Don't Believe It

by Charlie Donlea

  He slipped the pages back into the boxes. He didn’t have the energy to stow them in the closet, but knew Jason would be the first person to arrive this morning. He climbed back into bed and removed his prosthesis. Then he pulled the table over to him. He clicked his pen to life and touched it to the blank page. The heading was easy:

  Dear Ms. Ryan,

  I believe you’ve made a great error ...

  CHAPTER 44

  Tuesday, July 18, 2017

  SIDNEY SPENT THE DAY ON LONG ISLAND SHOOTING SCENES WITH Grace for the final episodes. Grace had a few destinations in mind that she told Sidney she had dreamed about in Bordelais. One of them was the Montauk Point Lighthouse at the far tip of Long Island. Derrick shot footage of Grace climbing the tower and looking out across the water. Sidney, watching Grace stand at the top of the lighthouse, propped on her tiptoes while holding the railing, and with the breeze splaying her sweater behind her like a cape, considered that the scene exemplified the very definition of freedom and might make for the perfect ending to episode ten.

  Finished filming for the day, Sidney crossed the East River at 6:00 p.m., Tuesday, in bumper-to-bumper traffic through the Midtown Tunnel on her way into the city. It was past seven when she dropped the fare over the front seat. A muggy summer night, Sidney immediately missed the cool air-conditioning of the taxi as she walked along East Forty-second Street on the way to McFadden’s Saloon.

  In jeans and a tank top, her skin glowed with a subtle layer of perspiration by the time she entered the restaurant. The air-conditioned interior gave her a chill when she walked in, quickly turning her skin to goose bumps. She spotted Graham Cromwell across the bar and he raised his hand to wave. He slid off the stool as she approached, and Sidney was surprised when he kissed her on the cheek. An overtly private man, Graham had never shown any form of public affection during their brief relationship. What might have transpired between them was a mystery, one that lately Sidney sensed Graham was interested in solving. During times of pure honesty, Sidney admitted to herself that she wondered, too. But there weren’t many success stories that started by sleeping with your boss, and as a fiercely independent woman, Sidney refused to give anyone a reason to call her success something it was not.

  It had been more than a year now since the two had been intimate, and Sidney’s longings had finally faded like an old scar, just a faint splotch of pink remaining where once a wide wound had been. Nowadays their relationship was such that they usually managed at least one lunch during the week, or coffee in the mornings. Sometimes they met for drinks in the evening. Work was always the topic, but it was nice to get away from the stuffiness of the office.

  “Hi,” Graham said.

  Sidney smiled. “What’s gotten into you?”

  “Relax. I’m happy to see you outside the office.”

  “Things have been crazy for the last week or so.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “Today? I don’t know. I got some good footage and sound bites from her. But her reunion last night? Probably the saddest thing I’ve ever seen,” Sidney said. “She’s almost forty years old and she has no one in her life.”

  Graham sat back onto his stool. “But she’s out of jail, so you can hang your hat on that.”

  Sidney took the stool next to him. “It’s so goddamn unfair. She was a young girl on her way to a surgical residency and a promising career. Then, in an effort to put a notch on his belt and settle a terrible crime, some tropical-beach ranger pinned a murder conviction around her neck and ruined her life.”

  “Sid, you’ve done this before. Without you, she’d still be sitting in jail. What’s worse? To be free and starting over, or to be incarcerated? Because those are the only two options.”

  “She didn’t do it, Graham.”

  “Which is why she’s free today.”

  “How does she get the last ten years back?”

  “She doesn’t.” Graham lifted his hand when the bartender passed by. “She’s going to need something. Quickly.”

  “Casamigos on the rocks,” Sidney said.

  “I thought you were a tequila drinker.”

  “I am. It’s George Clooney’s brand.”

  “George Clooney makes tequila?”

  Sidney looked at Graham in the dim light of the tavern. “How old are you?”

  The bartender delivered her drink. Sidney squeezed a lime over the top and took a sip.

  “She doesn’t get the years back, Sid,” Graham said after a moment of silence. “But she gets the next ten years. And the ten after that. And it’s all because of your work.”

  “You know the worst part? Her best friend, one of the only people who stayed in touch with her, is a successful doctor.”

  “Why is that a bad thing? Isn’t her friend helping her out?”

  “She is. But years ago, they went to medical school at the same time. Now Grace’s friend is set up in this crazy apartment at Windsor Tower. She’s got a bustling private practice and her whole damn life set up pretty as can be. The entire time I was with Grace the other night, I could see it in her eyes. She was imagining her own life if things had not gone to hell.”

  “Why has this gotten you so wound up? You’ve done this three other times and it’s never bothered you like this.”

  Sidney spun her drink as the ice formed beaded condensation that rolled down onto the mahogany bar. “I don’t know. It’s just a travesty. You know my desk is filled with letters begging for help, each writer claiming to have been wrongly convicted? I know they can’t all be correct, but how many of them are?”

  She stared at her tequila and thought of her trips to Baldwin State Prison.

  “I don’t mean to be insensitive,” Graham said after a moment of silence. “But who the hell cares? Currently you sure shouldn’t. You’ve got the biggest story in the country sitting in your lap. You’ve got the most-watched documentary in television history on your shoulders. Twenty-two million people tuned in last Friday. That’s bigger than The Jinx. Bigger than Making a Murderer. And you’ve got three episodes left to produce. That’s where your focus should be, not on a bunch of envelopes sitting on your desk from a bunch of deadbeats hoping to get lucky. You’re not a crusader, Sid. You’re a filmmaker. And you’re on a helluva run. Don’t get sidetracked with sentimentality. You want to help all the wrongfully convicted? Well,” Graham said, picking up his drink, “you can’t, because sadly there are too many for one person to tackle. That’s what the Innocence Project is for, and all the other organizations that fight on behalf of the wrongly convicted. You want to help someone else when you’re done with The Girl of Sugar Beach? Good. The network wants that as well. You want the details now, or you want to be surprised when you come in tomorrow?”

  “I don’t really care about the next one, Graham.”

  “I think you’ll change your mind when you see the details.”

  Sidney shook her head. “I doubt it.”

  Graham tipped his scotch back and emptied his glass. “You want to mourn for Grace Sebold? Fine. She’ll never be a doctor like her friend. That’s too bad. But she’s likely to get a truckload of money when she sues the St. Lucian government, so financially she’ll do just fine. She won’t get those years back, but that’s why it’s a story. That’s why it’s the biggest documentary we’ve ever seen. So worry and fret all you want, but do it after you finish this documentary.”

  Sidney took a sip of Casamigos and stared into the mirror behind the bar, her image intermittently blocked by a score of liquor bottles.

  “Spoken like a true suit,” she said.

  “You’ll excuse my concern. I put my reputation on the line to get this project green-lit.”

  “I’d say you’re doing pretty well on that bet.”

  “And I want to make sure it pays off for both of us. Where are you with Friday’s episode?”

  Sidney continued to stare into the mirror. “I’m meeting with Leslie early tomorrow to make the final cuts. I’ll have it
to production by noon.”

  Sidney took another sip of her drink and wondered how this casual meeting had gone to crap so quickly.

  “You hungry?” Graham finally asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Christ, Sid. Please don’t steal defeat from the jaws of victory.” Graham stood and dropped two twenties next to his empty scotch and walked out of the bar. She watched him leave, following his image through the myriad liquor bottles in the mirror. When he was gone, she finished her drink and ordered another.

  She was halfway through her second tequila when a man took a seat on the stool next to her. She looked down the bar at the several open spots where he could have chosen to sit. Before Sidney could contemplate whether he was going to offer to buy her a drink or whether this guy simply had no appreciation for personal space, he turned to her.

  “Are you Sidney Ryan?”

  “Depends on who wants to know.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  “Jason.”

  “What paper do you work for, Jason?”

  “I’m not a reporter. I just need to give you this.” He pulled a white envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and slid it across the bar.

  “Let me guess,” Sidney said. “A relative is in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”

  “Nope,” Jason said as he stood up. “But before you get too much further in your documentary, you better read that. Have a good night.”

  It was the second time in ten minutes that a man had promptly walked away from her. This time, Sidney turned from the bar to watch him exit through the front door and into the summer night. When the stranger was gone, she twisted her stool back to the bar and looked at the envelope he had left. She picked it up, slid her finger under the flap, and pulled out the single page. She looked around the bar before she read it, as if some great secret might be revealed within. It was written in a man’s abrupt penmanship.

  Dear Ms. Ryan,

  I believe you’ve made a great error with Grace Sebold. Please look up the name Henry Anderson, a boy who died in 1999. I believe you will find the circumstances of his death very interesting.

  Sincerely,

  Ret. Det. Gustavo Morelli

  Sidney read the letter again. She looked around the bar to see if anyone was watching. Conversations happened all around, and no one paid attention to her. She brought her phone to life and typed Henry Anderson into the browser. There were many Henrys in the world with the last name Anderson, so she refined her search with 1999 and boy killed.

  An article came to the top of the browser: BOY’S DEATH IN TRAGIC MOUNTAIN FALL RULED ACCIDENTAL.

  Sidney skimmed the article, her eyes stopping halfway through when she spotted the name. Henry Anderson was a high-school senior when he fell to his death while hiking a mountain trail, apparently getting too close to the edge of a bluff and tragically falling. The cause of death, determined by the medical examiner’s autopsy, was due to a head trauma from the fall—a large fracture in the back of Henry’s skull. He was on vacation at the time of the accident with his girlfriend’s family.

  The girlfriend’s name . . .

  Grace Sebold.

  JURY DELIBERATION DAY 3

  “If we move past the murder weapon, which I believe from day one’s debate we all agree is a damning piece of evidence that cannot be refuted, no matter how many times we go over the arguments of the defense—and if we agree to stick only with the facts that we know about the blood that was discovered in the room, then today we should talk about motive,” Harold said.

  “The judge explained that motive is important because it will help prove or disprove premeditation. So I’d like to open the floor to debate. If we agree that she did it, and how she did it, can we now hash out why she did it?”

  “Why?” the retired teacher said. “Because she had done it before.”

  Harold held up his hands in a calm show of protest. “That’s speculation. The prosecution created a clever slogan in their closing arguments. But the defense objected to this reference of past wrongdoings, and the judge sustained the objection. We were instructed to disregard that comment, and the entire line of questioning that had to do with past misconduct. The judge was very clear that we should consider only the facts presented to us during this hearing. One victim, one trial, nothing else from the past should come into play.”

  “How can it not influence us? She killed other people!”

  PART IV

  THE OTHER SIDE

  CHAPTER 45

  Wednesday, July 19, 2017

  WEDNESDAY MORNING SIDNEY PULLED INTO THE LOT OF ALCOVE Manor, a rehabilitation center. Her grandmother died in a place like this, and Sidney had been leery of them ever since. Today she had no choice but to make a visit. Her cell phone rang just as she parked her car.

  “Hello?”

  “Sid, where the hell are you?” Leslie asked.

  “I meant to call you. Something’s come up. I won’t be in until later.”

  “When? The draft of episode eight is due today and we’re not even close on the edits. Graham has already been down this morning asking about it. He said you promised he’d have it by noon. Production is having a fit.”

  “How close are we?”

  “On the edits? Not close. I need your input.”

  “You’ll have to stall. I can’t get there until later today.”

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “I’m in the city, but I’ve got to take care of something. I’ll call you later.”

  “We’re going to miss the deadline.”

  “It’ll be the first one we missed. They’ll forgive us. We’ve got the biggest audience on television and we should start acting like it. Call you in a bit.”

  Sidney ended the call. It was just past 9:00 a.m. when she walked through the front entrance of Alcove Manor. She headed for the reception desk, where a young woman sat paging through a magazine.

  “Hi,” Sidney said as she approached. “I’m visiting.”

  “Sign in, please,” the girl said. She pointed to a log for Sidney to print her name, and removed a visitor badge from a sheet of labels.

  “I’m not sure of the room number,” Sidney said. “This is my first visit.”

  The girl handed Sidney the badge. “What’s the name?”

  “Gustavo Morelli.”

  The girl typed the name into the computer. “Two thirty-two,” she said. “Take the elevator to the second level. It’ll be to your left.”

  Sidney attached the visitors badge to her lapel and rode the elevator to the second floor. When the doors opened a few minutes later, she walked onto the floor of the rehab facility, which shone with unnatural fluorescence and smelled from ammonia. Nurses in rose-red scrubs pushed carts down hallways and sat around computers at the station that occupied the middle of the unit. Two physicians in long white coats scribbled orders while they stood at the counter of the nurses’ station. Sidney walked to room 232 and peered inside. She saw a hospital bed lumpy with an occupant’s feet under the covers. She entered to find the man propped up in bed eating breakfast and reading the newspaper.

  “Detective Morelli?” she asked.

  The man looked up, folded his paper, and placed it on the table in front of him, covering his half-eaten breakfast. “That was fast,” he said.

  “You know how to get someone’s attention.”

  “Sorry I sent the kid the way I did. My goal was to track you down myself, but I couldn’t make that happen fast enough.”

  He pointed to the crumpled mess of blankets that covered his lower body.

  “Sit down,” he said. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

  * * *

  “The brass were convinced it was an accident,” Gus said. “The kid fell off a mountain ridge while he was hiking, end of story. When the pathologist finished his report and determined the cause of death to be internal bleeding from the trauma of the fall, that was the end of it.”

/>   “But not for you.”

  “I had my doubts back then. I saw a group of high-school kids that were covering for each other. Something sinister happened to Henry Anderson, and at least a few of those kids knew what it was.”

  “What stirred your suspicion?” Sidney asked.

  “You conduct enough interviews during your tenure and you learn to pick up a vibe. During the Henry Anderson case, I picked up a bad one. But it was me against the world on that case. I was at the start of my detective career, I didn’t have a ton of clout, and I had to choose my battles. I was stuck out in the sticks, and I wanted into the city. Bottom line—I was in no position to make waves. But those doubts about the Henry Anderson case never left me. Then the Sebold girl was brought to trial eight years later for the death of another boyfriend. I fought with my superiors to convince them that she was involved with Henry’s death, even went over their heads when they told me to forget about Henry Anderson. Nearly lost my job for insubordination. When Grace Sebold was convicted, I was supposed to be satisfied with the fact that she’d spend her life in jail.”

  Gus shifted in bed.

  “I never was satisfied, though. And my suspicions never died. Since I started watching your documentary, they’ve been rekindled.”

  Sidney nodded her head. “For what it’s worth, you’ve got me thinking as well.”

  “Listen, I’m a detective. I used to be, anyway. We do a lot of our work on instinct and hunch. But we also do a lot on straightforward common sense, and here’s some for you. If a girl’s boyfriend dies by falling off a mountain bluff once, it’s a sad case of bad luck. If that same girl has two boyfriends fall off a mountain in the same lifetime”—Gus looked at her—“that ain’t luck—bad or otherwise. That’s suspicious.”