No, all I remembered so far as his family went was the wicked old Eliza, glaring at me as her nephew was led away. If his mom and dad had been there, they’d been reserved enough that I couldn’t recall seeing them. But his religious fervor must have been imparted to him by someone. His parents were the most likely suspects. For some reason, Tatie didn’t strike me as the religious type.

I set the paper on the passenger seat and started my car. What I’d learned changed nothing. All it meant was that there would likely be police watching the Dufresne household, which was fine by me. I wasn’t breaking in, I was visiting; and if they wanted to make sure Malachi didn’t get inside, I was fine with that too. So much the better. It wasn’t as if he was chasing me down, for he couldn’t possibly know I was on my way to Eliza’s. In a way, I had the drop on him, a turnaround which left me smug.

I was less than twenty miles from Macon, and it took me less than twenty minutes to get there. I picked an exit with an abundance of fast-food places, settling on a sandwich shop where the polyester-clad employees provided me with a phone book. I found four listings for Dufresne: Eliza M., John, James-Henry and Esther, and an S. F., otherwise unspecified.

Eliza M. Her address was listed as 3112 Chiswick Lane, and her phone number was printed alongside the entry. I copied the information onto the back of a sturdy napkin and put it in my pocket with the credit card receipt. Should I call first? No. Better to land on her doorstep. Combine surprise and audacity, and see what sort of reaction it got.

I asked around the restaurant, but no one knew how to point me towards Chiswick until an older gentleman looked at the zip code. “That’s a ways off from here, if it’s where I’m thinking. South of town a few miles and then a few more into the middle of nowhere.” He gave me directions to where he believed the road was that turned out to be rough directions indeed.

I didn’t find the house until it was almost dark, and when I dragged my car alongside it, I almost wished I’d missed it. The place was enormous and horrible—a bleak, Gothic Tara. Giant trees older than Georgia’s statehood crowded in against the pale wooden walls, thick and menacing guardians who would have actively discouraged visitors if only they could. Not to be outdone, the glass at every black-shuttered window was mottled, wavy, and warped as testament to the house’s age and resilience; and along the wide exterior kudzu clung tight from the bushes to the storm drains and up all three chimneys, pretending to be ivy. It cast a black lace shadow against the few windows where a light was on.