by R. Jean Reid
“Who? Who do you trust?”
“I’m not sure. I hope I never get close enough to that river to worry about crossing that bridge,” Nell answered.
“Okay. But I want to help.”
Nell was startled by a knock on the door.
“Don’t worry,” Kate said. “I’m expecting people.” She crossed the room and opened the door.
Nell recognized one of the women who entered as the new minister of the Universalist Church. A few months ago there had been an article about her in the Crier. Jane … Benning? Nell searched for the name. Two women from New Orleans also arrived, planning to stay a few days with Kate. Nell had to admit she’d pictured Kate as isolated in her secrecy. But of course, there are always connections and communities. Nell knew that given how little she and Kate really knew each other, there was limited comfort she could offer.
Nell exchanged greetings with the new arrivals. She was relieved to learn that the minister’s name was indeed Jane Benning. The New Orleans women were introduced as Joanne and Alex, and then there was little to say. Nell took her leave. She and Kate exchanged a quick hug goodbye.
The hardest part of the evening loomed ahead, facing what were probably three unhappy people, and all of them unhappy with her: her mother-in-law at the extended evening of babysitting, and Josh and Lizzie for the extended visit with their grandmother.
However, Nell was nonplused to learn that Mrs. Thomas, Sr., was not above the kinds of bribes that she offered her kids, as Josh told her that there was leftover pizza if she was hungry. Pepperoni, of course. To make it worse, it appeared that her children and her mother-in-law had found common ground, with Mrs. Thomas falling into her habit of telling them stories about Thom when he was growing up, and Josh and Lizzie wanting to know ever more about the father who was gone.
Nell settled for some reheated pizza, preserving her dignity (and her right to nag her kids about a healthier diet) by removing most of the pepperoni as she waited for them to finish looking at Thom’s high school pictures.
Although Nell didn’t think she’d ever be close friends with her mother-in-law, for the first time she wondered if they’d both been so numb with grief that they’d built walls that weren’t needed.
With promises that they could come again soon and see Thom’s college pictures, Lizzie, Josh, and their chauffeur mom left.
twenty-seven
It had been a later-than-usual night, as Josh and Lizzie had to tell Nell the new things they’d learned about their father. Most of the stories she knew, but still she listened as if it were the first time she’d ever heard about Thom going with his father to report on the sighting of a water moccasin on the steps of City Hall, and Thom, Sr.’s oft-repeated quote, “Most honest politician I ever saw—the fangs in plain sight.”
As a consequence, the next morning was hurried, with both Josh and Lizzie perilously close to being late for school, and Nell actually late in getting to the offices of the Crier. As she was the boss, no one noticed. But the stack of things on her desk had only grown while she was away.
The newspaper should be on most doorsteps by now, Nell thought as she sat down at her piled-high desk. There would be the usual complaints about lost or missing papers. There would also be a number of phone calls asking about Marion’s murder, Ron’s arrest and supposed suicide, and all the rest of the usual topics—from a paper thrown in the bushes to the rumor that space aliens had landed on the beach. Nell had come to expect that. When news like a murder or hurricane, anything that directly affected people’s lives, was on the front page, the calls came in asking to know more, to hear what had been left out of the stories, to learn what was new since the paper went to press … almost as if wielding a pen gave her some godlike knowledge. The callers were always disappointed when Nell told them she knew no more than what was printed in the paper.
And she was right; there were already two messages asking if the police had caught Marion’s murderer. Clearly, the number of recent violent deaths had rattled the populace of Pelican Bay. Nell reminded herself it was time to write about the young girl who’d been found floating in the harbor and remind people that she, too, needed justice.
She would return the calls later in the day. Maybe the police would have captured a suspect by then and she could maintain the illusion that she had extra powers by giving the people something that the morning’s paper hadn’t.
Nell set to the task of sorting through all the press releases that required some editorial decision. It was the usual stack of charity bake sales, retirements, golden anniversaries, any and everything that someone felt the local paper should pay attention to.
But two of the notices caught her attention. The first was accompanied by a picture of Philip Yorst, the commodore of the yacht club. The story was about last weekend’s regatta and who had won it, and the picture was of Yorst handing out one of the trophies. What caught Nell’s attention was that, as usual, Yorst was in his commodore’s uniform, with its heavy braided epaulettes and multiple bands of gold at the sleeves.
The other press release that caught Nell’s attention was of Sheriff Hickson swearing in several “volunteer” deputies—very important campaign contributors, Nell suspected. There were five men besides the sheriff in the photo, all in their volunteer deputy uniforms. One of the men was Wendell Jenkins. In the far background was a blurred face that looked like his son Boyce, supposedly run out of town.
Why are so many men in uniform? Nell wondered. Or maybe I’m just noticing it, she thought. Could she trust any of them? Yes, she could, she reminded herself. Even if Rayburn’s messy drawings did mean someone in a uniform was involved—and that was a big leap—it was only one man. The rest were innocent. The only problem was knowing who that one man was. The voice on the phone had been no help; it reminded Nell of no one. She’d hoped the cadence of speech, or word choice, might have gotten past the disguise. The person had to know the area, she told herself. Had to know where the hidden well was, in the woods by the houses. But maybe he’d learned about it from reading the story she’d put in the paper. So that doesn’t help, Nell told herself. But how had the killer gotten to Joey? He had to have known about the bayou, the one Josh had guided Doug Shaun to across the harbor. Who would be likely to know that? And was there any way she could find out?
Suddenly, she didn’t want to be sitting in an office staring at pieces of paper. Where would an intrepid girl reporter go, Nell wondered. To the scene of the latest crime. She grabbed a camera, told Dolan she’d be back in about an hour or two, and headed out the door.
Nell vaguely knew where the motel was, but had never paid it much attention. “Vague” was a good word for it; nothing seemed distinct or memorable, even in a tacky way. The name, on a small, barely noticeable sign, was Motel 90, for the bypassed highway it was on. It was constructed of a yellow brick that had turned beige as it aged, and shaped like a short, thick U. The inner rooms faced into the center and the outer ones looked at the scrub pine forest on one side of the motel and a much newer self-storage warehouse on the other side.
Nell slowly drove around the parking lot. There were few cars here at this time of day—or maybe it was just that the adulterous couples had found another place for their trysts. One of the outer, far-back corner rooms was sealed with crime scene tape.
Okay, intrepid girl reporter, you’re here; now what? What a sad, banal place to die, Nell thought, looking at the scarred, faded wooden door in the beige brick. She left her camera lying on the seat.
Suddenly she wondered if they’d established time of death yet. What Carrie had reported (and Nell had edited out) was that, according to Mrs. Nash, Marion was working late, and then would stop briefly by a friend’s but still be home by ten to help her mother take her medications on schedule. But she’d never returned. Nell scribbled a few notes. Did Carrie actually talk to Mrs. Nash, or had she gotten the information secondhand, such as via Dou
g Shaun? Was the “friend” Kate, and what time had she stopped by? Since having a cell phone meant she could ask questions whenever they occurred to her, she dialed Doug Shaun’s number. But modern technology failed her—her phone just gave her a hissing silence to indicate it had no intention of working in this location.
Just to make the trip good for something more than satisfying morbid curiosity, Nell went into the motel office. The elderly clerk at the desk hadn’t been there the night Marion was murdered and had little to say, other than that it was a terrible thing to have happened. After hearing what a terrible thing it was for the third time, Nell thanked him for answering her questions. He then asked her if they’d caught anyone yet and she had to admit to knowing no more than what he’d already read in the paper.
Nell left the sad motel and headed back to the office. On the way, she swung by the police station to see if she could catch Doug, but he wasn’t there.
Only Dolan was at the office when Nell got there, and he was on the phone telling someone that no, they had no new information. Nell waved at him as she headed for her desk.
There were three messages about lost papers. The Crier did have a distributor who was supposed to take care of that, but some people felt their lost papers needed the attention of the editor-in-chief. Mr. Creedmoor had left his weekly message about aliens landing on Ship Island, which they’d use as their headquarters when stealing all the shrimp in the Gulf for their alien dining. The final call was from Amy at the New Orleans Advocate about a possible job for Jacko.
Nell returned that call first. After a brief commiseration about the woes of journalism, Amy said that a friend of hers was starting a new paper in Austin, Texas, aimed at the Silicon Prairie crowd, and he needed to hire several people. Nell took down the information and thanked her. For a selfish moment she considered throwing it in the trash can. Some cock-eyed optimist part of her was hoping that with enough time, things would settle down and she wouldn’t have to lose Jacko. But that would be an experiment with his life. Nell rewrote her scribbled notes legibly and left the piece of paper on Jacko’s desk. He could follow it up or not.
The next phone call she made was to Kate. First she called her home number and got no answer, but decided not to leave a message. We’re all being discreet, Nell thought. Then she called the bike shop, and was surprised when Kate picked up the phone.
“Kate, this is Nell McGraw.”
“Nell. Hi.” There was a tiredness in her voice.
“I didn’t really expect to find you there.”
“Better here than at home. At least there are things to do and that helps for a little.”
Of course, Nell realized, Kate would have no part in arranging Marion’s funeral or any of the attendant duties of a family after a death. After Thom died, Nell had stayed away from the paper for over a week. A lot of the time was spent with the details of death: going through his papers, the will, all the formalities, the stream of people with their casseroles and hams—to the point of prompting Lizzie to comment, “You have to live to be eighty, Mom, because I don’t think I can eat any more ham until then.” Maybe we have all these rituals to keep grief at bay, she thought; to prove to the bereaved that they can make it through the first day and the next and maybe all the other days. But she’d also kept away from the paper because there were so many memories of Thom there.
For Kate, the bike shop was the only routine available to her.
“I have a few questions,” Nell said. “Do you mind? You don’t have to answer, you know. I’d understand if you told me to disappear.”
“No, ask your questions. I want to do this.”
“According to Mrs. Nash, on the night she was murdered Marion was working late, then visiting a friend, but was supposed to be home by ten. Were you the friend she was visiting?”
“Yes, I was. And she wasn’t working late. That was just an excuse so her mother wouldn’t notice how much time Marion was spending with people who were just friends instead of her mother.”
“So she was with you for most of the evening?”
“She came over for dinner—after going home to make sure her mother got something to eat. And … stayed until just before ten.”
“About what time did she get to your place?”
Kate didn’t immediately answer. Then her voice was away from the phone as she said, “The helmets are on the back wall. Let me know if you need any help in sizing them.” To Nell she said, “I can’t really talk right now. Can we do this at a later time?”
“Of course. When would be a good time for you?”
“How about … early afternoon? I guess I’d rather talk to you than …” She trailed off.
Than go home with the memories and the grief, Nell completed silently for her. “I might have to bring Josh. I’m not sure what his schedule is today.” She did know that Lizzie had band practice.
“Okay, that’s fine. See you then.”
Nell agreed and left Kate to the bike helmets.
She tried to plow through the multiple tasks on her desk, but couldn’t stop herself from wondering what had really happened to Marion. She finally gave up and started making notes, trying to sort out who, what, where, how, and why.
If Marion was killed by the same man who’d killed the children, then Ronald Hebert had to be innocent, since he’d died the night before Marion did. Yet Doug Shaun claimed they had strong evidence that Ronald was guilty. Could the real killer have planted this evidence? But how could the killer know that Ronald Hebert’s name would show up on a list of ancient sex crimes?
Nell realized it wouldn’t be that hard to set up. If the killer was a man in uniform, then it was likely he had access to information on criminal records. If the uniform indicated an actual policeman or sheriff’s deputy, that is. All he had to do was find someone on that list who suited his purpose and find out what kind of car he drove—someone in law enforcement could easily do that, or perhaps just sit in the coffee shop down the street from the flower shop and see what Ronald drove up in. Then the killer would anonymously call in seeing that car near one of the murder locations. As far as planting evidence of the crime in his house, Pelican Bay was still the kind of place where people didn’t routinely lock their doors. Ronald Hebert grew up in town; maybe his door was unlocked. Or maybe Jacko wasn’t the only person he’d taken home from the bar.
Once Nell thought it through, it seemed frighteningly easy to set up Ronald Hebert. Given a chance to talk, he might have been able to prove his innocence, or at least raise some awkward questions the killer might not want anyone thinking about. But had the murderer counted on the odds of a gay man accused of murdering and molesting children meeting the fate that Ronald had? Or was the killer someone in the sheriff’s department who had also killed Ronald in jail? The latter would narrow her list of suspects, but Nell couldn’t be sure.
She made a list of all the men in uniform she could think of.
Sheriff Hickson and his men. Jacko could give her a rundown on the deputies.
Philip Yorst, with his commodore’s regalia. He was an outside suspect, but Nell didn’t like him, so she put him on the list. Wait—he was one of Sheriff Hickson’s volunteer deputies, along with Wendell Jenkins. What if Wendell and Boyce were in it together? Then it occurred to her that if the yacht club wanted to close down Ray’s bar, killing Ray’s young son would be an effective and brutal way to do that. She’d have to find out if any of the other yacht club members were also uniform addicts like their leader, and what connections they had with law enforcement.
Wendell had probably sold Ronald Hebert his car. And, as an honorary deputy, Wendell had no real duties that would keep him in a specific place, but also an excuse to be wherever he wanted to be without question. Like in the county jail. Nell suddenly remembered his “army” of salesmen in uniform.
Boyce Jenkins, supposedly out of town, was someone Lizzie cl
aimed to have seen just a few days ago. No, she’d seen someone she’d labeled a creepy policeman. Nell needed to show her a picture to confirm it, but who else could it be? Boyce was clearly a man of violent temper. Yet she wondered if he had the intelligence to be the killer. Chilling as they were, the murders were well thought-out and executed. Boyce was a man of rage; could he manage the necessary patience and cunning? His father probably could.
Chief Doug Shaun. Nell almost scratched his name out. He would have been noticed in the county jail, either if he’d gone there to kill Ronald Hebert or just to whisper some encouragement to the right people. And I let Josh go in the boat with him the night Joey was killed, Nell reminded herself. Could I be derelict enough as a mother to send my son into the arms of a killer? She left his name on the list, but added a question mark to look into other police officers.
Nell couldn’t explain why, but she felt sure that she knew the killer. There had to be any number of men in uniform in Pelican Bay, but the killer had called her in the night—for some reason he had chosen her to taunt. She could think of no reason other than it being someone who knew her and could picture the terror he was inspiring in her. Then again, since she was the editor of the paper, there were certainly people who knew her—or felt they knew her—who she didn’t know. Or knew only in some minor, passing way, via a brief story that was only a few lines of type for her but significant to them. Perhaps one of the many daily callers who thought they had a great idea for an article, only to have her pass it by—or not even call back. Yes, the killer was connected to her. But she had so many connections, it would be impossible to narrow them down to the right one.
Her children weren’t safe anymore. And she had some questions for the police chief.
Nell dialed his cell phone, not wanting to bother with the layers of secretaries she would run into if she called the police station.
“Doug Shaun,” he answered on the third ring.