interrogation shook Ian from this position, or made the slightest change in his avowal that Eric had planned the murders of the Ducanes.
Eric denied everything-until he listened to a few minutes of Ian’s confession. He then told of taking the younger Ducanes hostage, forcing Todd to drive while he sat in the back with Katy and the dog. As they went up the drive toward the farm, Eric had been bitten by Katy’s dog on his gun arm, and he had clubbed the dog with his flashlight. That had so upset Katy, she had attacked him. During the ensuing struggle in the backseat, Todd lost control of the car and crashed the Buick into a tree. Eric had clubbed Katy as well then, and shot Todd as he sat dazed after hitting his head on the windshield. Griffin Baer had already prepared a burial place for the Buick, so Eric hadn’t worried much about the crash.
Eric shot Katy just to make sure she was dead. He placed the bodies in the trunk. He wasn’t supposed to take anything from them, but the diamond necklace was too big a temptation. He grabbed hold of it and it broke.
He could see Baer on his way over with a tractor, ready to tow the car to the pit. Eric rushed to pocket as many of the diamonds as he could before Baer reached him.
“Why not kill Baer to keep him quiet?”
“I knew Griff wouldn’t talk. He was a friend of my father. Of my grandfather. You think I would kill an old family friend?”
Lefebvre was silent for a long moment, then said, “Thelma Ducane was a friend of your uncle Mitch, and so was her husband.”
“This has nothing to do with my uncle Mitch.”
“What is it he’s promised you?” Lefebvre asked.
“Not a thing.”
“I’m supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that all of this took place on the same night that the Ducane heir was kidnapped?”
“I don’t care if you believe it or not. That’s the way it happened. I know nothing about any kidnapping.”
“Why was Warren Ducane spared?”
“You ought to ask him. Have you found him yet? Besides, if you really want to hurt your enemy, you don’t just kill him. That’s quick. He doesn’t suffer at all. You want to make your enemy suffer, you kill the people he loves and hide the bodies-you make him wonder if they’re alive or dead. Nothing is worse than that.”
O’Connor was convinced the Yeager catechism was a direct quote from their uncle Mitch. While I didn’t doubt it, there was simply no way to prove it, or to prove that Eric and Ian had any connection to the disappearance of Max Ducane or Jack’s beating or even the death of Gus Ronden.
Mitch Yeager had been present at the trials, publicly playing the role of the shocked and saddened uncle who couldn’t believe that these “boys” would do such terrible things.
The D.A. at the time was not as skilled as his opponents. The prosecutor told Lefebvre and Arden that he was concerned about the age of the cases, lack of witnesses, and the little physical evidence that tied Eric and Ian to the murders. Under public pressure he decided to prosecute the cases, but he sought the death penalty-which had only been reinstated in California the previous year.
Lefebvre later told me that he didn’t think the D.A. did a good job of screening the jury. Post-trial interviews revealed that the possibility of a death sentence had weighed strongly with the most reluctant juror. After five days of deliberation, the jury informed the judge that it was hopelessly deadlocked, and the judge declared a mistrial.
Ian and Eric weren’t free-there was still the problem of the little house-warming party they had thrown for Max and me. Rather than pursue a second murder trial, the D.A. brought them up on the assault and kidnapping charges-not even attempted murder, which was arguable.
But the safe bet paid off, and the D.A. won that case. I was relieved to know the Yeager brothers wouldn’t be free, but it didn’t seem right that they were going to jail for hitting Max and locking us in a tunnel for a few hours rather than for taking four-or more-lives.
In the months before the trial, Max and I figured out that dating would ruin a perfectly good friendship. By then, the friendship meant too much to us to risk that. He recovered from his injuries and went back to New Hampshire to pursue his MBA at Tuck. He came back to Las Piernas often, though-he hired some friends from Dartmouth to help him start a company that would develop applications of GPS technology, and based the company in Las Piernas, where he planned to live after graduation.
The day the verdicts were handed down, he left our post-trial celebration early to catch a flight back East. Before he left, he gave me a hug and said, “Write to me. Call me collect. And keep slaying dragons.”
Lefebvre stopped by the party for an hour or so, and was the first person to notice that I wasn’t drinking. “Driving tonight?” he asked when he was sure he wouldn’t be overheard.
I glanced at O’Connor, who was quietly downing one scotch after another. “I think that would be best.”
“You two are getting along now, I see.”
“We still have our occasional differences of opinion,” I said, which made Lefebvre smile. “But I like it when we tackle a story together. It’s hard to describe, but there’s a kind of energy there that I don’t always feel when I work on my own.” I shrugged. “This is going to sound corny, but I like him because he tries so hard to do the right thing.”
“Corny, huh? Maybe not. I’ve been reading some of the articles you’ve written together-it’s a good partnership, I think. And speaking of partnerships-I hear that you’ll soon be related by marriage.”
I sighed. “For as long as it lasts. Yes, my sister Barbara and his son Kenny are getting married. The only upside to this is that Kenny has moved out of O’Connor’s house and bought a place of his own.”
“You don’t place much hope in their future?”
“I shouldn’t be so negative,” I admitted. “They’ll probably be together forever. Kenny needs constant care and attention. My sister loves providing it- to a healthy male like him, anyway.”
He studied me after I said this, and I found myself hoping he didn’t ask me what I meant by it. He probably knew about my father, but he changed the subject.
“I wanted more of these old questions to be resolved,” he said, “but I have worked in law enforcement long enough to feel relieved that at least Ian and Eric now have felony convictions on their records. If they fail to win appeals, I’ll be happy.”
“I know what you mean. I just wish Betty Bradford had called me back.”
“Maybe she will, one of these days.”
“She’s passed up a huge reward, and if the person who was her boss was convicted today, she should have stepped forward.”
He shook his head, but didn’t comment. We both knew the big fish got away. And neither of us thought there was a hope in hell he’d be caught.
When last call rolled around, O’Connor and I were the only ones still in the bar. O’Connor was under full sail. Still, he managed to walk fairly steadily to the Karmann Ghia, and didn’t have too much difficulty getting in.
I drove him home. He was sobering up a little by then, and invited me in for coffee. I had been to his house many times by then, and he to mine, but this was something he had never done before. I accepted the invitation, but watching the clumsiness of his movements, seated him at the kitchen table while I made the coffee. Never let a drunk loose in a kitchen. Too many sharp implements, and the simplest tasks will take forever.
I made coffee that was the equivalent of forty-weight motor oil. He drank three cups of it. I could see him coming into focus, so I asked, “What is it, O’Connor?”
“What’s what?”
“What’s eating at you?”
He shrugged. “I was thinking of Ian and Eric’s catechism, and wondering if I could have become Mitch’s Yeager’s enemy before I was eighteen.”
“When you were a copyboy?”
“Maybe before that, even.”
“What do you mean?”
He didn’t answer. I poured him another cup of coffee.
