by Lisa Jackson
“His . . . what?”
“The copperheads. Last night someone left one in my car.”
“Oh! That was you? I read about that in the Sentinel’s blog!”
Effie again. Nikki couldn’t wait to confront the woman. “I understand your brother was missing some of his . . . merchandise.”
“Well, I think so. The police seem to think he’d sold some snakes that night because there was some cash on him and several of the cages were empty, but their heaters were going and there was water in them . . . you know, Alfred wasn’t one to waste electricity! He was a bit of an environmentalist, y’know.”
An eco-friendly snake dealer. Perfect.
“Do you know who his customers were?”
“No.”
“He didn’t mention anyone who collected snakes? Dealers or zoos or someone from one of those tourist spots that display wild animals and reptiles?”
“I said, ‘no.’ ” She was getting huffy.
Nikki couldn’t let it go. “What about a church group?”
“What?”
“There are sects that use serpents in their religious rites.”
“That’s crazy!” she said, aghast.
“Did he ever mention Reverend Ezekiel Byrd?”
“I’m sorry, but I really don’t know anything more. If anything, I think Alfred might have been the victim of foul play. The police aren’t saying anything, of course, but I told them what I thought. There’s no way Alfred would have fallen and hit his head, even with his bad leg. He was careful. Meticulously so.” She sounded as if all she wanted was to get off the phone. “I don’t think I should be talking to you. I don’t want anything negative published about Alfred. He was a good man, you know. A veteran.”
“So you said. I just want to know—”
“Oh, dear,” she said anxiously. “I—I’ve got another call coming in!” Before Nikki could say a word, she’d hung up.
Well, fine.
Nola wasn’t much help, Nikki thought, backing her CR-V out of the parking area, but maybe Effie Savoy would be.
It was time to find out.
CHAPTER 29
“I wish I could help you,” the reverend said in a soft voice that Reed was certain could be raised to a thunderous boom if called upon. Byrd was a short, stocky man who was going bald, but he made up for the lack of hair atop his head with a thick chin curtain of beard that allowed for no mustache. He wore glasses that seemed to enlarge his already owlish eyes, and he was wearing a suit with a bolo tie as he stood just inside the door of his modest rural home. Whitewashed and tidy, the porch held two chairs and an old-fashioned porch swing. He’d opened his door quickly when Reed had knocked and hadn’t seemed the least bit nervous when the detective had shown his badge. “I don’t know anything about missing snakes. All of mine are accounted for.” He smiled then, showing off tiny teeth.
“Did you ever purchase any snakes from Mr. Alfred Necarney?”
He was shaking his head, the top of his pate shining under the single bulb of the porch light. He opened the door and stepped onto the porch. “I trap my own. It’s just less complicated. I know that people think I’m practicing some quack religion out here, but my congregation is just exercising our religious freedoms as stipulated by the Constitution of our great nation.” His smile was beatific, his demeanor calm, his accent smooth as wild honey. “We believe in the scripture of Mark. ‘They shall take up serpents.’ ”
“I’m not here to argue theology or even discuss the legality of your owning venomous snakes. I’d just like to see the ones you have.”
“Why certainly,” he said congenially. “They are not to be feared. Respected yes, but not feared.”
Reed waited somewhat impatiently. He wasn’t going to talk the pros and cons of this religion, which he considered whacked out. For now, he was just trying to find the person who had wanted to use a snake to scare and potentially harm Nikki.
The pastor led him through his small house, where several lamps burned and a woman, presumably his wife, was washing dishes in the kitchen.
He stopped to call to her. “Annie,” he said loudly, and when she didn’t turn around, a little louder, “Annie!”
“Oh, what?” She started, her hands in plastic gloves shooting out of the water, suds flying against a garden window where African violets were blooming. “Ezekiel, you scared me to death!” She snapped off the faucet, and the sound of rushing water disappeared. Turning around, she said, blinking in surprise, “Oh my. I didn’t know we had company.”
“Detective Reed, my wife, Annabella.”
She pulled off her gloves and shook his hand. Her hair was long, streaked with silver, and she wore neither lipstick nor mascara. “Welcome. Nice to meet you. Uh . . . Detective?”
“Nothing to worry about, Annie. He just wants to check the serpents,” Byrd said.
“Why?” she asked quickly.
Ezekiel sent her a warning look. “Nothing to worry about. We’ll discuss it later. Now, Detective, this way.” He showed Reed into the hallway again, and from the corner of his eye he saw the reverend’s wife stare after them before she turned back to the sink and stuffed her hands into her gloves again.
“Here we go,” the reverend said, unlocking the door to a back room that might have once been a porch; the screens had been replaced by windows, now with their shades drawn. The room was small, but warmer than the rest of the house. At waist level, stretched along long tables, were individual terrariums, each complete with its own soft light, mulch or sand, a chunk of some kind of wood, and a very live rattlesnake.
Seven sets of tiny eyes with slits for pupils were trained on Reed.
A soft rustle started as the first rattler vibrated his tail, and then another sounded a warning that caused the hairs on the back of Reed’s neck to lift. “Just rattlesnakes?”
“Currently yes,” the reverend said, “but, of course, we’ve had others. Cottonmouths. Copperheads. Once a cobra, but that didn’t last long. I prefer domestic.”
“You’re June O’Henry’s brother,” Reed said as he watched one of the rattlers slowly uncoil to slide across the bottom of his Plexiglas cage.
“Yes.”
“And she attends with her family? Calvin and Niall?”
“Some members of the family attend,” the preacher agreed. “Others do not. Leah gave up the faith, but listen to me, I shouldn’t be discussing members of the congregation even if I am related to them. So . . .” He motioned toward the trapped reptiles. “Did you want a closer look? I can certainly take the snakes from their cages. They’re used to it.”
“I’m good,” Reed said and searched for a glint of anger, even superiority in Ezekiel Byrd’s gaze to see if the minister were testing him. It appeared not. The man seemed to be a true believer in his unusual faith.
“Do you have anyone in your congregation who keeps snakes?” Reed asked.
“Oh, yes. A few.”
“Calvin O’Henry?”
“He and June did at one time. No longer, I think, though.”
“Can you name anyone else?”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he said, a little more anxious than he had been. “I think Herb Curtis, he had a couple of rattlers, and Willie Carter had a cottonmouth a few years back.” He was thinking hard, actually scratching his chin. “Oh, yes, and Donny Ray Wilson, he and his stepbrother, they used to trap them.”
“Roland Camp?”
He nodded. “But I think Roland gave it up because he was having a child and the mother insisted. She’s a fearful one. Doesn’t understand God’s will.”
“Imagine that,” Reed said. He felt a little twinge of excitement as he drove away from Byrd’s home.
Roland Camp and Donny Wilson.
Stepbrothers with an affinity for snakes.
How convenient that twenty years ago Wilson had been Roland Camp’s alibi.
Nikki parked in the first spot she found near Effie’s apartment, located in a tall, older building.
Effie’s unit had its own entrance through a wrought-iron gate and a small garden area that was three stairs below street level. The gate creaked as she opened it, and the path was covered in leaves wet enough from the recent rain to be slick beneath her boots.
She rang the bell, hearing it peal inside, and waited. Impatiently. Ready to tell the woman exactly what she thought.
If Leon’s telling the truth.
But something felt right about this.
“Come on. Come on.”
Nothing.
But there were lights on. She could see the glow of a television. Standing at the door, Nikki realized how little she knew of the woman who lived so near to her, worked with her. Effie was single, she’d said as much, and wore no wedding ring and, Nikki thought, lived alone. She’d been in Savannah only a month or six weeks, had lived in Texas before moving to Georgia, though she had mentioned she had family living in the area and that she was originally from around here. It seemed that recently she’d been with a newspaper in Dallas, but Nikki wasn’t sure. She’d never paid much attention.
Again, Nikki pressed the bell, and this time she beat on the door. “Effie!” she yelled, and when there was no response she tried the door. Locked.
She should just leave. She had things to do. But the thought of Effie Savoy cowering in her apartment after spending weeks following Nikki, scaring her, taking pictures of her, was too much. Had Effie been the dark figure she’d seen at the fountain? Or had that been Nikki’s overactive imagination conjuring up a stalker?
And what about the time she’d been nearly run over? Right after Effie had come up to her in the coffee shop. Had that been Effie, or just some negligent driver?
Why in the world would she target Nikki?
She rang the bell one final time and was turning back to her car when she saw the path leading around the building. Without hesitation she followed the brick walkway, lit by small outdoor lights. It led to another gate, which she reached over, tripping the latch to let herself into a back courtyard. The upper units had decks, but Effie’s place had a small patio surrounded by shrubbery and a sliding door.
The curtains were partially open, as if someone stepped out here regularly, and the ashtray on a small table seemed to confirm that Effie spent time out here.
Nikki peered inside. She could see into the living area, where a love seat and two chairs faced a televison set. There was no dining table in the space allotted for it. Instead a computer sat atop a scarred desk pressed against one wall.
“Effie?” Nikki called, listening for a response. So far she hadn’t heard a dog; that was a good sign, but Effie could be in the bedroom, earbuds in place as she listened to music, or in the damned shower.
She tested the slider and found it unlocked. An invitation if there ever was one. Despite her elevated heart rate and the arguments pounding through her brain, she stepped inside.
You’re getting good at this, aren’t you? Breaking into places? First Aunty-Pen’s and now here . . . a regular cat burglar.
But if Effie had been spying on her, she figured turnabout was fair play. But what if Leon, the insufferable idiot, had been lying? Baiting her? What if Nikki was about to walk into a bedroom where Effie was sleeping or a bathroom where she was taking a shower, water rushing . . . Nikki would be hard pressed to explain herself.
So far, though, the place seemed empty, and the slider had been left open. Softly, every muscle tense, she walked through the apartment.
She heard no signs of life.
A galley kitchen was near the front door, countertops littered with dishes, a slight odor suggesting the garbage should be taken out to the Dumpster.
The bedroom was empty, the bed unmade, an older television propped onto a chest of drawers at the foot of an unmade double bed, laundry tossed in or near a basket by the closet. The bathroom was also empty, towels scattered on the floor, half-full bottles of shampoo and a razor in the shower. Several bottles of prescription medications were lined on the counter, all issued to Effie Maria Savoy.
At least she hadn’t broken into the wrong apartment, Nikki thought, frustrated that she couldn’t have it out with the woman.
She walked back to the dining room, where the computer sat, a tiny light visible on the keyboard indicating the system was turned on, the monitor dark. Of course, she shouldn’t snoop in Effie’s digital files—that would be a real invasion of privacy—but as she thought about Effie taking pictures of her home, of peering inside at her, she didn’t really give a damn.
Who knew if she’d ever get this opportunity again?
Yeah, and who knows that Effie won’t walk in the door at any second? She might have run to the convenience store for cigarettes or milk or whatever.
Nerves strung tight, every little noise making her jump, Nikki touched a finger to the keyboard. The monitor began to glow with a screen saver that was a picture of the cabin by the lake, but it wasn’t a recent photograph, or even one of the old crime-scene photos of the night Amity was killed.
Nikki’s lips parted in shock.
This was a much older picture, in which the sun was shining, the cabin still tended, a canoe pulled up to the porch. Seated on the step, staring into the camera, was Nikki’s much younger self. All of seven years old, her teeth too large for her face, her freckles in full bloom, Nikki Gillette grinned happily into the camera’s lens.
“He’s not here.” Peggy Shanks stood at the door, blocking any view into Roland Camp’s house; from beneath her shaggy bangs, she glared at Reed as if he were trying to break in to do her bodily harm. Her thin arms were folded across her chest, her small jaw jutting in anger, her attitude as bristly as ever.
“When do you expect him back?”
“Don’t know. He’s been gone a while.” She slid her gaze away from Reed’s.
“How long is ‘a while’?”
“Since last night some time.”
“Can you call him?”
“You don’t think I’ve tried that? Sheeeiitt. I’ve called and texted, but he’s not picking up.” She lifted a scrawny shoulder. “It’s no big deal,” she said, as if to convince herself.
“Tell him I’m looking for him.”
“Oh good. He’ll like that.” Again she glared at him with pure, undisguised hatred, the kind of loathing, he suspected, she felt for any officer of the law.
From inside the house a baby began to wind up, his cries becoming louder and louder.
“I’m serious, Ms. Shanks,” Reed insisted, his gut warning him that Camp’s disappearance was trouble. He had no serious evidence of it, but he’d been in law enforcement long enough to sense when something was coming down. “It’s important that I speak with him.”
“Yeah, me too. I’m pretty sick of him just takin’ off!”
“Could he be with Donny Ray Wilson?”
“I just said, ‘I don’t know.’ Look, I gotta deal with the baby. If Roland . . . I mean when Roland gets home, I’ll tell him to call you, but, really, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Maybe he’s planning to meet up with Blondell O’Henry tomorrow,” he said, just to rattle her cage a bit.
“He is so over her,” she snapped. “She cheated on him, and Roland, he can’t abide that.”
“It was twenty years ago.”
“Exactly.”
“Does he still hold a grudge?”
“No.” But she looked away, avoiding eye contact.
“Does he still care about her?”
“No way!” she nearly yelled, her lower lip trembling just slightly. “She did a number on him. Throwing him over for her stupid attorney, but Roland, he’s got me now. Even if she does get out of prison, he’s got me. And his son. And that’s enough!”
Donny Ray Wilson was nervous. Lately Roland had been going a little crazy, more than slightly off the rails, and Donny knew why. It was because that bitch Blondell O’Henry was getting out of jail. She was the one woman who’d turned his stepbrother into a head case, and once again,
Roland was talking all crazy-like.
“Look, just leave it alone, man,” Roland was saying, pacing in front of the couch, destroying Donny Ray’s view of the basketball game in progress on the big screen, a monster of a television set Donny had bought just before flat screens had become the thing. It filled up a third of his single-wide, but he really didn’t care, the picture was just so damned big. “Chill out,” he advised his stepbrother. “Who cares if she gets out?”
“I do. And you should too.”
“She didn’t rat us out before. Why would she now?” He and Roland had had this conversation a hundred times in the last twenty years—no, more like a thousand times. Roland just didn’t know how to calm down.
“Not only the police, but that bitch Nikki Gillette is poking around. She’s called a couple of times.”
“You talk to her?”
“Not yet, but she’s not the kind to give up.”
“We’re free, man,” Donny Ray insisted. He’d been Roland’s alibi for the night those kids were shot up, and it had worked out just fine for him as well, as he’d been cheating on his wife at the time. Sayin’ he’d been with Roland, rather than admitting to banging Wanda Colbert, had saved his marriage. For a little while anyway. Eventually Sharon had found out and served him with papers—the bitch!—but for that night, he’d been safe. Not that he’d ever felt good about it. After all, a girl had died, a pregnant girl. But Donny Ray had been true to his word, and luckily for everyone involved, Blondell hadn’t named Roland as being in the room with her; she’d come up with the stranger story instead.
Weird, that.
It was something he didn’t really get. Hell, he didn’t want to think about any of it, but here Roland was so nervous he was just twitching around, almost tweaking, though Donny Ray had never seen Roland touch meth or anything stronger than an occasional joint.
“Just be cool,” Donny Ray advised. “Everything will work out.”
“Not if that bitch gets out, man. No way. And not if that stupid Nikki Gillette keeps at it.”