My Sister's Grave

by Robert Dugoni

  Judge Meyers’s clerk, who had left when House had entered, returned through the door to the left of the bench and called the proceedings to order. Meyers followed quickly on his clerk’s heels, took the stairs to his bench, and in rapid succession dispensed with preliminary matters, including expected courtroom decorum. Then, without fanfare or preface, Meyers turned to Dan.

  “Mr. O’Leary, as the burden rests with the defendant at this hearing, you may proceed.”

  Twenty years later, they were underway.

  CHAPTER 41

  Edmund House’s spine stiffened when Dan stood and said, “The defense calls Sheriff Roy Calloway.”

  House watched Calloway intently from the moment the Cedar Grove Sheriff entered the courtroom. Calloway stepped through the swinging gate and paused to return House’s glare, long enough that one of the guards moved toward the table, but Calloway gave House a final, smug smile and crossed the well to the witness chair.

  Cedar Grove’s sheriff looked even more imposing when he stepped up onto the elevated platform to take his oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

  Calloway dwarfed the witness chair when he sat. Dan led him through the preliminaries. Meyers quickly facilitated this. “I’m familiar with the witness’s background and it is noted in the record. Let’s move to the substance of the matter.” His wife’s trail ride was calling.

  O’Leary complied. “On August 22, 1993, do you recall receiving a call from one of your deputies about a blue Ford truck seemingly abandoned along the side of the county road?”

  “Not seemingly abandoned. Abandoned.”

  “Will you tell the court what you did as a result of that call?”

  “My deputy at the time had already run the plates and said they came back registered to James Crosswhite. I knew Tracy Crosswhite, his daughter, drove that vehicle.”

  “You were friends with James Crosswhite?”

  “Everyone was friends with James Crosswhite.”

  The low murmur and subtle nods caused Meyers to raise his head, though not his gavel.

  “What happened next?”

  “I drove out to the vehicle.”

  “Did the car appear in any way disabled?”

  “No.”

  “Did you attempt to get inside?”

  “The doors were locked. There was no one inside the truck cab. The camper shell windows were tinted but I banged on the side and got no response.” Calloway’s tone fluctuated between disdain and boredom.

  “What did you do next?”

  “I drove to the Crosswhite home and knocked on the door but again got no answer. So I thought I better call James.”

  “Was Dr. Crosswhite home?”

  “No. He and Abby had gone to Maui to celebrate their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”

  “You knew how to reach him?”

  “James had provided me the hotel number in case I needed to get a hold of him. It was something he did whenever he left town.”

  “What was James Crosswhite’s response to the news that you’d located his daughter’s truck?”

  “He told me the girls had been at the Washington State shooting championships that weekend and that Tracy had recently moved into a rental house. He said if the girls had car trouble, they could have spent the night there. He said he’d call Tracy and suggested I hang tight until he called me back.”

  “Did he call you back?”

  “He said he’d reached Tracy but she’d told him Sarah had driven the truck home alone. He said Tracy was heading home and would meet me at the house with a key.”

  “Was Sarah home?”

  “We wouldn’t be here if she was.”

  “Just answer the question,” Meyers said.

  Dan considered his notes on his iPad before taking Calloway through his and Tracy’s inspection of the car and the house. “What did you do next?”

  “I had Tracy begin to call Sarah’s friends to see if she’d spent the night someplace.”

  “Did you think that likely?”

  Calloway shrugged his big shoulders. “It had rained hard the previous night. I thought if Sarah had some kind of car trouble and started to walk it was more likely she would have just walked home.”

  “So you were already suspecting foul play?”

  “I was doing my job, Dan.”

  “Answer the questions you’re asked and refer to the attorneys in this courtroom as ‘Counselor,’ ” Meyers said.

  “Who was the last person to see Sarah?” Dan said, and Tracy saw him flinch at his mistake.

  Calloway pounced on it. “Edmund House.”

  This time Meyers silenced the murmur with a single rap of his gavel.

  “Other than your belief concerning the defendant—”

  “It isn’t a belief, Counselor. House told me he was the last person to see Sarah, just before he raped and strangled her.”

  “Your Honor, I would request that you instruct the witness to allow me to finish asking my question before he answers.”

  Meyers leaned closer to the witness chair and looked down at Calloway. “Sheriff Calloway, I’m not going to tell you again to treat these proceedings and those participating in them with respect. Wait until the question is finished before you answer.”

  Calloway looked like he’d bitten into something tart.

  Dan moved a few feet to his left, the blanket of snow falling out the windows now a backdrop. “Sheriff Calloway, who do you personally know to have been the last person to have seen Sarah Crosswhite alive?”

  Calloway took a moment. “Tracy and her boyfriend spoke to Sarah in a parking lot in Olympia.”

  “You met with Tracy and her father James Crosswhite in the family home the following morning, is that correct?”

  “James and Abby took a red-eye home.”

  “Why did you meet with James Crosswhite?”

  Calloway looked to Meyers as if to ask, How long do I have to answer these stupid questions? “Why did I meet with the father of a missing woman? To set up a plan to try to find Sarah.”

  “You believed Sarah had met with foul play?”

  “I considered it a distinct possibility.”

  “Did you and James Crosswhite discuss potential suspects?”

  “Yeah. One. Edmund House.”

  “Why did you suspect Mr. House?”

  “House had been paroled for rape. The facts of that case were similar. He’d abducted a young woman.”

  “Did you speak with Mr. House?”

  “I drove out to the property. His uncle, Parker House, and I woke him.”

  “He was asleep in bed?”

  “That’s why we woke him.”

  “And did you take note of anything about Mr. House’s appearance?”

  “I noted scratches on his face and forearms.”

  “Did you ask Mr. House how he’d sustained his injuries?”

  “He said he’d been working in the woodshop and a piece of wood splintered. He said he quit after that, watched television, and went to bed.”

  “Did you believe Edmund House?”

  “Not for a second.”

  “You’d already decided he had something to do with Sarah’s disappearance, hadn’t you?”

  “I’d decided that I’d never heard of a piece of wood splintering and causing the kind of injuries I noted on his face and arms. That is the question you asked me.”

  “What did you think caused his injuries?”

  Again Calloway paused, perhaps anticipating where Dan was headed with his questions. “I thought it looked like someone had raked fingernails across his face and scratched his forearms.”

  “Fingernails?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Did you do anything further as a result of that suspicion?”

  “I took some Polaroids, and I asked Parker if I could take a look around his property and he gave his consent.”

  “What did you find?”

  Calloway shifted as i
f uncomfortable. “It was only a visual inspection.”

  “You didn’t find any evidence Sarah had been there, did you?”

  “Again, it was only a visual.”

  “So would the answer to my question be ‘no’?”

  “The answer would be I did not find Sarah.”

  O’Leary let it go. “Was a search conducted in the foothills above Cedar Grove?”

  “Yes.”

  “A thorough search?”

  “It’s a big area.”

  “Did you consider the search thorough?”

  Calloway shrugged. “We did the best we could, given the terrain.”

  “And was Sarah’s body found?”

  “Jesus,” Calloway uttered under his breath, though the courtroom microphone picked it up. He sat forward. “We never found Sarah and we never found her body. How many times do I have to answer that question?”

  “That’s for me to decide, Sheriff Calloway, not you,” Meyers said. He looked to Dan. “Counselor, I think we’ve established the decedent was never found.”

  “I’ll move on.” Dan took Calloway through the seven weeks of tips leading up to the phone call from Ryan P. Hagen. Then he handed Calloway a multipage document. “Chief Calloway, this is the log of tips received in the Sarah Crosswhite investigation. Would you please identify for me the tip received from Mr. Hagen?”

  Calloway quickly flipped through the document. “I don’t see one,” he said. Dan retrieved the document, about to return it to the evidence table when Calloway said, “The call could have come in directly to the police station. The tip line was no longer being advertised.”

  Dan frowned but maintained his composure. “Do you have a record of those telephone calls?”

  “Not anymore. We’re a small police department, Counselor.”

  Dan took Calloway through his conversation with Ryan Hagen. “Did you ask him the news program he was watching?”

  “I might have.”

  “Did you ask him the name of the client he was visiting?”

  “I could have.”

  “But you didn’t note either in your report, did you?”

  “I didn’t always write everything down.”

  “Did you speak to the client Mr. Hagen said he had visited that day?”

  “I saw no reason not to take the man at his word.”

  “Chief Calloway, isn’t it true that your police agency had received a number of false reports from people claiming to have seen Sarah?”

  “I seem to recall a few.”

  “Didn’t one man claim Sarah visited him in a dream and was living in Canada?”

  “I don’t recall that one,” Calloway said.

  “And wasn’t James Crosswhite offering a ten-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction?”

  “He was.”

  “It was on a billboard outside of town, was it not?”

  “It was.”

  “But you didn’t think it wise to confirm if this witness was telling you the truth?”

  Calloway leaned forward. “We’d never released any information that Edmund House was a person of interest in the investigation or that we believed him to be driving a red Chevy truck. In fact, the truck wasn’t registered to Edmund. It was registered to Parker. So there was no way Hagen would have known the significance of having seen a red truck.”

  “But you knew Edmund House drove a red Chevy stepside, didn’t you, Sheriff Calloway?”

  Calloway glared at him.

  “The witness will answer the question,” Meyers said.

  “I knew it,” Calloway said.

  “Did Mr. Hagen say why he’d recalled this one particular vehicle?”

  “You’d have to ask him.”

  “But I’m asking you, as a law enforcement officer in charge of an investigation into the abduction of your good friend’s daughter. Did you think to ask him why he remembered this one particular truck that flashed by for a brief second during a storm on a dark road?”

  “I don’t recall,” Calloway said.

  “I don’t see that in your report either. Can I assume you also didn’t ask him that question?”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t ask. I said not everything went into the report.”

  “Did you confirm he even had an appointment?”

  “He had it written in his calendar.”

  “But you didn’t confirm it.”

  Calloway slapped the table beside the witness chair and rose from his seat. “I thought it important to find Sarah. That’s what I thought important. And I busted my ass to do just that.” Meyers rapped his gavel, the sharp snap of wood against wood competing with Calloway’s escalating volume. The guard at the front of the courtroom moved quickly to the base of the platform. Undeterred, Calloway pointed at Dan. “You weren’t here. You were back at your East Coast college. Now you come back here twenty years later and question me about how I did my job? You second-guess and speculate and insinuate about something you know nothing about.”

  “Sit down!” Meyers had stood too, his face flushed with anger.

  A second correctional officer positioned himself at the base of the witness stand, and the two who had escorted House into the courtroom moved swiftly back to House’s side.

  Calloway’s glare remained on Dan, who remained firmly fixed in the middle of the courtroom. At counsel table, Edmund House sat watching the spectacle with a bemused smile.

  “Sheriff, if I have to have you escorted from this courtroom in handcuffs, it will not be with any joy or pleasure, but I will not hesitate to do so if you so much as raise your voice again,” Meyers said in a steely tone. “At present, this is my courtroom, and when you disrespect it, you disrespect me. And I will not be disrespected. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  Calloway turned his glare from Dan to Meyers, and for a moment, Tracy thought the sheriff might just dare Meyers to have him handcuffed. Instead, Calloway looked out at the gallery and the many Cedar Grove residents and media. Then he sat.

  Meyers retook his seat and took a moment to rearrange papers, as if to give everyone in the courtroom a chance to catch their collective breath. Calloway took a sip of the water he’d been provided and set the glass back on the table. Meyers looked to Dan. “You may continue, Counselor.”

  Dan asked, “Sheriff Calloway, did you ever consider that Mr. Hagen could have written the appointment in his calendar after the fact?”

  Calloway cleared his throat, his gaze now fixed on a corner of the ceiling. “I told you, I saw no reason not to take the man at his word.”

  O’Leary took Calloway through his further questioning of Edmund House.

  “I told him I had a witness who could put a red Chevy stepside on the county road that night,” Calloway said.

  “And what was his response?”

  “He smirked. He said I’d have to do better than that.”

  “Did you do better than that?”

  Calloway’s lips pinched. This time, when he looked past Dan, his gaze settled on Tracy.

  “Do you need me to repeat the question?” Dan said.

  Calloway looked at Dan. “No. I told House that the witness would also testify he saw a man driving the truck with a blonde woman in the cab.”

  DeAngelo Finn had never brought this up at House’s initial trial, and it wasn’t in any report Tracy had ever found. She knew Calloway had perpetrated the ruse because he had divulged the information to her father during one of their many conversations in her father’s den.

  “Did Mr. Hagen tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Then why did you say he had?”

  “It was a ruse, Counselor, to see if House would take the bait. It’s not an uncommon interrogation technique.”

  “You don’t deny it was untrue.”

  “As you so aptly put it, I was trying to find the killer of a good friend’s daughter.”

  “And you would have said anything to accomplish that, wouldn’t you?”r />
  “Argumentative,” Clark said, and Meyers sustained the objection.

  “What did Mr. House say in response to this ruse?”

  “He changed his story. He said he’d gone out that night, that he’d been drinking, and when he was driving back he saw the truck on the side of the road and a little ways farther he saw Sarah. He said he stopped and offered her a ride and drove her home.”

  “Did you note the name of the bar at which Mr. House said he’d been drinking in your report?”

  “I don’t believe I did.”

  “Did you ask Mr. House the name of the bar?”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “Did you talk to anyone to try to confirm whether Mr. House had, in fact, been drinking in their establishment?”

  “He told me he had.”

  “But you didn’t note the name of the tavern and you never tried to confirm Mr. House had been at a bar that night, did you?”

  “No.”

  “As with Mr. Hagen, you chose to take Mr. House at his word?”

  “I didn’t see why House would make up a lie—” Calloway caught himself.

  “Did you want to finish your answer?”

  “No. I’m done.”

  Dan stepped closer. “You didn’t see why Mr. House would implicate himself by saying he was with the victim. Is that what you intended to say?”

  “Sometimes people who lie forget their own lies.”

  “I have no doubt,” Dan said, which brought Clark to his feet, but Dan quickly continued. “Did you tape this conversation?”

  “I didn’t get the chance.”

  “Didn’t you consider this important information, Sheriff Calloway?”

  “I thought it important that House had changed his alibi. I thought it important to get that information in front of Judge Sullivan so we could get search warrants for the property and House’s truck. My priority remained finding Sarah.”

  “And you could not get those search warrants without Mr. Hagen’s statement that he saw the red Chevy stepside on the county road, could you?”

  “I wasn’t privy to Judge Sullivan’s decision-making process.”