Page 75 of Tell Me (Savannah 3)

“Don’t see how. The equipment was probably put up there before the news came out about Niall O’Henry recanting his testimony.”

“You sure?”

“Hell, no, I’m not sure,” he said angrily, then stared out the window. “Sorry. Let’s do this thing.”

“You got it.” Morrisette could be bossy at times, nosy at others, but she read her partner well enough to leave him alone when he needed to cool off.

Reed picked up his coffee and told himself to get his head on straight. No matter what else was happening to him personally, he had to put it aside.

“You okay?”

“Just . . . fine.” He shot her a look he knew said otherwise, but she got the message and stepped on the gas.

By the time she turned the corner onto Roland Camp’s street, Reed was finished with his coffee and focused on the case again. As Camp’s house came into view, Morrisette slowed down, and there, big as life, parked in the driveway, was a Dodge pickup that hadn’t been there earlier, with plates Reed recognized as being registered to Roland Camp.

“Looks like the prodigal boyfriend has returned,” Morrisette observed as she nosed her car into the spot behind the huge truck’s bed and the street. The only way out was through a dilapidated garage or the fences lining the drive or, Reed supposed, over the top of Morrisette’s Chevy, and if Camp tried that, Morrisette might shoot first and ask questions later.

Before they reached the porch, the front door banged opened. “What the fuck do you want?” Roland Camp, all six-feet-five of him, demanded. His head was shaved, his jaw was set, and he looked as if he worked out seven days a week.

“Detective Pierce Reed, Savannah-Chatham Police Department. This is my partner, Detective Sylvie Morrisette, and we just want to ask you a few questions.”

“About that fuckin’ Blondell! Shit! I ain’t got anything further to tell you, man, I swear. Whatever I said before. It’s golden.”

“Just checking some facts.”

“Then haul me the fuck in. I got a good job now and a good woman and a kid. All that other shit, it’s ancient history, man, so leave me, leave us the hell alone!”

“You know Ms. O’Henry might be let out of prison,” Reed said.

“Who cares? She did her time, let her be. Why the hell are you all nosing around, anyway? Don’t you have other cases? You know, people who were killed this week or last week or sometime in the last twenty years? Let this one go, for Chrissakes!” Some of his belligerence had begun to fade, and he seemed a little calmer as they reached his porch. Behind him, barely visible, Peggy, her boy still attached to her hip, peeked around Roland.

“Hey, look, I didn’t mean to fly off the handle,” Camp said. “I just don’t need any more headaches now, any more problems. I wasn’t kidding. I’ve got me a kid to raise.”

“And that’s important?” Morrisette asked.

“Damned straight.”

“So you changed your mind. With Blondell, you had no use for children,” she reminded.

His face darkened into a scowl. “I won’t deny it. I wasn’t interested in raising another man’s kids. Still not. But your own kid is different.”

“And Blondell was pregnant at the time you were with her.”

“I wasn’t that kid’s father. Me and Blondell, we’d broke up, and she had other boyfriends, if that’s what you’d call ’em. I wasn’t the only one. That was the trouble with that woman, she could reel in the men. And we’d go! Find ourselves doin’ stuff for her we didn’t even want to.”

“Like maybe kill her kids?” Morrisette said.

“No way! No fuckin’ way! Is that what this is all about?”

“No one’s here to accuse you of anything,” Reed said.

“I was just pointing out that you changed your mind,” Morrisette clarified, though Reed knew she was trying to get a rise out of the guy. It was just her way.

“We have a couple of questions,” Morrisette said calmly, and Camp, folding his massive arms over his chest, muscles bulging, bald head shining under the porch light, unintentionally did his best impression of Mr. Clean. His demeanor had changed, and he was suspicious once more, but as they asked about the night in question, he decided to give in and talk to them.

“I’m not changin’ my story,” he began, “and if you want to check it, go see my stepbrother, Donny Ray Wilson. I was with him and he’ll tell you the same . . .”

He went on to say that Donny Ray now lived closer to Riceboro, off Highway 25, but that they’d been together the night Blondell’s kids were shot. Roland’s take on the situation was that Blondell had tried to kill her kid

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