Page 9 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

he was drinking and confused because she was depressed about losing the baby. But that could all be bull.”

Reed glanced at the station house, a beautiful building built for a much earlier time. Yet even with recent renovations, the offices of the Savannah-Chatham Police Department were showing their years.

“We’re gonna have riots in the streets, let me tell you. Blondell O’Henry is one of the city’s most reviled criminals.” She cut the engine and opened the driver’s door. “Look up the case,” she advised. “It’s got more curves and twists than a nest of sidewinders with stomach cramps. Flint Beauregard, he was the lead detective.”

“Deacon’s father?”

“One and the same.” She closed her door as Reed climbed out of the car, and together they walked toward the main door of the station. The rain had temporarily ceased and the clouds were beginning to shift to let in shafts of a few receding rays of sunlight, yet Reed felt no warmth. He’d never seen eye to eye with Deacon Beauregard, who had recently been hired as another ADA, a lawyer who was just a little too smooth for Reed’s taste and a man who, it seemed, rode to a certain extent on the coattails of his deceased father, a decorated cop whose reputation was nearly legendary in the halls of the station.

“The whole case was circumstantial, as I remember,” she said as they walked inside, her snakeskin boots ringing on the old floor as they headed to the stairs. “The critical testimony was from the boy. And now he’s recanting. Ain’t that just the cat’s goddamned pajamas?”

CHAPTER 3

Nikki read through old testimony, especially Blondell O’Henry’s, about the night in question. As she did, she saw in her mind’s eye the scenario that had unfolded in the old cabin. It was a small building, one Nikki had known well, as it sat on the edge of property belonging to her uncle. Blondell was contemplating the loss of her unborn child and her recent divorce from her husband, Calvin, whom she swore was abusive. That’s why she’d taken her three children to the cabin; to think things over and get her priorities straight. Her relationship with Roland Camp had been unraveling, and she had been faced with a future as a single mother.

Blondell maintained that her two younger children had been asleep, tucked into the loft above the main living area; her older daughter, Amity, was on the pull-out couch downstairs. Blondell had been out back on the screened-in porch, wrapped in a sleeping bag on an old chaise longue, drinking wine and watching the rain pour from the heavens to dimple the dark waters of the lake and listening to it pound noisily on the roof. She’d said it was nearly impossible for her to hear much of anything else, but she didn’t mind. Caught in her own troubles, she’d been lulled by the wind and rain and wine while her kids slept inside the tiny cabin—basically one large room with a loft and a small alcove for a kitchen, along with a closet-sized bath.

She’d intended to bed down for the night on an old recliner near the fire that she’d lit in the old rock fireplace but had taken a few minutes to herself.

And that had been her mistake.

Somehow she’d closed her eyes and nodded off to the steady rhythm of the rain. She didn’t know how long she’d dozed, only remembered that she’d awoken sharply at the sound of a car backfiring in the distance and just before a dog began barking wildly. The rain was still steady, but not as strong. She had a sudden premonition that something was wrong. Very wrong. And then her daughter had started screaming about a snake, a copperhead in the cabin.

Tossing off the sleeping bag, Blondell rushed in and saw, in the half-light from the fire, a horror that made her blood run cold.

A stranger was inside!

The fire had died down to red embers, so the cabin was nearly dark, but she could see a man’s silhouette as he stood over Amity. He had dark hair and a muscular build, but his face was masked.

As he spun, Blondell saw the pistol clenched in his hand, above which, on his wrist, was some kind of tattoo.

The rest was a blur, Blondell claimed. She’d screamed and they’d struggled. She’d hit her head and the world went black for an instant, the darkened rooms swimming in her vision. She thought she’d heard a dog barking again. For a fleeting second she felt hope that someone was near, but hope vanished as her vision cleared. Amity was screaming that she’d been bitten by a snake, and the stranger, in the shadows, was leveling his gun at the girl. Blondell had wrestled with him but hadn’t been able to stop the horror as he’d fired point-blank at Amity.

Blondell swore she’d screamed and fought for the gun as Amity, lying on the couch, moaned in pain and footsteps erupted in the loft upstairs. Frantic, she’d launched herself at the stranger just as he turned to face her, his gun pointed straight at her heart. She’d flinched, still struggling for the gun, managing to grip the barrel and twist it upward, and then she heard Niall cry out.

“Mommy! No!”

“Get back!” she’d yelled, struggling to gain control of the gun, but the stranger was stronger and twisted the weapon, pulling the trigger.

Blam! Pain jolted down her arm, and she lost her grip, stumbling backward and falling to the floor.

Dazed, reeling in pain, she remembered the rest only in flashes: blast after blast echoing through the cabin; Niall running down the stairs, then jerking violently as first one bullet, then another, struck and his body tumbled down the remaining stairs. Little Blythe chasing after her brother, only to be hit as well, slipping through the railing to fall to the floor of the first floor with a last scream and heart-wrenching thud.

Blondell had cried, “No! No! No!” as Amity, unconscious, was bleeding out, blood pouring from the wound in her abdomen. Her son and youngest daughter mowed down by the monster as well.

Barely conscious, she heard the dog again. Closer, she’d thought, but the stranger, rather than finishing her off, had suddenly fled, running out the door and into the rain.

Blondell’s story was a chilling account, but it was at odds with some of the police evidence. No gun had been found. Amity had died on the way to the hospital as the result of the gunshot wound, though she did have puncture wounds in her leg and venom from the copperhead in her bloodstream. The snake’s bite would probably not have killed her, but the bullet that cut through her abdomen and hit an artery had.

Blondell’s two other children had been rushed into emergency surgery. Blondell herself had been treated for a bullet wound to the right arm and a slight concussion as well as a contusion to the back of her head. She’d obviously fallen or been struck, and there were scratches on her arms, all of which could have been self-inflicted. Her fingernails had been clipped, their residue, presumably, still in the evidence file at the police station.

Hospital workers claimed her emotions were “all wrong” for someone who had been through the type of trauma she described, that her interest was more in her own injuries than those of her kids. She’d seemed stunned when told that Amity was dead, but hadn’t shed a tear. Nor had any motherly concern been evident while her other children spent hours in the operating rooms. When advised that Amity had been pregnant, her fetus dying with her, Blondell hadn’t uttered a word.

Had she been catatonic?

Had her injuries so confused her and stifled her emotions that her reactions were out of sync?

Or was she a cold-blooded murderess who’d been sent to prison because it was determined she’d staged the whole horrific scene?

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