Page 36 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

Niall’s injuries—broken ribs and a shattered right ulna—had healed for the most part, and even his nearly destroyed larynx functioned, but as with his sister, Blythe, his mental scars would never heal, or at least that was the conclusion of one of the many psychiatrists he’d seen, who had testified at Blondell’s trial.

“So what have we got here?” Using the beam of her flashlight, Morrisette walked to the stairs, tested them, then started up the rough-hewn steps to the loft. “Oh, man, take a look at this.” She was halfway up the flight when she stopped and stared at the wall and stairs: dark stains were splattered against the wall and risers.

Reed’s stomach turned.

Morrisette’s attitude changed. “When I think of my kids and realize what that little boy and girl saw.” Shaking her head, she stared at the twenty-year-old blood, then made her way up the remaining steps to the loft. Reed, more somber than before, followed her to the wide-open area with its open railing and dusty plank floors. In one corner, a bureau was still standing and supported a cracked, fly-spotted mirror.

So the little ones were up here. The frame of an old bed still stood, mattress long gone, but Morrisette ran the beam of her light over the rusted rails. “Damned nightmare for those kids. The way Blondell told it, she was surprised by an intruder with a gun, they wrestled for it, she got shot, and then he hit Amity. The kids up here, hearing the commotion, started running down the stairs, despite her yelling at them to stay where they were. The killer spied Niall running down and hit him midway. Where we saw the blood.”

“And the girl comes to the top of the stairs, sees her mother, and somehow falls over?” Reed said, stepping to the rail.

“Gets hit, slips through the spindles, I think . . . see, they’re handmade, not up to code, if there even was one when this place was constructed. She slides through and falls the eight feet to the floor below, breaking her back.” Morrisette’s jaw tightened, her lips becoming a razor-thin line as she met Reed’s gaze. “A damned shame all the way around.”

“Even if Blondell didn’t try to kill them.”

“Oh, she did. Her story is just that, a massively sick and tall tale.” Morrisette was convinced. “Why in the world would a stranger follow her to the cabin? No one was supposed to know she was here, spending time with the kids, sorting out her life or some such tripe. So let’s just say that she’s telling the truth. Someone comes in, to what? Rob her? Nothing was taken. Rape her? Didn’t happen, no matter how wounded she was. Wipe out her whole family? Why? Because they saw his face? Nuh-uh. It was dark. The kids can’t even remember if another person was here or not. And then there was that damned snake. Maybe it was nothing, just a weird anomaly. But I don’t like it. And it bothers me that Calvin married a woman who’s into a church where they handle poisonous snakes.”

Reed had seen the notation in the file about the Pentecostal church June O’Henry belonged to and their strange practices. In the file, Flint Beauregard had simply written “snakes” in a notation beside June’s name, but if he’d further connected it to Amity’s death, the detective hadn’t left a record of it.

“You think June Hatchett or Calvin O’Henry brought a snake to the cabin, then proceeded to shoot Amity?” Reed asked now, trying to keep his skepticism to a dull roar.

“I know it doesn’t make any sense, but still it’s weird, something to consider, and we’re running out of time. Jada Hill is pushing for Blondell’s release. Could be any day now.” She glanced around the loft one last time and said in disgust, “Let’s go.”

At the base of the staircase, Reed peered into a small bathroom. Once a minuscule “three-piece,” the room was now composed of a tiny shower without fixtures, a basin that was as dry as a bone and held rusted pieces of pipe and dead insects, and a toilet with no lid on the tank that no longer held water, just showed rings and dirt from a time when it had actually functioned.

“Lovely,” Morrisette said. “Reminds me of Bart’s place.” At least her black humor had returned. Bart Yelkis was one of Morrisette’s exes, the father of her children, and a deadbeat who was always late on his child support.

“Oh, come on,” Reed countered, “his apartment couldn’t be this nice.”

She spit out a humorless laugh as they headed into the kitchen, which was small and rundown, like the rest of the place, the warped linoleum looking as if it was pre–World War II and the windows leaking.

Opening a drawer, Reed thought about that night so long ago.

“Hoping to find a murder weapon?” Morrisette asked.

“Would be nice.”

Another snort. “That’s part of the big mystery, what the hell happened to the .45? We found the slugs—in the wall, in Blondell’s right arm, in Amity and Niall and Blythe—but no damned weapon. Blondell claimed the stranger who attacked her took off with it.” She looked through the grimy kitchen window over the sink. “My guess is it’s out there in the water somewhere.”

“The whole area was searched.” Reed walked out through a swollen back door to a rickety porch with rotten boards and a view of the lake that stretched for at least a quarter of a mile. Reeds, marsh grass, and a few cypress trees grew around the banks of the rippling water. “And not just searched once, but over and over again.” He’d read Beauregard’s notes and the reports in the case file. This cabin, property, and lake had been scoured.

“Yeah, well, I’m saying that Blondell could have ditched the gun anywhere around here, or stopped somewhere on her way to the hospital. It wasn’t as if she sprinted there, y’know.”

That much was true: though she’d claimed she’d managed to get her kids into her car, then drove “like a madwoman” to the hospital, it had taken nearly an hour for her to arrive at the emergency room. If she were truly racing the clock, the trip should have taken less than half that. Would the extra time have saved her daughter and granddaughter’s life? Who knew? As far as Reed was concerned, even considering hitting the tree and her own injuries, the length of time for the journey was a serious flaw in Blondell’s testimony that she’d done everything possible to get her kids to safety.

Staring across the lake, he wondered what really had gone down. A flock of wood ducks swooped onto the ruffled waters of the lake. They seemed to glide on the surface, then, one after the other, tails up, dipped their heads beneath the surface.

“I guess we’ve seen all there is,” Reed said as he and Morrisette headed around the exterior of the cabin. In the office, he’d viewed diagrams and pictures of the place, of course. The drawings were made by the investigating officers, and the photographs were taken the night and day after Blondell reported the attack, but actually walking around the cabin gave him a new perspective, and he now felt more connected to the case.

He checked his watch as he climbed into Morrisette’s car. “We’d better get a move on. Blass is bringing in Niall O’Henry in about an hour.”

“Good. This I gotta see.” She frowned as she slipped behind the wheel. “I won’t lie about it, I’m pissed as hell that he’s recanting. You know, now that he’s a full-fledged adult and all, but”—she slid a final look at the dilapidated cabin—“he was just a scared kid back then, terrified out of his frickin’ mind and not much older than my Toby. Niall witnessed something unimaginable, so it’s hard to be pissed at him.” Flicking on the ignition, she said, “So let’s go see what he has to say.”

CHAPTER 11

With her recent string of bad luck, Nikki wasn’t expecting much as she parked at Blythe O’Henry’s apartment building in one of the five spots marked GUEST. The phone calls she’d made to Blondell’s “friends” and family members had, for the most part, been busts. Half of them she couldn’t find; the others didn’t want to talk to her and wished no one remembered that they’d been associated with a woman convicted of such heinous acts.

As for the people besides Blythe who’d actually been at the cabin on the night Amity O’Henry was murdered, she hadn’t been able to speak with either Blondell or her son. Grabbing her purse and recorder, Nikki bolstered herself with the old adage “The third time’s the charm,” while ignoring the “Three strikes and you’re out” rule.

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