“The man who killed Meredith wasn’t El Captain.”
“He was El First Officer.” Miles was blown away.
“We just proved Remy innocent,” Violet whispered.
“How the fuck did the defense miss this?” Miles thought for a long moment, then shook his head. “It’s still not enough to clear him.”
“I know,” she mumbled.
Miles went on. “Who’s to say that someone else won’t see it the way you just saw it ten minutes ago? Who’s to say Remy didn’t put on a first officer uniform to throw everyone off?”
“Because it’s too obscure. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe not. But it still isn’t proof enough to clear him.”
But Violet was already on another level, grabbing her coat from the back of the chair.
“Where are you going?” Miles demanded.
“To find the fucking truth,” Violet said, racing to the door. “To find out who’s in that video. That is what will clear Remy.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the airport.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“No, I need you to find out if any of the crew from Remy’s trip are going in or out of Redding today, and let me know as soon as possible, please?”
Miles bit his lip. “I can do that and come with you.”
Violet realized he was worried. “Don’t worry about me. Stay here and spread the word. By tomorrow morning, I want the entire country to know that they convicted an innocent man.”
***
The bartender speared Remy with his eyes, and concern for the pathetic kid that had been crying in the corner of his bar for the better part of the hour was all over his face and alive in his eyes, as well. He considered Remy out of the corner of his eye as he polished a glass so dirty and scratched the act of polishing it was all but useless.
“I know you, kid?” the bartender asked, switching the toothpick in his mouth from one side to the other.
Remy sniffled softly. “No… I don’t think so.”
“You thirsty?”
Remy’s tongue was wet again. He’d kill for a drink, but his mind was finally freeing itself of Violet, and he was thinking somewhat clearly, once more. Alcohol would surely only lower him to a sniveling punk, once more, and it was a risk he couldn’t take.
He hadn’t broken free for nothing. And no one was going to steal the only freedom he still had left. He’d get to Santa Cruz and take Jason up on borrowing the Tundra. Then he’d make the long drive back to Redding and pray he wasn’t caught before he had the chance to get to the bottom of this.
It was a long shot, but it was all he had. He could only hope that the police hadn’t made the connection between him and Jason, yet, otherwise they were sure to be watching his home, waiting for any sign of Remy. He had no doubt they were already watching Violet’s.
“No, I wanted to make sure…” Remy adjusted the cap on his head, suddenly worried about being recognized. “The guy who dropped me here said there’s a bus to Santa Cruz?”
“Every hour on the hour.”
Remy swallowed every inch of pride he had left. “How much is it?” The answer to the question didn’t matter, unless that answer was “free”, because Remy hadn’t a penny to his name.
“Buck fifty.”
Remy pressed his lips together.
“You got any money?”
His head fell, and he stared at his shoes before giving an indiscernible tilt of his head.
Studying him for a moment longer, the bartender finally set the glass down on the bar, never taking his eyes off Remy as he fished the only two dollars in his tip jar out, and slid them across the bar.
Remy’s eyes rose to his, and filled once more.
The bartender watched him take the money, too moved to even thank him, and switched the toothpick to the other side of his mouth, once more. “It’s never as bad as it seems, kid.”
Remy pressed the money in his back pocket and stopped himself from agreeing that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
It was ten times worse.
***
After swallowing back her fury at the high price of parking one’s car at Redding Airport, and taking the sluggish, rage-inducing shuttle ride into the busy terminals, Violet found herself unable to keep up an even pace as she speed-walked into the automatic doors of Terminal 5. Her patience was spent.
She took in the bustling ticketing area, where perpetually stressed out passengers were punching their fingers impatiently into the ticketing machines, and the less savvy travelers giving the ticketing agents a piece of their mind for god knows what. Parents hauled troublesome children and piles of baggage from every angle. Several large groups stood motionless, looking around in confusion, and employees observed the area with a bored impatience as a general unrest, just on the verge of madness, seemed to unfold by the second.
With a shake of her head, Violet wondered just how the hell anyone could work in a place like this, just as her cell phone vibrated in her back pocket. She snatched it out, frantically reading Miles’ message. He had sent her a copy of the hotel footage, as well as the schedules of each flight attendant who’d been working Remy’s trip on the night of Meredith’s murder. Amazed, Violet couldn’t help but wonder how Miles made miracles happen the way he did.
She drank in the words in the message like water.
Miles: Flight attendant Carrie Cochran signs in for a trip out of terminal 5 at 12:05pm, Gate B3
Violet checked her watch. It was 12pm on the dot. She prayed that Carrie Cochran would be right on-time that day. Her eyes flew around the busy area, and she realized with a heavy heart that she had no idea what Carrie Cochran looked like.
When her phone immediately buzzed with a picture message from Miles, she would have kissed him if he wasn’t miles away. He’d always known what she needed before she ever had to ask for it.
Miles: Carrie Cochran
Below his message was a photo of a middle aged blonde woman with sun damaged skin that seemed to be running away from her face, fire red lips and bright blue eye shadow that matched her eyes perfectly, but still managed to make her look clown-like and overdone. The scowl on her face wasn’t doing her any favors, either.
“Looks like a real ray of sunshine,” Violet mumbled, just as Miles sent her a photo of Amy Anabella, and first officer Jake Patterson, as well.
With a heaving sigh, Violet took a seat in the ticketing area, watching the only two automatic doors like a hawk.
She prayed that Remy was okay.
She didn’t have much time to pray, because just as quickly as she’d sat down, the forlorn face of Carrie Cochran came into her view. She was in full flight attendant uniform, a wrinkled navy blue atrocity that looked itchy and hugged Carrie’s plump frame a touch to tightly. She dodged the confused and inquisitive eyes of the passengers around her like they weren’t even there. Behind her, she wheeled five different bags, all varying in size, sluggishly towards the escalator that led to the security lane on the second floor.
“Carrie Cochran,” Violet called, racing across the ticketing area, dodging families, bags, and suits all over the place.
Carrie Cochran came to an abrupt stop, snapping her head over her shoulder in the way only someone startled by the unexpected sound of their name could. The moment she caught sight of Violet Chambers racing towards her, her eyes went wide. When Violet came to a breathless stop in front of her, Carrie was already shaking her head no.
“Hi there,” Violet said, holding her hand out to Carrie. “I’m Violet Cha--”
“I know who you are.”
When Carrie only stared at it with distain, Violet pulled her hand away with as much dignity as she could manage. “Right. Of course.” She’d almost forgotten that her face had been all over the news for the better part of the month.
“You’re the idiot who was dumb enough to make herself an accomplice to a murderer.”
Violet didn’t like her. At
all. The way her blood ran cold and raced to her heart, freezing that as well, was instant. “Even though you’ve jumped to many unfair conclusions, and called me many unfair names, I do have to insist that you hear me out Carrie. Remy didn’t kill Meredith, and I can prove it.”
Carrie began moving towards the escalator. “I’m late for my flight. I can’t do this.”
“What if I could prove that the person who went into Meredith’s room that night was a first officer?”
Carrie stopped short, just in front of the escalator, and after a moments hesitation, turned towards Violet. When their eyes met, her sharp edges softened ever so slightly. “That’s not possible.”
“I can prove it,” Violet said, breathing deeply when Carrie began gingerly making her way back towards her. She pulled up the hotel video Miles sent to her phone, and held it up for Carrie to see. “Look at the cuffs on his jacket.”
When Carrie squinted at the small screen while fingering for the reading glasses hanging around her neck, Violet hurriedly turned the phone back to herself and zoomed in on the cuffs, before pointing the screen back at Carrie, who came in so close to the phone’s screen that her nose was a breath from bumping against it.
For several quiet moments Carrie squinted shrewdly at the screen.
Violet saw it the moment it happened. The color drained from Carrie’s face, and her thin lips jutted open. She didn’t need any further explanation. “I’ll be damned,” she whispered. “I’ll be god damned.”
“The image is grainy, and it’s easy to miss, but the man in this video is not Captain Remington Archibald. He’s not a captain, at all. This man is--”
“A first officer,” Carrie finished, her blue eyes going wide as saucers.
“I have to ask you, Carrie…” Violet said. “Are you sure First Officer Jake Patterson was with you and Ana Anabella the night Meredith was murdered?”
Carrie’s eyes rose back to Violet.
Violet pressed. “Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes, yes…” Carrie stumbled. “Yes. He was out with us the entire night. We had dinner and drinks, and then we spent the rest of the night dancing at the lounge across the street from the hotel. Neither of them left my sight for more than a few minutes. By the time we got back to the hotel the sun was coming up. Jake was so drunk I had to put him to bed myself. He went down like a log. There’s video to prove it. It couldn’t have been him.”
“Are you sure?” Violet demanded. “Because this video tells a different story. This video tells me that a first officer entered Meredith’s room that night.”
“Well, The Hilton is easily the largest hotel in this shithole…”
Violet bit back offense. This shithole was her home!
Oblivious to the reaction her foul mouth had elicited, Carrie rolled her eyes. “Flight crews from all over the world stay there every night. It could’ve been a first officer from Asiana Airlines that entered her room that night for all we know.”
“In Redding, CA?” Now it was Violet’s turn to be down on Redding, but it was true. Redding, population 90,000, with one police station and apparently, one helicopter, both of which Remy had single handedly turned on it’s ass with one flick of a gun holster, wasn’t exactly an international destination. “You and I both know that yours was the only flight crew staying in that hotel. So whoever did it, it had to have been one of you.”
Violet felt herself growing suddenly angry at Carrie’s defense of First Officer Jake Patterson. Why couldn’t Carrie have said any of these things in defense of Remy on the witness stand during his trial? How had everyone missed such a huge, glaring detail like a couple of stripes on a jacket when a man’s life had been on the line? She didn’t care if the image was grainy to the point of the stripes being almost indistinguishable, someone should have caught it. She pictured Remy out there somewhere, scared, alone… and she wanted to strangle the woman before her.
Taking Violet’s silent rage for continued doubt in her story, Carrie fished her own cell phone out of her pocket. “I can prove that Jake was with us all night,” she said, fumbling to wake her phone and tapping away. “I took photos that night. Date stamped. Photos that prove he was out with Ana and I until the next morning.”
With her bottom lip trapped between her teeth, Violet watched as Carrie pulled up her camera roll and began furiously swiping through the dozens of pictures she’d taken since the night of Meredith’s murder. When she went too far back, she paused, and began swiping forward once more.
As Carrie swiped, Violet caught sight of a photo of Meredith, and she jolted.
“Go back,” she demanded, waiting for Carrie to swipe back to the previous picture. Violet took the phone, staring at the photo of Meredith, Carrie, Ana and Jake smiling into the camera from where they sat at a round table full of appetizers and drinks with a bustling tapas restaurant in full swing in the background. “I thought Meredith didn’t go out that night?” Violet said.
“She came out with us, but she didn’t stay long. She didn’t even order a drink. She was there for, maybe, five minutes before she went back to the hotel…”
But Violet wasn’t listening. A wave of warmth was rolling over every inch of her body, but it wasn’t a good warmth. It was distinctly unpleasant, and rendered the world around her a blurry, uneven mess. Her ears closed up as her body fought to keep up with her heartbeat, which had escalated to a nearly unbearable pace, and she struggled with the simple act of breathing as her eyes zeroed in on the pendant Meredith wore.
There, hanging down from Meredith’s neck on a delicate silver chain, was a tiny porcelain pig.
If Violet didn’t know better, she’d swear that the ground shook.
Flashing back to just a few weeks earlier, when she’d found a porcelain pig on Jason’s living room table in Santa Cruz, her skin crawled.
“Do you have any more tiny porcelain animals? Can I have this tiny porcelain animal?”
“Sorry, it just has a lot of sentimental value to me. Like I said, it was a gift from my grandmother. She died a few years ago so… I feel some kind of weird attachment to it.”
She thought about that porcelain pig, how it had been dotted with streaks of red, and realized, to her horror, that hadn’t been a cool design like she’d originally thought.
Without another word, Violet was racing towards the doors of the ticketing area, Carrie’s phone in hand. She didn’t even hear the woman’s cries of protest, demanding her phone back, as she robotically dialed Miles’ number.
“Did you find her?” Miles answered on the first ring.
Violet’s hair flew back from her face the moment she stepped out of the ticketing area and into the morning air. The sun was finally rising, sending a rainbow of warm colors splashing across the sky.
And there it was.
The freedom.
She felt it.
She could taste it.
“I know who killed Meredith.”
***
Violet raced down the highway in Rodney’s Nissan, having decided the four-hour drive to Santa Cruz was a more viable option than purchasing a plane ticket and waiting hours at the airport.
She couldn’t wait.
As she flew in and around cars on the highway, switching lanes like a mad woman, she did her best to explain her frame of mind to Miles.
“So you think First Officer Jason Jacobson did this because he had a porcelain trinket in his house that looks like a trinket Meredith had on her necklace?”
“Yes!” Violet cried. “And I don’t think, Miles, I know. I know it was him.” There was something inside Violet that had never sat still when it came to Jason, from the moment she’d met him, and now she knew why. “The pig that was on Meredith’s necklace in that photo is identical to the one in Jason’s house--except for one thing. Do you know what that one thing is?”
“Tell me.” Miles sounded exhausted.
“Blood,” Violet cried, the wheels of the Nissan screeching audibly as she switched lanes an
d passed a driver who was moving slow as molasses. “When I first saw the pig, I thought the streaks of red all over it were just a cool design. It wasn’t. It was blood. It was a porcelain pig, covered in Meredith’s blood, because she was wearing it around her neck the night she died. The poison made her vomit blood, and it got on the necklace.”
“And why would he be stupid enough to have something like this on full display in his living room?”
“Because he thought he’d gotten away with it? Because killers are fucking sadistic? Because he feels some kind of psychotic pride whenever he looks at it? I can keep going….”
“Please don’t.”
“Killers don’t think like normal people, and they’re notorious for taking mementos from their kills.”
“We need to call the police.”
“Not yet. We can’t do anything that’ll tip him off or make him uneasy, or he’ll hide the evidence. I have to get in his house, and get that pig. I have to be able to prove that he did this, otherwise it’s just my word against his. The police already suspect that I’m Remy’s accomplice, and they’re not just going to take my word. I have to be able to prove it, so we can’t tip him off.”
“I’m going to call you right back, Violet. I need to see if I can dig up Jason’s flight schedule and find out whether or not he’ll be in that house today. If he is, then I’m sorry, but I’m calling the police.”
“Miles!”
“If you don’t care about your well being then I’m doing it for you.”
“Miles.”
But he’d already hung up. With a scream, Violet threw her phone into the passengers seat, pulling off of a fork in the road at Yuba City. In about two hours she would be in Santa Cruz city limits, and if Miles hadn’t gotten back to her by then, she was going to finish this without him.
An hour later, her phone buzzed to life.
She answered on the first ring.
“Jason’s scheduled for a trip that leaves in an hour. So he won’t be home today,” Miles said.
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