Page 3 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“Just tell me what you know about that night. Let me tell your side of the story to the rest of the world. If you didn’t try to kill the children, if you didn’t mean to hurt them, then tell me the truth. Let me be your mouthpiece. Trust me, I can help!”

The eyes beyond the glass don’t so much as blink. I’m not sure she’s even heard my question. Then again, did someone who’d tried to murder children in cold blood ever hear anyone else? Ever really try to explain?

As I sit in my tiny stall, an open booth with an uncomfortable stool, a heavy telephone receiver and thick prison glass separating the free from the incarcerated, I try my best to be convincing and earnest, hoping to wring the truth from the person on the other side of the clear barrier.

But it seems impossible.

The prisoner suspects I’m up to something. That I’m using the information I might get from this interview for my own purposes, which, of course, isn’t far from the truth.

As I stare through the smudged glass at the woman who’s agreed to be contacted, a woman whom the public has reviled, someone with whom I’ve been through so much, I wonder if I’ll ever get through, if the truth will ever be told. Suspicion smolders in her eyes, and something more too, something almost hidden. Hopelessness? Fear? Or is it accusation?

As if she knows.

But then, why wouldn’t she?

It isn’t as if we’re strangers.

My heart trips a bit, and I want to bolt, to hide. But I force myself to sit on the worn-down stool where thousands have sat before me.

“I can help,” I plead, and cringe at the tone of desperation in my own voice.

Her expression falters a bit, and even dressed in drab prison garb, without makeup, her once-shiny hair streaked with gray, a few pesky wrinkles appearing on what was once flawless skin, she’s a beauty, with high cheekbones, large eyes, and full lips. The years since the horrific crime of which she’s accused have been surprisingly kind.

There is noise in the hallway, on my side of the thick window, whispered voices from other booths filtering my way. There is no privacy here, not with the cameras mounted on the ceiling and the guards watching over the line of free people attempting to speak to inmates.

I hear sobbing from the elderly woman to my right as she tries to speak in low tones. She shuffled in before me and wears a bandanna on her head, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky. Her wedding ring is loose on her finger, her sadness palpable.

The stool to my left is vacant. A man in his thirties with tattoos climbing up his arms and a neatly trimmed soul patch, the only hair on his head, storms out angrily, his footsteps pounding away, echoing the loneliness of the worn souls who reside within.

But I can’t be distracted by the hum of conversation, nor the shuffle of footsteps, nor the occasional burst of bitter laughter. There is little time, and I want only one small thing: the truth and all of it.

“Come on, I can help. Really,” I insist, but in my little nook, where I can sense the prison cameras filming this interview, there is only silence as she stares through the glass at me, quiet as death.

CHAPTER 1

“I know, I know. I’m working on it. Really! I just need a little more time to come up with the right story!” Nikki Gillette glanced up at the skylight as rain drizzled down the pane. Above the glass, the sky was a gloomy shade of gray, the clouds thick with a coming twilight hurrying across the city. Beneath the window, inside her loft and curled into a ball on the top of the daybed, lay her cat, Jennings, his eyes closed, his golden tail twitching slightly as he slept. Seeing him, Nikki reminded herself yet again that she needed to pick up Mikado at the groomer’s tomorrow. Her head was so full of her own problems, she’d forgotten him today. Luckily, Ruby had assured her she could pick up the dog tomorrow at no extra fee, a kindness she wasn’t generally known for.

Hunched over her desk, Nikki held the phone to her ear with one hand and fiddled with a pen in the other. The conversation was tense. Nearly heated. And for once, she knew she was at fault. Well, at least partially.

As her agent described why her latest book submission had been rejected by her publisher, Nikki glanced at her computer monitor, news stories streaming across the screen—an alert that yet another storm was rolling its way inland, the latest breaking news.

“What was wrong with the Bay Bridge Strangler idea?” Nikki asked, but deep down, she knew the answer.

Ina sighed audibly. “For one thing he’s in San Francisco.”

Nikki could imagine her agent rolling her expressive brown eyes over the tops of the bifocals that were always perched on the tip of her nose. She’d be sitting in her tiny office, cup of coffee nearby, a second, forgotten one, maybe from the day before, propped on a pile of papers that had been pushed to one corner of her massive desk.

“And you’ve never met him,” she added in a

raspy voice. “And since good old Bay Bridge is big news on the West Coast, I’ll bet a dozen stories are already being written about him by authors in that enclave of mystery writers they’ve got out there. You know, I probably already have a submission somewhere here on my desk, if I’d take the time to dig a little deeper through my slush pile.”

Another good point. Irritating, yes, but probably spot on. “Okay, okay, but I also sent you an idea about a story surrounding Father John in New Orleans.”

“Who knows what happened to that freak? A killer dressed up as a priest. Gives me chills. Yeah, I know. He’s a better match, closer geographically and infinitely more interesting than Bay Bridge, but really, do you have a connection with him? An inside look?” There was a pause, a muffled “Tell him I’ll call him right back” on the other end of the line, then Ina was back, never missing a beat. “As near as I remember, Father John disappeared. Either moved on or, more likely, is lying dead in some Louisiana swamp. Crocodile bait or something. No one knows, and right now, not a lot of people care. He’s old news.”

“No one really knows what happened to Zodiac, and he hasn’t killed in decades, but there’re still books being written about him. Movies.”

“Meh. From authors and producers without any new ideas. The reason your first two books did so well was because they were fresh, and you were close to the investigation.”

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