Chapter 27
TWENTY-SEVEN
Ron had an air of infallible smugness around him as he sat inside the interrogation room, his hands crossed over his belly.
He looked up with a smile as Seth walked in.
“Detective Winslow, there you are. I’ve been told you played a role in savin’ Clementine’s life.
I want to thank you personally for that. ”
The chair screeched against the tile as Seth pulled it out and sat down. “I wish it never came to that at all. We found him, by the way.”
Ron’s eyes flashed. “You did, huh? I don’t suppose I’d get a chance to have a word with ’im?”
“Not possible. He’s dead.”
“No kiddin’. How?”
“We’re exploring multiple avenues.” He adjusted his elbows on the table and stared at Ron, who simply stared back.
You did it.
Or you had someone else do it.
Good luck getting a confession. But that had never stopped him from trying before.
“You understand this is being recorded, right?” Seth gestured toward the camera in the top corner of the room. “And you understand you’re not under arrest and are free to leave at any time.”
“Sure thing, Detective. I am here of my own volition. I’ve got nothin’ to hide.”
“Look, Ron, I don’t want us to waste each other’s time, so I’m gonna get straight to the point. Before Trevor escaped, he made some pretty damning allegations against you.”
Ron had the gall to laugh, but he sat up and mirrored Seth’s posture, elbows on the table, back straight. “This oughta be good. Let’s hear it.”
“I’ll start with the one that worries me the most. Trevor claimed you knew who he was and why he was doing what he was doing from the start. Why would he say that?”
“Detective, I had absolutely no idea it was him. I haven’t seen that kid in months. Last I heard, he was still living out at that looney bin I dropped him off at out of town when he was a teenager.”
“Belleville. The mental health institution.”
“That’s right, I paid for his board there. Had been since he was sixteen years old. My poor bank account can attest to that.”
“Why?”
Ron let out a flabbergasted breath. “Hell, I don’t know, maybe ’cause I felt bad for the little nutcase.
He’d been workin’ on my farm on and off since he was a kid, had no real family, only foster parents who didn’t have room for ’im.
That’d be the Sloanes. You’ve probably already figured out Sloane wasn’t his real last name. ”
They hadn’t figured that out yet at all; the warrant for the medical and juvenile records was still in progress.
As of right now, they barely knew anything about Trevor Sloane or where he came from.
“How’d you come across this boy? If he was on the farm when your wife was alive, he would’ve been just a kid. ”
“Well, the Sloanes lived out in the country, and we’d met ’em through the town fair.
Little Trevor was fond of Clementine and fond of the farm, so the Sloanes let Celine and I have ’im help out in ways that are appropriate for boys of that age.
Chores, not men’s work. I kept ’im around after my wife died, like I said, on and off.
As he got older, he started to show signs of, well…
darkness. The type of darkness you inherit from your parents, even if you never knew them. ”
“You mean mental illness,” Seth clarified.
“Sure, call it what you want, but the kid had some screws loose. The Sloanes didn’t tell me till a few years in, long after Celine was gone, about Trevor’s real name and his… family history.”
Seth said nothing, waiting for Ron to elaborate, which only made him laugh in disbelief.
“Shit, you don’t know anything, do you?”
“Why don’t you enlighten me.” Seth tried not to show how much this was pissing him off, but he had a feeling his face was betraying him.
Ron crossed his arms and sank in the seat.
“All right, well, his real name’s Trevor Gautreau, for starters.
You can go ahead and look this up yourself, but there was a murder-suicide over in Biggs Township—that’s a little blip on the map forty minutes due west of here.
Steven Gautreau, that’d be Trevor’s real daddy, went ahead and shot his wife’s brains out then turned the gun on himself.
All while a three-year-old Trevor was playin’ with blocks in his playpen.
That’s one twisted way to make an orphan, amiright?
“Anyway, kid went straight into the foster system, but there weren’t a lot of options around, ’specially at that time, and the Sloanes took in a lot of abandoned kids.
They wanted me to adopt Trevor, so they’d left out his history for a long time, but I was never lookin’ to adopt for real, and eventually, they spilled the truth.
By this point, he was thirteen years old, showin’ interest in real farm work, and I cared about ’im well enough, so I took ’im in full-time, kept ’im for another three years, but I guess his no-good daddy’s DNA had been lyin’ dormant till puberty.
That’s when I realized he was no good to have around my girls. ”
“Why? What did he do?”
Ron huffed like this was exhausting him.
It probably was—having to sift through his own half-truths.
“It wasn’t any one thing he did, Detective, he just became a burden.
He’d fight with other boys on the farm and get all emotional in the way teenage boys do.
And truthfully, he was no good at the farmwork, so forgive me if I didn’t see much point in keepin’ ’im around.
I still felt bad for the kid, though, and he had nowhere else to go, so I did my research and found Belleville. Thought it seemed perfect.”
“And you left him there. You paid for his board. Must’ve been expensive.”
“Hell yes it was expensive, but I cared enough to keep it goin’. I’d visit ’im over the years, see how he was doin’, and he’d be in good spirits. Doctors said he had all sorts of anxiety disorders and what not, things I know nothin’ about. He was better off there.”
“But six months ago, you stopped paying and stopped visiting him. Why?”
“’Cause my grandson was born and I realized all that money I was funneling into this other kid, who was now a full-grown adult and wasn’t even related to me, was a waste. Sullivan needs that money for his future. I became a granddad—I had to reevaluate my priorities in life.”
“Did you say goodbye to Trevor? Did you tell him you were going to stop visiting?”
“No, I did not. Guess I figured I’d given ’im enough of my life. Didn’t owe any more. How was I supposed to know he’d snap and go on a killin’ spree? Psychopath didn’t even come knock on my door an’ ask for closure.”
Seth tried to relax, but tension worked through his back, locking up his traps and giving him a headache. Ron’s explanations were clear and made sense. They lined up with the timeline perfectly.
Still not buying it.
“Maybe because you, yourself, knew he had violence in his history,” Seth said. “You never thought to mention there was someone like this in your farm’s past?”
“Christ, man, like I said, I had no idea it could be him. Sure, the kid came from violence, but he wasn’t violent himself.
Aside from some wrestlin’ with the other boys, he was a squeamish little twerp.
Couldn’t even snap a chicken’s neck ’cause he hated the sound of bones breaking.
I didn’t want ’im around anymore ’cause of his emotional outbursts—I never thought he’d turn violent. ”
“I played you two recordings of his voice. You’ve been visiting him for the past twelve years and you didn’t recognize it?”
“No, I didn’t. He was never that… stilted when I’d visit ’im. He was a happy guy. Not all there, but happy. That voice on the recording sounded nothin’ like ’im.”
That could line up with someone who’d entered a state of psychosis. A voice change wasn’t unheard of.
Seth grit his teeth. Ron couldn’t actually be telling the truth. There was no way.
“What about the mention of your wife’s body? Trevor knew her when she was alive. His victims looked like her. You never made that connection?”
“That’s your job, son, not mine. I ain’t trained to understand the innerworkings of the criminal mind.”
They stared at each other. Ron, with his smug indifference, and Seth, not buying it, but also not able to prove it.
“What about this?” He stood up, dug an image out of his manila folder, and slapped it on the table. The dime bag. He pressed his palms to the table and stared down at Ron, the only time he was ever elevated above him. “Why would Trevor leave this dime bag in two of the victims’ pockets?”
Ron took his time looking at the photo, drawing it out before he leaned back in his chair. “Now that, I have no idea about. Was he takin’ drugs too? Mixin’ crazy and drugs together is a bad combo, boy, that’ll do it. Bet that’s what made ’im go postal.”
“He was fixated on you, Ron. Everything he did was about you.” He tapped on the photo. “Take another look. Maybe you’re familiar with this dime bag.”
He did take another look. Then stared at Seth with an apathetic, yet somehow pompous expression. He thinks he’s untouchable. “Nope. Don’t know anythin’ about it.”
Seth tucked the image away. His anger was rising, getting the better of him, and it threatened his professionalism. He needed to wrap this up before he said something he’d regret.
Before he snapped at Ron and told him that he knew he was an abusive, vainglorious, tyrannical criminal who’d abused those boys—Trevor included—and had abused his daughters too, and it was only a matter of time before Seth found something to lock him up for.
“Were you ever violent with Trevor?” Seth asked, his voice clipped.
“Nope.”
“Do you know where your wife’s body is?”
At that, Ron gave him an incredulous look.
“No, Detective, I most certainly do not. And Trevor didn’t either.
’Cause my wife’s body’s never been found.
” His posture suddenly went lax, and he let out a long-winded breath as he dug something out of the front pocket of his shirt.
“If Trevor was killin’ those girls ’cause they resembled my Celine, ’cause he was tryin’ to get to me, it must’ve been ’cause he knew how much I loved that woman. ”
He stared down at something in his wide hand before he softly dropped it on the table. A silver chain with a butterfly pendant on it.
“She left the house without it that day,” Ron mused.
“She always wore this thing, said it’d been a gift from her birth mother.
Celine was in the foster system too—maybe that was why she had such a soft spot for Trevor.
Anyhow, she’d take it off every now an’ then to go swimmin’ or do whatever, and she’d usually need help puttin’ it back on.
Guess I was tendin’ to the fields that day, so she left it.
I found it on the dresser in our bedroom.
Told myself I’d help put it back on when she got home.
” He chuckled sadly and fidgeted with the clasp.
“I had a hell of a time doin’ it with these fat fingers of mine, but I’d do it for her.
Now I usually don’t leave the house without it. ”
Seth didn’t know what to say. His brain was being ripped in half, torn between the honesty Ron seemed to exude and the terror he’d seen in Claire when she told him about this very necklace.
Had she truly misread the situation? Had she not known her dad carried this necklace with him for the past twenty years?
While Seth had never been one to ignore his gut, he’d also been trained to follow the evidence. Everything Ron had said made perfect sense. It was almost too perfect. Maybe that was why he couldn’t accept this.
“I don’t buy it.” He gathered up the manila folder.
Ron scowled. “Excuse me?”
Seth looked him dead in the eye. “I said I don’t buy it. You’re free to go.”
He left the room before he could dig himself into a deeper hole.