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girl died on the way.”
    “And the others?”
    “Not good.” Sylvie had turned grim. “The son, Niall, wounded in the throat, I think, and the little girl . . . what was her name?” Her eyebrows drew together as she checked over her shoulder and switched lanes. “Bella, I think; no, no . . . Blythe!” Snapping a finger, she said, “That’s right. There was all kind of mention of Blythe’s bravery because she took a bullet in the spine, ended up in a wheelchair.”
    “Sounds a lot like the Diane Downs case in Oregon years ago.”
    “That’s the hell of it. People think Blondell purposely copied Downs. Saw a way to get rid of her kids and used it. Who knows? Reach into the glove box and see if there’s any more gum, will ya?” She slowed and cranked the wheel, guiding the car into the parking lot near the station house on Habersham, a brick edifice that had originally been built nearly a century and a half before, as Reed found the pack of Nicorette and handed it to her. With the agility of a twenty-year smoker, she retrieved a piece and tossed it into her mouth. “I hate this crap,” she muttered, and he didn’t know if she was talking about the gum or Blondell O’Henry’s impending release from jail. Probably both.
    Morrisette pulled into a narrow spot and slammed the cruiser into park. “Here’s the hell of it. Blondell had just recently miscarried when she shot her own pregnant daughter. How about that? It all came out in her hospital exam.”
    Now that she brought it up, Reed remembered something about it.
    “She never said who the father was,” Morrisette went on. “Was it her ex, Calvin? That might’ve proved messy as he was already involved with wife number two, who also was probably pregnant about that time. He would have been a busy boy. Holy crap, there must’ve been something in the water that year. Blondell, her daughter, and Calvin’s religious nut of a wife, June, all knocked up, well, at least until Blondell lost hers.”
    “You’re saying Calvin was the father of his wife’s baby and Blondell’s, before she miscarried?”
    “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
    “You’re not suggesting he was with his own daughter too.”
    “ That never came up, thank God. Even though Amity was his adopted daughter. But no, I don’t think so. I’m sure they would’ve been able to tell from the blood work. But he could’ve fathered his own daughter with June, wife number dos, and maybe the baby Blondell lost. Stranger things have happened.” Morrisette shot him a look. “Then again, Roland Camp could have been the father. He was Blondell’s most recent boyfriend. He’s another winner, let me tell you. Not that it matters, as the kid was never born.” She glanced out the window as a couple of uniformed officers walked past her car and into the building. “Or there’s a good chance that Blondell’s baby’s daddy was some other lucky stiff entirely. Enough men around this town stared at her with their damned tongues dragging to the ground. She was smokin’ hot. But who knows? I’m not sure the guy who knocked her up ever found out he was a papa, and since the kid was never born, the point’s moot. It only matters because Blondell said in her testimony that she was drinking and confused because she was depressed about losing the baby. But that could all be bull.”
    Reed glanced at the station house, a beautiful building built for a much earlier time. Yet even with recent renovations, the offices of the Savannah-Chatham Police Department were showing their years.
    “We’re gonna have riots in the streets, let me tell you. Blondell O’Henry is one of the city’s most reviled criminals.” She cut the engine and opened the driver’s door. “Look up the case,” she advised. “It’s got more curves and twists than a nest of sidewinders with stomach cramps. Flint Beauregard, he was the lead detective.”
    “Deacon’s father?”
    “One and the same.” She closed her door