“It was a wild, wonderful, magic night,” I say. “The kind that nothing bad can happen on—or so most of us probably thought. You guys were happy—happy as angst-ridden teenagers get. You were full of life and love and alcohol and drugs and—the group here at the Fiesta was essentially having an orgy on the dance floor.”
“It’s true, we were,” Amber says.
“We really did feel so much . . . love,” McKenna says.
“Old feelings got stirred up,” I say. “New feelings got stirred up.”
“Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol,” Billy says.
“Qwon’s been having a recurring nightmare or fragments of guilt-ridden memories all these years,” I say. “He dreams or remembers making out with an old girlfriend. And he did. And that’s what got Angel killed.”
Several people look at Zelda.
“How?” MeKenna says. “Tell us how.”
“Angel was at Kim and Ken’s but was bored and decided to walk back up toward Fiesta, which she did,” I say. “And that single act, that decision determined her fate. Because when she got close she saw Qwon making out with another girl—and not just any girl. An old girlfriend. And not just any making out, but a passionate, true love kind of making out. But as bad as all that was, what bothered her even more, what disturbed her to her core was who he was making out with. His own sister, Kathryn.”
203
The reaction everyone gives is what I expect.
Ida, Kay, and Mary Elizabeth gasp.
Several of Kathryn’s classmates, including Amber and McKenna, and Paige, shake their heads.
“It all came together for me when I saw y’all dancing and remembered that night,” I say.
“No fuckin’ way, man,” Billy says. “There’s just no way.”
Qwon looks at Kathryn, the sadness and guilt and betrayal palpable.
“There’s a reason why Kathryn dedicated her life to freeing Qwon,” I say. “Even went to law school. Never got married or had kids. But in all that time she wasn’t really going after anyone else, just trying to free Qwon. Both because she loves him, but also because she’s actually guilty of the crime. It’s why she had the defense team do polygraphs of all the witnesses—but limited them to questions about Qwon. Ordinarily a test like that would ask ‘Did you kill Angel Diaz?’ or ‘Do you know who did? or ‘Did you have anything to do with the death of Angel Diaz?’ Questions like that.”
Henry and Ida stare at me in shock and confusion. Mary Elizabeth is crying. Buck is growing angrier by the second. Kay is weeping quietly.
“Qwon and Kathryn had dated before their parents ever met,” I say. “And Kathryn was still in love with him. Maybe he was still in love with her, too. Maybe in his drug-altered state he kissed her and loved her like he used to. He had gone out to get more alcohol and ecstasy out of his car. Kathryn followed him and asked him to grab her jacket, but he didn’t hear her. She stayed out there, said she was getting fresh air, but she was waiting for him. She lied and said she saw Justice walking down Beach Drive—something she’s never mentioned before, but Derrick walked down Beach around that time from the park and never saw him. When Qwon came back, high and drunk and touchy feely, he and Kathryn began kissing and making out, maybe even started having sex. They weren’t the first or the last to do so out there.”
“No,” Mary Elizabeth says.
“They wouldn’t do that,” Henry adds.
“Oh, my God,” Qwon says. “We . . . we . . . Oh God.”
I think about Qwon’s dreams and memories and wonder how little he really remembers. How much is a black hole of alcohol and drugs—including more than just ecstasy and maybe even GHB—and how much is the result of PTSD and repression?
The group of classmates pulls back from Kathryn and Qwon. It’s slight, nearly imperceptible, but it happens.
I look over at Ida, trying to gage her reaction. We’ve been here before.
“No, Son,” Henry says. “You wouldn’t do that.”
“No,” Mary Elizabeth says. “Please no.”
“I was . . . so out of it,” Qwon says. “I . . . she’s not my sister.”
“She’s your stepsister,” Henry says.
Darius shakes his head. “I was so in love with you,” he says to Kathryn. “While I was inside watching your drink so nobody put anything in it, you were outside fucking your brother in the parking lot like a goddamn dog. All these years I . . . I carried a torch for you. You were the one that got away. What a fuckin’ fool.”
“Your friends called you Jungle Fever,” I say to Kathryn. “But it wasn’t as general as they thought, was it? It wasn’t black guys. You had it bad for one guy in particular—Qwon, who happened to be black.”
She won’t look at me in the eye.
“What was I?” Darius says, “a fuckin’ substitute? A beard? Is that why you wouldn’t sleep with me? Because of him?”
“Angel walked up and saw them,” I say.
“Honey, please tell me he’s wrong,” Mary Elizabeth says to Kathryn.
Kathryn is crying now, looking down, shaking her head.
Everyone continues to distance themselves from her, even her parents. She’s growing more and more isolated.
“Angel saw y’all and Kathryn saw her.”
“You did?” Qwon says to her. “I never saw her. You really did? Oh God . . . she must have thought . . . the last thing she thought was . . .”
“While Qwon went back in the club—we know he went in alone because Amber said she grabbed him and danced with him, but never mentioned Kathryn because she didn’t come back in until later. She chased Angel down to . . . what?”
“Just to explain,” Kathryn says, looking up, but not making eye contact. “To say he wasn’t really my brother. That we were together before our parents ruined it for us. To tell her it wasn’t sick or perverted or anything that she thought and . . . to apologize to her. I was so sorry for what we had done, and that she had seen it.”
“What happened?” I ask.
“She wouldn’t stop or even slow down,” Kathryn says. “Wouldn’t . . . She kept saying she was going to tell everyone, that she was going to let everyone know how sick we were. She was upset, like repulsed, and she kept yelling as she ran. I asked her to stop, to stop running, to stop yelling before someone heard her, but she wouldn’t. Said she was going to tell our parents and everyone at school. I . . . I didn’t mean to kill her . . . I mean . . . I didn’t intend to. I was just trying to talk to her, to get her to quit running and yelling and . . . but she wouldn’t. I was just trying to get her to let me explain, but she wouldn’t.”
Mary Elizabeth keeps shaking her head, wiping tears. “This can’t be . . .”
Henry can no longer look at Kathryn, but Buck can. He’s staring at her with a frightening, fiery intensity.
Kathryn and Qwon’s classmates look on in stunned silence, their faces masks of confusion and revulsion.
“Did she make it to her car?” I say.
“She stumbled and tripped as she got close to it—which just made her more hysterical. She was so . . . She just lost it and so did I. I had been drinking and . . . I had so much adrenaline and fear and . . . all just pumping through me. I . . . I grabbed her as she tried to get up. She . . . jerked away. I . . . I grabbed her even harder and shook her—just trying to get her to calm down, but she wouldn’t. It only made it worse. She called me a slut and a whore and a . . . said I committed incest and that soon everyone would know it, that mine and Qwon’s lives would be ruined. I . . . I just snapped. Just like that. So much rage. I slammed her head against the tire well of her car and . . . just . . . wrapped my hands around her throat.”
She makes eye contact for the first time, searching the gathered group for understanding, for any hint of compassion.
“I was so . . .” she begins, then stops. “It was like I was outside of my body, like I was watching someone else do it. I’m so sorry. So sorry. Please forgive me.”
“Never,” Buck yells and charges her
.
I grab him from the front and Pinter gets him from the back.
We pull him away from her and he shrugs us off and walks back over to his wife and hugs her, breaking down and crying with her.
I turn back to her. “Was it premeditated?”
“No,” she says. “Absolutely not.”
“When did you take the keys from Qwon?”
“I—”
“When you first saw her?” I ask. “When you and Qwon were still . . . being intimate and you had access to his pockets or—”
“No. Absolutely not. I went back for them. I rolled her body under her car. Went back for them. I swear. I . . . I made sure everyone saw me again. Took his keys while we danced. Went back and . . .”
“Put Angel’s body in the trunk,” I say.
She nods.
“Then hid it. Did you take it home then or just hide it somewhere else?”
“I . . . I hid it then. Later when we were all looking for her, I drove it to her—to out in front of her house and walked back downtown. Only took ten minutes or so.”
“So you and Amber saw it on your way home,” I say.
She nods.
“Amber falls asleep and you go back for the car,” I say. “You . . . you had worked on a sex trafficking project in school. Knew one of those hotels or brothels would be the perfect place to dump her body. You reached out to Natasha Phillips to do a podcast about Qwon’s case, told her you knew of her because of the reporting she had done on sex trafficking in Florida. So you drove to Jacksonville with her body in the trunk. Did you take your mom’s cellphone? Angel’s? Will the records show pings to them from your trip? You then took off all her clothes and everything that would identify her. You left the necklace that had been her grandmother’s but you took off the ring Qwon had given her. That stood out to me. Did you stage it to look like she had been sexually assaulted there or had you already done that?”
The group expresses various forms of verbal and nonverbal revulsion and takes another slight step back, away from her.
She shakes her head and begins to cry. “I . . . she . . . she was already dead. I wouldn’t have done anything to . . . I just wanted it to look like she was . . . by a guy.”
“How’d you do it?” I ask. “Where?”
She shakes her head again. “I can’t. I . . .”
“You certainly fuckin’ can,” Buck says. “Tell us. If you can do that sick fuckin’ shit to my little girl you can goddamn sure tell us. NOW.”
“I . . . a condom on the end of a . . . of the . . . tire iron I found in the trunk.”
Kay begins to sob.
Buck grabs a chair and hurls it across the courtyard.
“I’m so sorry,” Kathryn says. “It was just to make it look like . . . I . . . I’m so—”
“Don’t you fuckin’ say you’re sorry again,” Buck says. “Don’t you fuckin’ dare. I’ll kill you if you do. I swear. I swear to Christ I will.”
She almost apologizes to him, but catches herself.
“Then you drove home, parked the car at the airport, walked or hitchhiked home. Amber thought you left before she woke up because you got a call about Angel being missing, but you hadn’t been there all night.”
“How could you?” Qwon says.
“I . . . love you. Always have.”
I recall her singing I Will Always Love You the night we went out to the Saltshaker Lounge, all the raw emotion she expressed, her tears, and I now know why—now know who she was singing it to.
“You let me sit in prison for eighteen years,” he says, shaking his head, seeming unable to understand. “Eighteen years.”
“I . . . I never intended to. I kept thinking I could get you out and stay out myself so we could be together. I tried everything. I knew I could get you out and I did. Finally.”
Qwon continues to shake his head, seeming incapable of processing any of this like everyone else gathered here.
“I’m so sorry,” Justice says, shaking his head. “I had no idea. They told me you did it.”
“I understand,” Qwon says. “I do. I got no . . . Half my life’s over. Got no time for hate or grudges.”
“I took money,” he says. “The Crime Stoppers reward. I’m . . . I feel so ashamed. I’ll pay back every cent. I’ll make it right. I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you have the best life possible. I swear it.”
Kathryn looks at her parents, at Ida, at her classmates. “Please forgive me. I didn’t mean to. I’m . . . so . . . for what I did. I honestly am.”
“You could’ve confessed years ago,” Kay says. “Could’ve let us know where our daughter’s body was. They cremated her and scattered her ashes in the Atlantic. We didn’t get to . . . she was alone all that time. She was put to rest as a Jane Doe. No. You could’ve done something years go. You didn’t. Buck’s right. Don’t act like you’re sorry now. Don’t ask for our forgiveness now just because you got caught. Don’t you dare.”
“She’s right, child,” Ida says. “You could’ve ended Qwon’s suffering. Theirs. You did nothing.”
“I did everything I could to free—to get Qwon out. Hell, I helped John solve the case. Ask him? I’ve always been so torn. I helped him find out what happened to the body. I—”
“Only while trying to save your own skin.”
“No. That’s what I’m saying. I wanted to make it right. I did. I tried. And eventually I . . . have. I’m . . . everyone knows now and I helped make that happen. But what happened to Angel was just an accident.”
Billy says, “I think somebody needs to explain to your ass what the definition of accident is.”
“It was no accident,” Ida says.
“I mean I didn’t mean to do it. I just snapped. I would never do something like that. Not ever. I know because I never did anything like that before and I’ve never done anything like that since. But since there was nothing I could do for her at that point . . .”
“Say her name, goddamnit,” Buck yells. “Don’t just say her. You murdered Angel. My Angel.”
“Angel,” Kathryn says, “I couldn’t do anything for Angel, but . . . I could try to do something for Qwon and me. And I tried. I tried so hard. Time just passed by and before I knew it, eighteen years had passed. I didn’t marry. I didn’t have kids. I really didn’t have a life. I just worked on freeing the man I love. I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could undo . . . what happened. Don’t you think I would if I could?”
“You could’ve done so much more than you did,” Kay says.
Buck looks at Henry and Mary Elizabeth. “We stood up for Qwon,” he says. “Stood by y’all all this time and . . . your . . . kid . . . killed mine. Murdered her. After . . . committing incest. My Angel did nothing wrong. Nothing. She just walked up on . . .”
“We had no idea,” Henry says. “We would’ve done something if we did. You know we would.”
“What you could’ve done was not raise an evil, murderous bitch.”
“I’m not evil,” Kathryn says. “I’m not murderous. I snapped and in an instant I committed one terrible, horrible act.”
“One?” Billy says. “One? I think somebody needs to explain to your ass what the definition of one is.”
I know how long it takes to strangle someone and it’s far more than an instant. She had ample opportunity to stop, to gather herself and undo what she was doing before the point at which it couldn’t be undone. And she didn’t.
Pinter steps over to Kathryn and begins cuffing her.
“No,” Mary Elizabeth says. “Not my . . . We just got Qwon back. Don’t take our—”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Kathryn says. “It’s what I deserve. I’m sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. I really didn’t. Please know that. Please know I’m not a bad person. I just lost it once in a drug-addled state. Mr and Mrs. Diaz and . . . Qwon . . . I’ve caused you so much pain, done you the most wrong. I . . . I don’t have any more words. Just . . . I’m so .
. . I truly, truly am.”
Pinter leads her out.
For a long beat no one says anything, just stands there in stunned, drained silence, the only sounds soft cries and sniffles.
Eventually, slowly, wordlessly people begin to drift out of the courtyard, onto the sidewalk, and disappear into the night.
I check on Ida, Qwon, the Diazes, and thank Merrill and Za again.
Then Anna takes my hand and takes me home.
204
“You okay?” Anna asks.
We’re on Highway 22 heading home. The night is dark and a low fog hovers over the highway. It has been several miles since we passed a car and our headlights are diffused and ineffectual.
I nod.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Takes a toll. Wouldn’t have chosen any of it. But . . . knew when I signed up for this work there were no happy endings.”
She starts to say something, but I interrupt her.
“Except,” I add, “we’re going home together.”
“Doesn’t get any happier ending than that,” she says. “That and we get Johanna tomorrow. We’ll all be together this weekend.”
“Wasn’t long ago I’d get to the end of a case and didn’t have that.”
“Has Susan said when she’s moving down here?”
“Plans to look for a place this weekend,” I say. “Heading over there after she drops Johanna off.”
“So you don’t have to drive to Atlanta and back?”
“I do not.”
“Oh, that’s just . . . the best news. I want you to sleep in and spend the day relaxing and resting when you’re not making love to me.”
“You got it.”
“Thought any more about resigning one of your jobs?” she asks.
I shake my head. “That one’s in the suspension folder for now. Gonna give it a little more time before I do anything.”
“You sure you’re okay? I was worried about how you might be feeling about Ida, about how this affects her,” she says. “Given how it . . . ended, who it was. I didn’t want you feeling even guiltier than you did before you agreed to help her again.”
True Crime Fiction Page 81