by Ken Casper
“I’m sorry to keep you up so late, Ophelia. This is Mr. Rowan.”
“Good evening, sir.” She turned back to Catherine. “Please come this way.”
Jeff had no doubt Catherine could have found the study by herself, but this formality established distance, made it clear she wasn’t a guest but an intruder.
The large room to which they were brought reminded Jeff of a set from a 1940s movie. The ceiling was high and crossed with dark wooden beams. Bookcases covered one wall. The rug on the shiny parquet floor was rich and oriental. The oversized and overstuffed furniture also harked back to another era. Floor and table lamps provided the only sources of light, giving the chamber an almost Gothic atmosphere.
A man sat behind the massive, deeply carved desk in front of a row of French windows. Marcus Tanner was a large, broad-shouldered man with mocha-toned skin that, even in this artificial light, suggested he didn’t spend enough time in the sun. His dark eyes were piercing, his white hair short-cropped. He was a distinguished-looking man with a hard mouth and large hands, which he kept folded on the oxblood leather desktop. He didn’t rise when Catherine entered the room.
Sitting beside the desk in a brocade upholstered armchair, facing the room was a small, birdlike woman, whom Jeff assumed to be Amanda, Marcus’s wife of fifty years. Her hostile stare matched her husband’s.
To her left Tyrone lounged in a leather wingback, his long legs crossed. His wife, Melissa, rose nervously from the couch across from him, came forward and pressed her cheek to Catherine’s. The young man who’d been sitting next to her also approached.
“Aunt Catherine,” he mumbled, and kissed her on the cheek.
Like his father and grandfather, he was tall, lean and square-shouldered. He shared their features, too, but there was a gentleness in his eyes that contrasted with the older men’s.
“Dante, I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“I wanted to be,” he said. “Did you find out who killed Uncle Jordan?”
“Yes,” she told him, her reply filled with regret.
He bit his lip, resumed the seat next to his mother and took her hand.
“Who is this man?” Marcus demanded of Catherine.
“The private investigator I hired to look into Jordan’s death. His name is Jeff Rowan.”
“The disgraced cop.” The old man huffed with disdain.
“And your lover,” Tyrone added.
Catherine refused to be riled. “Would you bring me that chair?” she asked Jeff, while pointing to an armchair by the doorway through which they’d entered.
He set it in the middle of the room, facing the desk, far enough back that she could take in the others with a turn of her head. He settled into the other one against the wall.
“I have several announcements to make,” Catherine began. “First, I received the pathologist’s report late this afternoon. A second autopsy has confirmed that Jordan did not die of a heart attack as originally reported. He was poisoned with cyanide.”
Amanda sucked in an audible breath. Catherine saw Melissa stiffen. The men remained less demonstrative, but she could see Marcus’s eyes soften. Tyrone remained unmoved. Dante clasped his mother’s hand more tightly.
“How?” Melissa asked in a small voice.
“His Gatorade bottle was contaminated.”
“Can you prove that?” Tyrone asked.
“We have a witness who saw him drinking from his bottle just before he went into convulsions and died.” She didn’t mention that the witness was dead.
She stared at her brother-in-law. “I find it interesting that you don’t seem troubled by the fact that he was murdered. You’re only interested in whether we can prove it. Why is that?”
When he failed to reply, she asked, “Could it be that you already knew he’d been murdered, that you had foreknowledge of it, that you could have prevented it but chose not to?”
“That’s preposterous,” he said.
“Are you accusing my son of being an accessory to murder?” Marcus asked.
“I haven’t made any accusations. Yet. Did you know your son was murdered?”
He drew back. “Of course not. The coroner said he died of a heart attack.”
“And of course you didn’t question that.”
He started to object, but she went on, cutting him off.
“My second announcement is that we have recovered the yellowcake that was missing from the warehouse owned by Buster Rialto. Anyone care to speculate where it was found?”
This time Tyrone did react, staring at her openmouthed.
“I see you know,” she said to him.
“What . . . what are you talking about?”
She had never heard him stammer before. Even his mother glanced at him in surprise.
Catherine addressed Marcus. “It was found today in the boathouse at the family compound at Lake Conroe.”
“What?” the old man and his wife said together.
“Who discovered it?” Tyrone demanded.
“I did,” Jeff said from behind Catherine.
“What the hell were you doing there? That’s private property.”
“I sent him,” Catherine said.
Marcus glowered at her. “I think you had better explain. What would yellowcake be doing in our boathouse?”
“You had no right to search our property,” Amanda blurted, her words angry, haughty, but also apprehensive.
“I had a key, which you provided. That gave me the legal right. At my request, Sheriff Cleveland also participated in the search. It was all done by the book.”
“Why would you be looking for this . . . yellowcake up there?” Melissa asked.
“We weren’t. We were looking for something else.”
“What?”
Catherine paused. She wished it hadn’t been Melissa who had asked the question, but it had to be answered.
“The leather straps Tyrone used when he tied Kelsey to the bed in the small bedroom and raped her.”
The room exploded. Tyrone, Melissa and Dante jumped to their feet. Everyone was talking at once, except Marcus.
“Sit down. All of you,” he finally bellowed. When they’d complied, he addressed his daughter-in-law, in a voice brittle with rage.
“I have powerful friends in this state. You won’t be police chief much longer. I’ll take you to court and see to it you pay for this outrageous slander.”
“How dare you!” Amanda sputtered. She was wringing a lace handkerchief to the point of shredding it. “This is disgraceful.”
“You’re finished,” Tyrone said in a menacing voice.
Catherine’s attention, however, was on Melissa. She said nothing, just stared with hurt eyes at the man she had been sleeping with for over twenty years. Tears trickled down her face.
Catherine had let in the whirlwind. Now she had to contain it. She held up her hands for silence.
“You won’t get away with this,” Tyrone shouted.
Catherine ignored him. “For years I wondered why you hated me,” she said to his parents. “From the very beginning, you rejected me without a word of explanation. You even extended that coldness, that hostility to your own granddaughter, though Kelsey has never done anything to deserve it.”
She crossed her hands in front of her. “I have to admit that for some time I thought you might be prejudiced against me. Jordan and I certainly felt various levels of social ostracism over the years, but it didn’t take me long to realize that you’re race conscious, not racists.”
Amanda’s lips tightened into a thin line. This was a subject they didn’t talk about, a taboo each side seemed to respect.
“Last week Kelsey came here to protest the treatment I was receiving in the Sentinel.” She turned to Amanda. “You told her something you didn’t have the guts to say to my face, that you considered me a slut because I supposedly tried to seduce Tyrone when I was dating Jordan.”
“You did,” Tyrone insisted.
Catherine pe
ered at him, shook her head with disgust and again addressed the older couple. “While Jordan and I were dating, before we became engaged, Ty came to my apartment to pick me up for my first cruise on your boat. You had a thirty-five-footer back then.”
Marcus barely nodded.
“Ty tried to force himself on me. The only way I was able to save myself from being raped was by connecting my knee with his private parts.”
“That’s a damn lie,” Tyrone shouted and sprang once more to his feet. “You came on to me, but I refused to participate.”
She ignored his clenched fists, aware that Jeff was now standing behind her, protecting her. “Afterward.” she continued, “he apologized and kept his distance, so I didn’t tell Jordan what had happened. I didn’t realize Ty had lied to you about it and poisoned your mind against me.”
“This is sick,” Tyrone said with a snarl and flopped down into the chair. Folding his arms, he glowered at her.
“What I find curious,” Catherine said to Marcus and Amanda, “is that neither of you spoke to Jordan about it. I know that, because if you had, he would have told me, and he would have confronted his brother. Instead you let him marry a woman you had reason to believe was a sexual predator. Why?”
“Tyrone didn’t tell me until after you were married,” Amanda muttered. “By then it was too late.”
Catherine wasn’t sure she bought it. The strain between them had existed before then. Either way, the subject wasn’t worth pursuing.
“The point of all this,” she said, “is that Ty had demonstrated all those years ago that he was capable of aggressive sexual behavior. That he backed off me was due only to the fact that I was successful in fighting him. I made the mistake of assuming he had learned his lesson, a mistake I will regret for the rest of my life.”
“I don’t rape women,” Tyrone declared in self-righteous indignation.
“That’s not true, and I can prove it,” Catherine countered with more heat than she had intended.
“You’re bluffing,” he said with contempt and stormed over to the wet bar on the other side of the room. Catherine didn’t bother turning to watch him. With Jeff there, she felt safe from attack, though without his presence she wasn’t sure she would have been.
“What kind of proof?” Marcus demanded.
“Kelsey told me Ty came to the cabin the weekend she was trying to study for her final exams. He overpowered her and grabbed some straps from inside a closet, straps she hadn’t noticed, because they were in the back of a high shelf most people don’t even bother with. He used them to tie her down on the bed while he raped her.”
“This is nothing but a pack of lies,” Tyrone fumed.
“I sent Mr. Rowan and the sheriff to search that room today,” Catherine went on. “They found the leather straps exactly where she said they would be. They have buckles on both ends.”
“I don’t know a damn thing about any straps, leather or otherwise, in closets up there.”
“I’m sure the DNA testing they’re undergoing right now will prove you a liar. I suspect they will also show you used them on other victims.”
His eyes went wide as he glared at her, but the bravado was slipping. He had the look of a scared rat.
“Ty, how could you?” Melissa cried out.
“I didn’t,” he insisted.
“In your arrogance, you’ve been careless,” Catherine told him. “When Mr. Rowan was talking to the operator of the convenience store in Conroe he learned you were up there last Wednesday.”
“Rowan’s making that up,” Tyrone insisted. “Probably bribing the woman to say she saw me there.”
His hand shook as he poured himself another drink.
“I didn’t say the clerk was a woman,” Catherine said. “We’re subpoenaing your cell phone and credit card records. I’m sure they’ll show you were there that day.”
Amanda groaned, slumped in her chair and covered her face.
“It’s all lies.” But Tyrone was beginning to sweat.
“Mr. Rowan and the sheriff checked the hamper in the laundry room at the cabin. He found sheets that had not yet been washed. I’m pretty sure we’ll recover both your DNA and that of the woman you took there with you last Wednesday.”
“What’s last Wednesday got to do with any of this?” Melissa asked.
“He takes a different woman up there every Wednesday afternoon for kinky sex.”
“Oh, God.” Melissa stared at her husband.
“Shut up,” he snarled at her.
“You disgust me. All these years—”
Dante put his arm around his mother’s shoulders and held her.
“Just shut up, Melly. Shut the hell up.”
“Don’t talk to her that way,” his son shouted at him. “You’re the one who was supposed to die. Not Uncle Jordan. The poison was for you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
THE ROOM WENT SILENT as everyone stared at the young man.
“What do you mean, Dante?” Catherine asked as dread shivered through her.
He separated himself from his mother and sat up straight. “I knew all about Dad’s women.” He gazed at Melissa. “You always defended him, said he was working late or was out of town, but I heard you crying at night. I knew what he was really doing.”
“How did you know?” Catherine asked.
“Because I followed him one day when he took a girl up to the lake.”
“Oh, honey.” Melissa reached over and placed her hand on his cheek. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I wanted to kill him, Mom,” Dante said, “for the way he was treating you.”
“What happened that day at the health club?” Catherine asked.
“I’d taken some cyanide from one of the chemistry labs at school and had been carrying it around for a while, trying to work up the courage to use it. I knew Dad and Uncle Jordan went running on Wednesdays, but I didn’t want Uncle Jordan to be around when Dad died. Then, that day Dad decided to play racquetball instead, so I figured it was time to do it. I poured it into his Gatorade bottle in the locker room while he was changing. He was alone, so I was sure no one else would pick it up by mistake.”
He stared down at his hands. “What I didn’t know was that on his way out to the running trail Uncle Jordan stopped by the racquetball court to talk to Dad. He must have picked up the wrong bottle when he left. Half an hour later I went by the racquetball court and saw Dad finish up the drink and toss the empty bottle away. He was joking around with one of the women on the next court.”
Dante stared at his father with hate-filled eyes, drew air into his lungs, let it out and continued.
“I was terrified. I ran after Uncle Jordan, praying he hadn’t touched his Gatorade, or that he hadn’t drunk enough to hurt him. But I was too late. He was on the ground. Some guy was bent over him, shaking him. Then the guy raced off. I couldn’t tell if he was just scared, or if he was going for help. I ran up to Uncle Jordan, but he was already dead.” Dante’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “He wasn’t breathing. I checked his pulse, his eyes.”
The young man wrung his hands and flexed his jaw.
“I didn’t know what to do. I’d killed the one man I admired most.” His voice broke, and he bit his lips trying to regain composure. “I looked around for the bottle. I was hoping there was still something in it. I wanted to die, too. I found it under a shrub, but it was empty. I sat there for a while, begging Uncle Jordan to forgive me. Then I heard people coming, so I grabbed the bottle and ran.”
“What did you do with it?” Catherine asked.
He gazed blindly at her, as if the question didn’t register. Then he seemed to realize why she was asking.
“It’s gone,” he said. “I brought it back to the club and washed it over and over in the janitor’s sink, then crushed it so no one could use it again and tossed it in a trash can. I was just finishing when people started shouting that Uncle Jordan had collapsed and was being take
n to a hospital. For a minute I prayed I’d been wrong, that he hadn’t really been dead, that the doctors would be able to save his life.”
The room fell silent again until Tyrone finally broke in. “You wanted to kill me?” His eyes were cold and hard, but his voice was filled with incredulity and fear.
Dante glared at him. “I hate you. If it wasn’t for you Uncle Jordan would still be alive.”
Catherine intercepted the violence she could feel building between the two men by asking Tyrone a question. “What did Rialto want when he called you that morning?”
He regarded her with a blank expression.
“Right after his meeting with Jordan in the mayor’s office,” Catherine elaborated, “he called you on your cell phone. What did he want?”
Tyrone’s eyes flew back to his son, then resettled on Catherine. “He said Jordan had turned down his request to quash the uranium story and asked me if I would talk to him.”
“What did you say?”
“That I would, but I didn’t think it would do any good. Once Jordan made up his mind about something, he didn’t change it, certainly not for me.”
“Rialto called Griggs, too. What about?”
Tyrone shook his head. “I don’t know, except that it had something to do with a job Cal had already done for Buster. Cal said everything had been taken care of.”
Catherine realized she’d been wrong in assuming the calls were connected to Jordan’s death. She wished now they had been. Knowing her nineteen-year-old nephew was a murderer was almost as painful as the death he had caused. She couldn’t directly blame Tyrone for his brother’s death, not under the law, but morally he had the lives of Jordan and Harvey Stuckey to answer for.
“You don’t know what he was referring to?” she asked.
“No, and I didn’t care.” He kept staring at his son, transfixed by the depth of the hatred he saw there. This man who had been pampered by his parents, forgiven so many times by his wife, respected by friends and strangers, and fawned over by women was at last the subject of a loathing so deep it had provoked murder.
“Why did you let Rialto use the compound at Conroe?”
