Tell Me (8 page)

Meanwhile, the press was all over the case, and he’d declined to take any calls he didn’t recognize. The public information officer could handle any and all questions. Of course, that didn’t include Nikki, who was already hounding him.

She was like a terrier with a bone when she wanted a story. He’d learned that lesson long ago, and while she’d irritated the hell out of him, she’d intrigued him as well, and he, who had sworn off women after the debacle in San Francisco, had found himself falling in love with her. He’d fought his attraction, of course, but in the end she’d gotten under his skin like no other woman, and he, once a confirmed bachelor, found himself proposing to her.

Now, as he looked at the autopsy report on Amity O’Henry, he inwardly cringed. She’d been so young, a child really, yet three months pregnant. He wondered if Blondell had known about the baby, though she’d sworn she’d had no idea that her daughter was even sexually active, let alone pregnant. Nor had Blondell been able to come up with the name of the child’s father. Again, DNA testing would help, as long as the father was in the database.

Unfortunately, there was no blood, amniotic fluid, or anything from the fetus, and twenty years ago paternity testing wasn’t as precise as it was today.

So who was the guy? Nikki said she knew Amity. Maybe she could provide a list of boyfriends the girl had been dating. Beauregard did have two names listed, but according to the reports, each had submitted to a blood test and had been ruled out as the father of the unborn child, whose blood had been O-negative, which, since Amity was A-positive, indicated the father had negative blood, a rudimentary identification test by today’s standards, but still accurate.

His mind wandered for just a second to another paternity test a few years back, when he’d learned that a victim of the Grave Robber, a woman he’d been involved with, had been pregnant with his child.

His heart still twisted at that thought, and now that he was again dealing with a case in which an unborn child was a secondary victim, it made him all the more angry and determined to ferret out the truth.

Unfortunately, Beauregard’s notes weren’t as thorough as Reed would have liked, and the biggest piece of evidence against Blondell O’Henry—the testimony of her young son—was now being recanted. Reed would have loved to see portions of the trial, so he’d taken a quick look online and found some just-posted clips on YouTube, generated from the renewed interest in the case. He’d seen the defendant, demure and quiet, hands folded in front of her as the trial progressed. Garland Brownell, a former football star, had handled the prosecution’s case well, his style subtle when it was called for and more passionate when that was needed during the examination of his witnesses. Alexander McBaine had been as smooth as silk, a good ol’ Georgia boy who oozed Southern charm. He too had dealt with each witness expertly. However, the cut-up pieces of the trial that Reed had found weren’t cohesive. He longed for the missing tapes.

One thing he noticed: in every clip he saw Blondell was the same. Cool. Beautiful. Serious. Judging from her appearance, no one could have imagined her capable of the evil of which she was accused.

Now she’d served nearly twenty years of her life sentence in prison, which was nothing to dismiss, but there certainly wasn’t enough other circumstantial evidence to back up that conviction, and, of course, she couldn’t be tried twice for the same crime, should she be released. Was she guilty of the terrible, blood-chilling crime, or was she, as she had always maintained, truly innocent?

His job was to prove her guilt and allow the DA to pursue whatever path needed to be taken to see that Savannah’s most notorious female criminal remained behind bars.

Surprisingly, his fiancée, Amity O’Henry’s best friend, might hold the answers.

Rotating his head, he stretched the muscles in his neck. Nikki had been pushing him for information about the case. Now their roles were reversed, and he sensed she might be able to help him. If nothing else, he’d learn a lot more about the psychology of the victim.

Yes, he thought, kicking his chair away from the desk. The tables were about to be turned.

U
nfortunately, Aunty-Pen was right. Alexander McBaine wasn’t the man Nikki remembered.

Nikki had driven the five miles out of town to the Pleasant Acres Assisted Living Center, a long, low building set on the marshy banks of a creek. From the windows of their units, the residents could watch waterfowl in the reeds, but the alligators were kept away from the rolling expanse of lawn by a sturdy wire fence that encircled the yard.

Inside the facility, she and Aunty-Pen had made their way along a carpeted hallway with handrails and evenly spaced pictures to a wing housing the patients with dementia, her uncle’s new place of residence. Aunty-Pen had admitted that she did take him home on some weekends, just because it “broke her heart” to see him in the small apartment. She hoped being in his own surroundings would jog his memory, make him recall himself more clearly. So far that was a no-go.

Today, seated in a wheelchair in his studio apartment, Alexander McBaine was wearing a cardigan sweater over a white dress shirt that obviously had once fit and now was two sizes too large. Slacks that needed to be cleaned and slippers on the wrong feet completed his attire as he stared out a single window at a courtyard where feeders were attracting winter birds. Nikki’s throat tightened as she thought of the strapping attorney he’d once been, a man who had commanded attention, whose sharp mind had been pitted against those of the prosecution. He’d had flair, brilliance, and a winning smile that had hovered somewhere between sexy and hard.

Now, though, his grin was that of a simpler man.

For a second, she thought he recognized her, but soon she realized she’d been sadly mistaken.

“Hollis!” he cried happily, and tears filled his eyes as he beamed up at her from his chair and pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. Standing next to her, Aunty-Pen stiffened and looked away. “But I thought . . . oh, thank God! Silly me! I must have had a nightmare. Yes, Pen?” He glanced at his wife, whom he obviously still recognized, then turned his attention to Nikki again. “I was afraid it was true, that you really had . . . died in an awful accident. But . . .” His voice drifted off with his confusion as reality and fantasy blended. Obviously, he’d thought Nikki was his long-dead daughter, her cousin Hollis, gone now, along with her brother, Elton. “Oh . . . dear . . . please . . . never mind. It’s just good to see you.” He blinked back tears, and Nikki, catching a look from her aunt, didn’t have the heart to tell him he’d been mistaken, that she was really his niece and not his precious Hollis. Instead, she hugged him close. He smelled of the same cologne she remembered from her childhood, but now it was no longer tinged with cigarette smoke as he’d obviously been forced to give up the habit here at Pleasant Acres.

“How are you?” she asked, and he offered up a little smile.

“All right, I guess.” He frowned a little then, his once-dark eyebrows knitting, his hazel eyes cloudy behind thick glasses that Aunty-Pen slid from his face.

“Look at these! How can you see anything?” she clucked, striding into the adjoining bathroom. Seconds later the sound of rushing water could be heard.

He chuckled. “Nothing’s ever clean enough for your mother.”

“She’s my aunt,” Nikki said. “I’m Nicole. Nikki. Ron and Charlene’s daughter.”

His expression went blank for a second, then worried lines etched across his brow. “Ronnie’s girl?”

“Yes. Nikki,” she repeated, smiling at him, and some of the clouds seemed to disappear for a second. “I’m a reporter with the
Sentinel.
The newspaper. You remember.”
Please remember.
When he didn’t respond, she added quickly, “I’m doing a story on Blondell O’Henry. You know. She was your client twenty years ago.”

“Blondell,” he repeated.

“Yes, she was accused of a horrible crime, of shooting her children.”

He shook his head.

“She swore she didn’t do it, and you represented her. She claimed a stranger burst into the cabin where they were staying and shot them all.”

“All?” he repeated.

“Blondell was injured too. Shot at close range in the arm. Gunshot residue was found on her blouse and skin, and the prosecution claimed she did it to herself.”

“Yes . . . Blondell.” Was there just the hint of a caress in his voice as he said her name? Then his eyes clouded.

“You remember her?”

He nodded slowly. “Oh, of course I do. Beautiful woman. Interesting.” His fingers moved a little, one hand straightening the cuff of his sweater with the other. “Not what she seemed.”

“That’s right,” Nikki said eagerly.

“Dangerous. A siren . . .”

“Blondell was kind of a siren,” she encouraged when he faded out.

His eyes focused somewhere in the middle distance, then he looked at her again. “Nikki!” he suddenly crowed. “About time you came to visit your favorite uncle!” Then he paused, his expression changing. “When did you get here?”

“Aunty-Pen just brought me.” He was back. Even if he’d lost the thread of their conversation, she was pleased he knew her. “You’re right. I should’ve come sooner. How’ve you been?”

He lifted a hand and tilted it back and forth. “I’ve been better, or so I’ve been told. Getting old is hell, you know. My mother told me that, but I didn’t believe her.” He nodded sagely. “Now I see she was right. It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” she said with heartfelt enthusiasm. She hadn’t realized until that moment how much she’d missed the uncle who had spent so many hours in debate with her father as they’d smoked cigars on the veranda, both of their wives disapproving, two women who had been forced into a reluctant, often competitive, and sometimes icy relationship by marrying half brothers.

But Nikki didn’t have any time to consider family dynamics or loyalties, for she was certain her uncle’s moments of lucidity were short-lived. “I’m writing a story on Blondell O’Henry,” she said. “You remember her. She was your client, and she was convicted of murdering her daughter. She’s about to be released from jail. Her son’s recanting his testimony.”

Her uncle’s head snapped up. “No.”

“No?”

“She’s dangerous!” he insisted, nearly spitting as he grabbed her wrist in a death grip.

“But you tried so hard to see that she wasn’t convicted.”

“No. Nikki, no!”

“Why?” she asked desperately, hearing the water still running in the bathroom.

He glanced toward the door that Aunty-Pen had left ajar. “Leave this alone!”

“What do you know? Did Blondell really kill her kids? Uncle Alex?”

He was shaking his head. “Don’t touch this! You don’t know what you’re getting into.”

“Alexander?” Aunty-Pen called from the other room. “What’s the name of your nurse? I want to talk to her.” The water stopped running and Nikki held her breath, but then Aunty-Pen closed the door for some privacy.

Nikki seized the extra opportunity and said softly, “I want to know what happened.”

“Attorney-client privilege, Nikki,” he answered sternly.

“Can you tell me anything about the case? Something not privileged, but—”

“Yes!” he interrupted suddenly.

“Let me get my recorder and notepad,” she said, throwing a quick glance at the bathroom door.

She heard the toilet flush as she dug around in her purse, just as Uncle Alex said firmly, “She didn’t do it!”

“You know that for sure? How? Didn’t you just tell me she was dangerous?”

“Did I?” He grew thoughtful. “I don’t remember.”

“How can you be so certain she was innocent?” Nikki asked. “Was it something in particular?”

He looked at her blankly.

“Of course, that was your position as defense counsel,” she hurriedly tried again, “but you must’ve had your doubts or at least some proof to think that she was innocent.”

She saw the clarity start to fade and wanted to moan with frustration. His strong jaw drooped, his gaze falling to the floor, where he saw a string and stooped to pick it up.

“Uncle Alex, how do you know that Blondell didn’t shoot her children?” she asked one last time.

He plucked the string from the carpet and held it out proudly as if he were a five-year-old boy searching for worms and had found a night crawler.

“
I’m going to speak to the administration here,” Aunty-Pen was saying as she returned to the room. “They’re supposed to keep you and all your things pristine, and these,” she held up his spectacles, “were far from it.” Frowning, she set her husband’s glasses onto his face, carefully making certain the bows fit over his ears. “Now, Alexander, isn’t that better?” she asked.

He looked through the sparkling lenses and really smiled for the first time since his wife and niece had entered his room.

“
Hollis!” he said, spying Nikki as if for the first time. Again tears threatened. “Baby girl!” His throat caught. “I thought you were . . . I mean, I dreamed this horrible nightmare that you were gone.” He blinked back tears of relief and joy while Nikki withered inside.

“Oh, Alexander,” Aunty-Pen whispered under her breath, turning away to hide her own emotions.

Embarrassed, Nikki said, “I’m not—” but stopped short when she caught another of her aunt’s warning glances and quiet shake of her head. Instead she held her uncle’s hands in her own and felt a cold desperation slide through her as she realized he had retreated again into the fog that was his mind.

Looking into his suddenly happy eyes, Nikki smiled at him and decided her aunt was right to not try to force him to recognize her. For a few seconds she could be Hollis. What would it hurt? He seemed so relieved to see his daughter that once again Nikki didn’t try to dissuade him of a truth he so desperately wanted, even if it didn’t exist.

A gentle rap on the open door caught her attention, and a young woman in bright scrubs stepped inside. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize Alex had company. It’s time for his meds.”

“We were just leaving,” Aunty-Pen insisted, indicating to Nikki that their short visit was over.

Before Nikki could start for the door, though, Uncle Alex reached out and grabbed her hand, squeezing her fingers with a surprisingly strong grip. “Please,” he said, an undercurrent of desperation in his voice, “About Blondell.” From the corner of her eye, she caught the sudden stiffening of her aunt’s spine.

“Yes?” Nikki said.

“Don’t tell a soul,” he whispered, then winked at her.

Again Nikki remembered Amity’s words that night: . . .
please, please, please don’t tell a soul. If you do we’ll both be dead . . .

She stared at him, shaken, but whatever glimmer of awareness had been there was gone now, dissipating from his fixed gaze as he stared blankly ahead of himself.

Aunt Penelope suddenly looked very sad. “Let’s go,” she said, and Nikki released her uncle’s hand.

“Bye,” she whispered, but he didn’t respond, didn’t even act as if he knew she’d been in the room.

As the nurse moved in to give him his pills, Nikki and her aunt made their way down a long corridor where the walls were a creamy white and sturdy handrails ran between doorways. The carpet had a tight nap so that residents in wheelchairs could navigate the hallways, and the pictures hung between the rooms were copies of familiar pieces in soft hues. Aunty-Pen didn’t stop at the front desk. She appeared to have forgotten that she was going to lodge a complaint about her husband’s care.

“Such a shame,” she said as they walked through the main doors.

Outside, clouds were gathering, and what had promised to be a warmer day was now turning colder. Once in the car, Nikki adjusted the heat as she drove her aunt home.

“It’s difficult,” Penelope admitted as she stared out the passenger-side window. Biting the corner of her lip, she managed to shear off a flake of rose-colored lipstick. “He was such a dashing man, you know. Brilliant. That’s what really got to me way back when. He could have had any girl on campus, and he chose me.” She slid a glance toward Nikki, her mouth turning down at the corners, but then she visibly straightened her spine, the seat belt tightening around her shoulders. “Well, a lot has changed since those idealistic days when I was an undergraduate and he was a law student with his future stretching before him.” She looked through the windshield again, gazing into a distance only she could see.

Nikki, still mulling over her uncle’s warning, didn’t know what to say. She and Penelope hadn’t ever been close, and they had grown more distant with the deaths of Hollis and Elton. While Uncle Alex had embraced Nikki and her siblings, Aunty-Pen had found it too painful, a reminder of what she, as a mother, had lost.

And Aunty-Pen had another cross to bear: the persistent rumor that Uncle Alex had been involved with his notorious, beautiful client Blondell O’Henry. The stink of that gossip had never left Alexander McBaine, and along with his courtroom defeat, his rising star had fizzled. Soon thereafter the first signs of early-stage Alzheimer’s began to manifest themselves.

Before Blondell, Penelope Hilton McBaine had thought she would rise with her husband as he moved ever upward into the political arena. She’d even had her eye on the governor’s mansion.

“Hogwash,” Charlene had muttered upon hearing Aunty-Pen’s ambitions. “What a pipe dream! That could never happen with his clientele!” She’d never liked Uncle Alex and detested the fact that he would “stoop so low” as to represent the likes of Blondell O’Henry. “This has nothing to do with the law,” she’d confided to Nikki once after having come from a luncheon at the country club and, smelling slightly of gin and cigarettes, picked her daughter up after school. “It’s all about fame and money, let me tell you!” With a sly glance at Nikki in the passenger seat, she’d confided, “He has a thing for her, you know.” Then, as she’d concentrated on slowing for an amber light, she added more sourly, “All the men in this town do.”