Not One of Us(53)

But I needed a motive for why Ardy would kill Strickland. Ray’s words about a business deal echoed in my brain. Had the ex-con been blackmailing Ardy Ensley?

A woman entered the room and silently handed a file to Ardy, casting me a curious glance through her bifocals.

“Thank you, Ella. That will be all. Close the door on your way out.” Ardy opened the file and then nudged it toward me. “Take a look for yourself.”

I glanced down at the spreadsheet and frowned. Then I went through the thick stack of papers that showed copies of cancelled checks and invoices from Magnolia Oaks. They went back several years.

“Why did you pay for her care if you hate her and think she’s lying about her mental illness?”

Ardy took the file from me and pointed at the spreadsheet. “If you’ll notice, I went three months in 2014 not paying her bills.”

I stared at the figures and nodded. “Okay.”

Ardy removed a manila envelope from the file, extracted a thick stack of papers, and placed it in front of me. I stared uncomprehendingly at the phone log record. “What’s this?”

“During those three months I didn’t pay her bills? She called every day, several times a day, to harass either me or my wife. When that didn’t work, she resorted to calling my kids.”

Hot damn. Tressie? I couldn’t picture her having either the malevolence or presence of mind to mount a methodical campaign of vindictiveness against her ex. Perhaps she’d been pleading with him to return home or . . .

“I have written transcripts of every call,” he said, as though reading my mind. He indexed through the papers and rapped his knuckles on the table. “They start here on this page.”

Obediently, I began reading.

You bastard. You left me when I needed you most. How can you just forget all about our son? Our life together? You have to pay. I’ll never let you forget. I don’t care if you live to have a dozen kids. You belong to me and Jackson. Forever.

Every phone transcript was some variation of the same message. Particularly heinous were the calls to Ardy’s children telling them that their father could never love them like he had his first child and all they would ever be in his eyes were inferior replacements.

“I-I can’t believe it,” I said at last. “This doesn’t sound like Aunt Tressie at all.”

“Oh, it’s her all right. Believe me—she’s very careful how she portrays herself to the world. You don’t know the real woman behind the smiles and the vague, confused facade she likes to present. Inside, she’s the devil.”

“Did you ever speak to a lawyer about filing a harassment lawsuit against her?”

“Of course. That’s why I kept the transcripts. But in the end, it costs less to meet her blackmail demands than get embroiled in court battles. Besides, I don’t want to put my family through any more of her bullshit.”

“It’s unreal. I still can’t believe she’d say these terrible things. Could someone else have used her phone without her knowledge?”

“I know her voice.”

Of course he’d know the voice of his own ex-wife. I sat back, too stunned to speak. Finally, I gathered myself together. “No wonder you left town in the middle of the night. I don’t know how you lived with her as long as you did.”

“You become numb. Immune. I didn’t even realize how miserable I was until I left and started my life over.”

I nodded and cleared my throat. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to bring you more pain. But it would help me a lot if you could talk about Jackson. No one else seems willing. There’s been a copycat murder and . . .” I let my voice trail off. “And I’m trying to stay safe.”

No need to fill him in on my suspicions that both murders were related to what happened with Deacon. I’d keep that to myself. For all I knew, Ardy might hide a secret, vicious side that was more than a match for Aunt Tressie. Suspicious facts raced through my mind: he’d been known to have rows with his son; he might have killed Strickland in revenge; he might be the one threatening me because I asked too many questions about the past and the private adoption. Aunt Tressie acted vague and confused about the arrangement, but surely Ardy knew what he was getting into.

Ardy stretched and gazed out the office window, his face heavy with sadness. “Jackson was a sweet kid. Or so we thought at first. Tressie and I adored the boy. But he’d started doing bad things by the time he entered elementary school. It got progressively worse. We couldn’t have pets because Jackson was cruel to animals. He had fights with other kids. No one wanted to be his friend. Once he started junior high, we lost him for good. He was rebellious, confrontational; his grades plummeted so bad I was afraid he’d flunk out his junior year. We tried to set curfews, but he came and went as he pleased, no matter what kind of discipline we tried to enforce. We pleaded with him and even tried to bribe him to do better, but nothing worked. I finally reached the end of my rope with Jackson and enrolled him in a military school. When I demanded that he pack his bags, we had it out.”

He stopped talking and swallowed hard.

“What happened?” I asked softly.

“Jackson said he just wanted to drop out of high school and get a job. I pointed out he couldn’t get a decent job without at least a high school diploma. He insisted that he didn’t need to graduate, that he had ways of making good money. I told him that was impossible, that he had no work ethic or ambition. My son only laughed at me. ‘Think I want to work a nine-to-five job? That’s for losers like you,’ he’d countered.”