Relentless Pursuit: A Novel (Secrets of Roux River Bayou) (32 page)

“I don’t want to hear your misguided opinion about God.”

“It’s not an opinion,” Emily said. “Do you think that once you’re dead, it’ll be over? Because it won’t. You might escape judgment in this life, but I promise you, you won’t escape it in the next. God will hold you accountable for what you’ve done. The time to face Him is now. He wants a relationship with You. There’s nothing He won’t forgive if you’re truly sorry.”

Chance smiled wryly. “Therein lies the rub. I’m not sorry for poisoning my dad and his lover. I’d do it again. I just feel bad about Mom—and those other people.”

“Feel bad? You should be ashamed.”

“Shut up, Emily! I don’t need to hear this.”

“It’s exactly what you need to hear. Someone has to say it. You took innocent lives. You
are
going
to be held accountable. You can choose whether you want to face the consequences now or later. But once you drink that poison, there’s no turning back from judgment—or hell.”

“I said, shut up!”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t tell you the truth?” she said. “You’re deceiving yourself. Taking your own life won’t make all this go away.”

“Emily, get out.
Now
! Your keys and cell phone are on the end table. Go!”

“Please, Chance. I know, in your heart of hearts, that you believe all this is too complex to have just evolved. God is real. Shouldn’t you be sure of what He says is going to happen when we die? Eternity is a long time to get it wrong.”

“You’ve got ten seconds to get out,” Chance shouted, “or, so help me, I’m taking you down with me!”

Emily jumped to her feet, her palms held up. “Okay. Okay. I’m going. Just remember, it’s not too late to be the man your mother knew you were—that I know you still
are
—and face up to what you’ve done. Taking the coward’s way out won’t end it. You can’t escape judgment.”

“Five … six … seven …”

Emily turned and grabbed her keys and cell phone, then darted to the door, unlatched it, and raced toward her car
.

Lord, help him. He’s worth so much more than this.

Emily ran as fast as her legs would move, relieved when she reached the car. She fumbled to open the door, slid in behind the wheel, made a U-turn, then pushed the accelerator, kicking up gravel and leaving a trail of dust behind her.

She drove back to the highway, her temples throbbing, thoughts bouncing off her brain. Had she said the right thing? Had she been too blunt? Had she pushed him too hard? Was there any part of his Catholic upbringing that made him think twice about killing himself?

Emily felt her stomach drop as if she were on a roller coaster. If Chance had drunk the cyanide water, he was already dead.

She picked up her phone and keyed in three numbers.

“911 operator, what is your emergency?”

“I know the man … behind the cyanide poisonings!” She struggled to catch her breath. “But I’m afraid he … might have just … killed himself!”

Chapter 38

Jude started to walk out of his office, a cup of lukewarm coffee in his hand, and ran headlong into Aimee, coffee spilling down the front of her uniform shirt.

“Sorry, Aimee. I don’t know where my head is. I didn’t see you.”

She took a tissue out of her pocket and dabbed her wet shirt. “You’re not going to believe this: a 911 call just came in from Emily Jessup! The details are sketchy, but she told the operator that Chance Durand confessed to being the cyanide killer, but that he may have just committed suicide.”

“She doesn’t know?”

Aimee shook her head. “Emily made the call while driving back to town from bayou road B-2. She had followed Chance to a house that used to belong to his grandparents. That’s where he poisoned the bottled water. All the paraphernalia is still there. They had some kind of confrontation, and he admitted he poisoned the water to kill his dad and Joanna Arceneau, and that his mother’s death was an accident. Gil’s en route.”

“Where’s Emily now?”

“On her way here. Poor thing.” Aimee glanced at her watch. “Now we know why we haven’t been able to reach Chance this afternoon.”

“I want you to stay and get Emily’s statement,” Jude said. “Sounds like she’s going to need some TLC. I’ll go meet Gil. One of us will call you when we know the details.”

Jude hurried down the hall, his shoes squeaking on the polished floor. He stopped at the elevator and pushed G.

He rode the elevator down to the ground level, walked out to his squad car, and sat for a moment, trying to comprehend that this ugly nightmare might actually be over.

He pulled out onto Courthouse, turned on his siren, and headed for Bayou Parkway, not sure if it would better serve the victims’ families if Chance Durand were dead—or he were alive to stand trial.

Zoe walked into the eatery, the aroma of warm buttermilk cake permeating the dining room. She spotted her three friends playing checkers and walked over to their table.

Hebert looked up, his leathery face suddenly animated. “Dere you are.”

“When Savannah said you and Pierce were both out,” Tex said, “we got nervous that somethin’ might be wrong.”

Father Sam nodded. “Especially since you never mentioned taking the day off.”

“I’m fine. I have something to tell you—something I never dreamed in a million years I would be telling you. Don’t worry, it’s a good thing.” Zoe pulled out a chair and sat next to Father Sam and across from Hebert and Tex.

Father Sam turned to her, his hazel eyes a bright contrast to his black cleric shirt. “Tell us this good news.”

Zoe coughed to clear her throat. “The three of you have gotten to know Sax Henry, since he’s been coming in every day for a while.”

“He’s a great guy,” Tex said. “We connected right off ’cause he’s a fellow Texan.”

Zoe smiled. “Well … here’s something you don’t know: I’m the gal from Devon Springs, Texas, that he’s been looking for.”

Three pairs of eyes were fixed on her, but no one said anything.

Zoe tented her fingers and moved her gaze around the table. “Sax is my brother. I didn’t recognize him because it’s been twenty-eight years since I’ve seen him, and he changed his name. Plus, the two years before he left home, his hair was long, and he had a beard. I hadn’t really seen his face since I was eleven.”

A row of lines formed on Hebert’s forehead. “You said your brudder run off and you hope he stay gone.”

“I know. I don’t feel that way now. It’s complicated. But what’s important is that he came back to make peace and wants to be a part of my life. Actually, he’s been searching for me for three years. He finally found me through Adele.”

Zoe gave the guys a brief overview of the events, starting with her brother’s showing up on Adele’s doorstep and ending with Zoe’s meeting with him in the flower garden at Langley Manor.

“Most of what we said to each other is private,” she said, “and I know you fellas respect that. But I wanted y’all to know that Sax Henry is my brother, since, for all practical purposes, you’re family too.”

“Dis is a miracle, Zoe.” Hebert took her hand. “Now your two angels got anudder uncle.”

“And Pierce has a new brother-in-law,” Tex added. “How’s he feelin’ about all this?”

“He’s great with it,” Zoe said. “After all, he teamed up with Adele to get us together. Pierce has always known this area of my life needed to be dealt with. Guys, Sax brought bad news too.” Zoe paused and swallowed hard. “Both my parents have passed away. I will always regret that I didn’t go back home and tell them in person that I had forgiven them and moved on with my life. They died thinking I hated them.”

Father Sam gave her arm a gentle squeeze. “Don’t be too hard on yourself, Zoe. They may not have even realized how angry you were. They were absorbed in their own troubles.”

“But I’ll never know,” Zoe said. “It’s something I’ll have to live with.”

Hebert sat back in his chair. “So are dey buried in Devon Springs?”

Zoe shook her head. “They were cremated. Sax has their ashes in two urns he keeps in his closet. He’s as conflicted as I am in his feelings about them. He hasn’t been able to release their ashes yet. He seems to think I should have a say in how it’s done.”

“Maybe you should,” Father Sam said. “When the time is right, you’ll know what to do.”

Savannah came rushing to the table. “Y’all are not going to believe this: they’re about to arrest someone in the cyanide poisonings!”

“Get outta town,” Tex said. “When?”

“It just happened. Authorities are following a solid lead to a house down on the bayou. Wouldn’t it be great if this was the end of it?”

Jude got out of his squad car and walked toward the front steps of the tan house on bayou road B-2, Gil waiting for him on the deck.

“Is the kid alive or dead?” Jude said.

“Come see for yourself.”

Jude walked into the hot, stuffy living room, a ceiling fan swirling overhead, and saw Chance Durand sitting on the couch, cuffs around his wrists.

“He didn’t resist arrest,” Gil said. “He confessed to injecting cyanide into the pudding and the bottled water. He was working alone. I read him his rights. He doesn’t want a lawyer.”

Jude surveyed the dining table, where Castille and Doucet were already taking pictures and gathering evidence, and then went over to the couch and bent down in front of Chance and made eye contact. This sweaty, anxious young man bore little resemblance to the handsome, Ivy League med student he had questioned earlier in the day. “Son, what were you thinking?”

“What do you want me to say?” Chance said.

“Why don’t we stick with the truth?” Jude rose to his feet and then sat opposite Chance in a wicker chair.

Gil sat in the rocker with a pad and pencil.

“Chief Detective Marcel will make some notes.” Jude leaned forward on his elbows, his hands clasped between his knees. “We’ll get your written statement when we take you in. But right now, I want you to tell us what happened.”

“I poisoned the bottled water and the pudding. What else do you need to know?”

“Why you did it, for starters.”

“My dad badgered me all my life,” Chance said. “I put up with it because I kept hoping I could earn his respect. Even my getting a scholarship to Harvard Medical School wasn’t impressive enough to suit him. But when Alan Arceneau called the house, and I found out my dad was cheating on my mom—the one person who was always there for me—something snapped. I just wanted him dead. I started planning how to kill him when I went back to school after Christmas break.”

“Where’d you get the cyanide?”

Jude listened as Chance told him about meeting a freshman from Boston University, whom he knew only by the name Kurt. And how Kurt had gotten him the KCN from the jeweler he worked for in exchange for Chance doing his calculus term paper.

“How did you get the cyanide here?” Jude said.

“The day I flew home for summer break, I shipped the KCN to myself at the house. I told my parents the box contained my camera, that I had accidentally left it in the dorm room and asked the school to ship it. They had no idea.”

“Tell me how you executed your plan. Obviously, a lot of things had to go right for it to work.”

“I planned every move ahead of time,” Chance said. “I began by going into the stockroom at Marcotte’s and picking up a case of Gaudry bottled water that had been checked in and was ready to be put on the floor. I slipped out the delivery entrance and brought it here. I drilled a tiny hole in the bottoms of twelve of the twenty-four bottles. I used a syringe and injected them with ten times the lethal dose of potassium cyanide, then sealed the holes with a clear adhesive I bought at Home Depot. I snuck six bottles back in the store and put them in the refrigerator case with the tamperproof seal still in place.”

“What day was that?”

“Last Friday.”

Jude scratched his head. “The bottled water that poisoned your parents was delivered by Adam Marcotte and came in a case with the plastic netting still on it. When and how did you slip the poison bottles into the case?”

“I didn’t. I waited until my parents were in bed, and then I swapped three of their bottles for poisoned ones.” Chance stared at his hands. “My mom never drank bottled water. She didn’t even like it. I have no idea why she drank it this time. I never meant to kill her. I was trying to rid her of the heartache of having her husband openly cheating with that woman.”

“You still had three bottles of cyanide water left. How did you manage to get the poisoned water to Joanna Arceneau?”

Chance stared at his hands. “That’s another story.”

“I’m listening.”

Chance sat there a long time and then let out a sigh. “I went to her house on Friday evening, the night before she was found dead. I told her who I was and asked if I could come in and talk. I told her I knew she’d been carrying on with my dad.” Chance looked out the window and seemed far away.

“So you two talked?”

“It was a one-way conversation. I told her exactly how I felt. I didn’t hold anything back. I was really angry, and I’m sure she was intimidated.”

“How did you get the poisoned water into her refrigerator without her seeing you?” Jude said.

“I put the last two bottles in there—after she was dead.”

“After?”

“I made her drink the first bottle.”

“By force?” Jude said.

A tear trailed down Chance’s cheek. “I brought a Buck knife with me and threatened her. I wouldn’t have used it,” he quickly added. “I just needed her to think I would. I persuaded her that having her throat cut would be a lot worse than dying of cyanide poisoning.”

“So she drank it, and you watched her die?”

Chance nodded. “More or less. It was more dramatic than that. But after I told her my dad was going to die too, she drank it down and collapsed in a matter of seconds on the living room carpet. I put two poisoned bottles of water in the refrigerator so you’d think it was part of the case that came from Marcotte’s. Then I left by the back door. My car was parked on the next block.”

Jude paused, trying to imagine this brilliant young scholar as a cold-blooded killer. “Did you also inject cyanide into the pudding on the food bar?”

“I did—but as a diversion. I didn’t think it was potent enough to kill anyone. I just wanted to make a few people sick. I met Emily at Zoe B’s a few minutes later. That was my cover. I was expecting to get a call any time on Saturday that my dad had died. But not my mom. Everything backfired.”

“How’d you justify killing the other victims, Chance?”

“I wouldn’t let myself think about it. I did what I had to do to make this look random. I thought it was the perfect crime. I never expected to get caught. And never dreamed my mother would drink the water.”

Jude glanced up at a bottle of water with a funnel set in the opening. “Emily called 911. She thought you had downed the cyanide water. Why didn’t you? You know you’ll get the death penalty—or, at best, life without parole.”

“That’s between me and Emily. She didn’t know about any of this until a couple hours ago. And just so you know, she tried to get me to turn myself in.”

“Well, she did it
for
you. Come on. Chief Detective Marcel will take you to the sheriff’s department. We’ll need your statement in writing.” Jude rose to his feet. “Inhale deeply. It’s the last whiff of freedom you’ll ever get.”

Gil took Chance by the arm and started to lead him away.

Chance looked over his shoulder. “Sheriff, when you talk to Emily, would you tell her I agree with her—that eternity is a long time to get it wrong? She’ll know what I mean.”