The Express had covered the story from one angle or another for almost a year by the time the Yeager brothers were sentenced, and nearly everyone on the news staff had worked on some related story. Time to celebrate.

The victory was bittersweet, though, because that was the Yeager brothers’ second trial.

The first one, for the murders of the Ducanes, ended in a mistrial, with a hung jury. Although Lefebvre was clearly a genius at interrogation, the confessions obtained were ruled as inadmissible in pretrial-the Yeager brothers’ lawyers claimed their clients were not properly Mirandized when taken into custody in Los Angeles. If there had been no other evidence, I suppose I would have understood the holdout juror’s reluctance, but there was plenty of other proof of their guilt.

Among the treasures found in Eric’s trunk, sewn into the lining of his suitcase, were seventy-nine diamonds. Diamonds that matched exactly the cut and style and size of those missing from the Vanderveer necklace. Also in the trunk was the lighter Jack had given Katy, monogrammed with her initial.

Eric claimed that he and Ian had found these items while scuba diving. The fact that the lighter worked and showed no sign of having been exposed to sea water was something he could not explain.

Ian swore that he knew nothing about any of these items. Lefebvre didn’t immediately challenge this. Instead he asked, “You like reading James Bond books?”

“Yes,” Ian said warily, apparently puzzled by the abrupt change of subject.

“I wondered. Maybe you liked the writer’s name. You know-Ian Fleming, Ian Yeager.”

“No, that’s not it. I just like them.”

“I thought you might. Is that why you’ve hung on to that old Walther PPK of yours? What caliber is that? A 7.65 millimeter, isn’t it? James Bond’s gun. Your gun.”

“You found…” But Ian’s voice trailed off.

“You look surprised,” Lefebvre said. “But you know, we look in all kinds of places when we have a search warrant, so it’s a little hard to hide things from us. That business of taping the gun to the toilet tank lid-that’s an old one.”

Silence.

“You probably won’t be surprised,” Lefebvre said, “if I tell you that the bullets that killed Katy and Todd Ducane were 7.65 millimeter. I’ll bet the rifling patterns and all those other little things we check when we match a weapon to a bullet just might tell an interesting story.”

But Ian was surprised. “That fuckwad Eric killed them with my gun!” he said, and immediately provided an alibi for himself: he couldn’t have been in the Buick-he had been invited to join Thelma and Barrett on the Sea Dreamer, and helplessly watched as they were swept overboard by a rogue wave.

“While you, on the other hand, could use your scuba tanks to breathe.”

“Yes! No!”

It was only a matter of time before Ian admitted that he and Eric had been involved in the murders of all four Ducanes. Asked whose plan it was, he claimed that Eric had been the mastermind.

“Why would Eric want to kill the Ducanes?”

“They always looked down on us, that’s why.”

“Why spare Warren, then?”

Ian’s voice took on a quality of recital as he answered. “If you kill your enemy, he’s dead. He’s not feeling another thing. But if you kill the people he loves and hide the bodies-you kidnap them and never let them be found- then you make him wonder if they’re alive or dead, if he’ll ever see them again. He starts to think about what might be happening to them. That way, your enemy suffers all his life. Nothing you could do to him is worse than that. Nothing.”

Like Lefebvre, I was certain Ian’s confession was a mixture of truth and lies, but those few minutes were the most disturbing. Ian had spoken with utter sincerity, as if this was his religious creed, rather than a declaration of his depravity.

Ian claimed complete ignorance about other events of that evening in 1958- the attack on Jack Corrigan, the kidnapping of the infant Max Ducane, the murder of Rose Hannon. His denials were convincing, and no further 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.