Page 56 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“. . . I really don’t remember much about the drive to the hospital or, once I got there, what was going on. I had a bullet in my arm, but I didn’t feel pain. I was pretty much a zombie. Traumatized, I guess,” Blondell said. “I did talk to the police and the nurses and doctors on staff, but it was almost as if I was in a dream. I mean, I really didn’t come out of it for a couple of days and then”—her face crumpled and she swallowed hard—“and then I realized that Amity was gone. She and her baby. And the other kids, Niall and poor little Blythe, had been shot.” Squaring her shoulders, she sat a little taller in the chair in the interrogation room. “That’s about it,” she said.

Reed asked calmly, “Did you fire the gun that killed Amity O’ Henry?”

Jada Hill was close to going ballistic, her dark eyes flashing, every muscle near her mouth twisting down. “She just said that she didn’t.”

Reed didn’t back down. “I know what she said. Just clarifying.”

Blondell had the audacity to smile, that same knowing, enigmatic smile that had turned so many heads in the past. Was she innocent or a psychopath of the worst order? Morrisette would have bet on the latter as Blondell, her voice cool and clear, her Georgia accent audible, said, “No, Detective Reed. I most certainly did not.”

CHAPTER 17

The O’Henry farm had seen better days, Nikki thought as she turned near a rusted mailbox with no name, only numbers painted on its side. Two signs—NO TRESPASSING and NO HUNTING—had been peppered with buckshot and hung rusting on a fence post at the corner of the property. Winter-bleached wet weeds scraped the undercarriage of her car as she drove down the twin, graveled ruts of a long, straight lane leading to a two-storied farmhouse painted on one side in lemon yellow, while the rest of the structure was a gray hue that had once been white. Peeling paint exposed layers beneath, as well as rough wood; the gutters had sagged and in one place come loose altogether.

Outbuildings were scattered around a large parking area at the end of the lane, and the sheds, barns, and coops looked in worse shape than the farmhouse that dominated the area. A pickup, circa 1969, was rusting near a pile of fence posts that were rotting in the weather; a newer-model truck was parked in an open garage, not far from a faded, red Dodge Dart, car seats visible through the grimy windows. Darla’s car.

The yard was patchy, and as Nikki pulled into the parking area, a huge black and white dog came bounding off the drooping back porch. He seemed friendly enough, his tongue lolling out of one side of his mouth, his tail wagging wildly as he barked a warning that there was a stranger on the premises.

A screen door banged open, and a tall woman with wild brown bangs and a graying braid that fell to her waist leaned over the porch rail. June Hatchett O’Henry, latest wife of Calvin. She’d aged since the photograph Nikki had seen, but then it had been nearly two decades. “Gunner!” she yelled, sending Nikki a pissy look. To the dog, she said, “You git back here! Right now! Hear me? Right now! Gunner! Come!”

The dog, some kind of border collie mix, was unabashed that he’d somehow disobeyed and eagerly loped back to the porch as if he expected a treat rather than a scolding. Only when he returned to his spot on the porch and June leaned down did he finally let his ears fall and look up as if ashamed.

By this time Nikki was out of her car, bag slung over her shoulder and picking her way up the stones that had been buried in the grass every foot or so in an attempt to create a walkway.

“Hi,” she said brightly as the sky darkened and a flock of Canada geese flew in an undulating V pattern just above the tops of trees that rimmed the surrounding fields. “Nikki Gillette with the Savannah Sentinel.”

“I know who you are.” Now that she was finished chastising the overgrown puppy, June—all sharp angles and planes, her face deeply lined, her brown eyes buried in the folds of her eyelids—was irritable. She wore no makeup; the only jewelry visible was a plain gold wedding band on her left hand and a simple gold cross swinging from a chain around her neck. Her clothes were straight out of an earlier era: blue slacks, a cotton print blouse, and a sweater knit from purple yarn that had faded to an uncertain pink. “Niall said you called. Said you wanted to talk about his mother and his change of heart.”

Niall hadn’t been all that welcoming on the phone, but at least he hadn’t hung up on her. “I would. I’d like to speak to all of you.”

“About that night. When that bitch killed her daughter and shot her other two kids?” June was bitter. “For the record? I ain’t interested. As for Niall, he’s out workin’ with his father.” She nodded toward the outbuildings. “Don’t rightly know where.”

“Does Niall have his phone on him?” Nikki asked. She’d crossed the lawn and was standing on the lowest step leading to the back porch, from which a retractable clothesline stretched across the yard, though nothing hung from it. Plastic pots and a few glass terrariums were stacked against the house near a covered porch swing, its cushions covered in plastic. A row of paint cans, one splashed with the yellow of the house, were stacked on the porch floor.

“Now, how would I know that?” June’s hands were on her hips, and she looked like one of those women who had spent all of her weary adult life mad at the world. “Well, look at that. You’re in luck, now, aren’t you?” Her gaze had traveled over Nikki’s head to the barn lot; two men were opening a gate from a field where a herd of Black Angus beef cattle was grazing, picking at the winter grass. Blondell’s ex was carrying a shovel in one hand, his son Niall hauling a toolbox.

Catching sight of the men, Gunner whined and bounded off the porch to run across

the yard, his tail wagging furiously, his white front paws coming off the ground.

“Down!” Calvin ordered sharply. His jaw was set, his fingers clenched over the shovel’s dirty handle.

The dog heeded Calvin’s sharp voice and was rewarded with a quick pat on the head from the strapping man with a craggy, timeworn face and leathery skin; he wore jeans held up by suspenders and an unbuttoned flannel shirt over a black T-shirt. He squinted at the house and said something to Niall, who, no longer in his suit for the cameras, was wearing camouflage pants and a jacket.

At the quick word from his father, Niall seemed to flinch, then closed the gate behind them while Calvin crossed the wet yard in long, athletic strides. His deep-set eyes were focused on Nikki, and she didn’t doubt for a second that he remembered her.

“What the hell are you doin’ here?” Calvin demanded, his face set and hard, the fingers gripping his shovel showing white at the knuckles.

She forced a smile she didn’t feel. “I called Niall and asked to interview him.”

“For that damned paper.” Calvin swung his head around, to watch his son struggle with the gate latch.

“That’s right. For the Savannah Sentinel. I’m doing a series of stories about the attack on him and his sister, as well as Amity’s murder, and I hope to write a true-crime book about it.”

June gasped, flattening a hand over her chest. “Not on your life!”

“No way,” her husband agreed, his scowl deepening. “I already told my story to the press. Years ago. I see no reason to rehash it all again, even if he does.” Calvin hooked a thumb at his son as Niall, having finally finished securing the gate, was striding toward them across the uneven grass.

“I told her to come out here,” Niall said as he reached the house. “She already talked to Blythe anyway.”

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