Lavender Beach (42 page)

“Why don’t you put your head back and take a nap?”

Cooper cut his eyes over to the woman behind the wheel. “Maybe if I weren’t so keyed up I could do that but I feel like I might be carsick.”

“Let me know if you want me to pull over.”

The closer they got to the Central Valley, Madera County in particular, the more Cooper’s stomach churned.

When they blew past flat farmland where the CCFW sat on six hundred and forty acres, Cooper began to have serious doubts he could go through with the visit.

Eastlyn pulled the car to the shoulder of the road, threw the gear in Park. She angled in her seat and saw how distressed he looked. “Say the word and I’ll turn the car around now.”

Cooper buried his face in his hands. “What would you do?”

“I’d go in, face her, listen to whatever she has to say, then judge whether or not she’s playing me and be done with it.”

“For real?”

“For real. You’ve lived with this hanging over your head for so long it’s time to end it one way or another and move on. You either decide if it’s worth keeping her in your life or getting rid of the negativity she always seems to stir up. Either way, as I see it, it ends today.”

“You’re right. Let’s get this over with.”

Eastlyn located the visitor’s parking lot, and found a space.

While they waited to board the prison bus that would take them to the processing center, Cooper looked around at all the buildings. “I checked this place out. This is where Susan Atkins was housed until her death from brain cancer.”

“Manson family Susan Atkins?”

“One and the same. Eleanor shares these walls with other notable neighbors. Nancy Garrido lives here.”

Eastlyn lifted a brow. “The woman who helped Phillip Garrido kidnap Jaycee Dugard?”

“That’s the one. This is where they sent Kristin Rossum for poisoning her husband. Maybe that’s why the place is full up, overcapacity by more than fifteen hundred inmates.”

“Geez, now I’m getting a little nervous at the prospect of going inside.”

But when the van pulled up, they reluctantly boarded but sat in silence while the bus took them to another building.

At the processing center they filled in all the necessary information to get a pass and got the first good news of the day for Cooper. He discovered the visit would be non-contact. That meant he would have a glass partition between him and his mother. 

They went through security, which included a pat down and search. Cooper cleared the metal detector but the guard had to use a handheld wand on Eastlyn because of her prosthesis. Everywhere they looked there were surveillance cameras. After clearing all that, the guard stamped their hands and they were led down a hallway to one of the visiting rooms to wait.

It seemed like forever before another guard brought out Eleanor Jennings Richmond through a door at the rear of the room and removed her handcuffs. Cooper’s mother sat down and immediately began looking around for her son.

Eastlyn could hear Cooper’s intake of breath next to her as she stood back, rooted to the linoleum floor, and watched as he approached the glass partition. Her heart broke for him. She’d never felt the depth of sorrow for anyone before in her life more than she did for Cooper at that moment.

Eastlyn’s first impression of Eleanor wasn’t all that flattering. It wasn’t the woman’s unkempt appearance, although that was a shock. The mass of black hair tipping gray at the temples that fell down around her shoulders in a wild tangle would certainly put anyone off. But it wasn’t Eleanor’s wooly mane that concerned Eastlyn, more like the soulless eyes, the distant smile, the phony display of emotions that bordered on theatrical staging.

Cooper sat down on the stool and picked up the phone on his side, watched Eleanor do the same on hers.

He realized then that it wasn’t his mother he saw on the other side of the glass, but rather the monster that had taken his father. All the rage at what this woman had put him through over the years, all that she represented, simmered to the surface. Even though his chest felt tight, his heart flipped icy cold. He gripped the phone so hard his knuckles turned white. “You look old.”

“And you look exactly like the whiny mousy little bookworm I remember. Always with your nose in some book or complaining about something or other.”

“If I was so whiny then why didn’t you clean up your own mess that night? Why rely on a kid to do your dirty work for you?”

“Because you owed me.”

“How do you figure that? Oh, wait a minute. I forget how special you always thought you were. The rules never applied to Eleanor Jennings, did they? As I recall, you even tried to make a cash deal to sell your kids once. Mother of the year material right there, weren’t you?”

“You’ll sing a different tune when I tell you the truth about that night.”

“The truth? I’d be shocked if you recognized what it looked like. You’ve spent decades lying about everything, unable to show remorse about anything, unable to take responsibility. Brent Cody believes you killed your own father, made it look like suicide. Landon believes it, too. And when you couldn’t sell your kids, you decided to abandon them in the middle of the night surrounded by water. What were you hoping for then, Eleanor? That we’d all drown and you’d be rid of us for good? That you’d add three little kids to your tally of murder victims?”

Cooper knew she’d dodge that issue so he wasn’t disappointed when she fired off a sample of why she’d summoned him. “I didn’t kill your father that night. I didn’t kill his girlfriend. I’ve never killed anyone before in my life, no matter what Brent Cody or Landon believes. Even when he was younger Landon was nothing but a stupid boy who just accepted the fact our father had made us poor with all his bad business decisions.”

“Aw, Eleanor disapproves of failure, especially when it comes to money. She was no longer the princess who got to tell people what to do. When things don’t go well for Eleanor, she reverts back to what she does best. She either gets rid of people or takes off. Isn’t that right? Just like you took off in the middle of the night because you didn’t want to be a mother anymore. That’s it, isn’t it?”

He sat across the glass staring at evil. Knowing she wouldn’t budge off her mission, he finally said, “Okay, I’ll bite. If you didn’t kill Layne and Brooke, then who did?”

“Flynn McCready.”

“Aw, come on, surely you can do better than that. I sat in a car for three hours on the way here to listen to this bullshit. I don’t think so.”

“It’s not bullshit. I saw him do it. We were having an affair. He wanted your father dead. Brooke just showed up at the wrong time.”

“Eleanor, if all that’s true, then why would you, of all people, go home and wake up your nine-year-old son to help you dispose of the bodies? I mean, you, who didn’t want to break a nail opening up a can of chili to feed her kids, couldn’t talk big, strong Flynn into cleaning up the mess on the beach that night? It’s hard to believe that you’d be the one to pick up a shovel and attempt to dig a hole in the backyard to save Flynn from a murder rap? Not likely. After all, he’d just murdered your husband.”

Cooper saw her flinch as she refused to make eye contact. Instead, she studied the wall on her side of the glass. “Look at me, Eleanor. I’m the person who knows you better than anyone else in the world. I know the real Eleanor and what you’re capable of, not the one you want other people to see but the flawed woman who, for some reason, had three kids she never really wanted. I remember that night like yesterday. I think it’s possible I’ll take those images to my grave, no matter how long I live. I’ll always see my father’s face, gray and ashen, dead. He’d been sickly before that night because you’d spent six months trying to poison him to death. The medical examiner found the arsenic, found the evidence in his hair. So if you want to sit there and try to bullshit someone about how innocent you are, I’m the last person it would work on, the very last. I’ll tell you the one thing I know for absolute certainty. You’re one sorry excuse for a human being.”

“What do you remember about anything?” Eleanor spat out. “You were just a boy, an immature boy who could never do anything right the first time.”

“Yeah, well, not as immature as you might think. Why would the most selfish woman I’ve ever known step up that night to protect Flynn? Why didn’t Flynn stick around to help you dig the grave if he was so enamored with you? I’ll tell you why. It didn’t happen that way.”

Insulted, Eleanor stuck to her cagey ways. “I can’t tell you all that now. Everyone’s listening.”

Cooper rolled his eyes and stood up. “I’m done. Please don’t ever call me again. Don’t call Drea or Caleb. Leave us alone. If we have to we’ll change our phone numbers. I’ll see you put away in solitary confinement before I take one of your phone calls. We’ve been through enough of your twisted manipulation to last a lifetime and it’s over. Since you’re serving life behind bars with no possibility of parole and this is only year-two of that sentence, I figure you can wait for me to come back here when hell freezes over.”

From her chair in the back near the vending machines, Eastlyn saw a lively, angry debate going back and forth. She wasn’t prepared to see Cooper push up, get to his feet, and slam down the phone he’d used to talk to his mother.

When he stormed past Eastlyn into the hallway, she flew after him.

“What happened? What did Eleanor say?”

“She made up this bullshit story about having an affair with Flynn McCready. She claims he’s the one who pulled the trigger that night.”

“My God, do you believe she’s telling the truth?”

“Absolutely not.” He changed direction to head for the exit. “Let’s get the hell out of this place. The sad thing is, we just wasted six plus hours on this ridiculous odyssey that we’ll never be able to get back.”

Once they got back to the car, Eastlyn was able to calm him down somewhat. She spent the trip back coaxing out a plan to at least tell Brent about Eleanor’s claims.

Even though it was almost dinnertime when they got back to town, Cooper placed the call to Brent and suggested they meet at the station.

Without preamble, Cooper laid out the allegation. “Eleanor’s accusing Flynn McCready of murder.”

Eastlyn studied Brent’s reaction. “Cooper’s convinced it isn’t possible. He’s certain Eleanor acted alone that night. What about you? You’ve had a long association with Flynn over the years, most people in town have. What’s your gut tell you about Flynn?”

“That if it’s true the man kept his mouth shut for an awfully long time.”

Cooper ran both hands through his mop of hair. “You aren’t buying this bullshit, are you?” He ticked off the same reasons he’d given Eleanor that it couldn’t be true. “If Flynn had been at the pier that night, then why didn’t Eleanor rely on him to help her with the bodies instead of her little boy?”

“That’s a good point,” Brent said with a nod.

Cooper roamed the room, his fury rising. “Let’s say it’s true Eleanor and Flynn were an item. Let’s say Flynn knew about the murders and kept quiet all these years. There’s one thing Eleanor can never lie about, and she can lie about a lot. She can’t lie about the gun. She had it with her that night. She was holding it in her hand when she woke me up. And later, I saw it out on the kitchen counter where she’d left it.”

Eastlyn sat up straighter. “So the idea that Flynn would’ve handed over the murder weapon to Eleanor is a little too over the top.”

“So, are we done here?” Cooper asked, impatient to get home.

Brent swiveled in his chair. “For now. But I intend to dig deeper into Eleanor’s blame game. When she was arrested during her incarceration and subsequent extradition back to California, she said nothing about anyone else being involved in the murders.”

“I know. That’s what I’m saying. If Eleanor’s lips are moving, she’s lying.”

Brent came around to the corner of his desk. “Look guys, do me a favor. Until we sort through this further, I want you both to keep a lid on your conversation with Eleanor. The Flynn thing doesn’t leave this room.” He eyed Eastlyn. “In the meantime, you and I keep closer tabs on Titus. Before making a move on him, we have to flesh out his other contacts, the people he sells to. We know he has them.”

Eastlyn rocked back on her heels. “Then one way or another, we’ll find out who they are.” 

Twenty-Nine

T
he envelope from the FAA came a week later. Eastlyn was so nervous to open it she left Durke on her couch watching TV and jumped in the car to drive to Cooper’s house so he would be with her no matter what the news turned out to be.

But when she reached his house, he wasn’t home from work yet. Taking a seat in the courtyard to wait for him, she found patience difficult and overrated.

She drummed her fingers on the tabletop itching to open the envelope and get to the news inside. To her, the contents felt heavier than a rejection letter, which meant it could be more paperwork to fill out. So she was likely building up suspense for nothing.

Sitting there, she looked around for something to do to keep her mind off ripping open the paper. So when she noticed Cooper’s bright red zinnias and gerbera daisies needed a drink, she turned on the outside faucet, used the garden hose to give the plants a good soaking.