The Last Innocent Hour

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “I need your help with that.” Beth sat.

  “What can I do?”

  “Could you go see Charlie and talk to him? Find out if there’s some way to help him without my having to be directly involved?”

  “What makes you think he'll talk to me?”

  “I don't know that he will.”

  Tim rose and coming around the corner of his desk, he sat in the chair beside her, taking her hands in his, holding them on his knees. “You know how I feel about you, don't you?”

  Beth’s heart constricted. With guilt? Regret? She wasn't sure. Didn't know what her feelings for Tim were. Gratitude, yes, and respect, certainly. But love? After a moment, she said, “I’m so sorry, Tim, but I just can’t handle anything more right now than finding a place where Chrissy and I will be safe. She’s already lost her grandmother and her father. I can’t stand to think that she might lose me too, and the idea that Jason could get his hands on her terrifies me.”

  Tim searched her gaze a long moment, then brushing his fingertips across her cheek, he said he would see what could be done. “I'm not making any promises,” he warned. “All I can do is get into it, see if we can begin an appeals process based on new information. I’ll try and see Charlie, too, if he’ll allow it. But I’m telling you as an attorney, you should go to the police.”

  Beth shook her head, adamant.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Charlie was brought onto the run and into a silence so profound, it felt surreal. The drag of his step, labored and uneven despite the arduous and painful weeks of therapy, was magnified, horrendous. From the corner of his eye, he saw men’s faces pressed against the barred windows of their cell doors. He heard the sharp intake of their breath when he passed by. No longer the pretty boy, he’d become the monster in their midst, a charred remnant, a thing from their worst nightmare. He did not look at them, nor did he look down or away, but forward with his jaw level. He would not, could not stomach their sick fascination, their fucking pity.

  Dixie was standing close to the bars of the cell he shared with Charlie, big grin splitting his wide face; he looked like an overgrown puppy. If he’d had a tail it would have wagged hysterically. Charlie felt the tug of his own smile, a new smile. Something grotesque now, he imagined, and he watched Dixie's hand, that had been raised in greeting, wilt to his side as he registered the damage, the sad, scary mutation. Tears pooled in the corners of the big man’s eyes.

  “Hey, now,” Charlie said softly. “It’s not so bad as it looks.” He grinned again. “Well, maybe it is. I haven’t exactly looked in a mirror. Maybe I should say it doesn’t feel as bad as it looks.”

  Lovett, the guard who’d escorted him, removed his cuffs, and Charlie rubbed his wrists; he felt the weight of Lovett’s hand on his shoulder, and for the first time, he registered how young the kid was; Charlie saw sympathy and horror combined in his eyes, and it turned his stomach.

  Lovett’s throat worked like he wanted to say something heartfelt.

  “It’s okay,” Charlie said, and they both knew it wasn’t.

  The kid fled leaving behind a whiff of shame, an echo of relief that he wasn’t in Charlie’s shoes, that he didn’t have to wake up and see what Charlie had to see when he shaved in the morning, that he could escape and not have to look at Charlie at all. It would be like that from now on, Charlie guessed. People would avoid him; they would be frightened or made ill by the sight of him.

  Dixie hurled himself onto the lower bunk. “I hate them sonofabitching greasers. I want to kill 'em.”

  “Me too, buddy.” Charlie lowered himself to the stool, moving slowly, like an old man, feeling the ache on his left side most sharply; it extended from his shattered left hip to his ankle. The leg was still healing and wouldn’t bend right. It sat out in front of him looking like it didn’t belong to the rest of him.

  “You seen Brashear?”

  Charlie felt a shock of pure hatred burn through his brain at Dixie’s mention of the guard. “Not yet. He’s still here?” Charlie didn’t know why he asked. If there was going to be any justice, it wouldn’t happen within the system. It would happen because that’s what Charlie lived for now, all he lived for.

  “Free as a bird,” Dixie said. “They squashed the whole investigation, Charlie. I tried to tell 'em who done it, that Brashear was behind it, but they say I got no proof 'cause I didn't see nuthin’ or do nuthin’.”

  “You saved my life, buddy, and I won't forget it. Not ever.”

  Charlie waited all that day for Brashear to show up at his cell or at chow or in the rec room. It was late afternoon, and he and Dixie were lying in their bunks when the door at the end of the run banged open and they heard footsteps approaching. Charlie sat up. But it wasn’t Brashear; it was Lovett.

  “Your lawyer's here.” The kid took the handcuffs from his belt.

  “Lawyer?” Charlie got up, thinking, Bert Jessup?

  “Yeah, the warden's okayed a visit.”

  Charlie’s heart thumped against his ribs like the foot of a frightened hare. He exchanged a glance with Dixie and knew they were both wondering the same thing: was Lovett taking Charlie to see a lawyer, or was this a trick to make Charlie come willingly from his cell?

  The man in the room where Lovett took him wasn’t Jessup. It wasn’t anybody Charlie had ever seen before. He looked at Lovett, but he was leaving. Charlie looked back at the stranger.

  “My name's Tim Metzger,” he said. “I'm an attorney. I've come to help you, if I can.”

  “Who sent you?” Charlie sat down.

  Metzger was staring at the ruin of Charlie’s face, then catching himself, jerked his glance away. “I know your wife,” he said to a place somewhere beyond Charlie’s right shoulder. “Beth told me about you.”

  Charlie stopped breathing. He couldn't have heard right. “Beth? She’s alive? She's okay? Is—is Chrissy--?”

  Both of them are fine now.”

  Charlie slumped over, bracing his head with his hands, unmindful of the metal cuffs biting into his wrists. “Thank God.” Tears seared his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling unmanned and weak in his relief. After a moment, straightening, he blinked up at the ceiling. “Jesus Christ, I was sure he killed them.”

  “Who?”

  “Tinker. Jason Tinker. He’s the one who murdered Beth's mother, but you must know--”

  “How do you know? Were you there?”

  Charlie leveled a glance at the lawyer. “Beth must have told you. I walked out on her and Chrissy. We had a fight, a stupid-- I wish to God I hadn't left them, but I did.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “Racetrack. But what happened? They kept telling me Beth was gone, that she was never in town to begin with. Lies, all lies. I was sure Tinker got to them, that that sonofabitch hurt them.”

  “He would have--”

  “Jesus Christ, man, just tell me.” Charlie brought his cuffed wrists down on the table.

  Metzger jumped, but he answered; he took pity, Charlie saw it, and felt the prick of his fury, his impotence behind his eyes.

  “Beth did see Tinker murder her mother,” Metzger said, and he went on to relate a story Charlie could scarcely wrap his head around.

  “That’s why she never tried to find me?” Charlie asked. “Because she didn’t remember?”

  Metzger nodded. “And your daughter wasn’t talking.”

  Charlie leaned back. “I never thought of that, not in all this time. But really, I never knew what to think.” He took a moment. “Wherever I went with it in my head, it was bad.”

  Metzger made some kind of noise, like commiseration, like more pity. Like he knew Charlie was pathetic now. His throat knotted. “She has every right to hate me,” he said, and he hated how he sounded, hated how his voice slipped and caught.

  “She thought you left her that night for good. She didn’t know you were here.”

  “How exactly did she find out?”

  Metzger couldn’t get his gl
ance away so fast that Charlie didn’t see it, that Metzger had feelings for Beth. “You know my wife pretty good by now, I guess.”

  “We’re ah—we’re friends. I was with her when she recovered her memory. She asked me to investigate. I want to help--” Metzger stopped.

  Her. The sense of it hung between them, that Metzger’s primary interest was in helping Beth. But as bitter as that made Charlie feel, as much as he wished to grab Metzger by the neck and tell him to keep the hell away from his wife, Charlie had to let it go. In the face of his fear and his doubt, the grueling rage, the yawning need to set things right, he couldn’t afford not to take whatever aid Metzger was offering. He touched the raw, reddened ropes of flesh that twisted up his neck and spread over his jaw; the roadmap of scars like gnarled roots humped over one corner of his mouth and flared in delicate tendrils over his cheek and temple. They’d shaved his head, too, above his ear, and the hair that was coming back now was bristled and stiff and as white as bone. “Does she know about this.”

  “She knows you were hurt pretty bad. She wants to help you.”

  “She doesn't want to see me herself?” It was impossible; Charlie knew it was. Beth would never stand the sight of him now, and as for Chrissy, he would never subject his child to his appearance. He wouldn’t be able to stand their looks of horror, or that they would turn from him in repulsion. Still, the look of apology the lawyer tossed him sickened him.

  “It's complicated,” Metzger said. “Beth wants to get you out of here. She thinks, like you do, that Tinker is out to get you, but she’s scared for herself and Chrissie, too. I’m sure you can understand, given what she witnessed. He’s followed her, threatened her, not overtly, but she’s thinking of relocating. Doing something like witness protection. I’m looking into that for her. But you—I heard from the warden, you had a run-in with a couple members of the Mexican Mafia?”

  “They're Tinker's hired goons.”

  “Okay, I can buy that, but I heard they’ve got a private beef with you now.”

  “I can handle them. My only concern is my family. Can you get them somewhere safe?”

  “I told you, I’m working on it.”

  Charlie sat back. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  “About that--you said you were at the racetrack the night of the murder. Evidently there was a witness? A jockey you called Cowboy?”

  “Who told you?”

  “Well, there’s the trial transcript, and I’ve also spoken to your attorney of record, Bert Jessup? I know him. He filled me in.”

  “Then you still haven't heard the truth. He's another one of Tinker's goons. He did what Tinker and the mayor wanted him to do, which was to make sure I took the fall for Tinker.”

  “You're saying the mayor Jimmy Lee Phelps, the same guy who’s running for state representative, he's in on this?”

  “Up to his crooked neck and that deputy too. Lance Devers? He's part of it. I’d lay odds the whole force, every official in Lincoln County is involved in some kind of scam.”

  “You have proof?”

  “You're looking at it. It's me in here every day, doing hard time. I don't need any other proof.”

  “Well, unfortunately the court does. We need to find the jockey who was with you, get him to verify--”

  “I wrote my name and Lucy’s on a ticket. If he still has it.”

  “What kind of ticket?”

  “A pari-mutuel ticket, a loser. Cowboy said if he ever got a hot tip on a horse, he’d get in touch. I didn’t know the number to the farm so I wrote down Lucy’s name and mine on the back of a ticket. It’ll show the date and time the race went off too. That’s enough to prove I was nowhere near the farm when Lucy was murdered, isn’t it? It’ll prove I was set up.”

  “It’s a start, if we can find the guy, if he’s got the ticket; it might be enough to get you a new trial.”

  Charlie heard the doubt in Metzger’s voice, that it was a lot of ifs. And given that Metzger appeared to be in love with Charlie’s wife, how hard would he work to get Charlie out? But who else was there? It wasn’t like the lawyers were lined up out the door to give a warped old cripple a hand, was it? “I can't pay you anything,” Charlie said.

  “I know,” Metzger said.

  “I can do the time if I have to.”

  “Beth doesn’t want you to.”

  “I don’t want her paying you either. I’m not a charity case.”

  “She’s not.”

  “What will you tell her?”

  “What do you want me to tell her?”

  Their eyes locked and for a moment Metzger’s feelings for Beth defined the space between them. Charlie imagined the relief he’d get from punching the guy. But for all he knew, Beth had fallen for the lawyer too. What right did he have to play the jealous husband? He'd walked out on her when she needed him. How could he fault the man who’d stepped in and picked up the pieces? A lawyer, for Christ's sake. A guy with a job, a future. Metzger could give Beth and Chrissy everything.

  Charlie stood up and called for Lovett. He looked at Metzger. “I'll leave it to you what to tell her,” he said.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  The shop was deserted when Tim came to find her to tell her of his visit to Charlie. Her mind refused to see the disfigurement Tim described with lowered eyes. Instead she filled herself with her memory of him from before. She saw his grin, the deep dimples in either cheek, the sparkle of humor in his green eyes that had so teased and beguiled her and drawn her out of herself. She thought of his spirit that had been so irrepressible. It would it be broken now. Twisted like his flesh. How could it not be after what he had suffered? And it was her fault. She covered her face with her hands. Her fault ... herfault, herfault.... The words ricocheted in her brain.

  Tim said, “It’s possible that plastic surgery can help if it can be done quickly enough, but the chance of that happening as long as he’s in prison—

  “We have to get him out.”

  “He's sticking to his alibi.”

  “He was at the track.” Beth leaned against the counter that was littered with dried flowers. She’d been in the midst of putting together Thanksgiving centerpieces when Tim came. She had hardly cared about the approaching holiday; she cared even less now.

  Tim said, “He’s got someone who can verify he was there,” and when he explained about the jockey, Beth was furious.

  “Why didn’t someone find this Cowboy person before?” she demanded, but before Tim could answer, she said, “Never mind.” She met Tim’s glance. “You must see now why I didn’t want to go to the police in Wither Creek.”

  Tim reluctantly conceded her point.

  “It doesn’t make sense that Jimmy Lee has a part in this though. He was as disgusted as anybody when Mama married Jason. Lutie Mae was too.” Beth met Tim’s gaze. “She’s Jimmy’s wife and the biggest gossip in that town. If those two are covering for Jason, it's got to be more than Mama's land they’re after. I mean, between them, they own about all the land there is around there and half the town too.”

  “Well, I have a feeling it has something to do with Jimmy’s campaign and all that new construction that’s going on out there. I looked into that company you mentioned seeing the sign for, Wither Glen Development Corporation? I found out it’s backed by a Japanese outfit. They named Jason CEO, if you can believe that.”

  “He’s been planning this for years, hasn’t he? He just used Mama and me.” Beth traced the edge of the counter with her fingertip. “How could I not see it before?”

  “You were just a kid, Beth.”

  They shared a silence.

  Tim broke it. “I might be wrong, but I suspect all of this, Jimmy’s campaign, the development corporation, all the land grabbing, it’s all tied together some way. I’ve put in a call to a friend, my old law school roommate actually. He’s just been named to head up the Lincoln County DA's office. I’m going to ask him to have a look at all of it along with Charlie’s original trial transcrip
t, see what he comes up with. Fresh eyes,” Tim added. He fingered the stack of invoices beside the cash register. “Something’s going on, something major is what my gut tells me. Wouldn't surprise me to see this end up in some kind of political shakedown.”

  “Will it help Charlie?”

  “Not quick enough. A thing like this, given the scope, it could take years. We need to find the jockey.”

  “But how? You said Charlie knows next to nothing about him.”

  “I know, but suppose we get a picture of Charlie and run it in the Wither Creek Tribune along with an article, a kind of ‘Were you with this man?’ type thing. You know, in the crime tips column.”

  “But what if Jason sees it and finds the jockey first? Or gets someone to go after Charlie again, or who knows?”

  “There’s always that risk.”

  Beth turned away, crossing her arms tightly around her.

  “If you want him free, that’s the chance we have to take.” Tim’s exasperation was plain, but he’d misread her.

  “You don’t understand. It’s my fault,” she whispered. “Losing Mama and Charlie, and Chrissy, all of it.”

  Tim rounded the counter and took her into his embrace. She felt his lips murmuring against her hair. She didn’t listen to the words ... just the soothing tenor of his voice, and it was such a relief to lean on him, but after a moment, she was the one who let go, who stepped away. He handed her a tissue. She blew her nose and apologized. “I never used to so this; I hate it, hate women who cry all the time.”

  “You're entitled.”

  She shifted her glance, unable to bear his kindness. “Did Charlie talk about me? Did he ask where I was? What did you tell him?”

  “Nothing definite. That’s for you to do, if you want to.”

  “I'm sure he hates me.”

  “He walked out on you when you needed him. I would never do that.”

  “But I didn't give him the same chance I gave you. I wasn't honest with him. I kept things from him. I didn't tell him Jason was dangerous, and I should have.” She picked up an assortment of dried chrysanthemum blooms and thought how she didn’t like them, not even when they were fresh. “Charlie came back that night,” she marveled quietly, so quietly she might have been talking to herself. “He did come back.”