Tell Me (28 page)

“No coincidence,” Reed said grimly. And if there was a chance Blondell was innocent, the perpetrator could very well be Amity O’Henry’s killer.

“She’s getting out?” Nikki said, dumbfounded. Her wireless connection was weak for some reason, and she was having trouble hearing Reed over the road noise.

“That’s what it looks like. Probably . . . tomor . . .” Reed’s voice was cutting out. “There will be . . . pr . . . ference . . . I’ll know more . . . afternoon.”

“Look, if you can hear me, I’m on the road,” she yelled in frustration into her Bluetooth as she passed a gasoline truck. “I’ll call you when I’ve stopped and you can fill me in.” Hanging up, she mentally kicked herself from one end of the state to the other. If she’d had any idea that Blondell was going to be released, she would have postponed this trip. As it was, though, she had plenty of time to talk to Thompson and return to Savannah to both meet with Holt Beauregard and attend the press conference tomorrow.

If she stepped on it.

Which she did.

With the aid of the GPS on her phone and a heavy foot on the accelerator, she made it to the garage outside of Charleston in record time. Located in an industrial area far from the heart of the city, Ace Auto Repair had seen better days. The garage of six bays was built of metal and concrete, all six doors wide open, four mechanics working on vehicles, two hoisted off the floor, rolling boards with mechanics lying on them protruding from their sides, three more with their hoods up. Some kind of rock music played over the din of the noise of the shop.

Larry Thompson was standing at a tall metal cabinet near a side wall where tools and parts were kept. She probably wouldn’t have recognized him except that she knew he worked this shift and the badge on his gray jumpsuit read: THOMPSON.

“Lawrence Thompson,” she said, and he visibly stiffened before warily turning to face her.

“I’m Nikki—”

“I know who you are.” He sounded angry and his features were set. Hard. Almost defiant. “I knew someone would show up with all that’s going on with Blondell. I guess I should have expected you.”

“I just want to ask you some questions.”

He glanced around to the other stations where the mechanics, after watching Nikki approach him, had turned back to their work. “I could use a break.” With a hitch of his chin toward an exterior side door, he said, “This way,” and led her through the door as if to avoid questions from any of the others who’d looked up as she’d zeroed in on him. She had walked straight into an open bay without bothering to stop at the front counter and deal with whatever roadblocks might have been set in her path.

“I can’t tell you anything that hasn’t already been printed a dozen times over,” he said, wiping his hands on a faded red rag as they walked out of the garage.

“Just humor me.”

“I don’t see why.”

“Because Blondell O’Henry is news again, Larry, and come on, you were in the biz, you know how these things go. Talk to me, and then you can tell the next reporter to take a hike, that you’ve already talked to me. Or answer their questions too, but you may as well get it over with.”

He made a disparaging sound but nodded, seeming to accept the inevitable.

He’d aged since the last photograph Nikki had seen of him, taken more than fifteen years earlier. His face had grown jowly, his eyes guarded by lightly shaded glasses, a short, graying beard covering his once-strong jaw. His sandy hair had been thick and long, brushing his collar, but now it was only a silvery stubble, at least what she could see of it from beneath a Braves baseball cap.

They walked down a worn path to a concrete slab that had been fitted with two folding chairs that looked to be at least fifty years old and a picnic table from the same era. The sky was blue, with only a few clouds skimming across the vast expanse. On the chain-link fence that separated the back of the shop from a parking lot filled with shells of cars, a couple of crows flapped noisily away, their black wings shining, their cries piercing.

This industrial area outside of Charleston was in stark contrast to the beautiful city of elegant Southern mansions—clapboard siding, tall windows, and white pillars, bordered by palm trees—on the harbor.

“I just want to forget all that,” Thompson said in a low tone, as if anyone inside the shop could hear over the hiss of air hoses, the whir of electric lug nut removal, and the general clang of metal parts being refitted.

“Is that why you changed professions?”

“Partially. And the fact that no one would hire me.” He lifted a shoulder. “Times were changing anyway, newspapers and magazines folding. This was steadier.” He thought for a second, his gaze, from behind his tinted lenses, taking in the Dumpster and broken-down cars beyond the fence. “And yeah, I miss it, but not that much.”

“She’s going to be released soon. Probably tomorrow.”

He visibly started, his eyes refocusing on Nikki. “Good,” he said, obviously digesting this new turn of events. Nodding, he added, “Yeah, that’s . . . good. I don’t believe she did what she was accused of, so justice will finally be served.”

“She never told you differently?”

“No. Not in the correspondence before . . . you know . . .”

“Before you helped her escape.”

“Yeah, and not after, either.” He adjusted the bill of his hat, and Nikki noted there was a line of sweat on what was left of his hair. The cuff of his sleeve pulled upward, and she saw the slightest discoloration on his wrist, evidence of the tattoo he’d had removed, the picture of a chameleon that had been the identifying mark that had led to his arrest.

“Look, I don’t want to be quoted in the articles you’re doing nor in the book. I’ve carved myself out a new life and it’s working, so I don’t want to mess it up.”

“I understand, but your name is a matter of record.”

He said bitterly, “I should never have gotten involved with her. Now that I look back on it a lot more clearly, I think she wanted me so she could get pregnant again. It was her thing, y’know. She had Amity in high school, then two more with her ex, then was pregnant with that fourth one. I mean there is such a thing as birth control. I figured I was just the latest sperm donor who got close enough to her to stick his neck out and help her find a way out of prison.” He closed his eyes for a second as if he couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid.

“She wanted to have another baby?”

“Oh, yeah. She was all about it. No, I never saw her cry a tear for the daughter who was killed or the ones who were hurt in the attack, but she was hot to trot to have another one. The damnedest thing. So, no, I don’t believe she tried to wipe out all her kids.”

“You were in love with her.” It wasn’t a question.

He lifted a shoulder, then the fingers of his right hand scrabbled in the breast pocket of his jumpsuit as if searching for a pack of cigarettes that didn’t exist. “At least lust. Whatever you want to call it. I was nuts about her.” He looked at the concrete, where an ant was crawling toward a crack. “But the trouble was, my feelings weren’t reciprocated.”

“No?”

Shoving his hands into his front pockets, he shook his head. “Nope. I think she was still in love with the last guy she’d hooked up with on the outside, before she was locked up.”

“Roland Camp?” Nikki said automatically, but Larry’s head continued to wag.

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. She had nothing but bad things to say about him, put him in the same category with her ex-husband. She never mentioned his name, but I got the idea he might be an older dude. She’d use words like ‘mature’ and ‘sophisticated’ and ‘smart,’ or was it ‘well-educated’? Yeah. That sounds more like it. Didn’t exactly remind me of Roland Camp.”

“No,” Nikki agreed. “She didn’t mention his name?”

“No.”

Another man appeared in the doorway. “Hey!” he called, giving Nikki the eye. He too was wearing a gray jumpsuit. “I could use a little help, Tom!”

“In a sec, Chet,” Larry responded.

“You don’t go by your first name?”

“Nope. Just easier. Most people don’t know about my past, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it, but now that she’s going to be released, I think it’s probably going to be a problem. You found me. You won’t be the last.”

“Probably not,” Nikki said, and then, though she was starting to dread the answer, she asked, “What about her attorney? What did she think about him?”

He snorted. “That snob? Alexander Whatever? Yeah, she thought he walked on water, even after she got put away for life. Somehow she didn’t blame him. I told her to find someone new to represent her, to file an appeal with some big gun from New York or Chicago or Atlanta, but she wasn’t interested. If I hadn’t known better I would have sworn she was in love with him.”

“But you did? Know better?”

“I know about the rumors, but I didn’t want to think about them. Legally, it was a nightmare, right? Anyway, what happened between them, she never said, but I do believe she was half in love with him, as much as she could be. Look, I gotta go,” he said, catching a harsh glare from Chet, who once again appeared in the doorway. “This job is important to me.”

“Just one more thing,” she said quickly, thinking of the viper in her car. “Amity was bitten by a snake before she died. Did Blondell ever talk about that?”

“Only that she’s deathly afraid of all kinds of snakes. Hates ’em,” he said, “Would turn the TV to another channel if a snake came into view, and visibly cringed when one was mentioned. Now, look, I really have to go.” He didn’t wait, but slipped back into the interior of the cavernous garage, and Nikki, hearing the crows cawing as they returned, made her way back to the car. All the while, she tried to tell herself that her uncle had
not
been involved with his client, that he wouldn’t have betrayed his marriage or his professional reputation, that his rumored romance with Blondell O’Henry was just that—pure, spiteful gossip.

But now she wasn’t as convinced.

Too many people, including Larry Thompson, believed differently.

She thought of her uncle as he had been twenty years earlier. Tall. Strapping. Successful. With a winning demeanor and a killer smile.

As she climbed into her rental car, she realized that everything she’d believed for most of her life had been a lie.

 

 

“H
ere’s the receipt.” Max slid a copy of an itemized sales slip across a glass display case to Reed. Barely twenty-five if he was a day, Max Huber was the owner and manager of Max’s Spy World, a shop dedicated to surveillance equipment and decorated with posters from James Bond movies. The display cases held all kinds of cameras, listening gear, mini-computers, phones, tiny microphones, night-vision goggles, and even some drones marketed as toys. Max’s red hair was cropped short, his soul patch thin, his skin fighting a losing battle with acne.

“I can give you a copy of the surveillance tape for that day,” he said, pointing to the date on the receipt. “Since I’m in the biz, I run surveillance twenty-four/seven on the shop. Got lots of equipment that people might like to steal.” He lifted his shoulders. “Want a copy? It’ll just take a second. All filed digitally, and since the guy came in less than two weeks ago, right at my fingertips. Just give me a sec . . .”

Before Reed could answer, Max hit a few buttons on a computer at the desk and seconds later handed Reed a small jump drive. “I remember this dude. He was like, really nervous. Asked a butt-load of questions, but was kind of a cheap-ass. I could see he wanted the better camera, but he wasn’t going to part with the bucks, but hey, y’know, ya get what ya pay for. He asked about a GPS tracking device too, to hide in the undercarriage of a car or something, but opted out, said he could use the phone.” His mouth twisted. “I couldn’t talk him into the GPS, but hey, what’re ya gonna do?”

“Thanks,” Reed said.

“Hey, any time. And if the department ever needs state of the art equipment, I’ve got it. I can make a deal for Savannah’s finest.”

“I’ll bet,” Morrisette said under her breath, a comment that was no doubt caught and amplified by the microphones and video equipment in the store. A little louder, as they walked through the glass door, she added, “We’ll keep that in mind.”

Outside, the sun was peeking through the clouds, and a few errant rays were reflecting on puddles drying in the parking lot. “ ‘Never stop selling’ must be his motto,” Morrisette said. “The kid’s got moxie, I’ll give him that.”

Once inside the car, she started the engine. “You’re not saying much. You know the guy who bought the stuff?”

“Oh, yeah,” Reed said, still thinking it over.

“You gonna tell me?”

He pocketed the disk and receipt. “On the way to the place where he works.”

“You know where that is?”

“That I do,” he said, and looked as if he could eat steel and spit nails. “Let’s go.”

 

Nikki flew down the highway, pushing the rental car and the speed limit as her thoughts burned through her brain, thoughts she hadn’t wanted to consider. Had her uncle really been involved with Blondell O’Henry? Is that why she chose him as her attorney rather than some high-profile criminal lawyer who would have loved to have made his name representing a beautiful woman accused of the most atrocious of crimes, a monster who was nearly movie-star gorgeous?

If so, Nikki wondered, had her parents known? Her father, the judge who presided over the trial? The prosecution? Garland Brownell, the district attorney?

She saw a patrol car on the highway ahead, checked her speedometer, and saw she was fifteen miles above the speed limit. “Damn,” she muttered, but lucked out as the patrolman had already pulled someone else over.
Slow down. You’ll get there; five or ten minutes one way or another won’t make any difference. You’re not Danica Frickin’ Patrick, for crying out loud!

Her phone rang, and she popped in her ear device, then answered. “Gillette.”

“I guess I’ll forgive you for standing me up,” Trina said, a smile in her voice. “A snake in the car trumps a friend at the bar any day. So how’re you doing today?”

“Busy and lucky. Almost got a ticket. Just passed a state cop doing a few miles over the limit.”

“Yikes. Slow down, lead foot.”

“Believe me, I am. So how about we have that drink tomorrow?” Nikki asked, with one eye on the speedometer. “Tonight I’m booked.”

“With that hunk of a cop, I hope.”

“Not quite. The hunk part is probably right, though, of course I wouldn’t really know as I’m an engaged woman these days, but the cop part is off. I think he tried to be one once and it didn’t work out for some reason.”
Damn but the speedometer kept inching up.
“I’m talking about Holt Beauregard.”

“Ahh . . . The black sheep of the Beauregards?”

“Could be a whole flock in that family.”

Trina laughed. “You’re right. But there is a reason I called, you know, and it’s because of the whole snake thing.”

“Yeah?” Nikki forced herself to stay in the slow lane even though the guy in front of her in an aging Pontiac was taking the speed limit literally.

“This is probably nothing,” Trina was saying, “but a guy by the name of Alfred Necarney died today, at a hospital in north Georgia.”

“Never heard of him.”

“I know. No one has. His home is an old family spread located in the hills outside of Dahlonga. First report is that he’s an Army veteran who lived alone, kind of a hermit. His sister hadn’t heard from him for a few days, got worried, and found him near dead from a blow to the head; he died at the hospital.”

Where was this going?
“And?”

“So far, the news is sketchy, but he ran an interesting side business. He sold snakes for a living, completely black market, under the radar.”

Nikki’s hands tightened over the wheel. “
And?”
she said again.

“And a lot of the snakes were let loose, running, er, slithering around free. They hadn’t bitten him, the theory being that he was just lying on the floor, unconscious, not threatening, so they left him alone, just sidled up to him for warmth. Anyway, either he lifted the lids from their cages or someone else did and let them out.”

“What?” Nikki’s pulse elevated a bit.

“From what I can piece together, they’re trying to figure out how he slipped and hit his head and knocked off not one, but several lids of the terrariums he kept them in.”

“Not likely,” Nikki said.

“Uh-huh, and when the animal handlers came to recapture the snakes, six seemed to be missing from their marked cages.”

Nikki felt both dread and exhilaration steal through her. Maybe they were on the verge of some answers.

“Three coral snakes and the same number of copperheads,” Trina went on. “Two of which, I’m thinking, maybe you met last night. Could be a coincidence, I suppose.”

“No. Someone stole the snakes from Necarney, murdered him, then came back to Savannah and slipped one into the cabin and another in my car.” Nikki was certain.

“That’s what I think,” Trina agreed. “Your buddies from last night had to come from somewhere. Even if you argued that the copperhead in the cabin could have been there for a while, had a nest or whatever, it is November, and don’t they like hibernate or something in the cold weather?”

“Or something,” she agreed. Geez, could the guy in front of her go any slower?

“And there’s just no way one got into your car without a little help.”

“You got that right,” she agreed grimly.

“So far the police upstate are investigating, and there’s no official word, but the sister, her name is Nola-Mae Pitman, has been spouting off. I found her number—she’s in the book—so I’ll text it to you just in case you want to give her a call.”

“Thanks. I do.”

“And by the way, Effie’s been hanging around. Of course, she asked all about you and what happened last night.”

“I guess that was to be expected,” Nikki said, her mind on other topics.

“Yeah, I know, but some of the questions were kind of personal. She was all about who owned the cabin and how you were related and why you were there.”

The driver ahead of Nikki slowed yet again. She couldn’t stand it, checked her mirror, and blew around the guy, who obviously didn’t know his old GTO had been considered a muscle car in its day and should be driven faster than fifty friggin’ miles an hour.

“I don’t know what Effie’s deal is,” Nikki admitted, tucking back into the lane and slowing a bit.

“I told her to take it all up with you.”

“Okay.”

“She’s also all over the Blondell O’Henry release tomorrow. I guess the blogosphere is blowing up about it.”

“Major news.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay. I’ll deal with it when I get there. I’m on my way back—oh, crap!” In her rearview mirror she saw flashing lights and, glancing down at her dash, realized she was once again speeding ten miles over the limit. “Talk to you later.” She slowed, hearing the siren screaming as she pulled over, and wondered how in the world she’d talk herself out of the ticket. It crossed her mind to use Reed’s name and title at the department, but she decided that was too low; it would put everyone on the spot. Heart sinking, nerves stretched, she waited . . . but the cop car shot by at a speed that far exceeded her max. Letting out her breath, she noticed that the other cars on the road ahead of her, which had also slowed onto the shoulder, were ignored as well.

Pulling into traffic again, she forced herself to drive at the speed limit as she headed back to Savannah and wondered who had put a snake from the hills around Dahlonga in her car.

 

“What is this?” Charles Arbuckle demanded, shooting up from the leather chair behind his desk as Morrisette and Reed strode into his expansive corner office with a wide view of the river.

“I tried to stop them!” a petite receptionist said in her high-pitched voice. She was wearing five-inch heels
,
a short dress, and a telephone headset that barely disturbed her shaggy, streaked hair. “I’m so sorry, Mr. Arbuckle, they just barged right in after I told them you were busy.” Indignation poured off of one hundred pounds of her. “I can call the police.”

“We’re already here,” Morrisette said, showing her badge.

“Oh.” The receptionist, flustered, her gaze glued to the badge, actually gulped back anything else she’d planned to say.

“It’s all right, Daisy,” Arbuckle said, holding up a staying hand. “Really. Just close the door and postpone my next appointment.”

“With the Quinns? Really?” She looked positively stricken and glared at Reed and Morrisette as if they were emissaries from Satan himself.

“Yes, Daisy, please,” Arbuckle said firmly, though obviously it pained him to waylay clients of the Quinns’ stature, whatever that might be.

Reed didn’t give a damn.

The starch having seeped out of her, Daisy left, pulling the door shut behind her. Once it closed, Arbuckle said stiffly, “What can I do for you?” Then before they could respond, he read the serious expression on their faces and said, “Do I need a lawyer?” He looked from Morrisette to Reed. “Because it sure feels like I should call my attorney.”

Morrisette said, “Only if you have something to hide.”

“Of course not!” He was emphatic, even offended, but as if he realized how sharply he was reacting, he dialed his attitude down a bit. “I mean, I don’t even understand why you’re here.”

“Well, let’s clear that much up.” Reed retrieved the receipt from Max’s Spy World from his pocket. “It seems that you purchased camera equipment used to spy on Nicole Gillette, your landlord. You probably recognize me, as I’m sure you filmed me too when I was there.”

Arbuckle turned white as a proverbial ghost, and he nearly collapsed into his chair. “Just my luck, a cop,” he said, and waved them into the plush visitors’ chairs positioned across the expanse of polished rosewood that was his desk. “Oh, dear God. Look, I understand, but it was a mistake,” he said to begin with, not denying anything.

“Care to elaborate?”

He closed his eyes, and his hands on the arms of his chair clenched into fists. “I was just trying to spy on
my
apartment, not
hers,
not Nikki’s.”

“You were photographing your own place?” Reed asked skeptically. He was holding down his escalating temper with an effort.

Arbuckle exhaled and looked out the window for a second, his eyes following a fishing vessel as it headed downstream, though Reed bet he wasn’t seeing the boat. “It’s my wife. She . . . Oh, God, this is so damned . . . she’s been . . . unhappy and the word ‘divorce’ has come up a few times. I think she might be seeing someone, so I thought I’d find out for myself.”

Reed said, “By taking pictures of Nikki Gillette’s apartment?”

“I told you it was a mistake. The angle was all off!” Arbuckle said. “I told that idiot Donnigan I wanted to look into
our
unit.
Our
bedroom, but what can I say, he’s a moron. I don’t know why I trusted that pothead in the first place!”

“You asked Leon Donnigan to help you?”

“Not just asked him: I paid him!” Arbuckle admitted, folding his arms over his chest. “So I guess I’m the idiot.” He let out a long sigh. “Look, I’m no computer geek, okay? I do investments and I’m very good at it. But I can’t program computers or hook up cameras or locate wireless signals or do whatever it is I needed to do to spy on my own apartment, and Donnigan, he’s a real nerd; holes up in his bedroom and plays war games or whatever online, spends his time fixing computers and he’s always strapped for cash, so, I thought, ‘He’s right downstairs. Let him do the work.’ But he fuck—fouled up. I figured it out when the first images came in, but by then someone had already taken down the cameras.” He actually seemed a bit contrite. “If it’s any consolation, I didn’t see much, just Nikki at her computer.” He actually had the decency to blush a little.

“Still, an invasion of privacy.”

“Look, I’m sorry. When I saw the first pictures, I flipped out, couldn’t believe it, and I told Donnigan to take the cameras down, but by then, it was too late. You and your officers had already done that. I didn’t know who had removed them, but I figured it wasn’t good.” He looked defeated. “If you talk to Donnigan he’ll confirm all this.”