by Lisa Jackson
To Reed, Duval looked guilty as hell.
But of what?
Wells motioned them into chairs that faced the desk, angled across from Duval, so they sat as quick introductions were made, Duval eyeing them suspiciously.
A glass pitcher of sweet tea was sweating on a silver tray next to several glasses, and Wells offered them each something to drink, but no one was interested. “Okay, then, let’s get down to it,” Wells said, and sat behind the desk. “This is all for the record, and please note that Mr. Duval has agreed to be questioned again of his own volition.” He set his phone on the desk and hit the record button, and Delacroix did the same.
Before a question could be posed, Owen looked up and met Reed’s eyes. “I don’t know why you all want to talk to me. Nothin’s changed. Yeah, I guess you all found some bodies, right, up at the Beaumont place, but I know nothin’ and I mean nothin’ about that.”
“Hey,” Wells intervened, holding up a hand. “Just let the detectives ask the questions, okay?” He sent him a we-talked-about-this look.
Duval nodded several times. “Yeah. Okay.” He rubbed his jean-clad knees.
“So, tell us what happened on the day that your sisters went missing,” Delacroix asked, and his hands stopped their incessant movement as he stared at her, his eyebrows pulling together. For a second Reed thought he was about to alter his story, that in the seconds he was staring at Delacroix, sizing her up, he was coming up with an alternative tale.
Instead, he blinked and gave a tiny shake of his head, as if dismissing the idea.
“I’ve already told you,” Duval said. “Jesus . . . will this never end?” And then after another stern look from his attorney, he repeated his story. “I was supposed to watch the movies with the girls. Instead, I dropped them off. It wasn’t that big of a deal, or it shouldn’t have been,” he added, rubbing a hand through his short hair. “It wasn’t as if Mom hadn’t left the girls with Holly—she was twelve and babysat all the time!”
“But you left.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe how everything had turned out, how dark it had become. How deadly. “I, um, I ditched the kids, told Holly about it and she was kinda pissed, but I thought, oh, big deal. She was mad at me all the time anyway. I thought she could handle it. I would be back before the movie got out and so, no harm, no foul.” His eyebrows drew together and the cords in the back of his neck tightened as he thought about it. “Then I took off to be with Ashley . . . Ashley McDonnell, she was my girlfriend at the time, and you know when you’re a teenager you just can’t get enough alone time, or any. My folks were strict and they acted like I was supposed to take care of the girls whenever they wanted. Mom, she kinda understood, but Harvey, he was”—Owen’s fists curled and relaxed, curled and relaxed as he searched for the right word—“a real ballbuster. He was a ‘my way or the highway’ kind of guy.”
“He adopted you.”
“Yeah . . . right after Holly was born. Mom made a big deal about it. We were all a ‘real family.’ ” He made air quotes and rolled his eyes. “That’s what she said.” He snorted. “As if.”
“And your biological father? I just got the records. He’s Reggie Scott? Right?”
Owen’s lips curled. “I met him. A couple of times . . . well, I might’ve met him as a baby, but I don’t remember him. It was just me and Mom and then Harvey. I can’t even recall a time when Harvey wasn’t around.”
All this wasn’t new information.
“Where did you meet him?”
“The last time was at a bar downtown. When I was . . . maybe twenty-two. Out of the blue he wants to talk to me, see how I’m doing. Just out of prison. Again.” Duval’s lips twisted at the memory. “He was all ‘hey, it’s great to see you,’ and ‘Wow, you’re a man, now,’ and ‘gee, I’m sorry I wasn’t around when you were growing up.’ You know, all that bullshit.” He glanced out the doors with a view of a pergola and pool. “And it was all a big con. All he wanted really was to hit me up for some money. Didn’t even buy my damned beer.” Frowning, he glared at Reed. “Why are we talking about my dirtbag of an old man? I never knew him and I never will.”
“Just checking details,” Delacroix said.
“Scott’s not a detail. He’s nothing. And by the way, I wouldn’t mention any of this to my mother. The last thing Margaret ever wanted me to do was get in contact with my old man. Now I know why.”
Delacroix didn’t let up. “You’re single, right?”
His jaw tightened. “Yeah.”
“But you’ve been through several girlfriends?”
“So what?” He lifted a shoulder.
“Starting with Ashley McDonnell.”
Owen waited, but he was silently seething, his eyes narrowing on Delacroix.
“What happened there? Why’d you break up?” she asked.
“What? What’s this got to do with . . . ?” Irritated, Duval threw up a hand. “We were kids. We dated, we broke up. It happens all the time and it was, like, a million years ago.”
Wells said, “I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”
“And you dated a girl named Maria Coronado, isn’t that right?” Delacroix asked.
“A few years back when I Iived in Atlanta, yeah—hey, wait!” A vein started to throb near his temple. “What the hell is this?”
“She had you arrested for domestic violence.”
“What the—no! That . . . it was all a mistake. Blown way out of proportion.” He looked to his attorney for help but kept talking. “We got into a fight, that’s all. She thought I was cheating on her.”
“Were you?”
“No, but she was batshit crazy jealous. As I said, we got into it. Harsh words and then she hit me with a goddamned metal spatula. Split my lip. She was screaming and yelling and the neighbors called 911. The cops hauled me in, but it was all a big mistake. Nothin’ happened. She didn’t have a scratch on her and she dropped the charges!”
“Okay . . . let’s get back to the day you were supposed to be looking after your sisters,” Delacroix suggested, and Duval, already agitated, started to bristle. “So you left in your car and went to pick up Ashley,” Delacroix prodded.
“No, no, no. Are you kiddin’? What is this? Do you think Harvey would trust me with the Taurus? No way! I walked the girls to the theater and jogged over to Ashley’s. Harvey and Mom took the car to look at the open house. Ashley’s folks were out, so we hung out at her place. I already told you all this!”
Again—his story was just as he’d previously said. Unshaken. Despite Delacroix’s best efforts. She’d watched his interviews and read the transcripts. She knew that he’d walked his sisters to the theater. She was just trying to rattle Owen, Reed guessed, to try to shake him from his story. The play hadn’t worked.
In twenty years, his story hadn’t changed. Not one iota. But he was irritated, his face red.
“Look.” His gaze was laser sharp on Delacroix. “I don’t know why you all think I did it. Why? Why would I kidnap my sisters? And how? God, I just told you I didn’t even have a car!”
“Did Ashley have access to one?” Delacroix asked.
“I don’t know! Holy shit!” Owen glanced over to Wells. “I told you this would be a waste of time. I don’t know why I even agreed to do it in the first place. They”—he hooked a thumb toward Reed and Delacroix—“don’t listen. After all this time. It’s pointless. I can’t tell them anything I don’t know.”
“He’s right,” the attorney cut in suddenly. Looking directly at the detectives, Wells, no longer affable, said, “My client’s cooperated over and over again to the point that he’s nearly being harassed.” Before they could argue, he held up a hand, palm toward Reed. “I think we’re done here.”
Reed glanced at Delacroix. “We got what we came for.”
“Good! I need a break.” Owen shot to his feet and without a look over his shoulder walked out the French doors, reached into his jeans pocket a
nd withdrew a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a lighter. His hands shook as he lit up. Through the glass Reed watched him inhale deeply, pacing back and forth in front of the panes, water in the swimming pool shimmering behind him. He was shaking his head, his lips moving as if he were having a conversation with himself.
Wells stood and rounded the desk. “He didn’t want to talk to you, thought it was a bad idea, but I convinced him to cooperate once more. I don’t think I can do it again, and really, I wouldn’t want to. He’s told you everything he knows.”
Reed silently agreed, though Delacroix seemed about to argue.
“If he thinks of anything else,” she said, handing Wells her card.
“I’ll let you know.” This time his smile was a little colder as he escorted them to the front door. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you.”
Only when they’d driven away from the house and through the rows of pecan trees did Delacroix turn to him. “You notice anything strange about Duval?”
“Such as?”
“Such as he didn’t so much as ask one question about what happened to his sisters. All he knows is what he’s read in the papers or seen on TV. Don’t you think it’s odd that he didn’t ask how they died? How long they’d been there? Why was there only two of them? What happened to the youngest?” She angled her chin up at him.
“Maybe.”
“And maybe he didn’t ask because he already knew,” she ventured, rolling down the window a crack, then closing it again.
Just like Morrisette.
He felt a little pang of regret, a sense of déjà vu that gave him pause, but dismissed it.
For now.
“He’s lying.”
“Lying?” Reed accelerated onto the main road.
“Yeah, I can feel it, y’know. He’s got secrets.” She chewed on her lower lip, the fingers of her right hand drumming against the window’s ledge. “It’s just not right, he’s holding back. I just needed to push him harder.”
“Any harder and he’d just clam up.”
She sent him a look. “Or come clean. There’s got to be a way. Probably through the girlfriend. Ashley Jefferson. She’s Duval’s alibi, so she’s the key.” She whipped out her phone. “Time to reset her priorities, I think. I’ll call. If I don’t get through, we’ll just run out there, right?” She slid him a smile as she punched in a number. “I’m thinking the mommy blog can wait.”
CHAPTER 14
Nikki couldn’t help herself. She drove out of town with the windows down, letting the heat of the day rush through the windows and blow through her hair. She’d felt cooped up, antsy, as if she were spinning her wheels.
As she stepped on the gas and passed a slow-moving sedan that was plastered with a STUDENT DRIVER sign, she thought about the story she couldn’t push aside, no matter how much her husband wanted her to abandon the project.
She knew that a lot of the answers to the Duval girls’ disappearance could be answered at the Beaumont estate, where the bodies had been found. She hadn’t been back since all hell had broken loose the last time she’d gone out there, and she felt that if she actually walked on the property she might gain some insight.
Really? Even though the police have already combed the place—detectives, deputies, crime scene techs, all with more equipment than you? You think they might have missed something you’ll just happen to stumble over?
Her fingers were sweaty on the steering wheel. It was unnerving to drive out to the place again, but she felt in her gut that she needed to actually feel the aura of the old, decrepit mansion that had once been so grand and where so much tragedy had occurred. Nell Beaumont had drowned in the river, Holly and Poppy Duval had been sealed in their tomb and Sylvie Morrisette had lost her life trying to save Nikki. Even the loss of Nikki’s own unborn child could be tied to the place, she thought sadly.
What other secrets did that old graying mansion hold?
She slowed as she passed Channing Vineyards and the rows upon rows of vines gracing the rolling hills, and made a final turn where the two huge pieces of property were separated by a moldering fence. A quarter of a mile later, she turned into the lane leading to the heart of the Beaumont estate. Today, she thought, she wouldn’t have to sneak in the back way through the woods and along the edge of the river.
But she was wrong. As she pulled into the lane, she spied another SUV, a white Lexus, parked near the open gate, the driver’s side door hanging open. Tyson Beaumont, in jeans and a faded T-shirt, was behind the wheel, a cell phone pressed to his ear. She wouldn’t be able to get into the grounds without him knowing, so she’d have to wait, but she’d hoped to talk to him anyway and now seemed as good a time as any.
Nikki pulled into a spot next to his Lexus, cut the engine and slipped out of her sling before she got out of her car. Approaching his vehicle, she overheard his end of the conversation. “I’m handling it now . . . what? Yeah, I’m putting up the last sign, and the security company should be finished by the end of next week . . . I know, I know, but they’re all jammed up because of the hurricane . . . it’ll happen. They promised we’re at the top of the list. I’ve got something going for now, not all that great, but it’ll have to do . . . What? . . . Okay. Do that.” Glancing up, he spied Nikki. He held up a finger and nodded, as if whoever he was talking to could see him. “Yeah. Right. . . I know. Tell Mom I’ll be by soon . . . what?”
A pause in his side of the conversation, then he rolled his eyes.
“I don’t know, Dad. Probably a couple of days . . . sure . . . okay, I’ve got to go.” And he hit a button on his phone before sliding it into the pocket of his jeans. “Nikki?” he asked. “What’re you doing here? I heard you nearly drowned, that you were prowling around or something when the cops were here.”
What could she say? “You know me, I can’t ever resist a story.”
“Your brother used to say that you were just nosy.”
“That’s right.” She smiled, remembering her oldest sibling as a gust of wind scattered dry leaves across the sparse gravel and past a toolbox lying open near the gate. “You knew Andrew.”
“Played ball with him.” He swatted at a yellow jacket that hovered near his head. “Damned bees.” Then, he added, “We’re closing up the place.” For the first time she noticed the NO TRESPASSING signs that warned that violators would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. “Too many lookie-loos and people trying to break in while we’re trying to sell the place. Now, since the bodies were found here, it’s gotten crazy.” He rubbed his upper lip where it seemed he was starting to grow a blond moustache. “You’re not the first reporter to come poking around, you know.”
Oh, she knew. She thought of Metzger from her own paper and the news stations and their teams of reporters.
“I was just talking to Dad about it,” Tyson went on. “We’ve been trying to sell the place for years, as is, but now with all this bad publicity and the fact that the old house is literally crumbling down, maybe we should tear the old house down.”
“Oh.”
“I know. The historical society is already making noise about it. Dad calls them the ‘hysterical society.’ ”
“The society has a point.”
“Yeah, I know. But so do we. We need to sell this place, at least most of it. Crap!” The yellow jacket was back and he swiped the air vainly again. “Must be a nest somewhere.” The wasp wouldn’t give up, buzzing around his shiny head. He grabbed a baseball cap from the front seat, jammed it on and walked closer to Nikki’s car. “They’re scavengers, you know. Eat meat, even their own kind. Little cannibal bastards.” He walked over and pulled the gate shut, then tested what appeared to be a new electronic locking system on the gate. He pointed a remote device at it and the lock clicked loudly before he tried to open it manually, pulling on the rails. It didn’t budge.
“This won’t keep anyone who really wants to get in out,” he admitted, “but if someone shows up, we’ll know immediately. Well, eventuall
y.” He pointed to a camera poised in a tree just on the other side of the gate. “And we’ll see who it is. Digital camera, sends the images constantly. I put that one up, but it’s just a stopgap until the security company puts in a whole system. Should be all hooked up by the end of next week. It would be sooner, but the security company’s on overload, trying to restore everything that got knocked down during the hurricane.”
She eyed the camera and nodded.
“Soon, we’ll have more of the same around the house, too.” He spied a piece of remaining yellow crime scene tape, swore under his breath and yanked it off the fence, then wadded it up and stuffed it into his pocket. “This is the kind of publicity we don’t need.” He glanced up at the camera again. “Once we’re operational, if anyone had the stones to try and bury any more dead bodies, we’ll catch them.”
“Let’s hope no one does.”
“Amen to that.”
She changed the subject. “You lived here for years, right?”
He nodded. “Me, Dad and Mom and Grandma.”
“And the staff.”
“Yeah, oh, yeah. Only the maids stayed at the house, though. The others, like Wynn Cravens or Margaret Duval, they didn’t live in.”
“Margaret Duval?” she repeated.
“Yeah, she was Nana Beulah’s nurse, so she was there a lot, even spent some nights at the house, I think.”
“Before you moved into Savannah?”
“Yeah.” He nodded, his blue eyes watching a squirrel scamper up the trunk of one of the live oaks just beyond the fence. “Nana Beulah stayed on for a few more years—God, was it, like, maybe ten? I don’t really remember. Anyway, eventually she needed round-the-clock care in a modern facility, one without all the steps that are in the house here, and eventually we closed everything down. The only one who stayed on the payroll was Wynn for a while. We needed someone to look after the place, but eventually we had to let him go, too.”
“Twenty years ago,” she said, thinking aloud. “You all still lived here then? When the Duval girls went missing?”