The Third Grave

by Lisa Jackson

  “A balancing act?”

  “I guess.” But the scales always seemed tipped a bit. “What’ve we got?” He was hoping for a new lead because their interview with Ashley Jefferson hadn’t gone well. She’d stuck to her original statement and when they’d pushed her, she’d asked if she needed a lawyer. Delacroix had planned to crack her and have her admit her alibi for Owen Duval was bullshit, but Ashley Jefferson had held firm, all of which had pissed off Delacroix.

  “We’ve got a couple of things.” She pointed to a graying box on the other side of her desk. “Original case files. You requested?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re dusty and I think I might be allergic.” She took off her glasses and set them on the desk, then found a tissue and rubbed her eyes. They did look a little red and she was blinking away tears.

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ll live.” She dug into a desk drawer, found a bottle of eyedrops and deftly administered them. “You know, everything’s digital now.”

  “I know.”

  “So why bother?”

  “Helps me get into it.”

  “Seems like you already were ‘into it.’ ”

  How could he explain that he liked to see the evidence as it had come in, to touch it and smell it, to feel as if the details of the case were surrounding him in the twenty-year-old dust? Delacroix had grown up in the digital/virtual age where everyone had a cell phone and friends via social platforms. Reed needed more, something tactile and real. He needed to get his hands dirty.

  But she was already back at the computer screen. “Also, a couple of things. According to the ME, the victims weren’t sexually molested.”

  He felt a sense of relief. “Good.”

  “I know. Right?” Her eyes met his. “Not that it matters now, I suppose, but . . . glad they didn’t have to suffer that on top of whatever else happened to them.” Reaching for her can of soda, she hit her glasses to send them skating across her desk and flying across the space between their desks. “Geez, I’m such a klutz,” she said as he picked up the pair, glanced through the lenses to see that they weren’t cracked, then handed them back to her.

  “Not much of a prescription.” The lenses seemed clear, without any correction.

  “I know.” She seemed embarrassed. “I’ve had them for years. Because I have what’s commonly called a ‘lazy eye.’ I guess I should have surgery, but I keep putting it off, you know. I mean, what if something goes wrong? I’m better off with these.” She held up the glasses by the bow, then slid them onto her nose, opened her can of soda, took a swig and was back to business. “Anyway, I talked to a few people who were at the theater that day, people who made statements.”

  “And?”

  “They are all sticking to their stories, which isn’t a surprise, but I was hoping for something that might change things up. But so far, no luck.” Another long swallow from her can. “I talked to most of the people who’d been at the theater that night, except for three I couldn’t locate as they’d moved and one who’d passed away. The others, let me see—nine of them, including the guy working the refreshment stand who also was the ticket taker and the cashier in the booth outside the front doors—but none of them had anything more to add.”

  He wasn’t surprised, but it was still disappointing.

  “No one saw Owen Duval go into the theater, that’s the thing, and if you look at the security footage, such as it is, he’s nowhere to be seen even though he bought a ticket. I sent you the link, by the way.”

  Reed faced his desk, switched on the computer and scrolled through his e-mails until he discovered the link and opened it. The first footage was of people entering the theater. There weren’t many trickling in, so it was easy to spot the three blond girls. “There they are . . .” Delacroix said, rolling her chair over to his and pointing at the screen. Owen appeared in the camera’s eye as he approached, then slipped cash through a hole cut into the glass. The ticket taker slid four tickets back to him, along with some change, and he appeared to mutter a “thanks” as he passed out the tickets and placed his ticket and two dollars into his wallet.

  “So he never went inside,” Reed said.

  “Looks like.” Her eyes were narrowed as she stared at the images. “Now, watch, the camera angle changes because the department put all the film together.”

  She was right. After the girls entered the building, the screen went dark for a few seconds, then the new black-and-white image of the lobby appeared; the girls waited for an older couple to order and take their drinks and popcorn before stepping up to the glass case and making their own selections, one big barrel of popcorn, three drinks and a box of some kind of candy.

  “Red Vines,” Delacroix said as if it made any difference. “I talked to Gary Garvin, the guy behind the counter, and he remembered because the girls argued about what to buy, only had so much money so they had to split. He said the oldest girl, Holly, made the final choice and the middle girl, Poppy, wasn’t happy about it.” True enough; as the girls edged away from the counter, the middle girl was scowling, holding her drink but obviously mad as two teenaged boys approached the counter. “Did you talk to any of these guys?” he asked, motioning to the boys pushing each other and laughing, screwing around as they ordered.

  “No, they were never located.”

  “Seriously? Because they could have known Owen Duval, and because of it, might have paid more attention to what happened to him.”

  “I sent you a list of everyone who was questioned. These guys weren’t located. No one recognized them.”

  As Delacroix’s cell phone beeped and she checked an incoming text, Reed reversed the footage until it fell on the boys again. “One of them has braces.” He pointed to the blond with the long hair, his eyes nearly obscured by the pale fringe, a burst of freckles over a Roman nose. He was wearing a tank top, jacket and shorts and looked all of fourteen. The other was taller and seemed slightly more mature, more filled out, his face a roadmap of pimples, his dark hair curly and wild, his shoulders broad and straining the shoulders of a long-sleeved T-shirt that barely covered the waistband of his shorts, which were so low slung they nearly fell off his narrow hips. “We need to find these guys.”

  “They tried,” she said, pocketing her phone. “At least Charles Easterling tried originally.”

  “Well, we gotta try again. Let’s get a picture from the film of each boy. Make it as clear as possible and give it to the press, get it out there, see if anyone remembers them or if they come forward. They’ll be in their early to midthirties by now. If that doesn’t work, we’ll do computer enhancements, show what they look like today, like we did with Rose Duval, and see if we get a hit.”

  Delacroix had retrieved her cell from her pocket and was nodding as she made notes on the device, but she paused, looking up. “You think that will work—the computer-generated images?”

  “Won’t know until we give it a try.”

  “But nothing’s come through on the youngest Duval girl, right, the one where we sent out the images?”

  “Not yet, but it’s still early. Been less than twenty-four hours that it’s been with the media.” He managed a smile he didn’t feel because they both knew that the chances of the youngest sister being alive were slim, almost nonexistent. And even if she somehow had managed to survive, locating her was a long shot, an extremely long shot. “Let’s do it and see what we come up with. Who knows?” His gaze locked with hers. “We might just get lucky.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “Yeah, I can meet.” Brit Sully’s voice sounded a little faint over the wireless connection.

  Nikki sat a little straighter in her desk chair. After over a week of trying to reach the woman, Brit, who was part of a clique that had included Andrea Clancy and Ashley McDonnell, had finally called her back.

  “Awesome,” Nikki said. She’d been searching for and going through all the social media accounts of the people associated with the Duval case. If anyone who knew Hol
ly, Poppy or Rose Duval had a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter or other social platform account, Nikki had been trying to track them down or, if she could get into the account, take a look at their psyches, as well as their friends and contacts and interests and groups.

  Now, finally, she could actually talk to someone about the case. Someone who’d actually known Holly Duval. Besides the girls’ parents, with whom she’d had short, emotional conversations.

  Margaret, the girls’ mother, had been eager to talk, though unable or unwilling to offer any real insight, preferring instead to rail against the police for not finding her daughters earlier, and held tight to the belief that her youngest was alive somewhere.

  “And where is Rose?” Margaret had wailed. “Where’s my baby? Why can’t the police locate her?”

  Harvey said little more than, “It’s a real shame.” And when asked about his still-missing youngest daughter, Harvey had been more resigned. “I doubt we’ll ever see her again. Look, I can’t talk about this anymore. Please, don’t call again.”

  So far, she hadn’t.

  Everyone else she’d tried to contact about the Duval case had denied her. Until now. Her pulse ticked up as Brit suggested, “How about in half an hour? Ten thirty, I know that’s kind of short notice, but I didn’t really know if I should talk to you, and the rest of the day is pretty full.”

  “Sure. Fine. Half an hour works!” She didn’t want to lose this lead, didn’t want to give Brit a chance to back out. “Where?”

  “I was thinking the Buzz, that coffee shop that’s not far from Forsyth Park? You know where it is?”

  “Yes. Perfect!” She frequented the Buzz often enough as it was only across the park, a few blocks from where she lived. “I’ll be there.” She stood quickly and heard a series of pops as her spine lengthened.

  Finally! After two days of spinning her wheels. She’d spent most of the past forty-eight hours at home, working on her laptop, checking the Internet, arranging her own timeline of when events in the Duval murders had taken place, and making calls for interviews where she’d left messages one after another. Texts, e-mails and voice mails had been left unanswered.

  Until now.

  Of course Reed had been as tight-lipped about the case as ever, and rather than risking another rift with him, she hadn’t badgered him about the investigation and had barely mentioned it. He was absorbed in it, though he did ask about what she’d done each day and if there had been anything the least bit suspicious here at the house.

  There hadn’t been.

  No bogeyman lurking in the shadows.

  No dark figure leaping at her as she rounded a corner.

  And though she still had the uncanny sensation that she was being watched or followed, she’d chalked it all up to some lingering paranoia that she dismissed because one thing she was not was a wimp!

  There had been a couple of times when the cat had looked out the window, his tail twitching, and Nikki had followed his gaze to land on a bird at the fountain or a squirrel scampering brazenly along the top of the back fence, but that had been it.

  Nothing the least bit evil or scary or threatening.

  No one had been hurt.

  Nothing had been stolen.

  Everything was quiet again.

  Now, she hurried downstairs and felt a twinge in her arm, reminding her she wasn’t quite healed, though she’d been wearing her sling less and less and she wasn’t going to bother with it now. She put her iPad, phone and keys into her bag and caught sight of Mikado at the door, looking up at her hopefully. “Next time,” she promised. “You’re in charge.” His tail swept the floor. “That’s right, because we can’t trust him, now, can we?” She pointed to the cat, who was creeping along the windowsill, staring into the back garden.

  And then she was off.

  Nikki half jogged crossing the park where the live oaks spread their branches across the wide walkways. She passed a man in a fedora and overcoat despite the heat, a teenager walking four dogs of different shapes and sizes, and two women power walking for their morning exercise.

  She was starting to sweat a bit when she caught up with Brit at the Buzz, where she had already ordered a tall coffee drink and was seated at a tall café table in the front courtyard while scrolling on her phone.

  “Hi! So glad to finally connect,” Nikki said, taking the stool across from her.

  “Yeah.” She looked up from the screen. In her late thirties, Brit was petite and trim, wearing running clothes that suggested she kept fit by logging in miles jogging. Her thick black hair was pulled into a ponytail, a few silver hairs catching in the morning light. “Don’t you want to grab something to drink?”

  “I’m fine,” Nikki assured her as she pulled out her phone and iPad. She didn’t want Brit to have a chance to second-guess herself. “As I said, I just wanted to ask you some questions about the Duval family.”

  “You and a million others,” she said, taking a sip from her cup.

  “Other reporters?” That worried her and she considered Norm Metzger—God, he was a pain in her side.

  “Oh, yeah. Like tons. But not the cops. Well, at least not yet. Anyway, I didn’t know what to do, but I wanted to help since I was a friend of Holly’s, you know. Maxie said you were cool, so”—she shrugged—“ask away.” She licked off a remaining bit of foam from the rim of her drink.

  Nikki decided to get right to the heart of it, what had been nagging at her. “Tell me about Ashley McDonnell and Owen Duval, how close they were.”

  “They weren’t.” Brit leaned forward, the tall table wobbling slightly on the cobblestones. “That—the two of them—was definitely not a thing. At least not that kind of thing.”

  “But she’s his alibi. She swore she was with him that night.”

  “I know. I know,” Brit said. “But I’m telling you, Ashley McDonnell was out of Owen Duval’s league. Like waaay out!” Brit’s eyebrows lifted as she took a long sip from her latte. “I really never understood why Ashley hung out with him, you know. He was so quiet and aloof, kind of kept to himself.”

  “Maybe that appealed to her.”

  Another long swallow of her latte. “I guess, but Ashley was always a girl who had her eyes on the prize.”

  “Meaning?”

  Brit cocked her head and stared at Nikki as if she couldn’t believe she had to explain the obvious. “Ashley was only interested in running with the ‘it’ crowd, the popular kids. Cheerleaders, jocks, especially the ones who had money. Even at fourteen or fifteen, she knew what she wanted.”

  “Which was?”

  “A rich husband, obviously. And she got one, didn’t she?”

  “In Ryan Jefferson?”

  “Right!” Brit rubbed her thumb over the tips of her fingers to indicate cold, hard cash. “Ryan developed some kind of medical software—for heart patients, I think, but I could be wrong and it doesn’t matter. Anyway, he built up his own company, made a fortune, then sold it before he was forty for, like, millions of dollars, probably tens of millions, but I don’t really know.”

  “And Owen didn’t have any?”

  “Nah, he was more of a bad boy.” She drained her drink and squinted, thinking. “The thing that really doesn’t make sense to me is that Ryan is a nerd. Always was, always will be.”

  “A ‘nerd’?”

  “Okay, I know that’s not PC, but it’s true. He’s a computer geek, still. With all his money, he drives an old minivan, you know, so he can haul stuff. Ashley—who drives a Bentley, by the way—tried to talk him into a Range Rover or Lexus SUV or Tesla or whatever, but he runs around in beat-up jeans and not the expensive ones, but real old jeans and T-shirts.” She rolled her eyes. “Drives Ashley crazy. It’s not like he wears glasses duct-taped together, but he really doesn’t give a crap about anything fancy. She’s the one who talked him into moving into a gated community out on Tybee. On the water, of course. Nothing but the best for Ashley. That’s what I mean. And they have a country club membership, ma
ybe more than one, but that’s for her and maybe his business contacts. Not him. She golfs and plays tennis and he . . . he has a ‘garage’ that’s really a huge office filled with all kinds of computers and technical stuff. Like I said, ‘a nerd.’ ”

  “She met him in high school?”

  “Well, she probably knew him then. He’s older by a couple of years, but they got together later, after he went to college and had his business going, I think.”

  “So she dated Owen in high school?”

  “Not really ‘dated.’ Not seriously. They weren’t, like, going together or anything like that. They weren’t a couple.”

  “So why, then, would she protect Owen Duval?”

  “You tell me? It didn’t make any sense. Still doesn’t. Back in the day he was sorta cute, I guess.” She squinched up her face as if she didn’t believe what she was saying. “But in kind of a mysterious way, I guess. And he could be funny—real sharp sense of humor. Sarcastic. But really, he was a dirtbag. Right. He shoulda been there for his sisters!” She tossed her empty cup into a nearby wastebasket. “I don’t get it. As I said, Ashley always had her eyes on the prize, and she liked keeping her options open, so she dated a lot of guys.”

  “Owen called her his girlfriend,” Nikki reminded her.

  “That might have been the way he saw it, or wanted it to be. He might’ve even thought they were a couple or exclusive or whatever, but Ashley definitely didn’t. She had a ton of boyfriends. A ton.”

  “Such as?” Nikki asked. She knew the crowd because her siblings had been in school with them.

  “God, I can’t remember. Not really. Uh . . . let’s see. Jacob, she hung out with him a lot.”

  “Jacob Channing?” Wasn’t that the name Margaret had mentioned?

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “Jacob was a real jock and he was the richest kid in our class, well, next to Tyson.” She took another sip of her drink. “The Beaumonts. They had the most money. Everyone knew it. But Jacob was right up there, and he and Tyson were friends.”

  “And both dated Ashley?”

  “Not at the same time.” She wrinkled her nose. “But yeah.”