Lynn Melsyn – now married and named Lynn Pritchard – lived in an enormous house near the ocean in the suburb of Ponte Vedra. People in Jacksonville moved to Ponte Vedra for the schools, the golf courses, and the private beach clubs. The houses were newer than in the city, the lawns greener, the streets cleaner, the nights quieter. Outside of Lynn Pritchard’s house, the air smelled of rain and the fertilizer and mulch that a landscaping crew had spread around the palm trees and on the gardens.
We stood in a two-story foyer, a cut-glass chandelier above us, polished, white, marble tiles under our feet. An antique wooden table with an arrangement of flowers stood in the middle of the entryway. In a room visible through an open double doorway, a nanny talked in a babyish voice to twin girls in side-by-side cribs.
Lynn Pritchard wore a red dress that stretched to her thighs. Her black hair fell halfway down her back. Her skin was pale, and her fingernail polish matched her dress. She wore bright red lipstick like a mask. It was the kind that still looks wet hours after a woman puts it on.
‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ I said.
‘The police said you found him and Darrell,’ she said.
I nodded.
She glanced at the flowers on the table, as if my presence pained her, and said, ‘I heard they put you in the hospital afterward.’
‘For a while.’
She looked at me again, said, ‘Let’s sit,’ and led me into a hallway that took us away from her daughters.
I guessed that, like Duane Bronson and me, she came from a poor part of town, but she looked comfortable in wealth. We went through a large living room with a white carpet, draped windows, and a brass-screened fireplace, and crossed into a sitting room. Tinted glass doors looked out at a screened-in pool, lighted by flood lamps from above and submerged lighting below.
She gestured at an upholstered chair and said, ‘Please.’
I sat, and she settled on to a matching couch, slipping off her shoes and tucking her legs under her. I looked at bookshelves lined with glass figurines, a little fireplace that matched the big one in the other room, and all the fine furniture.
I said, ‘Do you mind if I ask—’
Apparently used to such questions, she said, ‘The man I married – a year and a half ago, when I got pregnant – owned car dealerships in Alabama before retiring here. I thought he would try to pay me to get rid of the twins. Instead, he asked me to marry him.’ She stared at me. ‘Is that more than you were asking?’
‘No – that was fine.’
She frowned and smoothed her dress over her thighs. ‘I can already tell that you ask a lot. Probably too much.’
‘For eight years, I had very little,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t have much beforehand. I lost what I had.’
‘Others lost more.’
‘Duane and Steven,’ I said.
‘They lost the most.’
‘And you went into hiding.’
She nodded.
So I said, ‘Tell me what you’re scared of.’
She frowned again. ‘I’m scared of the man who killed my brother,’ she said. ‘I’m scared of the man who killed Duane. I’m scared that the police said they’d worked out Duane’s murder eight years ago, but I knew they hadn’t. The man who killed him could get to me and no one would stop him. I’m scared that before my brother died he might have told the man where to find me.’
I said, ‘Tell me about him.’
She moved a strand of hair from her cheek. ‘He sat next to me during your trial. He said I had something of his and he wanted it back. He said Duane must have given it to me.’
‘Did he tell you what it was?’
She hesitated. ‘A briefcase. Papers. But I told him, if Duane stole papers, he would have thrown them away or burned them. If it didn’t shine, Duane didn’t want it.’
‘If it didn’t shine?’
She allowed herself a little smile. ‘Duane was kind of crazy. He broke into houses for the thrill and because of the way they shined – that was his word. He didn’t care about the money so much, and he only got in trouble when he tried to sell the things he stole. But he liked fancy houses. He liked to pretend he belonged in them.’ She looked out toward the pool. ‘He always said he would live in a house like this someday. That was his dream. The closest he got was breaking into them. If he took a briefcase from the man, he took it to carry the things he found in the house.’
‘How about Steven?’
‘He did what Duane told him to do.’
‘Do you have the jewelry that Duane’s mom gave you?’
She shook her head. ‘I threw it out a long time ago. I only kept this’ – she pulled a chained pendant from inside the top of her dress. It was a golden star with a diamond chip at each of its points. ‘It’s stolen, but everything about Duane broke the rules, so it’s a good remembrance.’ She stared at me. ‘You’re scared too.’
Instead of answering, I said, ‘What did the man look like?’
But she said, ‘I’m alone with my girls most of the time. Sometimes I have Jen – their nanny. She’s sweet. It’s like having a third baby to watch over.’
‘Where’s your husband?’ I asked.
‘He goes places with his friends. Hunting. Rafting in Argentina. Drinking and cigar trips. He travels with guys he’s known since high school.’
‘You say he’s retired?’
‘He’s sixty-four.’
‘Huh,’ I said.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but I love him as much as I love anyone. Ever since Duane, I’ve had a hard time loving. I lost something too.’
‘Tell me about the man who came to you at my trial. How often did you see him after that?’
‘As I said, you ask a lot.’
‘You agreed to talk with me.’
‘Because I wanted to ask you questions.’
Across the house, one of her babies started crying.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Ask anything.’
She untucked her legs, crossed them, and uncrossed them. ‘When you found my brother in his apartment,’ she said, ‘what did he look like?’
‘The police didn’t tell you?’
‘They only showed me a picture of his face.’
‘Then you saw. The killer shot him in the forehead.’
‘What else?’ Her eyes were steely but I heard the fear.
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘What did he look like?’ she said.
‘He looked like Duane when he died. The killer bit him. On the legs. Around—’
‘Exactly like Duane? No difference?’
‘Little differences,’ I said. ‘That’s all.’ She looked incapable of asking, so I told her. ‘The killer ripped away part of his chest. One of his nipples. That didn’t happen to Duane.’
Pinpoints of sweat broke from her pale skin. She said, ‘That’s what he said he would do to me if I talked. So I hid. My aunt lives in Orlando. I finished high school there. When I moved back, I used my mother’s maiden name. Then I met my husband.’
‘Who’s the man who threatened you?’ I said.
She shook her head – unwilling, unable.
‘But you know who he is?’ I asked. ‘You know his name?’
Still she shook her head. She said, ‘For eight years, I hid. I was safe. Then you got out and went to see my brother, and now he’s dead.’
‘What did you tell him about the man?’
‘You’ve asked enough,’ she said.
‘If he got to him, he can get to you.’
‘Not if I keep my promise,’ she said.
‘Your brother kept his promise. He told me nothing. Now he’s dead.’
She shook her head.
If she could identify Judge Skooner, I wanted her to do it on her own, without my naming him. But I gave her as much as I could. ‘If this man has power – if he has the kind of connections that got him to your brother – he’ll get to you.’
‘I told the police,’ she said. ‘Eight years ago. They did nothing.’
‘Who did you tell?’
‘The detective who investigated Duane and Steve’s deaths.’
‘Bill Higby?’ I could hardly breathe.
‘He called me a liar. He said he knew who killed them. You.’
I couldn’t help myself. ‘Did Eric Skooner threaten you,’ I asked. ‘The judge?’
‘I’ll disappear,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave—’
I knew the danger of dictating someone else’s story, insisting on the details of another person’s experience. But I said, ‘I need to hear you say it. Did the judge threaten you?’
‘I’m here alone,’ she said.
The baby cried more loudly now. But Lynn Pritchard didn’t seem to hear.
‘Tell me who threatened you.’
Again, she shook her head.
The nanny called across the house, ‘Mrs Pritchard? Lynn?’
‘Did Duane and Steven break into Eric Skooner’s house?’ I asked. ‘Did they steal his papers?’
The nanny came through the living room and into the sitting room, carrying the crying baby. The girl’s face was bright red, and the nanny looked almost as stricken. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘She won’t stop.’
Lynn Pritchard took her daughter, pulling her to her shoulder. The baby stopped crying as if she’d been falling and flailing through space and had come to a soft landing.
‘I’m sorry,’ the nanny said again and left to get the baby’s sister.
‘I need to know,’ I said.
Lynn Pritchard gazed at the baby, soothing her, and said, ‘I told Duane’s mom I would talk to you for another reason too. She said you’re working as an investigator for a prisoner rights group.’
I stared at her and her child. ‘Something like that. The Justice Now Initiative. But they fired me.’
‘Do you mind telling me why?’
‘Too much enthusiasm on my part,’ I said. ‘Too aggressive. I go into places I shouldn’t go. At least they thought so.’
She turned her eyes from the baby to me. ‘Do you have a gun?’
I shrugged.
‘Are you willing to use it?’
‘If necessary.’
‘I watched the stories about you on TV. You got yourself out of prison. You must have done something right.’
‘I had a lot of time and very few distractions.’
She said, ‘So my question is, will you work for me? Will you protect me and my girls? I have money. I’ll pay whatever you ask.’
I hadn’t expected that. ‘Why me? You should hire people who do this. An agency.’
‘You believe me. You know it’s true. We’ve both been locked up for the last eight years.’
‘How about your husband? Can’t you pack up your family and leave?’
‘I can’t tell him. I won’t. He has an idea of me. He goes out on his adventures with his friends, and he thinks he leaves me happy and safe. If he knew, he’d be more scared than I am. Can’t you see what I am for him?’
‘What are you for yourself?’ I said.
‘You don’t want me to answer that,’ she said. She went to a credenza and opened a drawer. She took a stack of fifty-dollar bills and brought it to me.
‘I can’t do this,’ I said. ‘I’m driving all around, trying to figure things out.’
‘So drive by here too,’ she said. ‘Check on us. Make sure we’re OK.’
‘I can do that without you paying me.’
She almost smiled. ‘The money’s nothing to me. Maybe it’s something to you.’
I said, ‘My head’s all over the place. You can’t count on me.’
‘Who else am I going to count on?’
I looked at the money. Then I counted out a thousand dollars. ‘This will keep me going for a couple of weeks. It’ll give me time.’ I gave her back the rest. ‘But I need you to tell me who threatened you. When Bill Higby arrested me, he put words in my mouth. I won’t do that to you. But if I’m going to protect you from this man, I need to know for sure who he is.’
She looked at her baby again, then at me, and she made her decision. ‘Eric Skooner.’
‘He sat next to you at my trial?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me what happened.’
‘He sat by me and my mom. After a while, he let his hand fall between his leg and mine, against my thigh. My mom didn’t see. I slid away, but he kept his fingers against me, the way you touch something to show that it’s yours. Then, during a break, while my mom was in the bathroom, he followed me into the hall. He told me I was brave for coming to the trial. Such a young girl, he said, and so willing. He said it like I was the dirtiest thing he’d ever seen. Then he told me he could do anything he wanted in the city. He could go into other people’s houses more easily than a teenage thief. He could read people’s histories. He could get into their lives. He told me I had something that was his. When my mom came out of the bathroom, he introduced himself and said he was a judge and had been sitting in on the trial. He told my mom she should be proud of me – such a young girl and so brave.’
The baby squirmed in her arms.
‘He had no fear,’ she said. ‘That scared me more than anything else. He knew he could get away with anything, and I knew it too.’
‘Did he say he killed Duane and Steven?’ I asked.
Her baby made a sound as if she would cry. Lynn Pritchard rocked her in her arms. She touched her tongue to her lipstick. ‘I’ve never felt as dirty as when he touched me.’ The baby started crying, and she hushed it and said, ‘He never quite told me he killed them. He said Duane and Steve took a briefcase. He said he was sorry, very sorry, about what happened to them, but it had to happen to boys who broke into a judge’s house and stole his briefcase. Didn’t I see that? He would be sorry, very sorry if something like that happened to me – that or something worse, something special for me since I was so young and so pretty and so brave and so willing.’
She hushed her daughter again and rocked her, but now the girl cried as if nothing would console her.
When we walked to the front door, the nanny came into the entryway with the other baby, who also started crying. Lynn Pritchard, in her red dress and her matching lipstick and fingernail polish, took her second daughter and held one on each shoulder. With the cut-glass chandelier hanging above her from the high ceiling, she looked small and vulnerable. But she’d lasted eight years since the murder of the Bronson brothers, as alone and unsure of her life as I’d been in my prison cell, and I thought she must be stronger than she admitted. I wondered if she saw in me a kindred spirit, one who would understand how she had lived. I wondered if she’d decided that since she couldn’t deny that life entirely, she was willing to pay me to keep me close.
I stepped out into the rain.
‘Come by tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Check on us.’
I ran to my car. But before getting in, I turned back and went to the front porch. ‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘Do you know if Duane and his brother ever went to a town called Bostwick – about fifty miles south of here?’
Again, she almost smiled. ‘I did too. That was our best night together. Ever.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Two months before he died, Duane told me he’d found a new place on one of his night-time drives. I’d snuck out once before with him and Steve and once with just him. My mom caught me the second time, and I’d promised never to do it again, but he made this place sound magical. So one night we drove down through Bostwick and over toward the river. We parked by some buildings that looked like a factory, though the smell that came out was sweet. We climbed over a fence and went down a grassy area and behind some trees, away from the lights. Duane told me to take off my clothes. I wouldn’t. He and I hadn’t gone that far, and now Steve was with us. But they stripped and waded into a pond. They were laughing, and Duane told me to come in – the pond was the best ever. So I thought, what the hell – it was dark, and I’d already snuck out. So I took off my clothes and went in. The water was hot – like an amazing bath. For the first time, I understood what Duane meant when he said a place was shining. Whatever was in the water was beautiful. That pond shined.’