“And?”
“A couple of interesting things.”
“Such as?”
“There are several people with records. First off, the older girl Marlie’s boyfriend at the time—Chad Atwater? He’d got caught stealing from his grandfather, if you can believe that, but of course the charges were dropped, the family refused. Painkillers, the grandpa’s gun and some cash. Then, about the same time, an assault charge was filed by another kid at school. Both were juveniles at the time, records sealed, but most of the reports suggest Chad was the aggressor in a fight over a girl that escalated. Supposedly the two were friends and the fight was over a girl who just happened to be Marlie McIntyre.”
Tate thought about it. He’d known the kid had some trouble as a teen, but what teenage boy came out of high school unscathed?
“There were drugs involved, steroids mainly and alcohol, of course. The fight was all hushed up by the parents, nothing more than a ‘scuffle,’ I think is the way Chad’s father described it, but Chad smashed the other kid’s face on the steering wheel of his Mustang to a pulp and the kid had to have stitches and plastic surgery. Once again, Chad skated, his parents bailed him out and from that point on he kept his nose clean.”
He leaned against the back wall of the vestibule and stared through the glass doors to the dark morning beyond. He’d never really considered Atwater as a serious suspect. “Why would he slaughter an entire family?”
“Don’t know. Can’t speculate. Just giving you the facts. But there’s one more wrinkle with Atwater. He had a girl on the side.”
“So he was furious that someone came on to Marlie, but meanwhile he was seeing someone else.”
“They were teenagers, what can I say?” Connell said. “Her name’s Brittlynn Cadella. She was all of fourteen at the time. They ended up marrying the minute she turned eighteen. So now she’s Brittlynn Atwater.”
Tate hadn’t known this. “Did Marlie Robinson know that he was seeing someone else?”
“Doesn’t seem that way.”
“Huh.”
“There’s more,” Connell said. “Another shady character. Roger Sweeney. The aunt’s boyfriend?”
“What about him?”
“He’s got a record, too. First of all, he had a dishonorable discharge from the Marines. Pulled a knife in a bar fight, cut someone pretty bad. The victim survived, but barely. And then five years later, more trouble. In Nashville. Didn’t get along with members of his band. Accused one of them of stealing and they got into it. The fight got physical and Roger pulls a knife, cuts the guy, might have done more damage but the third member of the trio puts a stop to it. He had a pistol.”
“So, in an about-turn, that guy brought a gun to a knife fight.”
Connell snorted. “The upshot was that no charges were filed. They both get stitched up, but Roger is out of the group. That’s about the time he migrated to Portland and took up with Faiza Donner.”
“But again, why would he kill the family?”
“Robbery gone bad? The family didn’t like him. Faiza wanted her share? Again, I’m just spitballing here and I have no facts to bear any of this out. This was just a first deep dive. I’m still checking out Silas Dean, Samuel’s business partner, as well as the exes: Walter Robinson, Leona McIntyre and Natalie Brizard.”
Tate thought about it but really couldn’t see a woman hoisting that old sword and killing the entire family and he said as much.
“Just covering all the bases,” Connell explained. “And women can have long memories, vendettas and accomplices.” True enough, Tate thought as he heard footsteps overhead. “Take Leona McIntyre, Samuel McIntyre’s college sweetheart and wife number one. She blamed her husband for their baby’s death and then lost custody of her only son, Sam Junior, because Sam Senior claimed she was nuts. It was all probably depression, but Leona has always claimed her husband and his second wife, Natalie, ruined her life. She never got over it.”
“It would be hard.”
“I suppose. Anyway, she never remarried and became a bit of a loner. Then years later, when Sam left Natalie, his second wife, for Zelda, Leona was supposedly ecstatic.”
“How do you know that?”
“An old friend of hers who knew both Leona and Samuel back at the university. I found her on Facebook, tracked her down on the Internet and she was more than willing to talk. Anyway, Leona, upon hearing that Samuel was dumping Natalie, said, ‘What goes around comes around, even for bitches who break up a family.’ ”