Three Weeks to Say Goodbye

by C. J. Box

  YES, I’VE SEEN JOHN Moreland. Five times, to be exact. He saw me too, even though he pretended he didn’t. Moreland wears a white jumpsuit, meaning he’s on death row. All of us avoid the guys in white, and the corrections officers segregate them from us.

  The judge was convicted in the trial some of you followed on truTV and the cable channels. Despite his investment in house hold names like Bertram Ludik as his defense attorneys and his earnest testimony—where he claimed both Aubrey Coates and his son Garrett were murdered in cold blood during a botched raid on the pedophile’s residence that he mistakenly blundered into while looking for a perfect Christmas tree—the jury convicted him for murder in the first degree for killing Dorrie. Those four photos I first saw in my living room are among the most recognized images in America among those who follow murder trials, I’ve read. They were even printed in People magazine. Despite the photos and Henkel’s testimony, John Moreland has never admitted to either the murder of his parents or of his wife. He claims he was railroaded by rogue cops. He also insists it was he who shot Aubrey Coates, not the police.

  During the trial, all of the officers who were there in Desolation Canyon that morning contradicted his allegation. One by one they told a version of events different from Moreland’s. Why?

  Because Cody, perhaps inspired by the judge himself, was thinking ahead. He knew that in prison, the lowest of the low was a child molester—considered even worse than a snitch. It was open season on child molesters, and even the guards looked the other way. In this case, the inmate was a judge who tried to aid a molester by letting him walk. Moreland is an ADSEG—Administrative Segregation. Despite that designation, I’ve heard he’s been attacked several times, beaten, raped, and stabbed. I wonder if Dorrie’s ghost approves. Maybe she has enough faith to forgive him. But I don’t.

  I sent him a note, via the guards. It read: I’M GETTING OUT IN A YEAR. HOW ABOUT YOU? MELISSA SENDS HER REGARDS.

  There was no reply.

  KELLIE MORELAND WAS INVESTIGATED and quickly cleared of being an accessory to her husband and her evil stepson’s crimes. She claimed she was shocked and angry when John showed up that Sunday with a nine-month-old and announced she was now a part of their family. Kellie told police she accused him of ruining her life and in a quote compared to Butterfly McQueen in Gone with the Wind, said, “I know nothing about toddlers. Nothing.” She said she fed Angelina grapes and toast and cried. When the police showed up the next morning with Melissa, she opened the door with Angelina in her arms and enthusiastically handed the baby to her mother.

  MELISSA AND ANGELINA come to see me every Saturday. Angelina is a chatterbox. She’s still beautiful and charismatic. I must admit that each time I see her, I look for anything in her behavior or demeanor that would suggest what Garrett said or Cody inadvertently hinted about her was true. I’ve never told Melissa what either said, and I never will. But when I look at Angelina and play with her, I find a bright, loving, busy little girl. I see nothing that suggests Garrett was right. Nothing.

  I’ve come to realize something that for three weeks of my life I’d begun to doubt: There are good people in the world. Good people, kind people. I think of Cody, Brian, Torkleson, Sanders, Morales, the SWAT team, my lawyers, the guards, the judge who sentenced me. They all could have chosen to be cold, cruel, indifferent. That would have been easy. Brutality, I think, comes naturally to human beings. But they chose to be good, even if what they did could be questioned within the strict confines of the law. I am not cynical.

  But I am pragmatic. I know anyone is capable of anything, including me. It’s a fine line between good and evil and, given the situation, the line moves. Oh, how it moves. It moved for me, but I still managed to cross it— repeatedly. And I’ve learned that once you cross it, bad acts become more effortless to commit because the moral restraints have loosened, and justifications cushion the implications of the crime. It becomes effortless to set things in motion, then stand by and let them happen, which is what I did. Effortless.

  Which is why I’m here and why I should be.

  And this is what I’ll teach my daughter.

  MELISSA IS WORKING FOR the Adam’s Mark Hotel as general manager. They live in a condo on the fringe of downtown Denver because we had to sell the house without my income. Melissa insists the condo is perfect and she’s shown me photos of it and it looks nice. The only thing she regrets, she insists, is that I’m in here and Angelina is in day care every day.

  I guess we both have our keepers.

  MY PARENTS DROVE all the way down from Montana to see me. I could tell by the way they entered the room they were as embarrassed as hell. I was embarrassed for them because I knew the security procedures probably set them back. I don’t think my dad has ever walked a step in his life without his Leatherman tool, and my mother had to confess she had wire in her bra. As they sat at the table in the genpop visiting room, they held hands—the first time I’d ever seen them do that. I became fixated on their hands because they were so rough and knobby—the hands of hard workers— in a place where the supposedly tough guys had soft and smooth hands. My dad joked that he always thought I’d wind up in a place like this once I left the ranch, and my mom scolded him for saying that but didn’t disagree.

  “That was nice when you stopped by,” she said. “I hope you’ll do that more often.”

  “For Christ’s sake,” Dad said to her. “He’s in prison!”

  “But he won’t always be,” she said, turning red.

  I promised to come visit. I told them it wouldn’t be that long.

  My dad said, “Good, I got fence to fix.”

  My mom said, “And I’ve got pies!”

  CODY IS BACK in Montana, splitting his time between working as a detective in the Helena Police Department and helping my dad out on the ranch. He says he’s happy, and I believe him. He has a steady girl and says he wants to bring her to Colorado to meet us. He’s come to see me a few times when he drives south to visit his son, Justin. He urges me to move back to Montana when I’m released. I’m considering it, although there are no Adam’s Mark Hotels in Montana.

  Obviously, I’ve a lot of time on my hands to think about everything that happened during those three weeks. Some things became clearer in retrospect. I confirmed them during a conversation with Cody when he visited.

  “You never really told Jeter to back off when we were in Montana, did you?” I asked.

  He hesitated, looked around, struck a match to light a cigarette under a sign that read ABSOLUTELY NO SMOKING. “No.”

  “Why did you mislead us?”

  “Had to. You and Melissa got cold feet, Jack. You couldn’t pull the trigger because you’ve got scruples. I don’t have that problem. I knew we needed Jeter to force the issue and maybe take out Garrett. So when I went back into Jeter’s, I asked him if I could use the bathroom and wished him good luck in Denver.”

  “That’s why you were on the scene so fast after the incident in the Appaloosa,” I said.

  He nodded. “I was down the street. I wished I could have prevented you from following Jeter into that place. I had no idea you’d be that stupid.”

  Then he winked.

  OH, AND ONE MORE thing. An amazing thing, a miracle. Melissa is seven months pregnant. The night of conception was our last night together before I went to prison. For once, I guess I had a live round in the chamber.

  When I get out, we will have a daughter and a son. I wonder what our son will be like. I can’t wait to find out. We’ve already decided his name, a long one. Cody Brian Torkleson Sanders Morales McGuane. After his uncles.

  KEEP READING FOR AN EXTRACT FROM

  BLUE HEAVEN

  THE NEXT ADRENALINE-FUELLED THRILLER BY

  C.J. BOX, AVAILABLE IN ALL GOOD BOOKSHOPS

  FROM 1ST JULY 2010.

  FRIDAY, 4.28 PM

  IF TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Annie Taylor had not chosen to take her little brother William fishing on that particular Friday afternoon in April
during the wet North Idaho spring, she never would have seen the execution or looked straight into the eyes of the executioners. But she was angry with her mother.

  Before they witnessed the killing, they were pushing through the still-wet willows near Sand Creek, wearing plastic garbage bags to keep their clothes dry. Upturned alder leaves cupped pools of rainwater from that morning, and beaded spiderwebs sagged between branches. When the gray-black fists of storm clouds pushed across the sun, the light muted in the forest and erased the defining edges of the shadows, and the forest plunged into a dispiriting murk. The ground was black, spongy in the forest and sloppy on the trail. Their shoes made sucking sounds as they slogged upstream.

  Annie and William had left their home on the edge of town, hitched a ride for a few miles with Fiona, the mail lady, and had been hiking for nearly two hours, looking in vain for calm water.

  “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” ten-year-old William said, raising his voice over the liquid roar of the creek, which was angry and swollen with runoff.

  Annie stopped and turned to William, looking him over. A long fly rod poked out from beneath the plastic he wore. He had snagged the tip several times in the branches, and a sprig of pine needles was wedged into one of the line guides.

  “You said you wanted to go fishing, so I’m taking you fishing.”

  “But you don’t know anything about it,” William said, his eyes widening and his lower lip trembling, which always happened before he began to cry.

  “William …”

  “We should go back.”

  “William, don’t cry.”

  He looked away. She knew he was trying to stanch it, she could tell by the way he set his mouth. He hated that he cried so easily, so often, that his emotions were so close to the surface. Annie didn’t have that problem.

  “How many times did Tom tell you he was going to take you fishing?” Annie asked.

  William wouldn’t meet her eyes. “A bunch,” he said.

  “How many times has he taken you?”

  He said sullenly, “You know.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “I sort of like him,” William said.

  Annie said, “I sort of don’t.”

  “You don’t like anybody.”

  Annie started to argue, but didn’t, thinking: He may be right. “I like you enough to take you fishing even though I don’t know how to fish. Besides, how hard can it be if Tom can do it?”

  An impudent smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, I guess,” he said.

  “Look,” she said, raising her plastic bag to show him she was wearing Tom’s fishing vest. She had taken it without asking off a peg in their house. “This thing is filled with lures and flies and whatever. We’ll just tie them to the end of your line and throw ’em out there. The fish can’t be much smarter than Tom, so how hard can it be?”

  “… if Tom can do it,” he said, his smile more pronounced. That was when they heard a motor rev and die, the sound muffled by the roar of the foamy water.

  THE BETRAYAL occurred that morning when Tom came downstairs, asked, “What’s for breakfast?” Annie and William were at the table dressed for school eating cereal— Sugar Pops for William, Frosted Mini-Wheats for her. Tom asked his question as if it were the most natural thing in the world, but it wasn’t. Tom had never been in their home for breakfast before, had never stayed the night. He was wearing the same wrinkled clothes from the night before when he’d shown up after dinner to see their mom, what he called his fishing clothes—baggy trousers that zipped off at the thigh, a loose-fitting shirt with lots of pockets. This was new territory for Annie, and she didn’t want to explore it.

  Instead, she found herself staring at his large, white bare feet. They looked waxy and pale, like the feet of a corpse, but his toes had little tufts of black hair on their tops, which both fascinated and disgusted her. He slapped them wetly across the linoleum floor.

  “Where’s your mom keep the coffee?” he asked.

  William was frozen to his chair, his eyes wide and unblinking, his spoon poised an inch from his mouth, Sugar Pops bobbing in the milk. William said, “On the counter, in that canister thing.”

  Tom repeated “canister thing” to himself with good humor and set about making a pot of coffee. Annie bored holes into the back of his fishing shirt with her eyes. Tom was big, buff, always fake-friendly, she thought. He rarely showed up at their house without a gift for them, usually something lame and last-minute like a Slim-Jim meat stick or a yo-yo he bought at the convenience store at the end of the street. But she’d never seen him like this—disheveled, sleepy, sloppy, talking to the two of them for the very first time like they were real people who knew where the coffee was.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  He turned his head. His eyes were unfocused, bleary. “Making coffee.”

  “No. I mean in my house.”

  William finally let the spoon continue its path. His eyes never left Tom’s back. A drip of milk snaked down from the corner of his mouth and sat on his chin like a bead of white glue.

  Tom said, “Your house? I thought it was your mother’s house.” All jolly he is, she thought angrily.

  “Is this it for breakfast?” Tom asked, holding up the cereal boxes and raising his eyebrows.

  “There’s toast,” William said, his mouth full. “Mom makes eggs sometimes. And pancakes.”

  Annie glared at her brother with snake eyes.

  “Maybe I’ll ask Monica to make me some eggs,” Tom mumbled, as much to himself as to them. He poured a cup of coffee before it filled the carafe. Errant drips sizzled on the hot plate.

  So it was Monica, not your mother, Annie thought.

  He came to the table, his feet making kissing sounds on the floor, pulled out a chair, and sat down. She could smell her mother on him, which made her feel sick inside.

  “That’s Mom’s chair,” she said.

  “She won’t mind,” he said, flashing his false, condescending smile. To him they were children again, although she got the feeling Tom was just a little scared of her. Maybe he realized now what he’d done. Maybe not. He pointedly ignored Annie, who glared at him, and turned to William.

  “School, eh?” Tom said, reaching out and tousling the boy’s hair. William nodded, his eyes wide.

  “Too bad you can’t take the day off and go fishing with me. I really got into some nice ones last night before I came over. Fifteen-, sixteen-inch trout. I brought a few to your mom for you guys to have for dinner.”

  “I want to go,” William said, swelling out his chest. “I’ve never gone fishing, but I think I could do it.”

  “You bet you could, little man,” Tom said, sipping the hot coffee. He gestured toward the cluttered mudroom off the kitchen where he’d hung his fishing vest and stored his fly rod in the corner. “I’ve got another rod in my truck you could use.”

  Suddenly, William was squirming in his chair, excited. “Hey, we get out of school early today! Maybe we could go then?”

  Tom looked to Annie for clarification.

  “Early release,” Annie said deadpan. “We’re out at noon.”

  Tom pursed his lips and nodded, his eyes dancing, now totally in control of William. “Maybe I’ll pick you up and take you after school, then. I’ll ask your mom about it. I can pick you up out front. D’you want to go along, too, Annie?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No.”

  “You need to ease up a little,” Tom told her, smiling with his mouth only.

  “You need to go home,” she replied.

  Tom was about to say something when her mother came down the stairs, her head turned away from the kitchen and toward the front door. Annie watched her mother walk quickly through the living room and part the curtains, expecting, Annie thought, to confirm that Tom’s vehicle was gone. When it wasn’t, her mother turned in horror and took it all in: Tom, Annie, and William at the kitchen table. Annie saw the blood drain out of her mot
her’s face, and for a second she felt sorry for her. But only for a second.

  “Tommmmm,” her mother said, dragging his name out and raising the tone so it was a sentence in itself meaning many things, but mostly, “Why are you still here?”

  “Don’t you need to get to work?” her mother finally said.

  Tom was a UPS driver. Annie was used to seeing him in his brown uniform after work. His shirt and shorts were extra tight.

  “Yup,” Tom said, standing so quickly he sloshed coffee on the table. “I better get going, kids. I’ll be late.”

  Annie watched Tom and her mother exchange glances as Tom hurried past her toward the front door, grabbing his shoes on the way. She thanked God there was no good-bye kiss between them, or she might throw up right there.

  “Mom,” William said, “Tom’s going to take me fishing after school!”

  “That’s nice, honey,” his mom said vacantly.

  “Go brush your teeth,” Annie said to William, assuming the vacated role of adult. “We’ve got to go.”

  William bounded upstairs.

  Annie glared at her mother, who said, “Annie …”

  “Are you going to marry him?”

  Her mother sighed, seemed to search for words. She raised her hands slowly, then dropped them to her sides as if the strings had been snipped. That answered Annie’s question.

  “You told me…”

  “I know,” her mother said impatiently, tears in her eyes. “It’s hard for you to understand. Someday you’ll see, maybe.”

  Annie got up from the table and took her and William’s bowls to the sink, rinsed them out. When she was through, her mother was still standing there, hadn’t moved.

  “Oh, I understand,” Annie said, then gestured toward the stairs. “But William doesn’t. He thinks he’s got a new dad.”