“No.” He splayed his hands. “I’ve never heard of her before.”
Francesca took a pack of gum from her purse and offered Dean a piece. “Why do you draw what you do, Dean?” she asked.
He studied the gum as if it might bite him, but when she held it closer, he accepted. “I don’t know. Because they’re…interesting, I guess.”
“Have you ever acted out any of those drawings?”
“No!” He responded almost before she could get the words out.
Jonah cleared his throat. “Tell us why you feel you had to protect your mother, Dean.”
Although he’d unwrapped the gum, he was too worked up to put it in his mouth. “She told me I couldn’t tell. She said I had to forget what was in that freezer or it would get her in trouble. Then Butch said I could fix my mistake if I got the panties back.”
Francesca set her purse back on the floor. “Butch sent you to my house?”
He crammed the chewing gum in his mouth and spoke around it. “Yes. Because you took the panties.” He frowned. “I wish you’d never done that. I wish you were my friend. None of this would’ve happened.”
“This isn’t about our friendship,” she said. “This is about April and Julia and Sherrilyn and Bianca—”
“I don’t know Bianca. I’ve never even met her. You don’t believe me?”
She didn’t answer that question. “Why did you put those panties in Butch’s truck in the first place?”
“Because I wanted him to get caught. He thinks he can sleep with women, and hurt them, and hurt my sister, and have my parents put up with it, and have me put up with it, and…and get away with anything.”
Jonah had to agree with Dean’s assessment. Butch was pretty arrogant. “He’s the one who told the police you must’ve killed Julia.”
“What?” Dean’s tortured eyes shifted to his. “I didn’t kill her. I swear it!” Fresh tears pooled along his lower lashes. “Can I talk to my mother? Please? I can’t protect her if I don’t know how.”
“You can’t talk to her just yet,” Jonah replied. “But we’ll speak to her for you, okay?”
He wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand. “Tell her Butch is trying to hurt me. She—she’ll stop him. She always does.”
32
“What are you two doing here?” Paris stood in the doorway. Defensive from the moment she’d first seen them, she gripped the door as though she might slam it at any second.
Jonah gave Francesca a slight nod, one she interpreted as permission to take the lead on this as she had with Dean’s interview. “I have a message from Dean. For your mother,” she said.
Paris’s eyes cut between them. “She doesn’t want to talk to you. Either of you. We…we’re getting an attorney. We already told the police that.”
Before she could close the door, Jonah stuck his foot in its path. “Why do you need an attorney? I was under the impression that you were now cooperating with the police. I know Butch is.”
She smirked. “Don’t think you can fool me. I’m not letting you in. Butch isn’t even home.”
Francesca noticed that Champ wasn’t in the yard, either. “Champ go with him?”
“That’s none of your business,” she snapped. “And don’t say my boy’s name as if you know him.”
“No matter what you think of me, I’m only searching for the truth,” Francesca said.
“You don’t care about the truth. You’ve been out to get us from the start.”
Francesca shook her head. “No.”
Hatred flashed in her eyes. “You’re charging my brother with a crime he didn’t commit!”
Jonah spoke up. “We believe you about that.”
“What?” She gaped at them.
“I said we believe you. So why not tell your mother we’re here?”
Confused, she said, “I don’t want to, that’s why. Now go away. You’ve caused us nothing but grief. Our dog’s dead because of you. Don’t think I’ll forget that.”
Francesca hitched her purse higher on her shoulder. “What about all the women who’ve been killed, Paris? You care more about a dog than you do about them?”
“Maybe Dean did kill them. I don’t know. He’s a whack job. I’m not responsible for what he does.”
“I’m touched by your empathy,” Jonah muttered.
She tried to shut the door again. “And I’m calling the cops if you don’t get your foot out of the way and leave me alone!”
Francesca scrambled to stop her. “Julia must’ve been close to your age, Paris. Were you two friends?”
Paris’s fingers whitened as she clutched the door, but she lowered her voice. “She was a worker here, that’s all. Someone my mom hired. That doesn’t mean we had to be close.”
“And April Bonner? Did you know her, too?”
“You think I want to talk about all the women my husband slept with? Get out of here, like I said!”
She kicked at Jonah’s foot, giving him no choice but to remove it. Anything less could be construed as forcible entry; Finch and Hunsacker hadn’t been pleased to learn they were coming out here in the first place.
Paris slammed the door and they started back to the car, but before they could get in, Francesca heard her name.
“Ms. Moretti?”
Elaine Wheeler had come to the door. Francesca turned back. “Yes?”
“You…you have a message for me? From my boy?” Dressed in a flowery summer shirt and what Francesca’s mother would call culottes—longish shorts that looked more like a skirt—she could’ve been taken for a sweet grandma except for the obvious signs of distress. Gone was the wig she normally wore, revealing a few wisps of gray hair pinned tightly to a pink scalp. And red-rimmed eyes peered through cat-eye glasses with bifocal lenses.
“He’s scared, Mrs. Wheeler,” Francesca said. “He wants you. He wants to come home.”
“Are they…are they treating him okay? He needs to be segregated, you know. A man like Dean wouldn’t be safe circulating with other inmates. He’s…too eager for friends, tries too hard to fit in.”
“I’m sure the police will do all they can to protect him, but…until he’s convicted and sent to prison, they have limited housing options.”