Terri’s tone was stronger as she continued, but there were still tears in her eyes. “He acts all cool, like he’s on your side. You wanna know where my first hit came from?” She pressed her lips together, looking at Rebecca, probably wondering if she should say this in front of the girl. “Him,” she said. “Paul gave me my first line of coke. We were in his office and he said it was okay. I didn’t even know what it was-could’ve been aspirin.” She was angry now. “He got me hooked.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he could,” Terri said. “That’s what he really gets off on, corrupting us. Controlling everybody while he sits back and watches our lives crumble.”
“Corrupting you how?” Lena asked, and Jeffrey knew where she was going.
“Not like that,” Terri said. “Jesus, it’d be easier if he screwed us.” Rebecca stiffened at her language, and Terri moderated her words. “He likes to bring us down,” she said. “He can’t stand girls- hates all of us, thinks we’re stupid.” Her tears started to fall, and Jeffrey could see that her anger came from a burning sense of betrayal. “Mama and them think he walks on water. I told her about Cole and she went to Paul, and Paul said I was making it up, so she believed him.” She gave a snort of disgust. “He’s such a bastard. He acts all friendly, like you can trust him, and then you do and he punishes you for it.”
“Not him,” Rebecca said, though quietly. Jeffrey could see that the girl was having a hard time admitting that her uncle was capable of such evil. Still, she continued, “He gets Cole to do it. And then he acts like he doesn’t know what’s going on.”
Terri wiped her eyes, her hands shaking as she acknowledged the pattern.
Lena waited a few seconds before asking, “Rebecca- did he ever bury you?”
She shook her head slowly. Then she said, “Abby told me he did it to her.”
“How many times?”
“Twice.” She added, “And then this last time…”
“Oh, God,” Terri breathed. “I could’ve stopped it. I could’ve said something-”
“There was nothing you could do,” Lena told her, though Jeffrey didn’t know if this was true.
“That box…” Terri began, squeezing her eyes shut at the memory. “He comes back every day, praying. You can hear him through the pipe. Sometimes he yells so loud, and you cringe, but you’re just so happy to know someone is out there, that you’re not completely alone.” She used her fist to wipe her eyes, a mixture of sadness and anger in her words. “The first time he did it to me, I went to Paul, and Paul promised he’d talk to him. I was so stupid. It took me so long to figure out it was Paul telling him to do it. There’s no way Cole could’ve known all that stuff about me, what I was doing, who I was with. It all came from Paul.”
Rebecca was sobbing now. “Nothing we did was ever right. He was always riding Abby, trying to get her to mess up. He kept telling her it was only a matter of time before some man came along and gave her what she deserved.”
“Chip.” Terri spat out the name. “He did the same thing with me. Put Adam in my way.”
Jeffrey asked, “Paul set up Abby with Chip?”
“All he had to do was make sure they were together a lot. Men are stupid that way.” She blushed, as if remembering that Jeffrey was a man. “I mean-”
“It’s okay,” Jeffrey told her, not pointing out that women could be just as stupid. He would be out of a job if they weren’t.
Terri said, “He just liked to see bad things happen. He likes to control things, set people up and then take them down hard.” She chewed her bottom lip, a trickle of blood coming from the broken skin. Obviously, the years that had passed hadn’t lessened her anger. “Nobody ever questions him. They all just assume he’s telling the truth. They worship him.”
Rebecca had been quiet, but Terri’s words seemed to be making her stronger. She looked up and said, “Uncle Paul put Chip in the office with Abby. Chip didn’t know anything about that kind of work, but Paul made sure they were together enough so that things happened.”
“What kind of things?” Lena asked.
Terri said, “What do you think? She was going to have a baby.”
Rebecca gasped at this, turning stunned eyes to her cousin.
Terri apologized quickly. “I’m sorry, Becca. I shouldn’t have told you.”
“The baby,” Rebecca whispered, hand clutched to her chest. “Her baby is dead.” Tears came streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, my Lord. He murdered her baby, too.”
Lena went deadly quiet, and Jeffrey watched her closely, wondering why Rebecca’s words had such an impact on her. Terri had gone just as blank, staring at the refrigerator, the colorful drawings her children had made. Lion. Tiger. Bear. Predators, all of them. Like Paul.
Jeffrey didn’t know what the hell was going on, but he did know that Lena had dropped a serious question. He stepped in, asking, “Who killed her baby?”
Rebecca looked up at Terri, and they both looked at Jeffrey.
“Cole,” Terri said, as if it was obvious. “Cole killed her.”
Jeffrey clarified, “He poisoned Abby?”
“Poison?” Terri echoed, mystified. “She suffocated.”
“No she didn’t, Terri. Abby was poisoned.” Jeffrey explained, “Someone gave her cyanide.”
Terri sank back in her chair, her expression revealing she finally understood what had happened. “Dale has cyanide in his garage.”
“That’s right,” Jeffrey agreed.
“Paul was in there,” she said. “He was in there all the time.”
Jeffrey kept his attention on Terri, hoping to God Lena saw how much she had fucked this up by not getting Terri to answer this simple question two days ago. He asked it now. “Did Paul know about the cyanide?”
She nodded. “I walked in on them once. Dale was plating some chrome for one of Paul’s cars.”
“When was this?”
“Four, five months ago,” she said. “His mama called and I went out to tell him. Dale got mad at me because I wasn’t supposed to be in there. Paul didn’t like me there. Didn’t even like to look at me.” Her expression darkened, and Jeffrey could tell she didn’t want to say all of this in front of her cousin. “Dale made some joke about the cyanide. Just showing off to Paul, letting him know how stupid I was.”
Jeffrey could imagine, but he needed to hear it. “What did Dale say, Terri?”
She gnawed her lip, and a fresh trickle of blood appeared. “Dale told me he was going to put the cyanide in my coffee one of these days, that I wouldn’t even know it until it hit my stomach and the acids activated the poison.” Her lip quivered, but this time it was from disgust. “He told me it’d kill me slow, that I’d know exactly what was happening, and he’d just watch me there, thrashing on the floor, shitting in my pants. He told me he’d look me in the eye till the last minute so I’d know he was the one who did it to me.”
Jeffrey asked, “What did Paul do when Dale said this?”
Terri looked at Rebecca, reached over to stroke her hair. She was still having trouble saying bad things about Dale, and Jeffrey wondered what she was trying to protect the young girl from.
Jeffrey asked his question again. “What did Paul do when he said that, Terri?”
Terri dropped her hand to Rebecca’s shoulder. “Nothing,” she said. “I thought he would laugh, but he did absolutely nothing.”
Jeffrey looked at his watch for the third time, then back up at the secretary posted sentinel in front of Paul’s office at the farm. She was less chatty than the one in Savannah, but just as protective of her boss. The door behind her was open, and Jeffrey could see rich leather chairs and two huge chunks of marble with a glass top that served for a desk. Shelves lined the room, leather law books and golfing memorabilia scattered around. Terri Stanley was right: her uncle certainly liked to have his toys.
Paul’s secretary looked up from her computer, saying, “Paul should be back soon.”