In the Waning Light

by Loreth Anne White

  Ike’s face darkened. “And it’s why Jack stopped drinking when he came here. He knew it triggered his temper. He moved to the coast and started fresh here. Before Sherry was born.”

  “So you knew all this about him.”

  “Where in the hell are you going with this?”

  “Who else knew this about my dad?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of people, I suppose.”

  “So if someone was aware of this propensity in my father, and riled him up by telling him that Ty Mack would likely be acquitted if he was in fact charged, based on the evidence in hand, and then told him where Ty, the man who raped and strangled his daughter, was hiding out in a cabin—”

  “Whoa! Enough right there.” Dave pushed off the wall, looming between Meg and his dad. “We had a deal. The file boxes.”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “Not with this line of questioning you’re not.”

  She held his glare. “Okay. Okay, I’ll move on.” She cleared her throat. “My mother secured interrogation transcripts, copies of the autopsy report, and crime scene details from Ty Mack’s defense counsel, Lee Albies.”

  Ike and Dave stiffened. Dave seated himself slowly on the small chair to Meg’s left.

  “She stored these files in boxes in a wall safe behind the bookshelf. It was discovered when my aunt, Irene Brogan, set fire to our living room.” Meg took another sip of water. “From the evidence in those reports, my mother came to believe that Ty Mack might have been innocent.”

  Phyllis’s hand flew to her mouth and her gaze shot to her husband. Ike stared unblinking at Meg. Not a muscle in his body moved. He didn’t seem surprised. Rather he seemed coiled, guarded, ready to attack.

  “According to the report, there were several other sources of unidentified DNA found on scene—”

  “It was a make-out spot,” Ike interjected. “The unidentified DNA was found in discarded condoms. There were also beer cans and a spirit bottle with DNA. This evidence was incidental to our case.”

  “Yet one of those unidentified DNA profiles also matched hair found in Sherry’s pubic area, and it came from a condom that bore trace evidence of Sherry’s blood.”

  “That condom was found in a muddy pool that Sherry had bled into,” said Ike. “We could not rule out the strong possibility of cross contamination”

  “And the hair evidence?”

  “Same. High probability of cross contamination. We had our guy. His semen was all over Sherry. Her skin was under his nails.” He leaned forward, breathing heavily. “Look, I’ll be the first to admit the scene was not adequately secured. Mistakes were made. We had members unfamiliar with murder scene protocol arrive first. There was confusion with the search-and-rescue volunteers tramping all over the place, and the rain and gale-force winds severely hampered our efforts. Three times the uniforms tried to erect cover. Three times the storm tore the tent away.”

  “Cross contamination,” Meg said quietly. “Yet, the existence of other DNA, a condom with Sherry’s trace on it, could suggest another perpetrator, no?”

  He glowered at her.

  “Which in turn would likely hamper securing a murder conviction in court for Ty Mack, wouldn’t it? Because in the eyes of the jury there could have been grounds for reasonable doubt.”

  “Which is exactly why we didn’t charge Tyson Mack right away. Which is why we were continuing our investigation.”

  “But Tyson Mack remained the prime suspect.”

  “The only one. We knew he did it.”

  She let that hang a moment, turned the page in her notebook, looked up. “So, no other suspects? No other possible motive? No other avenue of investigation was pursued?”

  “I told you. Tyson Mack was our guy. His DNA was on Sherry. He admitted to rough intercourse. She had his skin under her nails. He had scratches on his back, consistent with the skin under her nails. You yourself saw her climbing onto the back of Tyson Mack’s bike. Emma Williams, Sherry’s best friend, said Sherry called her to say that she was going with Mack to the spit.”

  “What about the pregnancy?”

  Ike’s face darkened. The room fell silent. Nothing moved. Tension swelled thick between them.

  “Sherry was several weeks pregnant. You never told my parents.”

  “Ike?” Phyllis said, eyes wide. “Is this true?”

  “It would have hurt them, Megan,” he said softly, but a vein was swelling purple on his temple. His breathing had quickened. “It would have served no purpose other than hurt. Your father had already killed Ty. It could also have cost him at trial, too, if the pregnancy had been made public.”

  “It would have hurt his case, yes, because it would have raised serious questions about Ty Mack’s guilt. It would have put another unidentified suspect into the picture—one you never found, or investigated—”

  “Right. I’m done here.” Ike made to get up.

  “One more question. My mother wrote in her journal that she was being followed, and that our house was being watched.” Meg spoke quickly. She was losing Ike’s cooperation. “She detailed several instances, including someone trying to break into her house, and a vehicle following her too closely, trying to run her off the road, and a vehicle watching the house from down the street. She called you to report it, didn’t she?”

  Ike glanced at his wife, who’d paled. “It wasn’t an official report,” he said.

  “But she did phone you the night before she died. She told you she was scared.” Meg turned her page, making as if she was consulting her notes. “What did you say to her? Oh, right.” Meg looked up. “You told her that her medication—medication she apparently overdosed on the next day—was making her paranoid?”

  Ike’s face turned beet red. He lunged to his feet, knocking over his untouched coffee. “You—” He pointed at her face. “You get out of my house. Now.”

  “Dad.” Dave grabbed his father’s arm. “Relax. You’re working yourself up. You gotta keep your heart rate down.”

  Phyllis scrambled for a cloth to start mopping up the spill, her neat hair bun coming undone, silver strands spilling over her eyes. “Is it true, Ike? Did Tara call you for help?” she said, wet cloth in hand. “Is it true, Meg?”

  “It’s what my mother wrote in her journal the night before she died.” Meg got to her feet. Blake took her cue and rose as well. Meg could see the fire in his eyes, the tension in his muscles, and she loved him for restraining himself because she knew how tough it was for an impulsive man like Blake.

  She picked up her recorder, the red record light still glowing, and said, “Is it possible, Ike, that my mother did not take her own life?”

  He went dead still. Sweat beaded his brow. His face was a disturbing shade of purple now. “What … on earth … do you mean?”

  “I think my mother might have been getting too close to Sherry’s real killer. I think someone might have wanted to silence her. Did you not consider looking into that possibility after my mom’s death, especially since she reported her concerns to you?”

  “Murder?” Phyllis said, her voice tight. “You think someone murdered Tara?”

  “Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House.” Ike turned, stormed toward the door. But he stalled in the doorway, and spun around, breathing heavily. “You wanna blame someone for feeding your dad’s temper, for winding him into killer mode? You go visit that public defender bitch. If anyone is to blame for any of this, it’s her.”

  “Ike!” Phyllis snapped.

  “I’m done. I’m done here.” He swung the door open wide. “Get out.”

  “Why did you sit on the fact she was pregnant?” Dave said to his father as Meg and Blake went down to their vehicle. He watched them from the window.

  “You heard me. I was trying to protect that family. And this is the thanks I get? What’s it going to be now? In a book? For the whole damn nation to read?”

  “It’s not right,” Phyllis said. “None of this is right. You should have told Tara and Jac
k right away.”

  “What’s not right is her writing that book. Jack was in prison. Tara was a wreck, grieving her daughter, coming to terms with the brutal murder of her beautiful child, her husband about to stand trial for killing the rapist. What good would it have done anyone at that point? I knew Tara would be able to get her hands on that report when she was ready, and she did.”

  “And look at what happened—now she’s dead.”

  “This is not my fault, Phyllis. None of this is my fault. I did my best by that family. And whether Sherry was pregnant or not, Tyson Mack was my man. He did it. I have not one question of doubt in my mind.”

  “This is why you should have let one of your detectives take the lead,” Phyllis snapped. “And the least you could have done is given Tara some protection.”

  He poured a stiff whiskey, took a deep pull, sunk into his chair, and cursed.

  “You shouldn’t be drinking that.”

  “Let me die in peace, woman—if I’m going to kick the bucket I’d rather do it drunk.”

  Dave said, “Do you have any idea who the father of her baby was?”

  He looked up at his boy and held his eyes for several beats. “No.”

  “And it wasn’t Tommy’s, or Ty Mack’s?”

  “No.”

  Dave’s gaze locked on his father’s. Silence, tension, swelled.

  “Dave was riding on your long-standing reputation in this county, Ike, and now—”

  “Still a damn fine legacy,” Ike snapped.

  “Perception,” Dave said quietly. “Politics is all about perception. And the story will now be all about Meg and the ‘botched Sherry Brogan case.’” He dug his fingers into his duty belt and stood there awhile, watching Meg taking photos of his parents’ house. Electricity crackled quiet and deep in his veins. He wanted to win the top job. But Meg Brogan was like a dog with a bone. It didn’t help that Blake Sutton had her back. His thoughts turned to Geoff.

  Meg was right about one thing—this case was off. And he had to fix it. Or lose the election.

  “You’ve pretty much got it all summed up right,” Lee Albies said, pouring tea. “I joined the Chillmook Criminal Defense Consortium as a volunteer when I retired from my practice in Portland. I believed in Ty Mack. He was a convenient scapegoat for a sheriff with tunnel vision, hell-bent on seeing justice done at any cost in a case he was taking far too personally, and with no oversight.”

  She seated herself opposite Meg and Blake, picked up her china teacup and saucer. She was a tanned and slender woman in her late seventies. Short, spiky silver hair, big red-framed glasses. An African gray parrot paced on a stand behind her, repeating the phrase “Hello my pretty. Hello my pretty. And how is my pretty today.”

  Lee sipped her Darjeeling with care, and gave an appreciative sigh. “It’s my hobby horse, I’m afraid. I have a vehement hatred for prejudice in law. And in Ty’s case, it was class, economic prejudice. In my view Ike Kovacs had blinders on when it came to Ty Mack, the dark half-breed from the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak, raping the golden girl of Shelter Point. The town homecoming queen.”

  “What made you so certain that Ty would be acquitted in the event he was charged and stood trial?” Meg said, checking that the red light on her recorder was still lit.

  “While I was prepping in the event that Ty might be charged, and that we might go to trial, I used the services of a private investigator. He dug up a witness who was prepared to testify that Tyson Mack’s bike was indeed at the Forest Lane trailhead at the time he claimed to have dropped Sherry Brogan off.”

  “A witness?”

  She lifted a plate of cookies, held it out to Meg. “Want one?”

  “No, thanks. What witness?”

  The plate of cookies was offered to Blake. He shook his head, eyes riveted on Lee Albies.

  “Her name was Ethel McCray. She was blind. She’s deceased now.” Albies set the plate carefully on the table, and met Meg’s eyes. “Of course, had we gone to trial the prosecution would have moved quickly to discredit her on the grounds that she was blind, and old, and possibly confused, but I planned to show a jury how Ethel McCray could identify make and model of vehicles simply by the sound of an idling engine, and she clearly heard Ty’s one-of-a-kind cruiser. There were voices, too, a male and a female, but their words were drowned out by the sound of the engine, according to Ethel.”

  “Did Ike Kovacs know about Ethel McCray?”

  Albies nodded. “He brought her in to identify Ty out of a lineup, by voice. Which of course she couldn’t do because the engine was too loud and she hadn’t heard him properly. Kovacs dismissed her as unreliable in terms of his investigation.” She leaned forward. “Now here’s the kicker. There was also a vagrant living in his car in the state park. His name was Milo Sinovich, a vet. He’s also deceased now, but he told my PI that he saw a red VW van parked behind trees near the trail that led to this infamous make-out spot where Sherry Brogan was strangled. The van was parked there after Tyson Mack had allegedly dropped Sherry off. And it was there during the period the attack might have taken place.” Albies took another sip of her Darjeeling. “Estimated time of death, you see, fell within a time frame that could match Ty’s version of events.”

  “Did this Sinovich talk to the cops?”

  “No. The police never approached him. He didn’t go in and volunteer the information, either. He was living under the radar, and we were unable to convince him to make a statement, and he vanished shortly after we spoke to him.” She took another sip of tea. “However, our blind witness said that after the bike left—she heard it going down the street—another vehicle drew up to the path where she was walking her beagle. It slowed, engine idling. There were sounds of arguing, angry, hushed voices, male and female. A scuffle, and, get this, the sound of a sliding door slamming shut.” She sat back with a smug smile, and Meg could imagine this woman in court, working up to her coup de grace with relish, pacing her breaks of silence to build tension.

  “And, Ethel McCray said the engine that drew up to the path that day was that of a VW van. Older model.”

  Meg’s gaze flickered between Blake and Lee Albies. “Is that even possible? To identify a vehicle make like that?”

  “We did a few test runs. This woman was ninety-eight percent accurate with the more obvious variations in engine sounds—vans, VWs, different bikes, buses, different sizes of diesel trucks. She’d been blind most of her life, and was always walking near traffic. She had a son, who, when he was little, would guide her on walks to and from school, and because it was his passion, he’d name all the makes and models of vehicles they heard along the way. And, the thing is, those older-model VW van engines do have quite a distinctive sound. Even I can tell one.”

  “Why don’t I know of this blind woman, if she lived down my street?”

  “She didn’t live in Shelter Point. She and her beagle were staying with her sister for a few months before moving into an assisted living facility.”

  Meg ran through several more admin-type questions, then said, “How did you find my mother’s state of mind?”

  Lee Albies was silent for a moment, then said, “Tara Brogan was a woman very much filled with the passion of living, and seeking out justice, getting answers before the December trial date looming. I spoke often with her. We grew close in a way. If you’re asking whether I believe Tara took her own life, the answer is no.”

  Once the interview and tea were over Lee walked them out to Blake’s truck. The sky was growing low and gray.

  “You’re so like her, you know,” she said to Meg as they reached the truck. “Not just in looks, but in movement, too. It’s almost uncanny.”

  A strange sensation spiraled through Meg. “Thank you,” she said to Lee. “For helping my mother. For talking to me.” Her voice caught. “For saying I am like her. I never really knew her. I thought she was someone else entirely.”

  Lee smiled, and it crumpled her face into pleasant wrinkles. “Do come ba
ck, even if just for a social visit. I was terribly shocked by Tara’s death. And I’d love to know how all this turns out.”

  “I will.” Meg almost hugged the woman, but held back. She climbed into the truck wishing she had.

  Blake started the engine. But before Meg closed the door, she said, “Why was Ty Mack in that cabin, way up the mountain in the woods?”

  “It was my grandfather’s cabin,” Albies said. “I moved Ty in there. Fevers in town were running high. I feared pitchforks and a witch hunt. I told the police where he was, in the interests of their investigation, and to show that Ty had no intention of skipping town, and was willing to be cooperative. But I told them the location on the condition they did not reveal it for his own safety.” She paused. Her eyes narrowed sharply, and Meg saw the old defense lawyer at work again. “Clearly that confidence was breached. It was a criminal act, to my mind. And I do believe, as Tara did, that this information was revealed to Jack with the worst of intention. Jack was loaded up like a cannon, and pointed in the direction of Tyson Mack.”

  “Who?” Meg said. “Who do you think could have done it?”

  “I don’t know. I hope you find him.”

  As she closed the door, Albies said, “Be careful, Meg.”

  Blake glanced at Meg as he drove. Her mouth was tight and she looked pale.

  “You okay?” he said.

  Meg nodded. Then said, “No. I’m not.” She rubbed her face. “I’m having trouble with the fact that all this information might have saved my father. And my mother. They could both be alive today.”

  He placed his hand on her knee, squeezed gently.

  She turned away from him, looking out the window, as if to corral her emotion.

  “This kind of writing comes with confrontation, hard questions, dealing with people who are in pain, but when it’s your own story, it takes a different kind of toll.” She swore softly. “I should have pressed Ike harder.”

  “You really think Ike might have told your dad where Ty Mack was hiding? You think it was Ike who set him up?”