Skeletons in the Mist (The McCall Twins) Page 14

  Chas was thoughtful. “What about all the other kids that hang out at the yard?”

  “None of them have seen Tabby since the afternoon you saw her yourself at the junkyard. They all say the same thing—basically that they went their separate ways after leaving the workshop, and she was supposed to be heading home. So far they all have alibis for yesterday morning. Various parents have corroborated that they were all at home. It figures that the one time we could use a witness, there’s not a soul to be found that saw a thing.”

  “Naturally,” Chas agreed. “Someone should go back over and talk to Abbott and Albie today. They were too drunk last night to give any insight on the situation.”

  Abbott and Albie Flannigan were Abel’s brothers. Neither of them had done more than mumble at Chas when he’d informed them of their brother’s demise the night before.

  “I’ll take care of them. You take Roxy to see Devon and then we’ll meet up later today and fill each other in.” Trace dumped out the remainder of his coffee. “That is unless you’re planning to spend the day in bed.”

  Chas flipped up his middle finger. He disappeared down the hall before his brother could say anything else.

  SEVENTEEN

  The ride to Spokane was quiet. Chas and Roxy had stopped at a drive-thru for some breakfast and coffee earlier. Neither had spoken, even during their rather speedy meal. She finally couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Do you think that Tabitha and Dylan are together?”

  He glanced at her, his blue eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. “I don’t know. It’s possible.”

  “I heard what Trace said this morning—about Abel Flannigan. Do you think it’s true?”

  She could tell he didn’t want to answer that question. He kept his eyes on the road and shrugged. “I shouldn’t really talk about this with you. I’m sorry you heard that.”

  “Whether you’re sorry or not, I did hear it. Do you think it’s true?”

  “Off the record? Maybe. Abel’s always been a loser. He bought that junkyard and let it go to pot and then met up with Loretta and has been sponging off of her ever since. He’s never been one to have any ambition and he’s always been odd.”

  “Odd doesn’t make him a child molester.”

  “No, it doesn’t. But I’ve talked to Tabitha myself on various occasions over the past couple of years, and she’s always had that look about her. I’ve noticed the anger there—the hurt. I figured it was because of her father and the fact that he split on her before she was born. But now I’m thinking otherwise. Maybe she was being abused by Abel and maybe she did get tired of the abuse and killed him.” He shrugged his shoulders. “We know Loretta Kennings left Abel a message to go look for Tabby the night she didn’t come home. Loretta never heard from him and Tabby’s still missing. The only thing that doesn’t make sense with that scenario is how a little thing like Tabitha would have been strong enough to drag Abel Flannigan’s big body into that Cadillac. He weighed a good three hundred pounds at least.”

  “Maybe Dylan was with her. Maybe he helped her.”

  He pondered that, then shook his head. “Dylan isn’t a big kid either. I’m not even sure the two of them together could have lifted Abel without help.” He signaled and made a right turn. “I suppose it’s possible that someone else could have helped them. So far, each of the kids we’ve checked out has an alibi for the time period in question.”

  She was quiet a moment. “Do you think Abel Flannigan could have been the person who called me yesterday? Do you think he knew where Dylan was hiding?” She’d been considering the possibility all morning.

  “While it’s obviously possible, I can only say that Abel wasn’t the type to help anyone else out unless there was something in it for him. Somehow I don’t see him calling you, even if he did know where Dylan was hiding, which I doubt. Unless he had some other motive in mind.”

  “What kind of motive?”

  He glanced at her cautiously. “Maybe he was the one who attacked you at the motel. Maybe he was trying to lure you to the Cadillac this morning to finish the job.”

  She visibly shivered. “I don’t even know him. Even as a kid, I rarely crossed paths with him.”

  “It’s just another theory. I have no evidence to back it up.” He thought things over. “I’m not sure why he would have called you Rose at the motel though. And I’m not sure how he would fit into your mother’s equation. He’s quite a bit younger than she would have been. I don’t see how he would have known about her middle name, or why he would have thought to call you that.” He pulled to a stop once they’d entered the parking lot of the juvenile detention center in Spokane. He turned off the key and gave her a sympathetic look. “It would help if you could tell us more about the person who attacked you. We’re running blind here.”

  She appeared to think that over. “I can’t vouch certainly about the caller on the phone, but I don’t think it was Abel at the motel, Chas. The man who attacked me was large, but I don’t think he was that large. Three hundred pounds would have crushed me.”

  He didn’t argue with her. “We’ll have to wait and see what the M.E. says about Abel’s time of death and so on. That will help us eliminate him as your attacker. The results will take a day or two. For now, let’s deal with your brother.”

  They walked into the detention center and were quickly seated in a conference room. Scott Briggs was already there with Devon.

  The past three days had obviously been hard on the kid. His eyes looked exhausted. His scraggly dark hair looked even greasier than it had the last time she’d been here and Roxy wondered if he was allowed to clean up in this place.

  When the boy looked up and saw Roxy and Chas, he glowered at them. His blue eyes were filled with that ever-present anger and hostility.

  “I thought I told you not to come back. Don’t you hear?”

  Roxy knew she had to find a way to be immune to the hatred he was oozing and toughen up for his sake. She had to make the kid see that she was all he had.

  Taking a seat across from him, she let out a sigh. “I understand you’re angry, Devon. I would be angry too if I was in the same position as you. But I’m here to help you. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”

  “I don’t want your help. I don’t want his either,” he said, pointing a finger toward Scott Briggs, who had the maturity to ignore him and continue scribbling on a legal pad.

  “Well you need my help. And so does Dylan. Did anyone tell you that he’s been missing for over three days now?”

  Devon had no real reaction to the words. He didn’t looked surprised in any way.

  “Where is he, Devon? Do you know?”

  “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you. He’s better off on his own.”

  “You don’t really believe that do you?”

  “I sure as hell do. None of you care about Dylan. You don’t care about me either. This whole town is fucked.”

  Roxy leaned back in her chair, frustrated. She was still having a hard time coinciding the angry young man in front of her with the tiny four-year-old she’d walked away from ten years ago.

  “Tabitha Kennings is missing too, Devon.” This came from Chas. “Is she with Dylan? Are they hiding somewhere?”

  This time Roxy saw surprise flicker in her brother’s eyes. It was a quick flash and then it was gone. He glared up at Chas stubbornly. “Fuck you.”

  Chas’s eyes darkened. “Damn it, Devon, Dylan may be in trouble. He may be hurt. You have to tell us where he is if you know.”

  Devon glowered down at the metal table and clammed up.

  Roxy looked up at Chas regretfully. She’d warned him.

  “You’re looking at a murder charge here, Devon. Do you understand the severity of that?” Briggs finally tossed down the pen he’d been writing with and spoke. He stared the boy straight in the eyes, his expression stern.

  Devon remained silent defiantly.

  “Let me put it this way, I get paid whethe
r you’re found guilty or not. I have nothing to lose here. You, on the other hand, have everything to lose.”

  “I’ve already lost everything,” Devon said quietly. He looked over at Roxy. “You’re too late. You never should have left ten years ago. This is all your fault. He came back because of you.”

  Roxy felt her blood run cold. “What are you talking about? Who came back?”

  Devon’s eyes narrowed further and he thumped his fingers against the table. “You don’t get it do you? I’m talking about your father.”

  She felt a strange twist in her heart. The boy was really starting to scare her now. “Daddy is dead, Devon. You know that.”

  He continued to glare at her. “Yes, my father is dead. Yours is not.”

  The room grew deathly silent.

  Roxy shook her head, then stood up. “Why do you want to hurt me? I’m trying to help you.”

  “Sometimes the truth hurts,” was all he said.

  She stared at his face—into those stony eyes of his that at one time she’d thought resembled her own. But the truth was, they didn’t. Not really. She looked like her mother and he looked like their father.

  Chas broke the silence in the room. “Do you want to explain yourself? You’re making a pretty bold accusation here.”

  Devon shrugged his bony shoulders. “Why should I? Nobody will believe me anyway. I want you all to leave. This is stupid.” He started to get up but Chas stopped him.

  “I want to hear what you have to say.”

  “So do I.” This came from Briggs.

  Roxy knew that whatever he had to say, it was going to be bad for her. Somehow she knew he was right—the truth was going to hurt her.

  Devon flopped back into the chair, blowing his hair out of his eyes again. Then he looked at Roxy. “Don’t you think it’s odd that Dad never came after you when you left?”

  “He didn’t know where I was,” she reminded him. “I didn’t call or write for a long time.”

  “But once you did, he didn’t bother answering. He didn’t bother calling. He just wrote you off.”

  The words hurt but she knew it was true. She had written to her father and he hadn’t responded to her. She’d finally received a letter from Aunt Myra, letting her know that her father had passed away.

  “We found your letters on his desk after he killed himself,” Devon said, his voice filled with resentment.

  Roxy exhaled a painful breath. She hadn’t known about the circumstances of Hank Tavish’s suicide, beyond the fact that he’d shot himself. “I’m sorry,” was all she could think of to say.

  “I don’t care how sorry you are. You didn’t have to deal with his depression. A week before he died it got unbearable. The cancer had finally killed my mother by then and it was just the three of us. He sat in his study day and night drinking. And then one night, bam! That was it. He was dead.”

  Roxy didn’t want to hear this. The more details she learned of Hank Tavish’s last days, the guiltier she felt. Somehow ignorance truly was bliss.

  “I don’t know for sure, but I think he found out that week about you—about the fact that you weren’t his daughter.” Devon looked her in the eye. “And I think that’s why he killed himself.”

  EIGHTEEN

  The room grew quiet. Chas watched as the blood seemed to completely drain from Roxy’s face. She shook her head in obvious disbelief. He reached for her arm, afraid she was going to faint on him. She didn’t. She just continued standing there dumbfounded.

  “Maybe you should sit back down,” he finally said softly, giving her a gentle shove toward the chair she’d vacated earlier. She slid into it bonelessly, her face still white as a ghost.

  “How do you know all this, Devon?” Briggs spoke this time, his pen tapping incessantly against his legal pad.

  Devon shrugged.

  “Does this have something to do with the night your aunt died? Because if it does, you’d better tell me.” Briggs gave the kid a stern look and straightened. “I need the facts to help you, Devon. I’m not sure why you’ve waited this long to tell us what happened that night, but it’s now or never.”

  “Dylan heard my aunt talking on the phone to someone okay!” The words came out in a rush and Devon swore, avoiding Roxy’s gaze.

  “When?” Briggs asked.

  “The night she died,” Devon finally admitted. “I came home. Dylan was outside on the porch. He’d been there awhile. I asked him why and he wouldn’t talk to me at all at first. I finally got out of him that he’d been eavesdropping on one of Aunt Myra’s phone conversations.” Devon’s eyes fell. “He was always doing that—picking up the receiver and listening in. Little shit.” Something that looked an awful lot like a tear started to slip from one of Devon’s eyes but he reached up and slapped at it quickly.

  “Go on,” Briggs prodded. “Just tell me everything you know—even if it doesn’t seem important to you.”

  Devon’s eyes remained angry but he shrugged his shoulders. “I tried to get more out of Dylan but he didn’t know much—just that Aunt Myra said that Roxy and Rachel weren’t Dad’s daughters. Apparently she had some paperwork or something and she was accusing whoever was on the phone of being their real father. When I asked him who she was talking to, he didn’t know.”

  Chas reached a hand forward and squeezed Roxy’s shoulder, for all the good it would do. The expression on her face was one he wouldn’t soon forget. She looked confused and devastated all at the same time.

  “Did you ask your aunt about the situation?” Briggs wanted to know.

  “No. Not with my brother there. I told him to go find Woody and hang out at the junkyard while I talked to Aunt Myra. I knew she wouldn’t say anything in front of Dylan. She was always trying to protect him from things. She knew that my father’s death had messed him up pretty bad. That worthless coward.” Devon’s eyes turned stony again.

  “What happened when you confronted your aunt, Devon?” Briggs asked.

  “She denied it at first. Aunt Myra was good at storytelling and she did her best to make something up about the phone call that Dylan had overheard. Eventually she admitted it was true. She’d been going through some paperwork of my dad’s and found some journal that was apparently Dinah Tavish’s. I guess the whole story was in the journal. I saw it lying on the counter in the kitchen. I didn’t get a chance to read it though. Someone called on the phone again and at that point I took off. I was pissed. All these years I’d watched my father swim in depression over everything that had happened to his first family, and their whole existence had been a lie. The love of my father’s life had been a cheating bitch.”

  “My mother wasn’t a cheating bitch,” Roxy argued defensively. “You didn’t know her.”

  “I know she was cheating on my father. And I know that journal was real.”

  “So where is it?” Roxy wanted to know, not that Chas could blame her. He wanted to know too.

  “I have no idea. Maybe it’s still in the house. I didn’t exactly get a chance to look for it before I was arrested. I just know that Aunt Myra had it at one time. I told you before, I saw it sitting on the counter in the kitchen.”

  “Ms. Tavish, I realize that you have questions about this but I really need to get back to the night of the murder,” Briggs said impatiently. “Where did you go when you left the house—after you had words with your aunt?”

  “I took off and went over to Tabitha’s. We’d been hanging out a lot. When I got there I saw that she was crying. Turns out her mother’s boyfriend has been messing with her.” Devon looked over at Chas. “You can’t tell her I told you. She’ll get really mad at me. She made me promise. The only reason I know is because I walked in on them.”

  Chas grimaced. Hearing the accusation against Abel Flannigan a second time pretty much sealed its validity. “I won’t say anything to her,” was all he finally said to Devon. He didn’t want to get into Abel Flannigan’s murder case with the kid at this point. There were other tasks at hand.
>
  Devon continued. “Anyway, Tabby came with me and we walked back to my aunt’s house, just talking. When we got there I saw that the screen door was hanging open…” Devon’s voice broke off and he stared down at the floor. His hands started to shake.

  “What time was it when you got to the house, Devon?” Briggs asked, writing things down as fast as Devon was saying them.

  Devon looked up, surprised. “I don’t know. Three or four in the afternoon, I guess.”

  “Okay. So you went in the house?” Briggs asked.

  “Yeah. Tabby left to head for the junkyard. I told her I’d see her later. I went inside and I found Aunt Myra lying on the floor in the hallway.” Again, his eyes watered and he rubbed at them. His breath hitched. “I didn’t see the blood at first. I’m not sure why because there was a lot of it. When I did see it, I panicked. I ran over to her. I slipped a couple of times and almost fell. That’s when I saw the gun. It was lying on the floor next to her.”

  “What did you do then?” Briggs asked, but Chas already knew what the kid was going to say. When Chas had arrived on the scene, he’d found Devon holding the murder weapon.

  “I picked it up. I don’t know why. I just did.” He shook his head, anguish and regret in his eyes. “I wasn’t thinking. I should have called the cops but instead I just stood there in shock. And then Dylan walked into the house. He took one look at the scene and he freaked out.” Devon reached up and swiped at his running nose. “He took off running and screaming and I just kept standing there.”

  “The gun belonged to your father,” Briggs said, his expression solemn. “Do you know where it was normally kept?”

  Devon shrugged. “I never saw it before that night. Most of my dad’s things were in a back bedroom in boxes. Aunt Myra was slowly going through the stuff.”

  Chas glanced at Roxy. He was surprised she’d been quiet for so long. She was just sitting there rubbing at her temples with her fingers. She was obviously confused and shocked, to say the least.

  Devon chose that moment to look over at her. “You can choose to believe me or not. I don’t really care what you think. But I hope you’ll do something for me. If I don’t get out of here, you need to tell Dylan I didn’t do it. I didn’t shoot Aunt Myra. I loved her.”