by Sandra Brown
He gave her his account, which, for nearly forty years, he’d related officially and unofficially at different times to various people. Throughout the telling, Dawson watched Amelia’s face, looking for hints as to what she was thinking.
When Headly paused to take a drink of tea, she looked at Dawson as though to ask, Why is he telling me about this? But when Headly continued, she returned her attention to him and didn’t interrupt.
When he finished, she didn’t say anything for several seconds. Finally, she cleared her throat. “The two…the couple who escaped…?”
“Carl Wingert and Floral Stimel. The leaders. The worst of them. They were never apprehended.”
“Even after all this time?”
“To my great disappointment and embarrassment,” Headly said. “They’re officially still wanted by the FBI, but…” He gave a rueful chuckle, “I’m not.”
“What do you think happened to them?”
“God only knows. No crimes have been attributed to them for seventeen years, so they’re presumed dead.”
“What about the baby?”
Headly glanced at Dawson, who suddenly realized that his heart was beating as though he had never heard the story before and couldn’t wait to learn the fate of the characters involved.
Headly reached over and placed his hand over Amelia’s, which had begun to nervously fold and unfold the corners of the cocktail napkin beneath her sweating glass of tea. “During the investigation of your ex-husband’s murder, his DNA was retrieved.”
Her chest rose and fell with a shallow breath. Apprehension filled her eyes. She pulled her hand from beneath Headly’s and clasped her two hands together. “I’m aware of that.”
“What you don’t know is that Jeremy’s DNA sample was matched to one already in our data system,” Headly said quietly. “It came from that house in Golden Branch.”
She stared at him for several seconds and, after making a few unsuccessful attempts to speak, asked, “How is that possible?”
“We’re still trying to piece together the ‘how’ of it. What we know is that the Wessons weren’t his birth parents. We retrieved Flora Stimel’s DNA in Golden Branch. She was Jeremy’s mother.”
“You can’t be positive.”
“DNA doesn’t lie.”
“Jeremy’s samples were taken almost forty years apart, from different areas of the country.”
Dawson knew the futility of arguing that the biology was in error. Amelia realized it, too.
Not quite as emphatically as before, she said, “Even if the outlaw couple were his parents, which I’m not accepting, Jeremy couldn’t have known.”
“I think the probability is high that he did,” Headly said. “Did you ever see his birth certificate?”
“The original was destroyed in the house fire.”
“That’s right. He used a copied birth certificate to enlist in the Marines. Easily fudged. Did he ever mention to you that he’d been adopted?”
“No.”
“Or give you any indication that he questioned his parentage?”
“Never. The subject of his parents—”
When she broke off, Headly asked gently, “What?”
She struggled with her answer and finally said, “Was closed to discussion.”
“Doesn’t that tell you something?”
It was plain to Dawson that she was warring against the logic of Headly’s question. She fought back with the only argument left to her. “What difference does it make now who his parents were? It would be a different matter if he were still alive. But he isn’t.”
Headly didn’t say anything either to back that assertion or to dispute it. Nor did Dawson. But their weighty silence spoke volumes.
Finally Headly said, “I’m going to try to find the connection—if there was one—between the Wessons and Carl and Flora. But it’s been decades. The trail has long since gone cold. According to the reports I’ve read about that fire, the Wessons’ whole life history, fictional or true, went up in flames. And I’m running out of time. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be officially retired.”
“Then why not just let it go?”
He glanced at Dawson. “You’re not the first person to ask me.” He took several moments to carefully consider his answer. “I was resigned to living with my failure to capture Carl and Flora. Then I learned about their son, Jeremy. It’s a new development in a cold case. As a law enforcement officer, I can’t ignore that.”
“Even though he’s dead.”
“A murder without a body?” He frowned. “That’s a gaping hole, Amelia. A giant uncertainty that I can’t turn my back on. This story began for me that day in Oregon. I can’t leave it with an open ending like that.”
“The story.” She turned to Dawson. “That explains your interest. You must’ve been dying to know what I knew about Jeremy’s history, which makes the tale even more intriguing, doesn’t it? Now I understand why you asked all those questions about his upbringing, his parents.”
“I was hoping your answers would confirm a blood relationship with the Wessons.”
“Or were you trying to establish that he was Carl and Flora’s love child?”
“I don’t want it to be true, either.”
“Of course you do! It adds such drama to your story.”
“That’s not—”
“All that playtime spent with Hunter and Grant. Were you looking closely for signs of a criminal bent?”
“For God’s sake!”
“And me. No wonder you’ve been so…attentive.”
“Amelia—”
Before he could say anything else, she held up both hands, palms out. “I’ve had it. I won’t listen to any more.” She stood up. “The story ended for me this morning after my court appearance. That gothic myth about Dirk…” She gestured with impatience. “I feel like a fool for giving it one iota of credence. Jeremy’s heritage, whatever it was, is irrelevant. He’s dead. Leave me out of your ghost chasing and get the hell out of my life.” She strode away and through the exit door.
Headly turned to Dawson. “Are you just going to sit there? Why aren’t you going after her?”
“Because I’m getting the hell out of her life.”
“But—”
“And I’m not going to discuss my reasons with you.” He figured Headly already knew them anyway. “You heard the lady. She wants to be left out of it, and, frankly, so do I.” He pushed his chair back. Before walking away, he said, “I’ll call a taxi. Thanks for the drink.”
* * *
Since her car was still impounded—and, under the circumstances, she never wanted it back—Amelia was driving her second car, an older model that had become hers upon her father’s death. Ordinarily, she derived a sense of comfort from being behind the steering wheel that had known his touch. But as she pulled out of the restaurant parking lot, her anger didn’t allow for any additional emotions.
After the upheavals of the morning, she felt like she’d been put through a shredder and knew that she wasn’t up to being “mommy.” She placed a brief call to Molly Metcalf, George’s kindhearted wife, and asked if the boys could stay a while longer. “I need to go to Saint Nelda’s and close up the house. I’ll get it done a lot faster if they’re not underfoot. And I’m really not up to answering questions about Stef yet. I should be back around nightfall.”
Having been reassured that they were happily playing with the Metcalfs’ grandsons, she took the ferry over to the island. As she passed Mickey’s, she noticed that the yellow crime-scene tape was still stretched around the parking lot behind the building. The sight made her choke back a sob.
Bernie was puttering around the back of his house and, seeing her approach, waved. She pulled over and lowered the driver’s-side window. He closed the lid of his car trunk and hobbled over. “You’re just in time to see me off.”
“For good?”
“I’m driving as far as Charleston this afternoon. Eat a dinner of shrimp and grits. Th
en I’ll get an early start tomorrow. I see the boys aren’t with you. I hate to leave without saying good-bye.”
“I hate that, too. I had planned to bring them back for the remainder of the week, but I’ve changed my mind. I haven’t told them about Stef. Until I do, I thought I should keep them away from the beach, where they’re sure to wonder about her sudden absence.”
“Probably for the best. I saw two deputies tromping into your house earlier.”
“Deputy Tucker called and asked if they could look through Stef’s room, see if anything would point them to the person who killed her.” She told him about Dirk Arneson. “He owns up to knowing Stef, but claims to have an alibi.”
“Dawson Scott?”
“He spent last night in jail, but was released this morning. Tucker hasn’t ruled him out. Just to be obtuse, I think. They don’t like each other.”
“I don’t think he ever laid a hand on Stef.”
“Neither do I,” she said, meaning it.
He hesitated, then asked, “What about the two of you?”
“There’s no such thing, Bernie.”
Leaving that subject, she told him that she’d offered to relieve Stef’s parents of one unpleasant task. “I told them I would pack up her things, then I’ll close up the house. That job always makes me sad, especially when I don’t know when I’ll be back. Today will be particularly unhappy.”
“Want me to stay and keep you company? I could wait till morning to leave.”
She glanced toward her house. It looked terribly empty, and for half a second she was tempted to accept his offer. “No, thanks. You don’t want to miss your shrimp and grits.” She reached across the car’s interior and patted his age-speckled hand resting in the open window. “Be careful on the road.”
“Did I give you my e-mail address?”
“Stef—” She said the name automatically, and it was a cruel reminder. “She jotted it down for me.”
“Stay in touch. Tell Hunter and Grant I’ll see them next summer.”
“The kite will be here.”
After saying a final good-bye, she drove the remainder of the distance to her house and went in through the back door. The power had been restored, but that didn’t dispel the sadness she felt as she moved through the silent rooms. Not since her first visit to the house after her father’s death had she felt this forlorn.
Sandy footprints had been left on the stairs by the deputies who had searched Stef’s room. Her bedroom was no longer as neat as before. Articles had been left out, rearranged.
For five minutes, Amelia sat on the bed and cried for her young friend. Then, forcing herself to get to the unwelcome chore, she neatly folded all Stef’s clothing into her two suitcases. She packed all her personal belongings, too, leaving it to her parents to determine what they wanted to keep. When everything had been zipped into the suitcases, she carried them down to her car and stowed them in the trunk.
Bernie’s car was no longer there. She was completely alone, and she felt it.
The loneliness became a pressure inside her chest as she began shutting down the house for the season. A service would come later to do the deep cleaning, but she emptied the refrigerator and pantry of all perishables, stripped the beds, and gathered the laundry from the various hampers into one big bundle and took it down to the utility room.
It was a familiar routine, which she’d performed dozens of times. Today, the project left her severely depressed. Tears threatened as she went from room to room one last time, checking for lights left on, for ceiling fans still circulating, for dripping faucets, and unlocked windows.
Conversations with Stef, the boys’ laughter, echoed in her memory.
She went into her bedroom for a final inspection to see if she was leaving anything behind. As she went to pull down the window shades, unable to stop herself, she looked across the expanse of beach toward the neighboring house.
She knew which of the upstairs windows were in Dawson’s bedroom. He’d watched her through those windows. Disturbingly, her mind lingered less on the invasion of privacy than it did on the kiss he and she had shared inside that bedroom, on the bed, among twisted sheets redolent with his scent.
As much to block out that erotic memory as to block the view, she quickly pulled down the shades.
She made it to the bottom of the stairs before realizing that she’d left her laptop on the desk in the room that she used as an office. Leaving her handbag, she quickly retraced her way back up to the second floor.
The sun was setting, shadows were deep, as she entered the room and went over to the desk. There she hesitated, and, before she could talk herself out of it, pulled out the chair, sat down, and booted up the computer. All the while trying to talk herself out of it, she accessed the Internet and ran a search for Carl Wingert.
In a matter of keystrokes, she was on a website for the FBI’s Most Wanted, looking into the face of the man who had been a fugitive from justice for decades, searching his glowering features for any resemblance to the man she had loved and married, then had grown to fear.
There wasn’t one. Between the photograph on the monitor and Jeremy, she didn’t detect a single similarity. But maybe she wasn’t seeing it because she didn’t want to. Was desperation making her blind to it?
She rejected the thought that Jeremy, the father of her children, was the son of criminals. Murderers. It simply couldn’t be.
Yet FBI Agent Headly, certainly no fool, was convinced, and had DNA evidence backing him up.
Jeremy had manifested a violent streak.
Burying her face in her heads, she expelled a long breath, carrying on it a fearful prayer, “Dear God, please no.”
* * *
Harriet was beside herself with excitement. “He fed them to dogs?”
“Willard claims his wife was dead when he found her.” Dawson, seated on the foot of the bed in his hotel room, pinched the bridge of his nose till it made his eyes water. Only by inflicting physical pain could he make the agony of this conversation tolerable by comparison. “She died of a close-range shotgun blast to the chest.”
“Willard’s shotgun. You said his fingerprints were the only ones on it.”
“Yeah, but he swore under oath that he didn’t shoot her.”
“What’s his version?”
“On the witness stand, he admitted that he’d been drinking all day while he searched in and around Savannah for the cheating lovers. Eventually he gave up and drove out to this place in the woods where he cages and trains his fighting pit bulls. He claims he was so drunk he couldn’t even get out of his pickup before passing out.
“When he came to, it was hours later, after midnight. He noticed immediately that his shotgun was missing from the cab of his truck. He climbed out, stumbled around in the dark, trying to figure out which end was up.
“He made it into the shack—his crash pad out there—and found a flashlight. He said the dogs were going nuts, and that’s a quote. So he staggered over to the pens, shined his light around, and inside one of cages was Darlene. What was left of her. His shotgun was propped up against the outside of the cage.”
“He expects the jury to believe that?”
“I don’t know what he expects. That’s what he testified. In doing so, he admitted to committing several felonies by participating in dogfights.”
“What did he have to say about Jeremy Wesson?”
“Doesn’t have a clue what happened to him. Evidence that he met the same fate as Darlene is inconclusive. A patch of hairy scalp in the stomach of one dog. Blood in the pen.”
“That’s not conclusive?”
“When the ME testified, that’s the word he used. The defense attorney picked up on it and made it his mantra.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“Willard saw Darlene’s remains, panicked, bolted. It took police a couple of days to track him down, and only then after they got an anonymous tip about his possible whereabouts. In that amount of time, the digestive
process—”
“Jeremy was doggie poop by then.”
Dawson was thinking why, if the dogs had made a meal of Jeremy, they would have been ravenous for Darlene. But he didn’t address that incongruity. Vampira was lapping up the grisly elements of the story.
He continued. “Willard swears he never saw Jeremy. His attorney tried to plant in the minds of the jurors that it was Jeremy who took the shotgun from Willard’s pickup while Willard was unconscious, killed Darlene, pushed her body into the dog pen, then hightailed it into the marsh, never to be seen again. Possibly it was he who called in the tip.”
“His wife’s lover framed poor Willard for her murder.”
“The lawyer didn’t use those words, but that’s essentially the seed of reasonable doubt he tried to sow.”
“Does he have a snowball’s chance in hell of being acquitted?”
“Juries sometimes pull surprises.”
Dawson was past ready to wrap up this obligatory call. The less interaction he had with Harriet, the happier he was. Beyond that, he was whipped. Straight from that disastrous meeting with Headly and Amelia, he’d gone to the courthouse. Having invested days in Willard Strong’s trial, he needed to come away with something to show for his time and expenses or there would be hell to pay with Harriet when he got back to DC.
When court was adjourned, he’d been tempted to cruise River Street until he found someone of Ray Dale’s ilk, who could replace the stash of pills he’d flushed away. He resisted the temptation. Deputies Tucker and Wills would love nothing better than to get another crack at him, and he hadn’t been completely cleared of suspicion of murder.
Besides, taking prescription drugs bought on the street was stupid, self-destructive behavior. He hadn’t needed Headly or Amelia pointing that out to him.
So he’d returned to the hotel room and, with no more fortification than a shot of whiskey, finally responded to the dozens of voice mails Harriet had left for him. The first sixty seconds of their conversation had been a blistering diatribe about his unreliability. Was it true that he’d been questioned by police about a young woman’s murder? Someone in the magazine office had seen it on the Internet. She wouldn’t have believed it had she not linked to the story and read it for herself.