by David Archer
“I’m quite sure that isn’t going to happen,” Cassie said. “I doubt she’ll go to prison at all, because I think most people would understand why she ran away, but she might end up with probation or something. I don’t really know about that sort of thing, but I’m pretty sure a decent lawyer can keep her from doing time.”
Naomi grimaced. “And how’s she going to get a decent lawyer? Running a shelter doesn’t exactly pay very well, and I doubt she has any money hidden away anywhere.”
“I think she has some friends who will help. One of them asked me to find her, and he offered to pay me a lot of money to do it but I told him I didn’t need his money. He can use it to help her get a lawyer, instead. And maybe you could come and act as a character witness, help explain to the court how she’s turned her life around. I’m sure that would help, as well.”
“Do you think so? Of course I will, and so will several others. Bishop Randolph would probably come, so that would probably help a lot.” Naomi seemed to be relaxing a bit more. She offered Cassie a tiny smile. “You said you’re a social worker?”
“Yes. I was once the victim of domestic abuse myself, and in my case it almost killed me. I work with a charity outreach center in Tulsa, helping abused women and children get a fresh start.”
Naomi licked her lips nervously. “Is that how you got…”
“Burned? Yes. My ex had done some pretty bad things with some friends, and they decided they didn’t want me around to talk about them. One of them poured gasoline on me and set me on fire, but I lived through it.”
“It seems like it’s always the tragedies in our lives that affect us the most, doesn’t it? Those are the things that always end up pushing us down the path we choose.”
Cassie looked closely at her. “What was your tragedy?” she asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.”
The smile faded. “My husband was a wonderful man,” she said slowly, “but he wasn’t very good at business. We had put everything we had into starting his own mechanical shop, but it seemed like we were always spending money faster than it was coming in. After a while, the mortgage got so far behind that they foreclosed on us and we ended up losing everything.” She took a deep breath. “He felt like such a failure, when we ended up with nowhere to go. He kept trying to find work, but there just wasn’t any at the time. We were living in a shelter a lot like this one when he went out one day to look for a job, but he never came back. After a couple of days, the police came and told me that they found him. He had gotten into an old abandoned building and hung himself.”
“Oh, Naomi, I’m so sorry,” Cassie said.
“He just abandoned us,” Naomi said bitterly. “He was so wrapped up in his own pride that he just didn’t even care what happened to me and the kids. All he wanted was to put an end to his own suffering, and he didn’t even think about the fact it was making it worse on all of us.”
“How many kids do you have?”
Naomi took a deep breath, but then she managed a slight smile again. “Three. Two girls and a boy. They were little, then, Chucky was still in diapers, and Tammy and Tina were just about to start kindergarten. They’re only a year apart so they’re almost like twins.” She seemed to shiver. “If it hadn’t been for Bishop Randall, I don’t know what would’ve happened to us. He came by the day after we found out and saw me helping out in the kitchen, and told me that they needed someone to help manage this place. That was four years ago, and now I run the whole thing. We get an apartment and a small salary, but at least we have a home.”
Cassie looked at her. “I was under the impression that the lady in the picture was running this shelter.”
“Melinda? Oh, no, she’s the DHS aide. She helps those who want to fill out the paperwork for assistance and food stamps, and she drives the van to take them down to put in their applications.”
Interesting, Cassie thought. Sabrina’s letter wasn’t quite true. “Oh,” was all she said. “I guess I just got it wrong.”
Naomi shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t really matter,” she said. “We all do our parts. Melinda’s always ready to help out wherever we need her.” She leaned to one side and looked out through a window. “There’s the van,” she said. “She’ll be in here in just a few minutes.”
Cassie glanced out the window and saw a young woman step out of the driver’s seat. Sabrina’s hair was dark, now, and she had put on a little bit of weight, but the face was clearly the same as the one in the photo. She watched as the smiling young woman picked up a baby in each arm and held them as their mothers climbed out, then carefully passed them back.
She looks very happy, Cassie thought. Somehow, I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a while before she feels like that again.
Sabrina and the others walked down the side of the building, and Cassie guessed that they were headed for the back entrance. She looked at Naomi, who smiled.
“She’ll get them settled back in their rooms, and then she’ll come up here to see if I need anything.” She pointed at a door that led into a smaller room. “That’s my office. You can take her in there to talk, if you want, but I’d like to come along if I may. We never know when someone is going to come up front, and I think she might need some privacy for this.”
“Thank you,” Cassie replied. “I think that’s probably a good idea.”
They could hear a little bit of commotion from the back, the voices of adults and children who seemed, for the most part, to be in pretty good spirits. As it died down, Cassie heard footsteps coming up the hall and then a swinging door opened and Sabrina came into the front lobby. She froze for a second when she spotted Cassie, but managed to recover quickly without losing her smile.
“Hi,” she said brightly. “Are you new here?”
Cassie smiled back. “I’m not a client,” she said. “Actually, I’m here to see you. Hello, Sabrina.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Sabrina froze where she stood. It took her almost five seconds to find her voice again, but she still never lost her smile.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I think you have me confused with someone else. My name is Melinda, Melinda Billington.”
“Relax, Sabrina,” Cassie said, “I’m not a cop. Dexter Tate sent me. I just need to talk with you, that’s all.”
Naomi came out from behind the counter and put an arm around Sabrina’s shoulders. “You always knew this day would come,” she said. “Remember? You told me it would. Now, this lady needs to talk with you, so let’s all go in my office where we can have some privacy.”
Sabrina swallowed hard, but nodded. She let Naomi lead her into the office and Cassie followed. Once they were inside, with the door shut, Sabrina sank into a chair.
“Dex sent you?” Sabrina asked.
“Yep. Since you disappeared, he’s spent a small fortune on private investigators, trying everything he could think of to find you. To be honest, he and a lot of others thought you were dead. I met him a few days ago, and he asked me to see if I could track you down.”
“Well, you obviously did,” Sabrina said. “Can I ask how?”
“Carolyn Stern,” Cassie said. “I happened to find her just at the moment when she was at her lowest. She told me just enough to let me figure out that you killed Raymond Francis, but then she told me the rest of it. She showed me your letter, and that’s how I was able to find you.” She leaned forward a bit in her chair to make Sabrina look her in the eye. “You’re lucky I got to her when I did,” she said. “She was just about to try to confess to killing him herself, but I suspect the detectives would’ve gotten the truth out of her sooner or later. What you put her through has broken that poor woman, but she’s still trying to be loyal to you. She wants me to tell you that if you come in on your own, she’ll hold your hand through whatever happens.”
Sabrina simply looked at her for several seconds. “You want me to turn myself in?”
Cassie nodded. “Sabrina, I’m a social worker who specializes in domestic abuse
and stalkers. I’ve been all over your case, and I could testify as an expert witness that you were absolutely in danger from Raymond Francis. With a halfway decent lawyer, I’m pretty confident we can get this ruled as a justifiable homicide under self-defense.”
“But I shot him,” Sabrina said. “I shot him over and over. I’ve seen it on TV, they say that makes it murder.”
“I don’t think TV is very realistic,” Cassie said. “I’ve seen a murderer in action, and he only fired one shot. It’s when you panic that you tend to pull the trigger more than once, and that’s pretty well-known in domestic abuse situations. There have been a lot of cases where a battered woman gets her hands on a gun and just keeps shooting until it runs out of bullets, and most of those cases have been ruled self-defense. I mean, think about it, they’ve had cases where women set their husbands on fire and still called it self-defense.”
“But I ran away.”
Cassie made a face that she hoped expressed irony. “Yeah, this would have gone better if you’d just called the police when it happened. Now, you may face charges for concealing a homicide, but I don’t think you’ll be looking at any prison time. Probation, maybe, and you might spend some time in jail until this gets settled, but I honestly believe you can get your life back.”
Sabrina leaned back in her chair and propped an elbow on the edge of the desk beside her, then leaned her head on her hand. “Get my life back,” she said. “I don’t know if that’s really possible.” She turned her head just enough to look at Cassie. “Do you know, even to this day, everywhere I look I see him. I’ll see him walking by, or leaning against the wall and staring at me, or he’ll be in line in front of me at a restaurant. Sometimes I see him crossing the street when I’m at a stoplight, or I’ll see him in the car beside me. It’s like he’s haunting me, just waiting for the right time to—to get me.”
“That’s because you haven’t had any closure,” Cassie said. “You feel guilty over what happened because you think you deserve punishment, and when that punishment didn’t come, it makes it hard to put it behind you. Once you deal with that, I think he’ll fade away.”
Sabrina sat quietly for a moment, and then turned to Naomi. “Do you think they’d ever let me come back?”
“Of course,” Naomi answered. “Like I told Ms. Cassie, I think a lot of us would come as character witnesses for you. I think even Bishop Randall would come. You’ve become important to us, Melinda, or Sabrina or whatever your name is.” She chuckled to soften her words. “We’d welcome you back with open arms, and maybe you could even help some people by sharing your story. You know, we get a lot of folks who have something bad hanging over their heads. You’d honestly be able to tell them you know how it feels, and that might help some of them do what’s necessary to take care of their own problems.”
Sabrina gave her a halfhearted grin. “Maybe,” she said. “That’s assuming I don’t end up going to prison forever.”
“I really don’t think there’s much risk of that,” Cassie said. “Sabrina, you’d be able to talk to your mother again. You’d be able to see your old friends, and I can tell you that they miss you. Dex wants to see you again, too.”
That got a smile. “Dex is a good guy,” Sabrina said. “If things hadn’t gone the way they had, I think he and I might’ve had something.” She looked at Cassie. “Are you and him…”
“We are just friends,” Cassie said. Yeah, she heard Abby’s voice say in her head, really, really, really good friends. “I think he might still have a bit of a thing for you, to tell the truth.”
The smile faded a bit. “I doubt that,” she said. “I was pretty mean to him. I just didn’t want him to end up getting hurt or in trouble, you know? But Dex is the kind of guy who wouldn’t back down, and he didn’t know how dangerous Ray could be. Ray said if I didn’t get rid of him, he’d make sure he was gone for good, and I couldn’t risk that.”
“I suspect he’d have had his hands full,” Cassie said. “Dex strikes me as the kind of guy who can take care of himself.”
“Not against a gun,” Sabrina said. “Ray always had one, and I knew he was capable of murder, even if he hadn’t quite gotten around to it yet.” She rolled her eyes. “I just never thought he’d ever point it at me, y’know?”
Cassie watched her for another moment, then said softly, “Sabrina, I think you should come back with me today. This is the sort of thing that, the sooner you get it over with, the better.”
Sabrina sat there for a few seconds, then rubbed her hands on her legs and nodded. “You’re probably right,” she said. “I’ve been living with this too long already.” She looked at Naomi. “Can we pray before I go?”
Naomi smiled, and Cassie reached out to join hands with the two of them while Naomi offered a prayer for Sabrina’s safety and swift return. It was short and to the point, and then Sabrina hugged Naomi and smiled at Cassie.
“I need to grab a few things out of my room,” he said, “and then I’m ready. You can come with me, if you want to.”
“Sure,” Cassie said. “Maybe I can help carry something.”
She followed Sabrina back out to the lobby and down the hall, and into a room that had only the barest of furnishings, a bed, a small dresser, a table and two folding chairs. There was a small closet, and Sabrina retrieved a battered suitcase from it and began tossing her clothes inside. It only took about fifteen minutes to get everything packed up, and it all fit into the one suitcase.
“Not a lot to show for being twenty-six years old, is it?” Sabrina asked.
“I don’t know,” Cassie said. “Sometimes, I think I’ve got way too much junk. I’ll guarantee all my stuff wouldn’t fit into a single suitcase, not even just the stuff I left in my bedroom back at my folks’ house.”
They carried the suitcase out to Cassie’s car and put it in the back, and the two women climbed inside. Naomi had walked out with them and insisted on getting a hug from each of them, and then Cassie started the car and they were headed back to Tulsa.
“I wanted to ask you something,” Cassie said, “but I wanted to wait until we left. In the letter you sent to Carolyn, you said that you were going to be running a shelter. Did something fall through on that?”
“I might have exaggerated a bit,” Sabrina said sheepishly. “It was kind of an implied promise that I will eventually be running a shelter, but first I have to put in some time learning how it all works.”
Cassie grinned, and since Sabrina was on her right, it wasn’t quite as disturbing a sight as when they were facing each other directly. “I can understand,” she said. “I doubt if anyone will even bother to ask about it, but I was curious.”
“Sorry,” Sabrina said.
“Don’t be,” Cassie said. “I do want to ask you about some other things, though. I got the story from Carolyn about what happened that night, but I’d like to hear it from you. Would you mind?”
Sabrina shuddered. “I guess I might as well get used to telling it again,” she said. “I had just gotten off work that night, and when I got to my place, Ray was parked out front waiting for me. I almost had the cabbie drive on by, but I knew he’d seen me so there was no point. I got out of the taxi and he jumped out of his car all excited, started telling me how he had something big he wanted to show me and how it was going to make me happy. I told him I didn’t want to see it, I didn’t want to go anywhere with him, and that I frankly didn’t want anything to do with him, and that’s when he got mad. He grabbed hold of my arm and dragged me to his car, and shoved me into it from the driver’s side so I didn’t even have a chance to get out and run.
“He took off as soon as he got in, and drove out into the country. I think it was about twenty miles, because it took a while to get there, and then he got on this gravel road and pulled up in front of a house, a big old two-story house. He said he was going to buy it as soon as we were married, that he knew who owned it and could get a really good deal on it, and that’s when I kinda lost it. I told him I was
never going to marry him, I didn’t want anything to do with him and that he was crazy if he honestly thought he had any kind of chance with me. He got mad again, and all of a sudden he reached down under his seat and came up with a gun.
“Naturally, I sort of panicked right then. He was yelling something about being tired of ‘playing my games,’ and that it was time for me to grow up and admit that I was in love with him, and I was so scared that I started agreeing with him. Yes, I said, I was in love with him, yes, I wanted to marry him, but he kept screaming at me that I was lying. I started crying then, and I guess that’s what made him start to mellow out a little, because he started crying, too. He told me he loved me and he was sorry that he scared me, and then he laid the gun on his leg and reached out to put his arms around me…”
“Go on,” Cassie said.
“I acted like I was going to kiss him,” Sabrina said, “but then when I got close enough I just grabbed the gun and pulled back away and… I shot him. I shot him four times, and the only reason it was only four times was because the gun ran out of bullets. I can remember that I kept pulling the trigger, and I kept waiting for the noise, but nothing happened. Ray was just laying back against his car door, and there was blood everywhere. I probably sat there for ten minutes, just staring at him, and then I started thinking about what was going to happen next. I got out of the car and sat on the steps of the house for a few minutes, just waiting to see if someone heard the shots and was coming up there, but nobody came.”
She looked down at her hands. “I started thinking about what to do, and the only thing I could think of was to call Carolyn. I didn’t tell her what had happened, just that I needed her to come and get me. I was really just thinking of trying to get home at that point, but I knew my fingerprints were probably in his car, stuff like that. By the time she got to me, I had decided that I needed to run away, but first I had to get rid of Ray. She helped me move him over to the passenger seat, then she gave me an old blanket to put over all the blood and everything, and followed me out to the lake. There’s a spot under a bridge out there where the water gets really deep, and I just lined his car up and put a rock on the gas pedal and put it in gear. It went off the edge and there’s about a ten foot drop to the river, but it floated for a few minutes until he got out in the middle. I figured that was perfect, because that’s where it’s deepest. We waited until it sank, and then she took me home to clean up and then I had her bring me over to Oklahoma City.”