by Lisa Jackson
“Swinging?”
“You know. That exchanging partners in the bedroom if you know what I mean.”
“The Duvals are ‘swingers’?”
“Well, don’t quote me on that, but it’s pretty much common knowledge.”
“You mean Harvey had an affair.”
“Humph. One? Get real. I don’t want to spread rumors, but trust me, Harvey has a wandering eye. And his wife? Same goes for her.”
“Do you have any idea who they had affairs with?”
“Well, no, I can’t say.”
“But you’re certain?”
“No, no. I mean I got no proof. It’s just what we heard, the wife and I. And those girls they have? Allowed to run loose while their older son—Owen, I think his name is?—there’s something about him I don’t trust. Kind of sulks around, you know, won’t meet you in the eyes. And I saw him once, late at night, leave the house. I was getting a drink of water at the kitchen sink, hadn’t turned on the light as I didn’t want to wake the missus, she don’t sleep so good, and he comes right out of the upper window, clear as day and down the roof he goes, then hops to the ground. Just after one in the morning. And you know I always say, ‘There ain’t nothin’ good happens after midnight. ’”
Amen.
Reed had been a cop too long to not agree with the old man’s observation. He would have loved to interview him, but George was now deceased and his wife, as of the last time anyone checked, was in an elder care facility. The lead investigator who had signed the report, Detective Charles Easterling, had retired at sixty-five two years after the Duval girls had been reported missing. He, too, had died, just last year. Heart failure.
There was only one cop still remaining on the force who had worked the case twenty years earlier, a deputy at the time and now a sergeant. Reed had spoken with her and learned nothing that he hadn’t already read in the files that were now piled on a corner of his desk.
They had offered him no insight in the mystery.
He turned to his monitor and pulled up the computer-generated sketch of what Rose Duval would look like if she’d survived—a pixie of a young woman with blond, curly hair, bright blue eyes, short little nose and a dimple in her chin.
“Yeah, okay. Let me know when you find a match,” Delacroix said into the phone before clicking off.
“Nothing yet?” he guessed.
“Too early. I told you.” She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head, then caught sight of the image on his computer. “How about you?”
He frowned and shook his head as he stared at the computer model of what Rose Duval might look like. “It’s too generic, I think. And who knows if she’s still blond, or had her teeth straightened, plastic surgery or whatever.”
“Yeah,” she said, “could be anyone.”
Or she could be dead.
Reed considered that option, didn’t like it, but had to admit that it was the most likely scenario.
He sighed through his nose. The investigation wasn’t gaining any traction, his home life wasn’t exactly on track, someone had come into his house uninvited, and in a few days . . .
Oh, Lord.
In a few days, Sylvie Morrisette would be laid to rest.
* * *
Two hours later, Reed pulled up to Peaceful Glen, the adult care facility, and parked in one of the few shady spots available. The cement block building was long and low, built, it looked like, in the sixties with a flat roof and rows of big windows with individual air-conditioning units in the walls. Shadows from a row of shade trees stretched across the walkways, the afternoon sun warm as it slowly lowered in the west.
He stepped through a glass door into a large reception area separated from a dining space by a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace with an oversize picture of Jesus above the mantel.
It was quiet inside, almost hushed, a few carts rattling, some muted voices in the hallways and a feeling of forced cheer in the colorful wall art that was at odds with the institutional green walls and the tan indoor/outdoor carpet of the corridor and common spaces.
His badge gained him access, and he was told by a pert receptionist that Mrs. Adams “was resting” and that her daughter was with her in room 114.
Reed circumvented an elderly man pushing a walker and ignored the scent of disinfectant over the underlying odor of urine. He tapped softly on the door to room 114 and stepped inside as a woman called, “Come in.” She was seated in a floral recliner by the window, the only chair in the studio apartment. A TV was muted to some decorating show and upon the twin bed was an emaciated woman with her eyes closed.
“I’m Julia,” the sixtyish woman said, and quickly folded the newspaper she’d been reading. She was short and heavyset with narrow reading glasses set upon a small nose, and thick gray hair that was layered around a square face with a quizzical expression. “Ona’s daughter.”
“Detective Pierce Reed.” He showed his ID and explained why he was at Peaceful Glen.
“Well, I don’t know what I can tell you and, Mom . . .” She lifted a hand, gesturing toward the bed, where a blue comforter was tucked under the older woman’s narrow chin. She was thin and frail looking, her cheekbones prominent, her eye sockets deep.
“She’s in and out. Sometimes clear as a bell, especially about things in the past, but she couldn’t tell you the day of the week, and sometimes I’m not sure she even remembers me, then the strangest thing, she’ll pop up with something that’s spot-on.”
She sighed and went on. “I’ve been reading about the Duval girls in the papers and watching on television. It’s awful. And it just goes on and on. Those poor parents, what they’ve been through.”
The woman on the bed snorted, her eyes, beneath her papery eyelids, fluttering.
“Mom?” Julia asked, getting up and moving to the bed. She touched her mother on a bony, flannel-draped shoulder. “Mom. There’s a policeman here. He wants to talk to you about Harvey and Margaret Duval and their daughters.”
Nothing.
“Mom.” She gave Ona’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Mom? Can you wake up now? Talk to Detective . . .”
“Reed,” he supplied.
“Detective Reed would like to talk to you. About the Duvals.” Again there was no response.
Julia straightened and let out her breath. “See what I mean?” “Maybe you can help me,” he suggested as she perched on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know how. I barely knew those girls. I was out of the house before they were born. So I only saw them when I visited Mom and Dad.”
“What about the brother? Owen?”
“No, I mean, I recognized him by sight, but that was about it.” She began plucking at the pilling on the comforter. “He was just a neighbor kid, and I don’t think Mom and Dad really knew him all that well. It’s not like the families hung out or anything. Mom and Dad were already retired, I think, and the Duvals were raising four kids and balancing jobs, so . . . not a lot in common.”
“And you?”
“We were living in Charlotte at the time. I was working and have a husband and kids of my own. Three of them. All in elementary school, so I barely had time to breathe, couldn’t come down here all that often what with everyone’s schedule.” She offered a tentative smile. “So I really can’t tell you anything and if you’re hoping to get some information from Mom . . . well . . .” Julia sighed, her head wagging sadly. “As I said, sometimes clear as a bell, other times, well . . .”
Reed had told himself the trip to Peaceful Glen was probably a waste of time, but he still felt a sliver of disappointment.
“What do you know about Harvey and Margaret?” he asked.
“Not much. He was in insurance, an agent or a broker or something, and she was a nurse. I do know that. She worked at the hospital when I was a kid. I remember because I went into the ER when I broke my arm from falling off my bike and she was the nurse who attended to me.”
This much he knew. Everything Jul
ia was saying checked out. “Your father said in his statement to the police that there was trouble at the Duval house. That things weren’t . . . stable.” He was pushing it as he found no reports of police being called to the home. It was all just hearsay. From a dead man.
Julia’s eyebrows drew together. “I . . . I don’t know about that.”
“He seemed to think there was some marital strife.”
“Well, probably. They divorced, didn’t they?”
“He thought there were affairs.”
“Oh. Again, I don’t know.”
“You didn’t hear that Harvey had a girlfriend?”
She was shaking her head. “No, I never—”
“Margaret!” the woman in the bed croaked. “It was Margaret.” Ona’s eyes blinked open for a second and she focused on Reed. “She was a hot pants!”
“Mom!” Julia said, shocked.
Ona added, “You ask George! She came on to him.”
Julia was shaking her head. “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s true.”
“Common slut! With all those kids. Those girls probably weren’t all her husband’s.” She snorted her disgust. “Hot pants!”
Julia gasped.
Her mother’s eyes shut.
Reed asked, “Mrs. Adams?”
Nothing.
“Mom?” Julia, obviously distressed, glanced at Reed but touched her mother’s shoulder again. “The detective has more questions.” She waited and then raised her hands, palms up. “This is how it happens. A few quick words as if she’s been a part of the conversation all along or at least listening in, and then she blurts something out and it’s as if it takes everything out of her. She probably won’t speak again for a couple of days.” Then leaning down to her mother’s ear, she said, “Can you hear me? Detective Reed is trying to find out what happened to the Duval girls. Margaret and Harvey’s kids, you know.”
There was a movement behind the older woman’s eyes again and her face twisted into an expression of disgust, but she remained silent.
After ten minutes, Reed handed Julia his card. “If she wakes up or you can think of anything else, please give me a call.”
“I will,” Julia promised. “But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
No, he thought now. He’d left after waiting for Ona to wake up and say anything clear or helpful. As he drove through the city, his thoughts turned over in his mind. How much of what the old woman remembered was true? How much of it was just gossip? How much of it had no basis in fact at all?
He was almost to the station when his cell phone buzzed and the call was connected to his Bluetooth, his display showing Delacroix’s name and number.
“You’re not going to believe this,” his new partner said when he answered. “Guess who just walked into the police station?”
“I couldn’t.” Squinting, he flipped down his visor as he passed into the heart of the city.
“Rose Duval,” she said, her voice heavy with skepticism.
“What?”
“I’m telling you, a woman saying she’s Rose Duval. We’ve got her in an interview room. Thought you’d want to know.”
“On my way,” he said. “I’ll be there in five.”
CHAPTER 22
“If Muhammad won’t come to the mountain,” Nikki told Jennings as she grabbed her keys, “then the mountain is just going to have to go to the Red Knuckle.” She patted the cat on his striped head, then drove into town. She intended to visit Bronco at his home, but she’d remembered what Morrisette had said on that final phone call Nikki had overheard:
“. . . the Red Knuckle. He’s a regular there. Hangs out there every damned evening, the way I hear it. They probably have a stool with his name on it . . .”
Nikki’s heart clenched as that joke was the last Reed’s partner had ever uttered. And it was her fault the woman was dead. Guilt, forever nearby, caught up with her and settled firmly on her shoulder. Close enough to keep whispering in her ear: It’s your fault, Nikki. Your fault that Morrisette jumped into the river to try to save you.
Setting her jaw, she pushed that horrid voice away and concentrated on the here and now. Why the hell had Bronco Cravens been at the Beaumont estate that day? How had he discovered the bodies in the basement? What had he been doing? It was time to find out. If Bronco wasn’t at the bar, then she’d go to his house and after that, she hoped to find a way to avoid Tyson Beaumont’s cameras and visit the Beaumont mansion, the scene of the crime.
First things first: talking to Bronco, finding out what he knew, why he was at the house in the basement that day.
Nikki had learned that until recently, Bronco had worked at Lamont Construction, but she’d checked with the company and found he’d been let go; though, of course, she didn’t know why. Not that it mattered, probably. Since she had to drive through town anyway, she headed toward campus, parked a block away from the Red Knuckle and made her way inside the crowded bar.
The darkened interior was noisy, a din of conversation, clinking glasses, rattling ice cubes and click of billiard balls over the throb of some crossover country and pop song she couldn’t identify. Most of the crowd was on the younger side, college students who were just starting a new semester.
All of the stools at the bar were filled, people laughing and talking, drinking and flirting, some watching the televisions mounted on the wall, all tuned to various sporting events. Currently, the Braves were down two runs to the Red Sox on one screen, a golf match on another and three husky suited men at a desk discussing college football on a third.
Bronco wasn’t seated at the bar.
Nikki scanned the tables scattered over the darkened floorboards in the center of the room, then skirting two pool tables, slowly checked out the occupied booths. No Bronco. She nearly ran into a waitress balancing a tray of drinks as she headed to a screen door that opened to a back patio, where some of the patrons nursed drinks and smoked at umbrella tables.
But Bronco hadn’t landed outside, either.
Maybe it was too early for him to show up. Or too late.
Back inside, she made her way to the bar. “Hey,” she said to the bartender, and offered a smile.
“What can I get you?” He couldn’t have been more than twenty-five with buzz cut hair, freckles and an easy grin.
“Nothing . . . not now. I just wondered if Bronco’s been in?”
“Cravens?” he repeated, and shook his head. “Not lately. Not for a few days, at least not on my shift and this is about the time he usually shows up.” He glanced to his right, where a guy of about sixty, his gray hair braided into a long ponytail, a Braves cap mashed on his head, was seated. In jeans and a plaid shirt, his beer bottle and dish of Chex Mix in front of him, he watched the baseball action, his gaze glued to the TV mounted over shelves of liquors. “Hey, Joe,” the bartender yelled.
The client turned toward him, one graying eyebrow cocked.
“You seen Bronco lately?”
“Nah.” A gruff shake of his head.
“Know where he is?”
“Why would I?” Joe demanded, glancing from the bartender to Nikki in irritation.
“You two usually watch together.”
“Yeah, well, he’s been AWOL.”
“Do you know why?” Nikki asked, breaking into the conversation.
“Who’re you?” Joe wanted to know.
“Nikki Gillette. With the Sentinel.”
“A reporter? Oh, geez.” He scowled as the crowd at the bar let out a whoop, and Joe turned quickly to the screen to see a Braves runner slide into home. He shot to his feet. “What happened?” he asked just as the play was shown again. He waited until the next batter was up, then said, “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout Bronco. But he was spooked about what he found over at that big place, the old Beaumont house. Spooked him good. He used to play over there as a kid. His old man or grandpa or someone worked for that crazy old bat who used to live there.”
“He tell you anything about that?”
“He had stories.” Joe was nodding. “Wild stories about what went on over there.”
“Such as?”
He thought for a second. “Well, he said something about the crazy lady having some kind of secret stash—valuables, y’know, but that might’ve been a lie. Bronco, he does stretch the truth now and again and especially when he’s had a few.” He scratched the back of his head. “And he used to talk about the old days, y’know. When he was a kid. He swore he saw his friend’s old man getting it on with the nurse out in the stable.” He snorted at the thought.
“His friend?” she said.
“Yeah, Bronco’s friend. The rich kid. Tyler, no—Tyson. Yeah, Tyson. Anyway, Tyson’s dad and the nurse had a thing.”
“What nurse?” she asked, but she felt her pulse quicken at the information.
“The one who took care of the old lady who lived there.”
What had Tyson said about Margaret Duval when Nikki had found him fixing the gate at the estate?
“She was Nana Beulah’s nurse, so she was there a lot, even spent some nights at the house, I think.”
Margaret Duval and Baxter Beaumont?
Joe studied his glass for a second. “Again, don’t quote me. I’m just passin’ on info that Bronco told me. Is it true?” He rocked his thick hand in a maybe, maybe not gesture. “But as I said, Bronco’s tales tend to be pretty damned tall when he’s into his cups, so I never gave any of ’em much thought.”
Baxter Beaumont, Tyson’s father, and Margaret Duval were having an affair?
“When was the last time he was in?” she asked, and the bartender shrugged, shaking his head.
“A week ago?” Joe was thoughtful. “Yeah, whatever night it was that the Braves were playing the Marlins. I remember cuz they had a no-hitter going until the bottom of the eighth. That’s the last time I seen him. But I talked to him once on the phone and he was pretty jittery about those bodies been found up there.”
“And you’ve been here every night since?”
“Sure. Well, except when the hurricane hit. I missed a few nights then.”