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She sighed and went on. “I’ve been reading about the Duval girls in the papers and watching on television. It’s awful. And it just goes on and on. Those poor parents, what they’ve been through.”
The woman on the bed snorted, her eyes, beneath her papery eyelids, fluttering.
“Mom?” Julia asked, getting up and moving to the bed. She touched her mother on a bony, flannel-draped shoulder. “Mom. There’s a policeman here. He wants to talk to you about Harvey and Margaret Duval and their daughters.”
Nothing.
“Mom.” She gave Ona’s shoulder a gentle shake. “Mom? Can you wake up now? Talk to Detective . . .”
“Reed,” he supplied.
“Detective Reed would like to talk to you. About the Duvals.” Again there was no response.
Julia straightened and let out her breath. “See what I mean?” “Maybe you can help me,” he suggested as she perched on the edge of the bed.
“I don’t know how. I barely knew those girls. I was out of the house before they were born. So I only saw them when I visited Mom and Dad.”
“What about the brother? Owen?”
“No, I mean, I recognized him by sight, but that was about it.” She began plucking at the pilling on the comforter. “He was just a neighbor kid, and I don’t think Mom and Dad really knew him all that well. It’s not like the families hung out or anything. Mom and Dad were already retired, I think, and the Duvals were raising four kids and balancing jobs, so . . . not a lot in common.”
“And you?”
“We were living in Charlotte at the time. I was working and have a husband and kids of my own. Three of them. All in elementary school, so I barely had time to breathe, couldn’t come down here all that often what with everyone’s schedule.” She offered a tentative smile. “So I really can’t tell you anything and if you’re hoping to get some information from Mom . . . well . . .” Julia sighed, her head wagging sadly. “As I said, sometimes clear as a bell, other times, well . . .”
Reed had told himself the trip to Peaceful Glen was probably a waste of time, but he still felt a sliver of disappointment.
“What do you know about Harvey and Margaret?” he asked.
“Not much. He was in insurance, an agent or a broker or something, and she was a nurse. I do know that. She worked at the hospital when I was a kid. I remember because I went into the ER when I broke my arm from falling off my bike and she was the nurse who attended to me.”
This much he knew. Everything Jul
ia was saying checked out. “Your father said in his statement to the police that there was trouble at the Duval house. That things weren’t . . . stable.” He was pushing it as he found no reports of police being called to the home. It was all just hearsay. From a dead man.
Julia’s eyebrows drew together. “I . . . I don’t know about that.”
“He seemed to think there was some marital strife.”
“Well, probably. They divorced, didn’t they?”
“He thought there were affairs.”
“Oh. Again, I don’t know.”
“You didn’t hear that Harvey had a girlfriend?”
She was shaking her head. “No, I never—”
“Margaret!” the woman in the bed croaked. “It was Margaret.” Ona’s eyes blinked open for a second and she focused on Reed. “She was a hot pants!”
“Mom!” Julia said, shocked.
Ona added, “You ask George! She came on to him.”
Julia was shaking her head. “Oh, no. I don’t think that’s true.”
“Common slut! With all those kids. Those girls probably weren’t all her husband’s.” She snorted her disgust. “Hot pants!”
