LITMIR.BIZ

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with. In Marta’s opinion: rain forest be damned. Marta would cut down every tree herself if it meant the good life. It was only a first impression, but I would bet my bottom dollar Cotton Reynolds’ ex-wife felt the same.

      The question was: what did she really want?

      “Tess Bradbury, Jane Kelly,” Marta introduced. “Jane, Tess…” I reached out a hand. Tess held hers as if I should kiss it, but I clasped it and gave it a quick shake instead. A small line dug between her brows, but then it smoothed away a moment later. She withdrew her hand, folded both of them demurely in her lap, and said, “I’m so glad you decided to help me.”

      She had a faint southern twang. Texan, I believed, though I’m no expert. I really didn’t know what to say to her. Her son had been accused of multiple homicide. He’d killed his own family and bolted to escape prosecution. From what I’d read in the newspaper accounts, there was no doubt that he’d committed the act. Though no crime scene investigator had revealed any of the little forensic tidbits that so interest the scandal-hungry public, clearly the authorities had Bobby dead to rights.

      Still, I knew his mother wouldn’t want to believe it. I cleared my throat, my curiosity growing in spite of myself.

      “What exactly would you like me to do, Ms. Bradbury?”

      Chapter Three

      It felt like I waited an inordinately long time for Tess to answer. She shot me a look, glanced away, then gave me another cool, blue-eyed stare. In the end she turned to Marta who assumed command like the general she was.

      “Bobby’s been missing for nearly four years,” Marta started in. “The Tillamook County Sheriff’s Department and F.B.I. and God knows who else haven’t been able to turn him up. They’re beginning to think he headed out to sea. A small boat was stolen during those same two days. Capsized, apparently. Pieces floated back along the coast about ten days later.”

      “But no body,” I put in, remembering.

      “But no body.” Marta nodded.

      “One theory is that he set it up to look as if he drowned,” I pointed out, “but that he’s living large and free.”

      “If he’s dead, I need to know.” Tess’s voice was flat, nearly emotionless. I gave her a careful look while trying to appear as if I were merely waiting for direction. Her hair was obviously bleached but done so expertly that it could almost be natural. It was cut in a short bob that curved in at the edge of her chin. She was probably in her late forties, but she could have passed for ten years younger. Her nails were lacquered a pastel pink shade, and she wore a pair of cream-colored slacks and matching jacket. I admired the suit’s lack of wrinkles. If I’d been wearing it, it would have looked like I’d pulled it from the bottom of the laundry basket. The pink scarf added the right touch, making her look like a confection. Hard candy, I thought, if the set of her mouth were anything to go by.

      Marta continued, “The authorities believe he killed his family, each with a shot to the back of the head, then left them on state forestry land outside Tillamook. There’s been precedent for this. Two other alleged family annihilators: Edward Morris and Christian Longo have been arrested for committing similar crimes in this state. Morris left his family in the Tillamook State Forest like Bobby, Longo dropped the bodies in coastal inlets off Newport and Waldport. Maybe they gave him the idea.” At this point Tess tried to interrupt, but Marta, once engaged, hates losing the floor, so she threw Tess a quelling look and added in an aside, “I’m just filling in background. Bobby may have been a victim as well, but this is what the authorities are thinking, I guarantee it.”

      Tess settled back in her chair but her body remained tense. I felt tense, too. Fighting off Woofers seemed like child’s play compared to this. I was already out of my league.

      “Familicide is fairly rare. Nationally, maybe 50 cases a year. For some reason, Oregon’s got more than its share. Usually these guys are white, in their 30’s or 40’s, and they feel intense responsibility for their families. Meanwhile, their lives are falling apart, usually financially. Oh, and they generally have a strong faith. Most often, once they’ve killed their families, they take their own lives. That happened with our third local family annihilator, Robert Bryant, who shot his family in his home then turned the shotgun on himself.”

      I threw another glance at Tess to see how she was taking this. The pink nails were digging into the arms of her chair. With an effort, she folded her hands back in her lap. Hands are betrayers, I thought. Tess Bradbury looked as if she wanted to claw herself out of this life.

      Marta pulled a slim folder from a drawer and laid it out in front of her, consulting her notes. “The perpetrators are usually depressed, often paranoid, men. They can’t face failure, so they see killing their families as their only option.” She put a finger to the page and looked up, studying Tess. “There’s a lot more, but you’ve heard all this before.”

      “Over and over again,” Tess gritted.

      “Do you mind if I give Jane this file? She can read up on it later.”

      Tess didn’t immediately respond. Finally realizing Marta was waiting for an answer, she flapped a hand at the file which meant “yes.” Marta slid the blue folder my way. I flipped open the edge and saw several reports off the Internet and copies of newspaper articles from the Oregonian.

      Switching gears, Marta said, “I handled Tess and Cotton’s divorce five years ago. Bobby was married to his wife, Laura, and they’d just had Kit. Their other two children were Aaron and Jenny. Tess, would you like to fill Jane in on what your thoughts are, what you’d like her to do?”

      Tess drew a long breath, then exhaled delicately. “My husband was seeing another woman. Dolly Smathers.”

      It was curious she went to her divorce first. I was having trouble keeping my mind off anything but Bobby and the deaths of his children. With an effort I pulled my thoughts to Tess herself, and her ex, Cotton. Let’s face it. Any man involved with both a Dolly and a Tess has got to have a country western fetish, big time. But then with a nickname like Cotton, you had to figure Reynolds was a man full of boots and bonhomie. I thought about voicing this opinion, but now didn’t seem the time.

      “I sued him for every dime I could get,” Tess went on. “I put the money in an art gallery in the Pearl District, the Black Swan.”

      My ears perked up. Cynthia had shown some of her art at the Black Swan. It was a trendy, spacious gallery in an area where the floor space went for mucho-grando-buckos per square foot. “I’ve been there,” I said.

      She smiled faintly. “I hardly made a dent in his fortune, but it was enough to get me going. He got the house, the boat, three of the cars. I went back to my maiden name.”

      Owen Bradbury…the name of Tess’s other son, Bobby’s older half-brother, crossed my mind. From the way we were talking, Bobby could have been Tess’s one and only. But Owen wasn’t Cotton’s son and since he went by Bradbury, Tess’s maiden name, it didn’t appear as if his real father counted for much. Maybe in Tess’s mind Owen didn’t count for much, either. Again, I kept my mouth shut and just listened.

      “Tess, we did well by you in the divorce,” Marta reminded her dryly.

      Tess raised a hand in agreement. “But Cotton still has a lot of assets, and the bastard told Bobby that he wasn’t worth one thin dime. His only child. That’s why Bobby was in financial trouble. And Cotton wouldn’t help him. At the time I was all tied up in legalities. I gave Bobby as much as I could, of course, but he’d made these investments…”

      I nodded, remembering. Bobby Reynolds had been floundering in a sea of debt. And some of his “investors” were purported to be out-and-out crooks looking for a way to tap into Cotton’s mega-assets. But Cotton had cut that off quick. He’d let Bobby deal with his own problems and apparently those problems had fast become insurmountable, at least in Bobby’s mind, hence the exit from reality. I wondered if Bobby were still alive if he was now horrified at his own actions. With an act so heinous,

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