AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Humph. One? Get real. I don’t want to spread rumors, but trust me, Harvey has a wandering eye. And his wife? Same goes for her.”
“Do you have any idea who they had affairs with?”
“Well, no, I can’t say.”
“But you’re certain?”
“No, no. I mean I got no proof. It’s just what we heard, the wife and I. And those girls they have? Allowed to run loose while their older son—Owen, I think his name is?—there’s something about him I don’t trust. Kind of sulks around, you know, won’t meet you in the eyes. And I saw him once, late at night, leave the house. I was getting a drink of water at the kitchen sink, hadn’t turned on the light as I didn’t want to wake the missus, she don’t sleep so good, and he comes right out of the upper window, clear as day and down the roof he goes, then hops to the ground. Just after one in the morning. And you know I always say, ‘There ain’t nothin’ good happens after midnight. ’”
Amen.
Reed had been a cop too long to not agree with the old man’s observation. He would have loved to interview him, but George was now deceased and his wife, as of the last time anyone checked, was in an elder care facility. The lead investigator who had signed the report, Detective Charles Easterling, had retired at sixty-five two years after the Duval girls had been reported missing. He, too, had died, just last year. Heart failure.
There was only one cop still remaining on the force who had worked the case twenty years earlier, a deputy at the time and now a sergeant. Reed had spoken with her and learned nothing that he hadn’t already read in the files that were now piled on a corner of his desk.
They had offered him no insight in the mystery.
He turned to his monitor and pulled up the computer-generated sketch of what Rose Duval would look like if she’d survived—a pixie of a young woman with blond, curly hair, bright blue eyes, short little nose and a dimple in her chin.
“Yeah, okay. Let me know when you find a match,” Delacroix said into the phone before clicking off.
“Nothing yet?” he guessed.
“Too early. I told you.” She leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head, then caught sight of the image on his computer. “How about you?”
He frowned and shook his head as he stared at the computer model of what Rose Duval might look like. “It’s too generic, I think. And who knows if she’s still blond, or had her teeth straightened, plastic surgery or whatever.”
“Yeah,” she said, “could be anyone.”
Or she could be dead.
Reed considered that option, didn’t like it, but had to admit that it was the most likely scenario.
He sighed through his nose. The investigation wasn’t gaining any traction, his home life wasn’t exactly on track, someone had come into his house uninvited, and in a few days . . .
Oh, Lord.
In a few days, Sylvie Morrisette would be laid to rest.
* * *
Two hours later, Reed pulled up to Peaceful Glen, the adult care facility, and parked in one of the few shady spots available. The cement block building was long and low, built, it looked like, in the sixties with a flat roof and rows of big windows with individual air-conditioning units in the walls. Shadows from a row of shade trees stretched across the walkways, the afternoon sun warm as it slowly lowered in the west.
He stepped through a glass door into a large reception area separated from a dining space by a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace with an oversize picture of Jesus above the mantel.
It was quiet inside, almost hushed, a few carts rattling, some muted voices in the hallways and a feeling of forced cheer in the colorful wall art that was at odds with the institutional green walls and the tan indoor/outdoor carpet of the corridor and common spaces.
His badge gained him access, and he was told by a pert receptionist that Mrs. Adams “was resting” and that her daughter was with her in room 114.
Reed circumvented an elderly man pushing a walker and ignored the scent of disinfectant over the underlying odor of urine. He tapped softly on the door to room 114 and stepped inside as a woman called, “Come in.” She was seated in a floral recliner by the window, the only chair in the studio apartment. A TV was muted to some decorating show and upon the twin bed was an emaciated woman with her eyes closed.
“I’m Julia,” the sixtyish woman said, and quickly folded the newspaper she’d been reading. She was short and heavyset with narrow reading glasses set upon a small nose, and thick gray hair that was layered around a square face with a quizzical expression. “Ona’s daughter.”
“Detective Pierce Reed.” He showed his ID and explained why he was at Peaceful Glen.
“Well, I don’t know what I can tell you and, Mom . . .” She lifted a hand, gesturing toward the bed, where a blue comforter was tucked under the older woman’s narrow chin. She was thin and frail looking, her cheekbones prominent, her eye sockets deep.
“She’s in and out. Sometimes clear as a bell, especially about things in the past, but she couldn’t tell you the day of the week, and sometimes I’m not sure she even remembers me, then the strangest thing, she’ll pop up with something that’s spot-on.”
