Lowcountry Boneyard (9 page)

“Yes?” said the one on the right.

They should be required to wear nametags. “Are you close to your niece?”

“Kent?”

“Do you have another niece?”

“No. That is, I do not have another niece. I suppose we’re as close to Kent as any uncles would be, wouldn’t you say, Peter?”

Peter was already nodding. “Absolutely.”

“Are you aware of anything that was troubling her?”

They looked at each other, then me. Simultaneously they said, “No.”

I couldn’t decide if I agreed with Ansley that they were creepy, or if I simply found them comical.

I turned to Charlotte. “Mrs. Pinckney, how about you?”

“Kent and I are very close. I have four boys. She’s like the daughter I never had.” She stroked her sister’s arm.

Virginia quieted, seemed to pull herself together.

“Have you met Matt?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Charlotte. “Virginia, Kent, and I had dinner at FIG once. We went on a Monday night, so it was slow. He made a special appetizer for us, and he came out to say hello. He seems like a nice young man. I don’t disapprove of their relationship, if that’s what you’re asking.”

I kept my tone soothing. “Mrs. Heyward…what do you think of Matt?”

“He loves Kent. That’s good enough for me. My only fear is that he doesn’t want the same things she does. I worry he’ll hurt her.”

“What kinds of things?” I asked.

“Kent wants a home, children. I think his priority is his career,” said Virginia.

“They’re so young,” said Charlotte. “They have plenty of time for children.”

I looked at Abigail, who was still curiously quiet. I kept waiting for her to interject. I turned back to Virginia.

“So it’s your husband who strongly objects to the relationship?”

Virginia’s gaze returned to her hands.

“We both object, but for different reasons. Colton wants a more appropriate match for her—someone with a similar background. And he’s not wrong that certain things would be easier. I worry Matt will hurt her in the end.”

“You said they’d been having problems,” I said. “Do you think Kent was upset enough that she would leave?”

Virginia and Charlotte both shook their heads vehemently. Charlotte said, “She would never put us through this. Family is important to Kent. She could just break things off with Matt. Why would she leave town?”

“I can’t come up with a single reason…yet,” I said. “Mrs. Heyward, I apologize in advance. This will seem an insensitive question. But I have to ask it, or I wouldn’t be doing my job. You want me to do my job, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Is there any trace of a possibility in your mind that when Mr. Heyward was beside himself—not himself at all—perhaps during a heated argument with Kent, that he could have unintentionally hurt her?”

Virginia Heyward looked at me levelly.

“That’s the one thing that is simply not possible. Colton never raised a hand to anyone to my knowledge, least of all Kent. He positively dotes on her. In time, he will make his peace with Matt. Please, don’t waste precious time pursing that scenario. I gave birth to her. If I thought for a second…no.” She shook her head.

“Thank you. I had to ask.” I trusted a mother’s instincts. She had me convinced.

“Is that all, Miss Talbot?” Abigail Bounetheau had found her voice, but she’d dialed down the imperious tone.

“Yes,” I stood. “I think that’s all I have for today.” I handed each of them a card. “If you think of anything at all that might be helpful, please call me. I’ll see myself out.”

“Please find her.”

Virginia’s voice was thick with tears shed and more pent up.

“I will do my best.” I walked out of the room and down the hall with my bag in one hand and my pad and pen in the other. William Palmer waited by the front door. I was certain he’d overheard every word. “Do you have a moment, Mr. Palmer?”

“It’s William, miss. Of course. At your service.” He gave me a precise half nod. I half expected him to click his heels together.

“If I recall correctly, you mentioned you were out the evening Kent went missing?”

“Correct.”

I moved over to a chest and set down my bag and pad. “What time did you leave?”

“Just after five. I had dinner with my family, read for a while, and turned in early.” He seemed well-prepared.

“You don’t live here?” Why had I thought that?

“No, miss. None of the staff lives in. Cook—Alice George—arrives at six, the maid, Loretta King, and I at seven each morning, Monday through Friday. Loretta and I leave at five. Cook stays until after dinner is served. She has a break in the afternoons.”

“So they’re both here right now?” I looked up at him from my pad.

“Yes, miss.”

“Would it be possible to speak with them as well?”

He hesitated, no doubt wondering how Mrs. Bounetheau would react. Loyalty to his employer won out. Finally, he nodded. “Of course. Please, come with me.” He headed down the hall and made a left.

I followed. A few turns later, we were in a large, sunny, modern kitchen. It looked like what I envisioned a Southern Living test kitchen would look like—high ceilings, industrial appliances, and all the modern conveniences folded into a warm décor, complete with a large stone fireplace. Two women were seated by the fireplace, one on a yellow and white checked sofa, the other in a slipcovered chair to the left. They stopped talking as we entered the room.

William did the introductions.

“Miss Talbot, please meet Alice George, the cook…” The woman on the sofa stood. I pegged her at mid-forties. She was plump, with short brown hair and a warm smile.

“…and Loretta King, the maid.” The other woman stood. She seemed of a similar age, though she was trim, perhaps from cleaning this huge house. She wore her blonde hair short as well. Both women wore black pants and black blouses.

William continued, “Ladies, this is Miss Talbot. She’s been retained by Mr. Heyward to find Miss Kent.”

We all said hello, shook hands, and all that. The women wore somber expressions. William remained inscrutable.

“Let’s sit, shall we?” William settled into one of the wingbacks and motioned that I should take the other.

I sat and jotted names on my pad. “Thank you all for taking time to speak with me. This shouldn’t take long. First, how long have each of you worked for the Heyward family?”

“I came from the Bounetheau home with Mrs. Heyward when she married Mr. Heyward. That was in nineteen-eighty-two.” William’s posture was as good as Abigail Bounetheau’s.

Alice said, “I came five years later. I’ve worked here twenty-seven years.”

“I’m the newbie,” Loretta said. “I’ve only been with the Heyward family for fifteen years.”

“So all of you have known Kent for a very long time,” I said.

They nodded and murmured agreement.

“Do any of you have any reason to believe that Kent left home and moved elsewhere, possibly due to tensions or disagreements with her parents?”

The women looked at William, as if asking permission to speak freely.

William nodded.

“Not in a million years,” said Alice.

“No way,” said Loretta. “That is the sweetest, most compassionate young woman I’ve ever known. She would never worry her mamma and daddy like that. Sure, they had ideas she didn’t go along with. But these folks care about each other.”

“Exactly,” said Alice. “Now they did argue, and I won’t say different. It’s like I told the police. Sometimes the arguments got hot. But nobody ever hit anybody—nothing like that.”

I looked at William. He seemed content to let the women talk. I continued to look at him expectantly.

“No, I do not believe Miss Kent would leave and not tell anyone where she could be reached,” he said.

“Loretta, how often did you clean Kent’s room?” I asked.

“Every day. Well, except Sunday. I’m off on Sunday. Wednesdays and Saturdays I work half days.”

“You’re familiar with what she keeps in her room and her closet?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Are any of her clothes missing?” I waited with my pen poised.

“No,” she said. “Maybe a piece or two I wouldn’t miss. If she took anything—and I’m not saying she did—it was only enough for overnight.”

“Did she generally keep her laptop on her desk?” I asked.

“I dusted it three times a week,” Loretta said. “She rarely took it anywhere. Kept her iPad and her phone in her purse. If she took her laptop, she put it in a backpack she kept under her desk.”

Why did I not just talk to the help to begin with? Surely the police had questioned everyone in the household. But I’d gotten information through the filter of what Colton Heyward deemed important enough to retain in his frazzled state. “Do you remember if it was there that Friday when you cleaned?”

“It was,” said Loretta. “I remember noticing it was gone the next day, when she didn’t come home.”

I turned to Alice. “You were the only member of the staff here when she left that Friday?”

Alice said, “Yes. I made dinner for Mr. and Mrs. Heyward, then left after I cleaned up the kitchen.”

“Did you see Kent leave?” I asked.

“Yes.” Alice nodded. “She came through the kitchen on her way out. The garage is down that hall.” She pointed across the room at a short glassed-in breezeway. “She stopped. Asked me about my kids, my new grandbaby.” Alice’s eyes moistened.

“What did she have with her?” I asked.

“Her backpack—the one she carried the computer in. She could’ve had an extra change of clothes in there, too, I guess. And her purse.”

“Did anything seem amiss?” I asked. “Did she seem upset about anything? Give you any indication that she wouldn’t be coming home that night?”

“No,” Alice said. “She seemed happy.”

I looked at William.

He gave me a look that said,
honestly, don’t you think I would have mentioned it?
Then he cleared his throat and said, “Although I did not see her that Friday, I did not observe anything unusual about Miss Kent’s behavior in the days leading up to her disappearance.”

“Did Kent confide in any of you? Talk to you about her friends, her boyfriend, that kind of thing?”

William didn’t dignify that with an answer.

Alice said, “When she was younger she did. Not since she turned thirteen.”

“Loretta?” I looked at the maid.

“Not me,” she said.

“Okay,” I said. “I think I have what I need. Thank you all so much. Here is my card.” I handed one to each of them. “Please call me if you think of anything that might be helpful.”

Alice said, “We’re just praying you find her, and that she’s safe.”  

William showed me out. I noticed that Virginia and her family had cleared out of the living room. Did they notice I’d gone to the kitchen? If they did, apparently they were okay with it. William opened the front door for me. “Good afternoon, Miss Talbot. Godspeed.”

I climbed into the Escape. Colleen waited in the passenger seat.

“Where have you been?” I asked. “I needed you in there.”

“I was having tea with Sue Ellen. You remember, the debutante ghost.”

“How nice,” I said.

“It was, actually. Her two sisters were here today, and several of the servants. We actually did have tea. With little sandwiches and cakes.”

I tried to parse that.

Colleen continued, “Sue Ellen doesn’t understand part of what she knows. She said Kent cried a lot at night lately, and that she talked to herself a lot about Matt. Sue Ellen mentioned strings Kent put in her ears. I think she’s talking about earbuds. I think Matt and Kent were fighting on the phone.”

“About what?”

“Kent is expecting.”

“What?”
Oh dear heaven, no
. I needed to rethink everything. “Are you sure? Wait…
is
? Does that mean she’s alive?”

“I don’t know. I’m trying to find out.” Colleen faded away.

Eight

The first person I needed to speak to was Matt Thomas. We hadn’t parted on the best of terms, and he wasn’t taking my calls, so I decided to pay him a visit. I pulled out my laptop and activated the Wi-Fi hotspot on my phone. A quick search of the Charleston County real property database yielded Matt’s house number on St. Margaret Street. I like to know if potential suspects are in debt, and if so, just how far in debt—money being the root of so much evil and all. I checked public records. Not only did I not find civil judgments and the like for unpaid bills, I couldn’t find a mortgage recorded against the house. Interesting.

I headed down Legare and made a right on South Battery. A few blocks later, I turned right on Ashley Avenue and drove two miles northwest, to the other side of Highway 17. Ashley more or less parallels Meeting Street, but this way I’d miss the tourist traffic. A few quick turns later, and I was on St. Margaret Street.

A mix of frame and brick homes lined the street, some clearly renovated, others not. Matt’s house was on the right, a few houses past Tenth Street. I pulled to the curb. Well, he couldn’t pretend he wasn’t home. Matt was on the front porch, shirtless, touching up the trim paint on what appeared to be a nicely renovated, well-maintained frame bungalow. He’d added some craftsman touches—shingle accents, stained shutters, and square porch pillars which were stone at the bottom with tapered wood columns at the top.

  He set down the paint cup and put the brush inside it. Then he crossed his arms and stared at me. Hostility radiated off him.

I got out of the car and walked around the front end towards the sidewalk.

“Unless you have news for me, you can get right back in your car.”

I glanced up and down the street. A woman with a stroller was a block away on the other side of the street. Two houses up, an older couple sat on their front porch. I kept quiet and continued towards Matt. I hadn’t expected him to be happy to see me.

“Okay, you’re trespassing now,” he said as I passed through the vine-covered pergola that framed the walkway to his house.

I kept walking. When I was close enough to speak in a conversational tone, I said, “If you’d like to make a scene for the neighbors, I’m game.”

He screwed up his face and shot missiles at me from his eyes.

It wasn’t the first hateful look I’d received that day. “We can talk inside or out. Your call.”

Without a word, he turned, opened the wood-and-stained-glass front door, and walked through it. I followed, but he stopped in the cozy den just inside.

He said, “You’ve got five seconds to tell me why I shouldn’t call my attorney and get some sort of restraining order against you. I asked you to speak to him.”

“We’ll get to that in a minute,” I said. “First maybe you could tell me why I shouldn’t call the Charleston Police Department and tell them about all the fighting going on between you and Kent, and how
she’s
pregnant and
you
don’t want children.”

He drew back like I’d taken a swing at him. “Who told you that?”

“It doesn’t matter. Is this what you were hiding from me this morning, or is there more?”

“I don’t have to talk to you.”

“You’re mighty right. You don’t. I can call up my friend Sonny—he’s a Charleston PD detective—and have him come on over and you can talk to him instead.”

Matt dug a hand through his hair.

“So what’s it going to be?” I tilted my head. “I guess technically it wouldn’t be Sonny who showed up. He’d no doubt call those nice detectives you spent so much quality time with before and send them over to pick your ass up.”

He rubbed his face with his hands, covered his eyes. Then he drew a deep breath and let it out. “Fine.” He walked over to the leather sofa and plopped down. “Sit wherever you want.”

I sat at a right angle to him on the loveseat that matched the sofa. I pulled out my pad, pen, and phone, and tapped record. I dictated the date, time and parties present. “Is it true that Kent Heyward is pregnant?”

“Yes. At least she was the last time I spoke to her.”

I slid back in the loveseat, stared at him for a moment. “Do you have reason to believe she’s gone off somewhere to get an abortion?”

“It occurred to me maybe that’s what she did. But she never told me she was going to do that. Last I heard, she was dead set against an abortion.” His tone softened. “Kent wants this child.”

“You don’t?” I kept my voice neutral.

“No. I’m not sure I ever want kids.” He worked his jaw. “I had a perfect childhood. I know exactly how lucky I am, because way too many of my friends didn’t have what I had. Two parents who loved me, who were
involved
. Every. Single. Day. Two brothers who’ve always had my back. Dinner with the family every night. Church on Sunday. Grandparents—the nineteen-fifties textbook ideal childhood. I know what raising kids takes. And I know I don’t have that to give.”

“That’s the life Kent wants?”

“It’s not that simple. Kent thinks we can make it work—it’ll be all right. She’s willing to take what I can give her and the baby and be happy with it. She deserves more. So much more. I thought we could make it work, too—just the two of us. But kids…that’s a whole nother thing.”

“You want her to have an abortion?”

He jabbed his finger at me. “I
never
said that.”

“Then what, exactly, do you want?”

He tilted his head back, looked at the ceiling. “I don’t know, all right?” It was almost a howl from an animal in pain. “Right now, all I want is Kent. Safe. Here with me.”

I processed that for a moment. “How much do you make a year?”

“Why?”

“Because I like to know everything. I’m nosy like that.”

“Forty-five thousand.”

Single guy. Probably ate in the restaurant a lot. “This house is completely paid for?”

“Yes,” he ground out.

“How—on forty-five thousand dollars a year—can you afford this house? Why do you have an attorney? And how can you afford Charlie Condon?”

“How is any of that related to Kent?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she’s been giving you money?”

“I never took a dime from her.”

I shrugged. “Then answer the questions.”

He rolled his entire head. “I have an attorney because my girlfriend’s family sicced the police on me. I have no idea where Kent is, but innocent people like me have been railroaded into prison plenty of times by people like them. I can afford Charlie Condon
only
because my father knows him. Dad’s a contractor. He’s done work for him. They aren’t friends, exactly. But Dad asked, and Charlie said he’d help.”

I had to admit that was a smart move, getting a high profile attorney any way you could. If I were in Matt’s shoes, that’s what I would’ve done. “And the house?”

“My grandmother left us each a CD—me and my brothers. She pinched pennies like you couldn’t believe. My grandparents lived below their means. She left us each a hundred thousand dollars. Not a fortune, but a lot of money to us. I lived at home for years and worked my ass off. I saved my money, added to what she left me. A couple years ago I bought this place for a hundred and fifty thousand. It was falling down—probably should have been torn down. But, like I told you, Dad’s a contractor. I worked summers for him since I was fourteen. He helped. My brothers helped. We fixed the place up.”

I was starting to feel bad. The more I knew about Matt Thomas, the more he seemed like a good guy. Sonavabitch
.
I hated when Colleen was right. “It looks great.”

“Thank you.” He sighed, brushed a hand through his hair. He rolled his shoulders like he was working tension out of them.

“Are you absolutely certain Kent’s child is yours?”

“Oh my—
arrrgh
.” He held both hands in front of him, close together, like maybe he wanted to wring my neck. I fully expected him to breathe fire.

“Last question,” I said.

“And then you’ll leave?”

“You have my word.”

“Yes. I am absolutely certain. Kent and I are committed to each other. Have been since the day we met. Ask anyone who knows us. Ask Ansley Johnson. She’s Kent’s best friend.”

“I already have.” I stood and walked towards the door. Did Ansley know Kent was pregnant? If so, she was holding out on me. Something else tickled the back of my brain, but I couldn’t quite grab it.

“Wait,” he said.

I turned.

“You’re not going to tell the police about the baby, are you?”

I sighed. “It’s a moot point. I’m obligated to tell my client.
He
will tell them, and likely demand your head on a platter.”

“Look…God, this is the last thing I even want to think about. I just want you to find Kent, okay? But I need my job. This is my life. If they arrest me, even if they never convict me of anything, it will destroy my reputation—my future—in this city.”

He could be right. Then again, if he was innocent, the scandal might make him a tourist attraction. It could go either way. A bikini wax was more appealing to me than telling Colton Heyward his daughter was carrying the “cook’s” love child. But Mr. Heyward was my client, and I would tell him. I just needed more than Matt’s word and that of a guardian spirit before I had that conversation. “I’ll wait a day or so, see what else I come up with. If I can locate Kent, that’s all her daddy’s gonna care about.”

He closed his eyes and let go the breath he’d been holding. “Thank you.”

He followed me out and waved goodbye as I pulled away from the curb. Though I believed Matt, it seemed prudent to be able to find him in a hurry if I needed to. I parked one block over and sneaked into his backyard through the adjoining property. Then I slipped through the gate to the driveway out front. No one in sight. I attached a GPS tracker under the back driver’s side wheel well of his ten-year-old Ford pickup truck.