Chapter 29
Max helped Gar to his feet, led him to the nearest chair, and then telephoned Ike Denton. Jolie grasped Yvonne’s arm and led her out of the room and into the foyer. Yvonne trembled uncontrollably.
“It’s over,” Jolie said. “You’re safe. Everything is going to be all right.”
Yvonne nodded, but didn’t speak.
Nowell Landers escorted Clarice outside, where Jolie and Yvonne soon joined them on the front porch. Complete and utter silence descended on Pleasant Hill.
“Come on, Gar,” Max said. “You don’t need to stay in here. Let’s go outside with the others.”
“I don’t understand how he could have believed for all these years that I killed Lisette.” Gar kept shaking his head, a glazed sheen misting his eyes.
Max helped Gar to his feet, then led him through the foyer and outside. Everyone turned and stared at him. He looked from one person to the next, shaking his head and moaning; then he crumpled into a heap, weeping as he fell to his knees.
Damn! Max didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what to believe. Was it possible that Garland Wells, his friend and attorney, was a cold-blooded killer? He could have believed it of Roscoe, but not of Gar. The man was no saint, but he had a gentle easy-going nature.
Max leaned down, put his arm around Gar’s shoulders and lifted him to his feet. “Come on, Gar, don’t do this. It won’t help.”
Gar shook his head, then wiped his face with his hand, and sniffed back tears. “I didn’t kill anybody. I swear I didn’t. Yes, I saw Lisette that day. She told me she was pregnant and the child was mine, but she was going to marry Parry and pass the baby off as his. She told me I was just a kid, not ready for the responsibility of a child, and that I’d forget all about her when I found someone else.” Gar staggered across the veranda and leaned against one of the portico’s white columns. “She was wrong. I’ve never forgotten her. And I’ve never loved anyone else the way I loved her.”
“Was Aunt Lisette alive when you left Belle Rose?” Jolie asked.
“Yes, she was alive. And so was Miss Audrey.” Closing his eyes, Gar pressed his cheek against the pillar’s cool surface.
“What about Lemar?” Yvonne asked.
“Lemar wasn’t there,” Gar replied. “I met him on the road coming in as I was leaving.”
Max went over to Jolie and eased his arm around her shoulders. What must she be feeling right now? Did she believe that Gar might have been the one who tried to kill her that day? Jolie leaned into Max; he rubbed his cheek against her temple in a comforting gesture.
“Roscoe said you came home that day with blood all over your shirt.” Jolie’s arm slipped around Max’s waist as she questioned Gar. “Is that true?”
“Yes, it’s true.” Gar kept his back to them as he replied. “I was so upset when I left Belle Rose that I didn’t see this dog run out in front of my car. I hit the poor animal, so I got out and picked him up and put him in my car. I drove into town to Doc Hillard’s and left the dog with him. The blood on my shirt was the dog’s blood.”
“Why didn’t you explain to your father what happened and why you had blood on your shirt?” Jolie asked.
“I didn’t even know he saw me come in that afternoon. I had no idea that, after he heard about the Belle Rose massacre, he assumed I was the killer. I didn’t realize he knew about my affair with Lisette. My God! If only he had come to me and asked me.”
“If we were to check with Doc Hillard, do you think he’d be able to collaborate your story?” Max asked.
“I don’t know. Doc Hillard’s nearly eighty now and partially deaf and nearly blind,” Gar said. “But maybe he’d remember. Or it could be that the information is in his old files.” Gar bumped his forehead against the column several times in frustration, then groaned. “I cannot believe any of this. Daddy thinking I was a murderer, tampering with evidence, paying off people to make sure Lemar Fuqua was blamed for the crime. Trying to kill Yvonne tonight. Nowell Landers shooting Daddy. God, help me! Am I losing my mind?”
No one had an answer for Garland Wells. But everyone had unanswered questions. About tonight. And about the past.
Max whispered to Jolie, “Are you all right,
chère?
”
“I don’t know. I’m just sort of numb, I think.”
Clarice and Yvonne sat together on the veranda steps, holding hands, clinging to each other as if there were no one else in the world except the two of them. Max didn’t think the women were aware of what was going on around them or of anything being said. Nowell Landers’ rifle leaned against the brick wall beside him as he watched Clarice, his gaze focused directly on her.
“Where did you learn to shoot like that, Landers?” Max looked point-blank at the older man.
“I was a sniper in Vietnam,” Nowell replied.
“Do you carry around a rifle with you all the time?” Max asked.
“Nope. I don’t even own a gun.”
“Then whose rifle is that?” Jolie asked.
“It belonged to Mr. Sam Desmond.” Nowell looked directly at Jolie. “Clarice insisted that we go to Belle Rose and get her daddy’s Winchester before we came on over here to Pleasant Hill.”
“Aunt Clarice suggested you bring Granddaddy Desmond’s rifle with you? But why?” Jolie stared at Nowell, her puzzled gaze questioning him.
“I think Clarice had made up her mind to kill Roscoe Wells when we got here, if Yvonne hadn’t already done it.” Nowell glanced at the half sisters, still sitting snuggled closely together.
“You’re saying that she wanted to kill Roscoe because she believed he’d hired someone to set Yvonne’s house on fire,” Max said. “I can’t believe that Aunt Clarice would—”
“Forty-two years ago when Clarice was eighteen and Yvonne was sixteen, the girls went blackberry picking,” Nowell said.
Max and Jolie exchanged bewildered looks. What the hell did blackberry picking have to do with killing Roscoe?
“Roscoe Wells had been out running his dogs, doing a little rabbit hunting and a lot of heavy drinking,” Nowell continued. “The girls met up with him and…” Nowell cleared his throat, then glanced at Clarice. “He made some unwanted advances to Yvonne. He told Clarice to get on home, and he’d send Yvonne along when he was finished with her.”
“Oh, no.” Jolie bit down on her bottom lip.
Knowing that Jolie suspected the outcome of Nowell’s story, Max hugged her to him, bracing her and himself for the ugly truth.
Nowell’s low deep voice seemed amplified in the hush of predawn. “Roscoe threw Yvonne down on the ground and—”
“And he started tearing off my clothes.” With her back to them, her fingers still entwined with Clarice’s, Yvonne recalled the events of that day. “His hands were everywhere and his sour breath was all over my face. When he unzipped his pants, I screamed…and screamed. And kept on screaming.”
“That’s when I hit him over the head with a rock,” Clarice said. Her slender shoulders rose and fell as she breathed deeply. “But it didn’t knock him out, it only stunned him for a minute. Long enough for me to grab Yvonne up off the ground. I told her to run.”
“She told me to run, to get away,” Yvonne said. “So I ran and ran and ran. I thought she was behind me. I didn’t realize…not until I was nearly home, that she wasn’t following right behind me.”
“Roscoe caught me…and…raped me,” Clarice said. A matter-of-fact statement, calm, unemotional. “And when he finished, he got up off me, zipped up his pants and said it was my own damn fault, that he’d wanted…wanted some chocolate pussy, that I should have let him have Yvonne…. Then he said that if I told anybody, it would be my word against his, that he’d tell people it hadn’t been the first time we’d met out in the woods.”
“When I realized that Clarice wasn’t behind me, I didn’t know what to do.” Yvonne’s voice trembled ever so slightly. “I was scared. Awfully scared. I just sat down on the ground and cried. I don’t know how long I sat there before Clarice found me.”
“We swore we’d never tell a soul what happened that day. We knew that if Daddy ever found out, he’d kill Roscoe, and then Daddy would wind up spending the rest of his life in prison.” Clarice released her hold on Yvonne’s hand and rose to her feet. She turned and faced Nowell. “I never told anyone, except Jonathan. I wanted him to know the reason I didn’t come to him a virgin.”
“Our lives went on after that day,” Yvonne said. “We didn’t talk about it again. Not until Clarice realized she was pregnant.”
“Oh, God, Aunt Clarice!” Jolie rushed to her aunt and wrapped her arms around her.
Clarice patted Jolie’s back. “It’s all right, dear girl.”
“Clarice devised a plan,” Yvonne said. “She talked Mr. Sam into letting her go to New Orleans on a shopping trip, with me along as her companion.”
“I had an abortion.” Clarice caressed Jolie’s face. “One of those back alley affairs. I nearly bled to death. Yvonne took care of me, but it messed me up pretty bad. I wound up having to have a hysterectomy when I moved to Memphis. I was twenty-two then.”
Jolie hugged her aunt, who remained dry-eyed, while Jolie wept. Strange, how Clarice seemed so sane and calm, as if she were recounting events that had happened to someone else.
The wail of sirens screamed in the distance. Within minutes, Ike Denton arrived, along with a couple of deputies. He’d no sooner got out of his car than the ambulance drove in behind him.
“Where is he?” Ike asked.
“Daddy’s in his study,” Gar replied.
Ike motioned to the medics, who rushed inside, followed by the two deputies.
Ike turned to Max. “Want to tell me what happened?”
“The short version is that Roscoe tried to kill Yvonne, but Nowell Landers shot Roscoe first… and saved Yvonne’s life.”
Ike rubbed his jaw. “And Wells is dead?”
“Yeah, he’s dead,” Max replied.
“I’ll need statements from everybody.” Ike glanced around at the others. “Mr. Landers, I’ll have to ask you to come into town with me. The rest of you can come on in—”
“Sheriff, would it be all right if the ladies go on home now and then make their statements tomorrow? Nowell and Gar and I can tell you everything that happened.” Max glanced past Ike, his gaze meeting Nowell’s in a unspoken understanding that Clarice and Yvonne’s tragedy would remain a secret.
Ike studied Clarice and Yvonne, then turned to Jolie. “Why don’t you take your aunt and Mrs. Carter on home.”
“Thank you.” Jolie looked from Ike to Max.
“Go on,” Max said. “Explain everything to Theron, but just tell the others what’s absolutely necessary. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Jolie sat on the balcony and watched the dawn break across the eastern horizon. It had taken quite some time to explain to Mallory, Georgette, and Parry what had happened. She’d had her hands full with Aunt Clarice and Yvonne, who both seemed to be in a state of mild shock but refused to see a doctor. Georgette was useless in an emergency, and Parry wasn’t sober enough to be of any assistance. Thankfully, Mallory had taken charge of her uncle and mother, thus freeing Jolie to get the others settled. Clarice had insisted that Yvonne share her room; and after a long talk with Theron, Jolie had shown him to one of the empty guest bedrooms.
How long would Max have to stay at the sheriff’s office? Would they be able to make Ike understand that Nowell Landers had killed Roscoe to save Yvonne’s life? And what about Gar? Was there any chance that Ike might arrest him? God, she hoped Max would come home soon. In all the craziness that had gone on around her, one sane thought registered in her mind. She loved Maximillian Devereaux. It didn’t matter who his mother was.
And one question haunted her. If neither Garland Wells nor Lemar Fuqua had killed her mother and aunt, then who had? And she knew, without any proof other than his sworn denial, that Gar was not a killer. Why had it been so easy for Roscoe to believe his son capable of such a heinous crime? Was it because Roscoe had been capable of doing just about anything and thought his son was just like him?
Jolie knew that there was something missing from the scenario, some small bit of information pointing to the truth. But what was it? What were they overlooking?
Gar had been here at Belle Rose that day; he’d seen her mother and aunt alive. And he’d met Lemar coming to the house as he was leaving. Someone else had come to Belle Rose, after Gar left and after Lemar arrived. But who? And why?
Think, Jolie, think. Go over everything that Gar said. Maybe he knows more than he realizes
.
“May I join you?” a feminine voice asked.
Jolie nearly jumped out of her skin. She shot up from the wicker chair, turned quickly and faced Georgette Royale, who stood by the open French doors that led out onto the balcony.
“I’m sorry,” Georgette said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I thought everyone had gone to bed. After what happened at Pleasant Hill, I’m nervous and jittery. It’s not every day that I see a man get his head blown off.”
Georgette cringed. “I want to thank you. With Max not being here to handle things, I don’t know what we would have done if you hadn’t taken charge and gotten everyone settled. I’m afraid I’m not very much help in a crisis.”