Don't Cry Part 31

O'Neal shrugged. "Not much to tell. Like I said, it was probably an older-model Lincoln or Cadillac. Light color. Maybe white. And it was dirty; the tires were caked with dried mud like he'd been driving it off road."

"You said it was an old Lincoln or Cadillac. Which was it?"

"Not sure, but I think it was a Lincoln."

"How old? Ten years old or older?"

"Older. One of them big jobs from the eighties."

Just as J.D. suspected, Henry O'Neal had seen a lot more than he'd realized, at least about the car if not about the driver.

"You saw the b.u.mper sticker, but not the car tag, right?" J.D. asked.

"That's right. The sticker glowed in the dark."

"Think real hard, Mr. O'Neal. You saw the car drive away, so why if you were bedded down behind the antique stores, didn't you see the car when it arrived?"

"I don't know."

"Think about it."

"I was asleep."

"You were drunk."

O'Neal nodded. "I-I didn't see the car or the man driving it until he drove off, but I might have heard something before then."

"What did you hear?"

"Doors opening and closing. Car doors, I think. And I might've heard gla.s.s breaking. I'm not sure. Like you said, I was drunk. I was bedded down all snug and warm. I didn't want to be bothered. As long as n.o.body messed with me, it wasn't nothing to me what they was doing."

J.D. continued questioning him while O'Neal downed a second cup of coffee, but within half an hour, J.D. knew he'd gotten all the information he was going to get. Less than he'd hoped, but more than he'd gotten yesterday.

The info he had acquired today added up, one detail at a time. a.s.suming that the driver of the old car Henry O'Neal had seen late Sat.u.r.day night or early Sunday morning was their killer, then they knew he either owned, had access to, or had stolen an older-model vehicle, possibly a white eighties-model Lincoln. It could be a piece of old junk that he'd bought for practically nothing. Or it could be a restored cla.s.sic. But just how many cars fitting that description were still on the road? Especially one with a pro-life, glow-in-the-dark b.u.mper sticker?

The tires were caked with dried mud like he'd been driving it off road. Off road. Out in the country? Possibly on a farm in Sale Creek? Off road. Out in the country? Possibly on a farm in Sale Creek?

J.D. was forming another hypothesis, one that put the killer on the farm where Regina Bennett had lived with her aunt and uncle. Was there a place on those hundred acres where he had kept Jill Scott, Debra Gregory, and Whitney Poole captive? Was there an area that the FBI had somehow missed in their thorough searches more than two decades ago, a place where Regina Bennett had hidden away the bodies of her son and five other little boys?

What were the odds that, without any real evidence to support his possibly far-fetched scenario, he could persuade a judge to issue a search warrant for the hundred acres and all the structures on the farm?

Slim to none.

J.D. picked up the phone and enlisted some help. A sketch artist could create pictures of Jeremy Arden and Hart Roberts each with long, blondish brown hair, a mustache, and gla.s.ses.

A quick check should reveal if either man or a family member owned an older-model Lincoln. Local antique car clubs might know of a car that fit the description. If the car was registered, had a tag, and was insured, they would be able to track it. And it wouldn't hurt to check out any cars that Regina Bennett or her aunt and her uncle had owned.

At one-thirty, Jeremy Arden and Hart Roberts arrived at the TBI office, along with their own small entourage comprising of two lawyers, Sergeant Garth Hudson, Officer Tamara Lovelady, and retired Sergeant Wayne Sherrod. Once all the introductions were made, Garth took Jeremy and his lawyer into his office and closed the door.

"This is an informal interview," J.D. said. "Nothing more."

"Nevertheless, my client prefers to have legal representation," the lawyer, who had introduced himself as Edward Gates, informed J.D.

"Do you wear gla.s.ses, Mr. Arden?"

"No."

"Contacts?"

"No?"

"Do you own a pair of gla.s.ses?"

"Sungla.s.ses."

"Prescription?"

"No."

"Do you own a car, Mr. Arden?" J.D. asked.

"No. I have a motorcycle."

"Have you ever been back to the farm where Regina Bennett kept you after she kidnapped you?"

Jeremy s.h.i.+fted uncomfortably in his seat. "No. Why would I want to go back there?"

J.D. let his gaze drift casually over Jeremy, from his blond hair to his faded jeans and worn corduroy jacket to his scuffed leather boots.

"Why did you visit Regina Bennett in Moccasin Bend several times shortly before her death?"

Jeremy's facial muscles tensed. He turned, leaned over, and whispered something to his lawyer. They talked quietly for a couple of minutes. J.D. looked at Jeremy's small, slender hands and his thin fingers. A couple of his nails were chipped, one broken into the quick, and there was what looked like grease under one thumbnail. J.D.'s guess was this guy had never had a professional manicure in his life.

"I wanted to see her, talk to her, to come face-to-face with the woman who had kidnapped me. I guess you could call it an unhealthy fascination," Jeremy said. "Every time I went to see her, she called me Cody. She was nuts and I knew that, but...I kept remembering things. Like her singing to me. And her rocking me."

"Just how much do you remember?"

"Not a lot. And to be honest, I'm not sure if any of the memories are real."

"Are we about through here, Special Agent Ca.s.s?" Edward Gates asked.

"Just a few more questions." He focused on Arden. "Did you know any of the Rocking Chair Killer's victims?"

"What?" Arden's face paled.

"Did you, for instance, know Whitney Poole?"

Arden swallowed hard, then conversed with his lawyer again before answering. "I saw her a few times when I ate at the cafe where she worked."

"Did you ever talk to her? Flirt with her?"

"Yeah, a couple of times, but I didn't kidnap her and I didn't kill her. I liked her. I'd been trying to work up the courage to ask her out when she disappeared."

"So, it's just a fluke, just a weird coincidence that you were interested in dating one of the Rocking Chair Killer's victims. You, Jeremy Arden, the one and only Baby Blue toddler who was rescued."

Arden became visibly upset. Sweat dotted his upper lip and his breathing quickened as he stood quickly and wrung his hands together.

Arden's lawyer intervened, calmed him down, and from then until the end of the interview consulted on every answer Arden gave.

J.D. continued the questioning, keeping his voice even and his att.i.tude friendly. Jeremy was highly agitated and a few times he got rattled again and looked like a scared rabbit caught in a hunter's snare.

"If I were to ask you where you were and what you were doing on the nights when our three victims were killed and each one's body staged in a rocking chair with a toddler's skeleton in her arms, could you tell me? Would you have an alibi for all three nights?"

"I don't know. Probably not. I live alone. I don't have any friends. And no girlfriend."

After a half-hour interview, J.D. opened the office door, thanked Jeremy Arden for his cooperation, and walked him outside where Hart Roberts was waiting. Roberts was alone except for Tam Lovelady and his lawyer. Roberts and Arden glanced at each other, nodded, and then Arden left with his lawyer.

"I'm ready for you now, Mr. Roberts."

"I'd like to speak to you first," Tam said.

"All right." J.D. glanced from Hart Roberts to his lawyer, a fortysomething brunette who looked vaguely familiar. "Why don't you two wait in my office."

"I hope you don't intend to keep us waiting much longer, Special Agent Ca.s.s," the lady lawyer said.

And then J.D. remembered where he'd met her and who she was. "This shouldn't take long, should it, Officer Lovelady?"

"A few minutes," Tam replied.

J.D. smiled at the lawyer he had met briefly a couple of months ago when Holly had dragged him off to some social function she simply couldn't miss. Kim Miner was a friend of Holly's, actually more than a friend. Holly considered the woman her mentor and had patterned herself after the lawyer known in legal circles as the Barracuda b.i.t.c.h. The lady didn't work cheap, which immediately made J.D. wonder who was paying her bill.

"If y'all will go on in, I'll be with you shortly." J.D. kept his fake smile in place and as soon as Roberts and his lawyer entered his office, J.D. turned to Tam. "Did Garth leave?"

"Wayne took him outside to try to cool him off," Tam said. "Keeping Hart waiting while you interviewed Jeremy Arden gave Garth plenty of time to work up a head of steam. I'm just glad Wayne was here."

"And just why is Wayne Sherrod here?" J.D. asked. "As a matter of fact, why are you and Garth here?"

"Garth is Hart's uncle. He's here for moral support, as is Wayne."

"And you?"

"I'm a friend of the family."

"So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about?" J.D. asked.

"I know you've done your homework, that you've learned a great deal about Hart, about his problems with the law, with drugs and alcohol and that he's had emotional issues since he was a kid." Tam paused, reached out, grasped J.D.'s arm, and said, "Hart Roberts is not your killer."

"I'm not accusing him of anything. You know what this is. Just an informal interview."

"If you push him too hard, he-he could break. Emotionally." She squeezed J.D.'s arm. "I'm asking you to be careful when you question him. Please."

J.D. realized that Tam Lovelady cared about Hart Roberts, cared a h.e.l.l of a lot. Maybe even loved him. More than as a friend's brother?

Tam removed her hand from J.D.'s arm.

"Okay. Don't worry. I'll take it easy," J.D. said, then turned around, went into his office, and closed the door.

For the next twenty-five minutes, he went over most of the same questions with Hart Roberts that he'd asked Jeremy Arden. Roberts said he did own a car, but not an older-model Lincoln. J.D. knew the car he mentioned-an eight-year-old Toyota-was actually registered to his uncle. More questioning revealed that Roberts didn't wear gla.s.ses or contacts, but like Arden did own nonprescription sungla.s.ses. He had eaten at Callie's Cafe several times but couldn't remember ever seeing Whitney Poole, and he said he'd never met either of the other victims.

"Did you ever have any type of contact with Regina Bennett?" J.D. had asked.

"G.o.d, no!"

"You never visited her at Moccasin Bend or-"

"h.e.l.l, no." Roberts had laughed then, laughed too hard and too long. Finally, he controlled himself and added, "I'm afraid if I ever visited that place, they'd keep me."

Later, when asked about an alibi for the nights of the three murders, he'd smirked at J.D. "I'm sure my uncle can give me an alibi. I live with him, but then you know that, don't you."

When the interview concluded, Tam was waiting for Roberts and Ms. Miner, but Garth Hudson and Wayne Sherrod were nowhere to be seen.

J.D. sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and immediately began going over both interviews. His gut instincts told him that Audrey's stepbrother was hiding something. But was it something about the Rocking Chair Murders? The man had been more than just normally nervous, and yet he'd been c.o.c.ky and belligerent at times. J.D. had done his best to ask all the questions he needed to ask without unduly upsetting Roberts, but the guy had been upset before being asked the first question. And although J.D. had done nothing more than casually glance at Roberts's clothes and hands, he'd jumped up and demanded to know why J.D. was inspecting him. Ms. Miner had spoken to him and urged him to be seated again.

"You get a manicure often, Mr. Roberts?"

He had lifted his hands and shown them to J.D. "I've gotten a few. This one was a gift from a manicurist I'm sort of dating. I can give you her name and number if you-"

"No, thanks." J.D. had looked him over from head to toe. "Nice suit. Expensive. Looks new."

"It is."

"You always dress this way?"

"No, I don't, but my lawyer"-he had glanced at Kim Miner-"advised me to wear a suit and tie today. So I wore the new suit my sister bought me for a recent job interview."

Audrey had bought him a suit. She was probably paying Kim Miner's exorbitant fees, too. And Garth, Wayne Sherrod, and Tam had accompanied Roberts, acting as his backup team. With so many people in his corner, helping him, supporting him, loving him, why hadn't Roberts been able to get his act together? Why was he, at thirty-three, still such a screwup?

After the interview, Tam had been waiting when J.D. walked Hart and his lawyer to the door. Apparently, Wayne Sherrod had persuaded Garth to go back to police headquarters, which suited J.D. just fine. He didn't want a confrontation with Hart Roberts's uncle.

With Audrey's uncle.

J.D. would have liked to believe that out there somewhere was a man using the name Corey Bennett, a man who fit the same general description of both Jeremy Arden and Hart Roberts. He didn't want to believe that Roberts could possibly be the Rocking Chair Killer. But after today's interviews, he knew without a doubt that he couldn't eliminate either man from his persons-of-interest list. Not yet.

The office door swung open and hit the doorjamb with a bang. J.D. glanced up from behind his desk at the man standing just inside his office. Sergeant Garth Hudson glared at J.D., his facial features stretched tight with anger.