by John Lutz
Pearl raised an eyebrow.
“From being in prison,” Sanderson explained.
“Tortured at whose hands?”
“You’d be surprised. A rapist isn’t high on the scale of respect when it comes to the other prisoners. And for that matter, let’s include the guards. Some of them think the thing to do is to make sure the inmate understands what it feels like to be raped. There are too many unguarded places, times. There’s no one to stop them from doing what they want.”
“You were raped in prison?”
“Many more times than once.” He swallowed hard enough for her to hear the phlegm crack in his throat. The expression on his face caused a pang of pity in Pearl.
“I know it won’t help to say I’m sorry,” she said, “but I am.” It was odd, she thought, that he’d make it a point to bring up the subject. Other than as an explanation of what he’d had to go through because of Judith Blaney. Didn’t he know he was giving himself a motive?
“I was physically what you would call attractive when I went behind the walls,” Sanderson said. “I was repeatedly beaten, along with the other indignities. That’s why I look now like I might be an ex-boxer.”
Pearl didn’t think he looked like a former fighter, but she let him go ahead and think she did. His hands were too delicate looking to have been taped and used as blunt instruments.
“You raise my curiosity,” she said.
“I’m not gay,” he said. “Never was.” Sanderson drew a deep breath, as if to steady himself. “But that’s not what you’re here to talk about.”
“No,” Pearl said. She tested the pencil to make sure it had a sharp enough point. “Judith Blaney was killed sometime around eleven o’clock last night.”
“I’ve got some coffee on,” Sanderson said. “Would you like some?”
“No,” Pearl said. This guy was something. “I would like some answers instead of more verbal dancing around.”
“Sure. My bad.” He actually looked embarrassed. “At ten last night I was working with a crew cleaning up the old Superior Theater on West Forty-sixth Street. Some kind of church or other had rented it for a revival meeting that went until just past ten. We were waiting and started working as soon as the place cleared.” He shifted position on the chair arm. “You know the Superior? It’s been shut down as a movie theater for years, but it’s still in use. Different kinds of events take place there.”
“I know it,” Pearl said. “It was a porno theater in its later years.”
“Yeah. Shame.”
“Who employs you, Mr. Sanderson?”
“Company called Sweep ’Em Up. It’s a janitorial service that cleans up the venues after sporting events, lectures, political rallies… whatever. You can probably tell from this apartment that it doesn’t pay well, but you don’t get your pick of jobs when prison’s on your resume.”
“How’d you get this one?”
“There’s a prisoner-placement service, a charity thing. And my AA sponsor Dave vouched for me. So far, it’s worked out well enough, but I’d like to get something better someday. Move up in the world, far as I can go, anyway.”
Another suspect with a drinking problem. Well, that should be no surprise. “What else does Sweep ’Em Up clean?” Pearl asked.
“Oh, we’re a big outfit. We clean Broadway and off-Broadway theaters, hotel ballrooms…”
“How long you been working there?”
“Couple of years. It’s the only job I’ve had since I got out. It’s helped me stay straight, stay out of trouble.”
“Do you attend AA meetings regularly?”
“Now and then, I’d say. I’ve been sober for nine months now. I won’t lie to you. I fell off the wagon a few times. But Dave and my faith in a higher power picked me up and made me sober.”
“That’s good,” Pearl said.
“I try.” The wide, white smile. “Gotta keep trying.”
“People can vouch for you being at work from about ten o’clock last night until past dawn?”
“Oh, yeah. The whole crew. Six of them, not counting me. And the company locks us in as soon as we set to work. For our own good. Safety. And you know, in the event anything big gets stolen, we don’t get blamed. They leave a guard outside one of the doors, so we can get out in case of a fire.”
“You worked all night?”
“Somebody sure did. Go by and look at the place. We swept up and bagged all the trash and bottles and condoms. Yeah, condoms even at a revival meeting. You’d be surprised.”
“Not me,” Pearl said, thinking for some reason of Nancy Weaver. She pretended to scribble something with her pencil. “I will talk to Sweep ’Em Up and the people involved. To check your story.”
“I wish you would.”
“You said you were glad when you heard Judith Blaney had been murdered. Can you explain that a little more?”
“What’s to explain? The bitch was responsible for ruining my life. After what happened to me, I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel glad about what happened to her.”
Pearl smiled. “I guess you know that gives you a motive.”
“I’ve got an alibi, too, thank God.”
“Tell me, Mr. Sanderson, after you were proven innocent and got out of prison, didn’t you even once consider…”
“Killing Judith Blaney?” He crossed his arms, and muscles rippled. He shouldn’t have been such a pushover in prison. But then some of those cons pumped iron half the day, building themselves into perfect thugs. An ordinary man like Sanderson wouldn’t have stood a chance without somebody in the cellblock to back him. And like he said, rapists were on the rung just above child molesters. Even the worst cons had something like morals. “To be honest,” he said, “I did think about killing her.”
“ Really think about it?”
“No, not really. It takes balls to kill somebody, and I lost those in prison. Figuratively speaking.”
“Good,” Pearl said. “I mean about the figurative part.”
She looked for the toothy white smile, but it didn’t appear.
After replacing her notebook and pencil in her purse, she stood up and thanked Sanderson. He straightened up from where he was perched on the chair arm.
She handed him her card. “If you think of something…”
“I won’t,” Sanderson said. “I don’t intend to think of Judith Blaney at all. Alive or dead.”
As Pearl left the apartment, she decided she didn’t blame him.
“I checked out his story,” Pearl told Quinn later that day in the office. “There’s no doubt where he was when Judith Blaney was killed. He’s got seven witnesses confirming his alibi, including a uniformed security guard.”
“So we cross off another one,” Quinn said. “Jock Sanderson isn’t the Skinner.”
“He’s another guy with a drinking problem.”
Quinn nodded where he sat in his desk chair. “What happened to those men, to be wrongly convicted of rape and then serve time, it figures to drive some of them to drink when finally they do get out and realize they still wear the badge of dishonor.”
“I guess,” Pearl said. “It’s a complicated problem with a simple but damned difficult solution.”
“Probably most of the men still alive on our list of thirty-two have a drink or drug problem.”
“Maybe the Skinner does.”
“No,” Quinn said. “I have some idea of what makes him tick.”
Pearl remembered that Quinn himself had once been falsely accused of rape.
“Being falsely accused of a heinous crime has its effects,” Quinn said. “Instead of drinking, shooting up, or sniffing, the Skinner kills.”
“And Jerry Lido becomes a computer maniac.”
“Right.”
“Trading one addiction for another.”
“I suppose.”
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Your addiction is that you need a mission,” Pearl said. “Is that what you traded f
or?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
He smiled. “That would be you or Cuban cigars, Pearl.”
“You’ve already got Cuban cigars, in your desk drawer.”
“That’s a fact, Pearl.”
Jock Sanderson left the AA meeting alone. It had taken place in a room above a restaurant. There was nothing fancy about it, and it could do with a visit from Sweep ’Em Up. There was a slightly raised platform at one end, and metal folding chairs were lined up facing it. A large framed photograph of a smiling President Kennedy hung on the wall across from the door. No one seemed to know why. The room had a separate entrance with a stairway leading up from a door at street level.
Jock had without doubt been the most interesting member there this evening. He’d stood up and told the others everything about Judith’s murder. Well, not everything. He’d almost convinced himself that the torture and murder had occurred as a complete surprise to him. Faking sincerity. He’d long thought that was what got you ahead in life, phony sincerity. If you had luck to go with it. The luck was what Jock had never had, but now maybe things had turned a corner.
Dave, his sponsor, had left the meeting ahead of him and was waiting out on the sidewalk.
“You gonna be okay, Jock?” Dave asked, concern on his alcohol-ravaged face.
“I am,” Jock said. “I was tempted, but I denied myself. I’ll be okay.”
“The devil’s waiting to move in on you if you give it half a chance,” Dave said.
“And I know it, Dave. But I’ve got God on my side now.”
“That’s good. Wanna go for some coffee?”
“I think I need to be alone, Dave. Deal with the grief.”
“You suffer grief over the death of a woman who wrongly accused you of rape?”
“I do. I mean, the way she was killed. So horrible. It requires God’s understanding, Dave, but I can try. Judith Blaney did nothing to me deliberately. She made an honest mistake.”
“You sure of that, Jock?”
“I am. She had no reason to lie.”
Dave stepped back and regarded him. “I think you’re going to be okay, Jock.”
“I am.”
“But stay on your guard.” Dave hugged him, then turned and walked away.
“On my guard,” Jock said after him. “That’s me.”
But he was thinking it was other people who’d better be on their guard.
47
Hogart, 2005
Beth Colson watched the boxy yellow back of the school bus rumble down the dirt drive to the county road and then turn toward the highway. For an instant the pale face of a student was visible staring out the rear window. Not Eddie, she was sure.
Dust raised by the bus was still hanging in the air when Sheriff Wayne Westerley’s cruiser slowed and made a right turn into the drive. It was a gray SUV with SHERIFF lettered on both sides and a roof bar full of lights. There were extra lights mounted on the front, down low and protected by wire guards.
The big vehicle navigated the bumpy dirt drive easily on its oversized knobby tires. Beth moved back to stand by the front porch while Westerley parked near the stand of big oak trees that were showing their golden fall leaves.
He climbed down out of the big SUV and came toward her, smiling. Beth couldn’t help but think how trim and handsome he looked in his tan uniform and black leather cross belt and holster. He even had a black tie on today, tucked in between his uniform shirt’s top two buttons. Beth had always thought that was an odd way for uniformed men to wear their ties. Either you were going to wear a tie or you weren’t.
“Special occasion?” she asked, smiling at Westerley.
He grinned and appeared puzzled.
“You look so dressed up and nice in your uniform.”
“Always special when I come see you, Beth.” He removed his black-visored garrison cap and stopped and stood a few feet away from her. Behind him dust was still settling. A bird started nattering in one of the oaks. “I saw the bus on the way in. Eddie get off to school okay?”
Beth smiled. “Yeah. He’s on the honor roll again this year. Can you believe it?”
“Sure. He’s a super kid.”
“He is that.”
“I got some news,” Westerley said. “Thought it best if I came and told it to you in person.”
Beth felt a cold weight in her stomach. “This bad news?”
He shrugged. “Depends.”
“On what?”
“Who you are, I guess.” He removed his cap and held it before his crotch with both hands, as if he’d forgotten to zip his pants. “Now that DNA makes identification so certain, even after years have passed, there’s this organization, a bunch of lawyers running around the country reopening old crime cases where there were blood samples taken. Those samples, mostly taken to determine blood type, are still around in old evidence files.”
The bird stopped its nattering and the forest around the house was silent. “I heard about that on the news,” Beth said. “They started doing that after the Simpson case.”
“DNA science has gotten more sophisticated since then. And so have the people using it to free wrongly convicted prisoners.”
“Not a bad thing,” Beth said.
“Yeah. Well, this organization looked into the state’s rape case against Vincent Salas.” Westerley moved slightly closer to Beth, as if he wanted to be within range to catch her if she fell. “They determined that Salas couldn’t have been the one who raped you, Beth.”
Beth did feel dizzy. The sky, the woods, the sheriff himself, seemed to spin for a few seconds, as if the earth had tilted. She felt Westerley’s hand on her arm, steadying her.
“That ain’t possible,” she heard herself say.
“It is, Beth. The DNA proved it. Salas’s attorney’s been to the state capital, rushing this thing through. They don’t want an innocent man in prison one day more than he has to be there.”
“Innocent? Can that really be true, that he’s innocent?” A thought hit her hard. “If Salas didn’t rape me, who did?”
“That’s something you don’t need to worry over, after all these years. Besides, the statute of limitations has expired.” Westerley wasn’t positive of that, but it had to be close. “Bastard who did it, from way outta state, the kinda things he’d do and the life he musta led, he might even be dead by now. Time has a way of leveling things out. Let that part of the past stay buried in the past, Beth.”
Westerley was gripping both her arms now, looking down at her from beneath the visor of his cap. “You must have made a mistaken identification, Beth. It happens. You didn’t do it on purpose. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Except send an innocent man to prison.”
“There was plenty of other evidence against him.”
“How could that be, if he wasn’t guilty?”
“It’s that kind of world, Beth. That’s why a jury needs to find beyond a reasonable doubt. The jury in your case thought it was doing just that, that there was no reasonable doubt Salas was the rapist.”
“When’s Salas gonna be released?”
“In three days.”
Beth began to cry and shake her head sadly. “What did I do? Oh, God, what did I do?”
“Your best,” Westerley said. “You believed Salas was the one, or you wouldn’t have pointed him out in a lineup, and in the courtroom. None of this is your fault.”
“All of it’s my fault.”
She was suddenly hugging Westerley, and his arms were around her.
“You want me to be with you when he gets out?” he asked.
“You suppose he’ll be furious with me?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure how he’s gonna feel. I know this: I’m gonna have a talk with him right off. You won’t have anything to fear.”
“I’ve got me to fear, Wayne. My conscience.”
“I don’t see how you could have done anything different, Beth.”
“I coulda
been more sure.”
“It’s so easy to say that after the fact. Knowing what you knew, thinking what you thought, feeling like you did, there wasn’t much else for you to do.”
She looked through a mist of tears up into his eyes. “You really believe that?”
“Damned right I do.”
“I wish I could be as sure as you.”
She dug her forehead into his shoulder, and her body trembled with her sobs. The woods began to trill with the sounds of insects becoming more active in the building heat. A breeze kicked up, stirring the leaves and moving the dust around.
“You want me to stay with you?” he asked.
She hugged him harder. “Yeah, I want you to stay with me.”
I do, and I don’t.
48
New York, the present
Jock Sanderson finished with the tiled floor of the ladies’ room at the Uptown Diamond Theater, then used the wringer on the bucket to press and roll out the mop head.
He stood leaning on the mop’s wooden handle, surveying his work. The cracked gray tiles gleamed as best they could after so many years. The metal stalls were free of graffiti, if you didn’t look too closely at the remains of a lipstick sketch of a huge male organ on one of the stalls. The things women drew and wrote in public restrooms never ceased to amaze Jock.
He made sure he’d put a new plastic liner in the trash receptacle by the door. After a last look around, he backed out of the restroom, pulling the mop and bucket on rollers behind him, making sure the bucket didn’t tip as it thunkthunk-thunked over the tiles. It was good to get away from the smelly ammonia-based disinfectant he’d used to swab down the old walls and floor. His nasal passages were clear enough now, thank you.
The Uptown had only recently been reopened and used for off-Broadway productions. The repertoire group that acted there was currently doing Hamlet. Not Jock’s kind of thing. Too melancholy. Not that Jock walked around with a silly grin pasted on his face. It was just that he believed people could and should do something in this world, make their own way, create their own wake in the water. Like when he was in prison for that rape he’d had no part in. Behind the walls, he’d made himself a cutting tool out of a piece of broken glass he’d found, diligently filing it to shape on concrete and hiding it in his waistband.