Chapter 25
Sylvie Deering
Sylvie pulled the SUV to the curb in front of the Pruitt residence and killed the engine.
The same vinyl siding, the same two-car garage, the same flower bed where the marigolds were still thriving, though the petunias had given up entirely.
The morning sun was already pressing down on the neighborhood, and the scent of fresh-cut grass drifted through the vents from wherever that distant lawn mower was running.
The garden hose was still coiled near the garage in the same loose pile as before, and the flag beside the front door hung limp in the windless morning.
Theo sat in the passenger seat, his tablet resting on his knee.
He’d been reviewing his notes from the Ward Seldon interview during the drive.
The original plan had been for Brook to join her on this visit.
That changed an hour ago when Dale Ellingham’s car appeared in the estate’s driveway.
Apparently, he’d run into Sheriff Gentry at the diner in town, and the sheriff had shared enough about the investigation’s direction for Dale to come searching for Brook directly.
She’d stayed behind to handle him, and Theo had met Sylvie at the SUV without needing to be asked.
“You lead,” Theo said as they walked up the concrete path. He sidestepped an uneven portion of the cement. “You’ve already built the rapport.”
Sylvie rang the doorbell.
The dog immediately started barking from somewhere inside.
Nancy Pruitt’s voice soon followed, muffled through the door, directing the dog to hush.
The door eventually opened, and Nancy stood behind the screen with her reading glasses pushed onto the top of her head.
The delicious scent of something baking drifted out from behind her, cinnamon and butter, and Sylvie caught the faint hum of a radio playing from the kitchen.
Nancy recognized Sylvie immediately, and her gaze shifted to Theo with a brief, assessing expression before she pushed the screen door open.
“Ms. Deering. Please, come in.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pruitt. This is my colleague, Theo Neville.”
Nancy offered her hand, and Theo returned her greeting.
She then led them into the living room. A muted baseball game was playing on the television.
Owen was already rising from his recliner, his crossword puzzle book set aside, a pencil tucked behind his ear in the same spot it had occupied before.
The chocolate Lab was investigating Theo’s shoes, sniffing with considerable thoroughness, before settling on the carpet between the recliner and the couch upon Owen’s directive.
“I had a feeling you’d be back,” Owen said as he shook their hands. “Please, sit down.”
Instead of retreating to the kitchen, Nancy joined them by sitting in the chair opposite the couch.
Owen glanced at his wife. Whatever passed between them in that look was brief, but it was significant.
Sylvie wasn’t much into gambling, but she would bet her last paycheck that Sheriff Gentry had given them fair warning about his conversation with Brook last night.
"Mr. Pruitt," Sylvie began, "when we spoke last time, you described your relationship with Nestor as friendly. You two were part of the same poker group, and he would come to you with questions about how certain compounds interacted with human biology."
“That’s correct.”
“What you didn’t mention was that your wife filed an informal complaint with Sheriff Caulfield approximately two months before Nestor disappeared. Harassing phone calls in the middle of the night, if I’m not mistaken.”
Owen removed the pencil from behind his ear and turned it slowly between his fingers. Nancy cleared her throat, and it was clear that she and her husband disagreed on the subject.
“That was all a misunderstanding.”
“Was it?” Nancy’s voice was steady, and she held her husband’s stare.
She then turned to Sylvie and Theo. “Nestor was calling at all hours of the night, but it wasn’t the phone calls that prompted me to go to the sheriff.
You see, Nestor showed up at our house at two in the morning, banging on the front door.
We were in bed, asleep, and I was the one who heard it first.”
She paused, and Sylvie noticed that Owen couldn’t bring himself to raise his gaze. Shame, maybe. She didn’t believe that he was angry with his wife.
“Nestor had been drinking. I could smell it from the doorway. Nestor Ellingham was not a man who drank, so the fact that he was standing on our porch at two in the morning, reeking of alcohol and demanding pain medication, told me there was something very wrong.”
“What did he say to you?” Sylvie asked.
“He was upset. Agitated. He kept saying that something hadn’t gone as planned, that he’d made a mistake.
” Nancy shook her head at the memory. “Owen brought him inside and sat him at the kitchen table. I made coffee. Nestor was rambling, going back and forth between apologizing for waking us and saying things that didn’t make sense at the time.
Owen tried to calm him down, but Nestor was in a state I’d never seen him in before. ”
“Did he say specifically what had gone wrong?” Theo asked before Sylvie could inquire as to why they would keep this from her during their first conversation.
Maybe that was the reason behind Theo’s own inquiry.
Confronting them about withholding information could potentially cause them to do so again.
“Did Nestor give you any indication that he was doing something illegal?”
“No. As to your first question, certainly not in a way that either of us understood,” Owen said, picking up the thread from his wife.
“Nestor said he’d done something he couldn’t take back.
That he’d made poor choices, and nothing could fix what he’d done.
I assumed he was talking about his shoulder.
Or, at least, how he’d come to hurt his shoulder. ”
“After that night, I went to the sheriff,” Nancy said firmly and unapologetically.
“I didn’t care what Owen thought about it.
A man shows up at your home in the middle of the night, drunk and talking about mistakes he can’t undo.
He was pleading with Owen to prescribe pain medication.
Actions like that could have led Owen to lose his ability to dispense medication.
One doesn’t just go back to sleep and pretend it didn’t happen. ”
“You did the right thing, Mrs. Pruitt,” Sylvie said in approval.
The leather of Owen’s recliner complained when he shifted position, and the dog lifted its head to check on his owner before settling again with a heavy sigh.
“Mr. Pruitt,” Sylvie continued, “I’d like to share with you what our investigation has uncovered, because I think it will help put some of what Nestor said that night into context.”
She glanced at Theo, who gave a slight nod of agreement.
“The women buried in the greenhouse were not murdered. They were cancer patients, terminally ill, who we believe came to the estate voluntarily seeking treatment from Nestor. He had built a hidden laboratory on the property where he conducted his research and treated them. When they died of their diseases, he buried them in the greenhouse.”
Owen’s face went through several stages in the span of a few seconds. Confusion, then recognition, then something that appeared very much like a man observing memories from the last thirty years of his life as they rearranged themselves into a shape he hadn’t anticipated.
“Cancer patients,” Owen repeated, barely above a whisper.
“Yes.”
“He was treating them.”
Nancy made a sound of disgust under her breath. Her hand tightened on the arm of her chair, and she turned her face toward the window as though she couldn’t bear to look at anyone in the room while she processed what she’d just heard.
Owen pressed his palm against his forehead and closed his eyes. Nancy eventually shifted toward the edge of the chair and placed her hand on his, and Sylvie gave them the time they needed.
“I thought he’d lost his mind,” Owen said after a long moment.
“When Nestor came to the house that night, I thought the isolation and the grief over Claudine had finally broken him. That’s what I believed all this time.
That Nestor was beside himself because he’d been ignoring the one person who needed him most.”
He stared at Sylvie and Theo with what could only be described as guilt.
“I blamed myself. I told myself that if I’d just given him the narcotics, maybe he wouldn’t have been driven to whatever it was that destroyed him. That’s why I’ve been visiting Gwenyth once a month for the past thirty years. I was atoning for what I thought I’d failed to prevent.”
“You thought he took his own life,” Theo said quietly.
“Everyone did. And I carried the weight of believing I might have been the reason.” Owen’s voice cracked on the last word, and Nancy tightened her fingers over his.
“I never imagined, not once, that Nestor would have been conducting experiments on living subjects. I thought he was working with plants, soil, and compounds. I didn’t know there were people involved. ”
“He didn’t want the pain medication for himself, did he?” Nancy asked quietly, her mind obviously going to the cancer patients.
Sylvie gave the woman a gentle smile but didn't answer. She couldn't confirm or deny it, though the implication was clear enough. A man treating terminally ill women in a hidden room would have eventually faced the reality that his compounds weren't enough to manage their pain.
“Mr. Pruitt, I need to ask you again about Gwenyth’s supplements,” Sylvie said, veering the topic of conversation to an issue that had yet to be resolved. “Are you certain that’s all you ever gave her?”
“I swear to you, that’s all.” Owen’s response was immediate.
“A multivitamin and vitamin D. That’s all it’s ever been.
I would never do anything to harm that woman.
She’s the reason I get in my car once a month and drive out to that estate.
She’s the closest thing I have to making amends for failing her father. ”
“I’ve seen what my husband buys her at the pharmacy,” Nancy said, coming to her husband’s defense. “It’s vitamins. Nothing else.”
Whatever was happening to Gwenyth, Sylvie was certain that Owen Pruitt was not the cause. He had nothing to gain.
“Would it be alright if I stopped by the estate in the next few days?” Owen asked, his voice tentative. “To check on Gwenyth. With everything that’s happened, Porter gone, the investigation, all of it. I’d like to see for myself that she’s okay.”
“As long as you stay away from the greenhouse and don’t disturb the forensics team, it’s Gwenyth’s home,” Sylvie replied gently. “You’re welcome to visit her anytime.”
Owen nodded, and the relief on his face was genuine.
Sylvie and Theo rose from the couch and thanked them for their time. Nancy walked them to the door, the smell of whatever she’d been baking growing stronger. Muffins, Sylvie decided. Blueberry, if she wasn’t mistaken.
They were nearly to the front door when Sylvie stopped and turned back.
“One more thing, Mr. Pruitt. You said Nestor showed up at your door a few weeks before he disappeared. Was that the last time you spoke with him?”
“No. Nestor called me about a week later. Middle of the day, which was unusual for him.” Owen rubbed his jaw while recalling the conversation.
“He was sober. Calm. He thanked me for the coffee that night and apologized again for waking us.
Then he told me not to worry, that he'd found another way to get what he needed. He didn't say who, and I didn't ask.”
“Do you have any idea who might have helped him?”
“The only person I can think of is Ward Seldon. Ward's cousin was a physician. Whether Ward ever made that introduction, I couldn't say. But if Nestor needed something stronger than what I was willing to provide, Ward would have been the only one in his circle with that kind of connection.”