Page 85 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

Now, as the miles rolled under her rental’s wheels, she thought about Amity and her desire for things she couldn’t have. It had been hard for her to be Nikki’s friend, hard to want so many things that were out of reach. Was Flint Beauregard Amity’s father? If so, what difference would that have made in Amity’s life if it were known?

With an effort, Nikki dragged her thoughts back to the case itself. She’d already decided that she was going to attend the next service of the Pentecostal sect run by Ezekiel Byrd, June Hatchett’s brother. She didn’t really see why anyone who was religious enough to handle snakes would use one as a weapon or a threat, but it was the only lead she had. Earlier this morning, she’d called all the legitimate reptile dealers in the area and, as it was early, left messages asking about recent sales of copperheads. She’d looked online, at craigslist and other Web sites, even searched through the previous week’s free advertisements in the Sentinel, but so far she’d found no copperheads for sale, nor any that had gone missing from a lab that collected snake venom; she’d even called the local zoos.

Nothing.

Not that she couldn’t have missed something, and there were dealers who worked under the radar, as well as hunters who trapped their own. So far, the whole snake lead was a bust. But it was still early. She could get lucky with one of the dealers. Well, maybe.

Reed was still working on the DNA of the old cigarette butt found at the scene. Nikki hadn’t spoken with Roland Camp, but any conversations she’d tried to have with Calvin O’Henry had been useless.

She felt as if she were getting nowhere, trudging in quicksand, and the more she struggled, the less footing she found.

But someone who had a fondness for snakes apparently thought differently.

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Morrisette said when Reed arrived at the office and caught up with her at the coffeepot in the break room.

“I’m not in the mood for jokes,” he warned her as she filled her cup from a fresh pot that had the room smelling of some kind of fresh roast.

“There’s a surprise,” she said with more than a smidgeon of mockery as she returned the glass carafe to its warming plate.

A couple of uniformed officers sat at a table near the windows, perusing the headlines of the paper and sipping from their cups before starting their shift. A huge bowl of popcorn, half eaten and left by someone from the night shift, sat on the table, and one of the officers was picking at it as he read the news.

“So what is it?” He poured himself a cup as they left the room, passing Agnes, one of the clerical workers, as she headed in the opposite direction. Phones were jangling; a printer somewhere spewed out pages, as laughter and conversation eased through the hallways.

Morrisette and Reed made their way through the rabbit warren of offices to the room where they’d been working on the O’Henry case. Boxes were stacked on the ends of tables that also held labeled evidence, and two standing corkboards displayed pinned-up photographs of the crime scene, suspects, and notes about everything. Front and center was a glossy eight-by-ten of Blondell O’Henry, the photo Morrisette bitingly called her “professional head shot,” though it wasn’t all that flattering.

“So, okay,” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Actually, I have good news and bad news and worse news,” Morrisette said.

Irritated, he said, “Whatever.”

“The lab ran down the serial number of that camera you gave them and tracked it to a store right here in Savannah. They’ve called the owner of the shop and we can swing by there today. It’s a place called Max’s Spy World, on the south side, not far from the mall. If they keep decent records, you should know by the end of the day who bought the equipment and who’s been surreptitiously observing Ms. Gillette.”

“Good.” He couldn’t wait to come face-to-face with the bastard who was playing Peeping Tom. “So what’s the bad news?”

“DNA came back on the cigarette found at the cabin twenty years ago. It was pretty degraded, but it looks like it doesn’t match up with any of the known players back then. All they can determine is that it is a Winston and was smoked by a male.”

“The Winston part we knew,” Reed said; the name of the brand had been visible on the butt. “And the rest of the information eliminates half the population but won’t exactly break the case wide open.”

She nodded. “You ready for the worst?”

“Hit me.”

“Blondell O’Henry’s going to be released,” Morrisette said.

“It’s decided?” Reed asked, surprised.

“Jada Hill pled her case, and the powers that be decided not to pursue keeping her locked up. Twenty years is enough if she did it, and way too much if she didn’t. The statement’s going to be announced later today, and she actually gets out tomorrow, after all the red tape is cut. So all of this,” Morrisette said, motioning to the boxes of evidence stacked onto the tables, “is moot.”

Reed stared at the piles of evidence sorted and stacked on tables. “So it’s over. Just like that.”

“It’s over as far as prosecuting Blondell O’Henry is concerned, but now the case is open because we can’t prove that she did it. Looks like she’ll be suing the state for her pain and suffering or whatever, and let me tell you, Deacon Beauregard is fit to be tied, claiming his father is ‘rolling over in his grave’ and that a ‘grievous injustice’ has been done to Amity O’Henry, her siblings, the constituents of the great state of Georgia, and all people everywhere, or some such shit.” She drained her cup and set it onto the table with a bang.

“But you agree with him?”

Her lips pursed and she looked away. “I thought I’d never say this, but unfortunately this time, yeah, I do.”

Leaning a hip against the table, he said, “You know, Morrisett

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