“So what did Nathan and Zach do to make someone so angry?” She could think of something Zach had done, but from what they’d uncovered so far, Nathan didn’t seem to be living the kind of life that would piss a lot of people off.
Irving cleared his throat. “I called the prison and confirmed that Nathan and Archer have indeed been writing to one another since July. They couldn’t tell me what the letters said, only that they had outgoing and ingoing mail recorded between the two of them.”
“No one reads the letters from death row inmates?”
“They do, but if there’s nothing interesting, they let it through and forget about it.”
“Archer was probably just asking for commissary money.” She threw his words back at him. “Isn’t that what you said?”
Irving sighed and ran his hand over his face. “You have every right to be pissed at me for brushing you off like that. I’m sorry, okay? But I think you might be right. There. Does that make you feel better? You were right.”
She got no satisfaction hearing him say it.
“You don’t think Archer French killed your sister, right?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t.” And it was the first time she’d said it that she had full confidence in her answer, without even a sliver of doubt.
“But you think he might know who did? And you think he might have slipped some information to Nathan in those letters. That’s what you were hinting at the other day, right?” He rolled his eyes toward the sky, where a large bird spun in slow circles. “Turkey vulture,” he said, then continued where he’d left off. “So what if he did? What if Nathan knew something about Margot’s death? What if he knew who really killed her? Because if it wasn’t Archer, whoever did it has been walking around a free man for twenty years. And if Nathan started snooping around, and let’s say, started asking questions, if he approached whoever killed Margot, if there was even a hint of threat to that freedom…” He spread his hands in the air, then snapped them into tight fists like he was breaking an invisible branch.
Brett’s skin prickled with the feeling that they were circling close to the truth, but even if they were right and Nathan’s death had something to do with Margot, they had no evidence. All of this was speculation.
“What about Zach?” she asked. “How does he fit? He wasn’t alive when Margot was killed. He wasn’t in contact with Archer as far as we know. His only connection to Nathan was through Danny.”
Their eyes shifted over the treetops again in the direction of Danny’s trailer.
“We have to talk to him,” she said.
“If we so much as brush past him in the street, Stan will have us both suspended.”
“He’s the spider at the center of this web. Margot, Nathan, Zach—it all comes back to Danny.”
“We can’t go near him, Brett. Not unless we have some other kind of proof, something more than patched up guesswork. If we take this to Stan, he’ll laugh us right out on our asses. Or worse.”
“So, what then? We can’t do nothing.”
“First, we go into it with an open mind,” he said. “We don’t know Danny did anything yet. We’re not going to make the same mistake Stan did twenty years ago.”
“Then, what’s your plan?”
“We start with Archer. We try to find out what he wrote to Nathan in those letters, what he knows. If he saw Danny kill Margot, if he provides a statement to that effect, I can take that back to Stan. He won’t be able to shove evidence like that into his desk drawer.”
Her heart hammered in her chest. Twenty years she had wondered, and now, in a matter of days, hours even, she might finally have the truth. She could see it in Irving’s eyes, too, how Margot’s death had weighed on him over the years. He’d been coming to this same overlook for over a decade with nothing to show for it. All that was about to change and all they had to do was convince Archer French to talk.
“I can drive down to the prison tomorrow,” Brett offered.
“No,” Irving said. “We need to do this the right way. I’ll call and set up an appointment with his attorney.”
“That will take too long,” she argued. “I’m friends with a corrections officer down there. I can call in a favor. Besides, he might be more likely to talk to me than you.”
“Because you’re a woman.”
“Because I’m Margot’s sister.”
“No,” Irving repeated, more emphatically. “Let me handle this. If we’re right, if this is related to your sister’s case, it won’t look good to have your fingerprints all over everything when it comes time to send it over to the county prosecutor’s office. We don’t want the defense arguing coercion or false testimony or whatever bullshit they’d conjure up to get our evidence thrown out.”
He was right, even though she didn’t want him to be.
“Look, I think you’re a good cop,” Irving said. “You’re smart and persistent. You don’t roll over easy. I think you’re a great hire for the department.”
She ducked her head, not wanting to show how pleased she was with his compliments. She was starting to like Irving, but accepting his praise felt like weakness, like something he could hold over her head one day.
“I look forward to working future cases with you, Brett,” Irving continued. “I really do. But we both know you can’t work this one. It’s not fair to the case, and it wouldn’t be fair to you. It’s too personal. So I’m asking you to let me handle this. Can you do that? Will you trust me to bring this one in?”
It wasn’t like she had any other choice.
She crossed her arms stubbornly over her chest, tilted her chin a little higher, and asked, “What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”
“Take up a hobby?” He held up his binoculars and offered her a sympathetic grin. “I’ve got an extra pair at home you can borrow if you want.”
Chapter 29
Brett had just sat down to wait when the guard came to get her. He double-checked her ID, then buzzed them into the prison through another metal detector, looking bored with the whole thing. Passing into the cell block, he said, “You must have friends in high places. We don’t normally allow same-day visits. Especially to prisoners like French.”
A loud buzz echoed through the dimly lit hallway as the door slammed shut.
* * *
When Brett woke up Tuesday morning, she’d imagined the day playing out much differently. She and Jimmy had gone for an early run with the dogs by the water. Trixie chased alongside them, her hound legs muscular and quick, her tongue lolling in a grin, her tail slapping the air, her ears flapping out like sails. Pistol took his time, stopping to sniff at stones and shells, before rushing on little legs to catch up. They jogged all three miles down to Deadman’s Point so Brett could show Jimmy where they believed Nathan’s body had been dumped. He scanned the area, then said, “It’s funny, isn’t it? A different current, a different kind of tide, and you would have never found him. He’d still be down there, being picked apart by crabs.”
On the jog home, Brett filled him in on her birdwatching adventure with Irving. She didn’t tell him everything, just that they were looking into the Archer French angle again and hoping it would lead them anywhere but another dead-end. She said nothing of the photographs now locked in Stan’s desk drawer, though she knew it was the kind of scoop he would love.
It had always been tricky with Jimmy, balancing the need for discretion on a case with their friendship. Sometimes it was useful having a reporter to feed information to, and sometimes Jimmy fed information back to her. Other times, the unspoken things sat heavy between them, filling her with loneliness. She wanted to talk to him. She wanted to tell him about her cases, ask for advice, get his opinion, but she couldn’t trust him to keep her secrets. Especially not the kind of secret that might land on the front page.
They agreed to meet up for dinner that night. Jimmy had plans to talk to the editor at the Tribune and access the archives
to find out if he could learn anything new for his book. Brett planned to spend the rest of the day at her desk, carefully re-reading the witness interviews from Saturday’s Halloween festival to see if she’d missed anything. It was going to be a long day requiring multiple cups of coffee.
“Stay out of trouble,” Brett told Jimmy as they parted.
“You know I won’t.”
But when Brett arrived at the precinct, Irving was waiting by her desk.
“I left four messages with Archer’s attorney yesterday,” he said, adjusting the end of his tie, which today was navy blue and dotted with small white doves. “No one called me back.”
“We don’t have time for this.” Frustration edged her voice.
“I know,” he said. “Which is why I called in a favor with that friend of yours in the corrections department.”
She’d left Irving the man’s number just in case.
“And?” she pressed him.
He looked at his watch. “It’s a six-hour drive. If you leave now, you could be at the penitentiary by two.”
“Me? But—”
“Archer agreed to a meeting,” Irving interrupted her. “But only if you were the one who showed up. He won’t talk to anyone else.”
“So I’m going.”
“If you want answers.”
* * *
The guard led Brett into a small room with a bank of bulletproof windows and phones attached to the wall. She had been expecting to be able to do this in a private interview room, not in the visiting area where anyone could overhear. It was better than nothing, she supposed. The guard showed her to one of the booths. She sat down on the plastic chair to wait.
When Archer French was finally brought in through the door on the other side of the glass, a satisfied smile spread across his face. He was thinner than the last time she saw him at his trial. His shaved head accentuated the hard angles of his face. He looked older without the fine, blond curls softening around his collar. Archer sat in a chair on the other side of the glass. He tilted his head, studying her a moment. Her skin crawled under his ice-blue gaze, but she shoved the feeling aside, refusing to let him see how much being near him affected her.
With steady hands, she picked up the phone. Archer did the same.
His voice was smooth and friendly. “You are even prettier than your sister.”
She didn’t react. She was here for one reason and one reason only. She kept her voice curt and professional when she said, “Tell me about the letters you sent Nathan.”
His smile faltered before returning, but there was a false charm to it, a thread of stiffness that tugged his shoulders back.
“It’s a shame,” he said, shaking his head. “Did you know that I had to read about his death in the newspaper? My own cousin. And no one bothered to come tell me personally. Nathan was a good kid. And Mary took me in when no one else wanted me. Neither of them deserves this.”
Brett’s grip on the receiver tightened. He wasn’t wrong, but he’d shown no pity for the women he’d killed, and this inconsistency, this callous compartmentalizing, enraged her. She took a slow breath and returned her focus to getting the answers she needed. “Did you write to him first? Or was it the other way around?”
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the laminate shelf in front of him. “You didn’t drive all this way to talk about some boring old stack of letters, did you? Come now, Brett. I think we can talk about something a little more interesting than that.”
“Nathan reached out to me before he died,” she admitted to him.
Archer looked intrigued. “Did he now?”
“He said he had something he needed to tell me about Margot.”
His eyes sparked when she said her sister’s name. “Oh? Do tell.”
“He was killed before we had a chance to talk.”
“Too bad.” He leaned back in his chair.
“Tell me what was in those letters. Did you say anything to him about Margot? About who killed her?”
“I miss the forest.” He sighed when he said it, loud and longing. “I miss the trees and the way the sun comes through all dappled and thin. I miss the sound of the wind in the branches. There are so many places to hide in a forest, but I’m sure you already know that.”
“Tell me what you wrote to Nathan.”
His smile tightened, turning predatorily. “I am telling you.”
“I don’t have time for games.” She pushed the chair back.
“I loved them, you know. Each and every one.” He tapped his finger on the shelf. “I would never have left them in the forest to rot. I looked after them for as long as I could. I made them beautiful the way I made your sister beautiful.”
Brett sank back down into the chair. “What do you mean, you made her beautiful?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I found her lying in the woods, abandoned. I found her, and I took her someplace safe, and I made her beautiful again.” Another twitch of his lips, then he asked, “Did you know that cougars have been known to kill an animal to eat only its liver, leaving the rest behind? Wasteful, certainly, but not unexpected. Unlike humans, animals do not have a moral code. It’s kill or be killed. Do what it takes to survive. They live and die by blood.” He tugged on the phone cord then released it. “You can’t cross into another’s territory and expect to walk away without at least a few scratches.”
Brett shook her head. “Enough with the riddles. Do you know who killed Margot or not?”
“I might.” His eyes narrowed to hard slits. “But I’m not saying another word about it unless I get something in return.”
Her whole body tensed at the thought of negotiating with someone who had caused so much suffering, who had so cruelly ended the lives of eleven women. Brett wanted to put her hand through the glass, tighten her fingers around his scrawny neck, and watch his lips turn blue. She wanted to knock the teeth from his grinning mouth. She wanted to give in and be the animal who survived.
Instead, she flexed her hand in her lap once, curled her fingers tight, and asked him what he wanted.
* * *
Brett didn’t make Archer French any promises, but she didn’t exactly tell him no, either. In the forty minutes they were together, he told her nothing useful, nothing Irving could bring to Stan as evidence. He swore up and down he had the information she wanted, though, and all she had to do to get it was secure him more yard time. The promise of one extra hour outside every day—that’s all he was asking for—a little more time in the sun. An hour of yard time in exchange for the truth about Margot’s death. Really, he pointed out, Brett was getting the better end of the deal. She’d tried telling him that it was the prison superintendent who granted yard time, that his request was beyond her level of authority, but he’d simply smiled at her, then gestured for the guard to take him back to his cell. There was nothing else for her to do but make the six-hour drive back to Crestwood.
Before she left, she used a payphone outside the prison to call Amma and let her know she was on her way home.
“Everything okay there?” Her words were weighted with concern.
“I’m fine, dear. Everything’s fine,” Amma insisted. “Drive safe, I’ll see you soon.”
There’d been no further episodes since the festival. Amma was even sleeping through the night again. No more midnight wanderings. No more waking Brett to find out if Margot had come home yet. Brett wasn’t holding her breath that this normalcy would last forever, but it was nice to have a break.
After hanging up with Amma, Brett called Jimmy’s motel room to cancel their dinner plans, but no one answered. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if he showed up at the house, though. He could keep Amma company until Brett got back.
By the time she turned off the highway into Crestwood, it was after 10:00 PM. Except for the Pickled Onion and the movie theater, downtown was closed up for the night, the shop windows dark. Jimmy’s car wasn’t parked in Amma’s drive
way like Brett thought it would be and, when she let herself inside, Pistol was the only one who came to greet her. She scratched the dog’s head as she took off her shoes.
A light was on in the kitchen.
“Amma?” Brett called softly.
Pistol danced around her feet. It took concentration not to step on him.
A stool scraped across the floor in the kitchen, and Amma appeared in the doorway. She was wrapped in her favorite purple robe, her face washed, and her hair pinned up for the night. She held a cup of tea in her hands. A look of relief spread across her face. “I’ve been worried sick about you. Where have you been?”
Brett tried not to show her disappointment. “I told you I was going down to Salem today, remember? I called a few hours ago?”
Amma’s eyes shifted back and forth as she searched her memory. Frustration shadowed her face. Then she batted her hand in the air like it was nothing. “Yes, of course, you did. Don’t listen to me. You know how my mind slips sometimes. Let me make you some tea.”
She reached for the kettle, but Brett stopped her. “It’s fine, Amma. I’m tired. I’m just going to go to bed.” She paused on her way out of the room. “Did you and Jimmy have a nice dinner together tonight?”
A small frown tugged on her grandmother’s lips, and her eyes darted with the same searching expression from earlier. “Jimmy? Was I supposed to meet him somewhere? Did I forget again?”
She smacked her hand on her forehead. “I have to start writing this stuff down.”
“No, Amma, he was supposed to be coming over here for dinner. He didn’t show up?”
“I haven’t seen him since this morning when you two went for a run.” She sounded uncertain.
It was possible, Brett supposed, that Jimmy had come over for dinner, and Amma had simply forgotten. But there were no signs of company, no dishes in the sink. And if Jimmy had shown up, he would have certainly stayed with Amma until Brett got home.
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