), and refused blue and pink (Bonnie’s preferences).
She’d known she needed to hide her auburn hair – it was the most distinctive thing about her. But she had her doubts about a w
ig. It seemed so obvious – like everyone would know it wasn’t her real hair.
When she’d slipped on the brown wig, though, the transformation was so thorough, she scarcely recognized herself. Her face looked paler and her eyes looked darker.
It was astonishing how such a small change could alter her so completely. And how convincingly real it looked.
Bonnie – who knew only that she needed to change her appearance for undercover work, and who thought this was the most brilliant thing she’d ever heard – had stepped back to study her handiwork.
‘You look like a spy,’ she declared approvingly. ‘A pale spy. You’re going to have to change your makeup. Luckily …’ she waved a long, slim brush at her, ‘I went to art school.’
Now Harper’s eyes were lined with a trace of dark pencil, and her cheekbones highlighted with a touch of pink. The light freckles that dusted the bridge of her nose were all but invisible.
She’d intentionally dressed the way she thought a counselor might – in a conservative over-the-knee skirt and baggy blazer. She looked like a combination of Baxter and a high school teacher.
She looked like a lot of people – but she looked nothing like Harper McClain.
There was no way for Bonnie not to notice she wasn’t working. When she asked what was going on, Harper told her the truth – that she’d gotten into trouble for a story she was working on, and she was suspended for two weeks.
Holding the makeup brush in the air, Bonnie tilted her head.
‘But why are you investigating if you’re suspended?’
‘It’s the thing I was working on when this all kicked off,’ Harper had told her vaguely. ‘I want to know how it ends.’
Bonnie shrugged and dabbed the brush in creamy powder.
‘Your life is so weird,’ she said.
‘Tell me about it,’ Harper had agreed.
Now, spinning the wheel, she turned the rented black Ford back onto Bromley Street. She’d decided the Camaro was too recognizable, and she didn’t want to take any chances, so she’d leased the most anonymous car she could find, and then spent the first half hour trying not to slam the brakes so hard she went through the windshield.
By now, though, she had the hang of it. She was frustrated by the lack of power when she pressed the accelerator, but she also felt pleasantly invisible.
The one-story houses, most white or gray, rolled past again. But when she reached the 12000 block, once again the houses ran out. It was like the town just ended. Fields stretched out beyond that point – the soil rich, dark brown, turned in neat straight lines.
This time, though, she persevered, continuing on as Bromley turned from a residential street into a farm road. After five minutes’ drive through the fields, to her relief, a house appeared in the distance – it was an older, two-story farmhouse, not unlike her grandmother’s place had been, albeit in worse condition.
The yard was a bit overgrown, and the farm tools and implements scattered around outside the barn gave it something of a disreputable look.
Harper slowed as she neared the driveway, checking the number on the mailbox: 12057. This was the place.
Carefully, she pulled in, parking next to a battered Chevy truck with a riding lawnmower in the back.
Taking a steadying breath, she climbed out of the car and shut the door. Carefully, she picked her way through the tools and flat tires to the wooden steps leading up to a wide porch.
Everything could use a lick of paint, but it was a lovely old building. The columns holding up the porch roof were original, hewn of solid oak.
Once upon a time, a farmer would have lived here with a family of six or seven kids and an exhausted wife, and the place would have been alive with noise and life.
Now it was uncomfortably quiet.
Setting her face in lines of professional neutrality, she rapped her knuckles crisply against the door.
For a moment, there was no reaction. Then she heard the soft sighing sound of movement, like the house warning her. A second later, the recognizable clump of cowboy boots on wood floors.
The door swung open.
The craggy face looking out at her had spent time in every kind of weather, but it wasn’t old – maybe mid-thirties. Large, warm brown eyes met hers.
‘Miss Watson?’
She’d borrowed the pseudonym from a great-grandmother. It hung as loosely on her shoulders as the blazer.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Are you Mr Whitney?’
She kept her voice low and warm, adding what she hoped was a soothing timbre to her words. She remembered counselors with voices like that from her own childhood.
‘Yes, indeed.’ He held the door open for her. ‘Please come in. And call me Jim. We’ve been waitin’ for you.’
His voice was uncertain but cautiously friendly as he led the way down a long, brightly lit hallway, past one of those old staircases wide enough for a hoop skirt, with a handrail begging for children to slide down it.
The house was as she’d expected – high ceilings and wood floors, a bit dinged up, but still the kind of comfortable place where you could easily imagine relaxing in the battered window seat with a good book.
It had the faint, warm smell of toast that Harper suspected might somehow be permanent – soaked into the wood over the years.
The rugs thrown here and there were cheap and worn, but clean. Everything was serviceable and solid, a description that applied to James Whitney himself.
He wore faded jeans with a big leather belt, and a checked shirt tucked in neatly. His brown hair could have used a cut, but the shagginess of it suited his face.
There was a sadness to him – not only in his expression, but in his whole being. He was easily six feet tall, but stood slightly hunched, like he was bracing himself for the next blow.
‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ Jim swung his hands in an awkward gesture. ‘Maybe we could talk a while before I go get Cammy.’
‘Sure. That’s a great idea.’ Harper followed him through the living room – soft, sagging sofa, covered in a hand-knitted throw – to a dining room that was clearly rarely used, with its display of china that in no way belonged to this man, and into a big, country house kitchen.
This was the best room in the house, with tall, 1940s glass-front cabinets and big sash windows, bringing in a view of soft gray sky and a cluttered yard.
Jim gestured at the scrubbed oak table that looked like it might have been in this house since the day it was built. Harper took a seat in a wooden chair.
‘Coffee?’ He held up a coffee pot enquiringly.
She nodded. ‘Black.’
He brought it over in two mismatched mugs in yellow and blue, and sat down heavily in the chair across from hers.
They both took contemplative sips. The coffee was good – fresh. He must have made a new pot shortly before she arrived.
Jim looked uncomfortable but hopeful – like he wanted to talk but didn’t know what to say.
‘So … Camille,’ Harper said, in her pretend-counselor voice. ‘Tell me more about her. How is she?’
He shook his head.
‘Not good, Miss Watson. There’s no progress.’
‘Please,’ Harper said. ‘Call me Julie.’
With a shy smile, he ducked his head.
‘Julie.’
Guilt tightened itself around Harper’s ribcage. He was so nice. She felt like a sociopath, tearing through his life for information.
She heard Luke’s voice in her head. You’re so destructive, Harper, you know that?
Stiffening her spine, she pushed that voice away. She’d come too far to stop now.
‘You call her Cammy? Is that your nickname for her? What should I call her?’
‘Oh,’ he said, surprised. ‘You can call her Camille. Cammy was her baby name. I still call her that because …’ He stopped, trying to think. ‘I just do.’
Harper smiled. ‘I understand.’
There was another awkward pause.
‘Is it only you and Camille living here?’
He nodded, his face reddening.
‘Yeah. It’s me and her now.’ He took a sip of coffee. ‘Her mother and me, we met young. Got pregnant by mistake. Broke up when Cammy was still a baby.’
He gave a sad, unconvincing chuckle. ‘It was never going to last. Marie got a job in the city and, whew.’ He made a flying gesture with one hand – a plane taking off. ‘She was out of here.’
His eyes glanced off of Harper’s.
‘Can’t say as I blame her. Not much around here for a girl like her. She liked the finer things. I couldn’t give her that.’
Harper kept the surprise out of her expression.
Marie Whitney had grown up here in Vidalia. Had lived in this house.
This was so far from the Marie Whitney she’d been discovering – the manipulative, sophisticated blackmailer, with her silky ballgowns, champagne and millionaires. It was impossible to imagine her in this kitchen, making supper.
How she must have hated her life here. Resented this quiet, well-meaning man.
She sipped her coffee.
‘Did she take Camille with her, when she left?’
Jim shook his head.
‘Not at first.’ Another short, humorless laugh. ‘That girl. She took her clothes in a suitcase and left me a note saying she was gone. Left Camille with my mother for the day and never come back.’
He drained the rest of his coffee without, Harper suspected, tasting it.
‘Yep,’ he said, mostly to himself. ‘It was a couple years later she got in touch, saying she was sorry and could she see Camille? So …’ He shrugged. ‘A girl needs her mother. The rest is history.’
Everything was falling into place. Marie had run away and started over without the baggage of a child and husband. Then, when she was ready, she came back for the one thing she’d left her husband – their daughter.
It was breathtakingly cruel.
‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘What happened to you after they both left?’
The Echo Killing Page 30
