Proof of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “How much will they lose because of the weather?” she asked Sheriff Gardner.

  “Not much.” He didn’t take his eyes off a squat man taking soil samples. “They started last night and have been working steady. The bad news is, they’re telling me there isn’t a lot to get. No tire tracks except hers. No footprints.”

  Just like Pan Wade’s murder.

  The only recent tire tracks had been Pan’s car. No footprints, not even hers, because of spiraling brush marks someone had taken the time to create with a bushy evergreen branch.

  “Dirt was brushed out all around the body, out to the gravel,” Gardner finished, his description of this crime scene echoing Maggie’s memories. “Somebody knows how to cover his tracks.”

  Carson was trained to slip in unnoticed, to kill, to leave no trail.

  “What about the body? You know about the note the ME at the district office in Roanoke found in Pan Wade’s mouth at autopsy?”

  That piece of information wasn’t in Sheriff Hague’s records, probably the only reason it hadn’t been public knowledge before the trial. She’d saved that detail until the expert’s testimony.

  “This victim went to Roanoke, too. No note,” Gardner said.

  Her phone rang. It was Belichek. As usual he wasted no time on niceties like hello.

  “You’re running around on some old case with a murderer?” he demanded. “Is your head up your ass? Is everybody’s heads up their asses there?”

  “Yes to the first. No to the second. Possibly to the third.”

  “Maggie—”

  “How did you know about this?”

  A tech called to the sheriff, who squished across to the tarp-roofed area.

  “Nancy. When we came to pick you up for lunch.”

  “Lunch. I totally forgot.”

  “No shit.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  “No problem.” Bel hated apologies. “Do you need help? I could—”

  Maggie saw Dallas Monroe and Scott Tomlinson stood tucked under a line of trees, sheltered by the umbrella Scott held. Monroe appeared lost in miserable contemplation of the mud at his feet. Tomlinson was looking at the far side of the clearing.

  Maggie followed the direction of his gaze.

  “Not now. Thanks, Bel.”

  He grumbled something, then, “I hope to hell you know what you’re doing. And why you’re doing it up there.”

  Carson stood alone, outside the yellow tape, his back to the clearing, facing the evergreen-encrusted ridge rising in front of him. The camouflage slicker he’d put on when the rain started blurred into the vegetation. He took a step, and she realized he was at the opening to a path she hadn’t seen before.

  A few more steps and he would be invisible to those in the clearing.

  “Bel, I gotta go.”

  Commonwealth v. J.D. Carson

  Witness Terence Pratt, Colonel, U.S. Army (prosecution)

  Cross-Examination by Dallas Herbert Monroe

  Q. Colonel Pratt, you said Captain Carson here is trained in these skills Ms. Frye had you reciting, is that so?

  A. Yes.

  Q. And that training, does that include more than how to do the thing?

  A. Absolutely. It entails being in control of the abilities taught to you. That control, that discipline is taught right along with each skill. Control and discipline are instilled under rigorous circumstances. That is essential to the training.

  Q. Thank you, Colonel. Thank you. Now, Colonel, with all that training and discipline, though, it’s possible — just possible, mind you — that some fellows you’ve got in there don’t take all the training the best way, and you need to keep tabs on them, maybe wash them out of the program, is that right, sir?

  A. Yes. There are periodic reports on candidates during training, assessing their abilities and especially the matters you’ve mentioned — control and discipline.

  Q. So, in those reports on Captain Carson was the assessment of his control and discipline ever anything less than the top grade?

  A. No, sir.

  Q. Might say he was one of the best you’d ever—

  Ms. Frye: Objection. The defense is trying to testify again, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Sustained. Mr. Monroe, questions, not speeches.

  Mr. Monroe: I do apologize.

  Q. Let’s open it up all the way then, Colonel. In his entire career in the Army, from the time he entered as an eighteen-year-old, was there ever any official or unofficial reprimand or notation or concern or a taking him aside in an informal manner — was there anything at all — that might indicate Captain Carson had any difficulty with discipline or control?

  A. No sir. On the contrary, he was commended in the highest terms possible for his performance and was specifically cited for his cool and disciplined approach.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Maggie scooted around the clearing, skirting the yellow tape, fighting for footing on rain-slicked grass. Carson was out of sight.

  She almost missed the path. She’d gone two strides past before a rustling made her backtrack. Examining the area between two dripping bushes, she saw a rough path open up.

  Literally up. It zigzagged narrowly on the incline toward the ridgeline. Something — someone — moved above her. She put her head down and started climbing.

  The webbing of trees overhead cut some of the rain, but the branches dripped splotches onto the path. Odors of wet earth and last fall’s rotting vegetation were nearly as tangible as the moisture.

  The path sucked her flats deep, letting muck ooze up the low-cut sides and brush clammily against her insteps. She grabbed stout branches or saplings’ trunks to help pull herself up. She fought the flaps of her raincoat every step. Trying to be quiet was hopeless.

  The heavily ridged soles of Carson’s running shoes left distinctive marks in the soft ground, but the few times she glanced ahead she saw no other sign of him.

  She had to be more than halfway to the ridge. She was getting winded, but no way could she rest with him getting farther away every second.

  Her right foot slid. She grabbed for a bush, her hold skidded off the wet trunk, and her right hand came down hard on coarse twigs, leaves, and other detritus of the forest floor. Her left arm windmilled for balance, but she was going over backwards, and it would be a rough trip down.

  An iron grip encircled her left wrist.

  “Hold on,” he ordered.

  She clasped her hand around Carson’s wrist, strengthening the bond.

  With one hand, he held her up until she had both feet under her and on relatively solid ground.

  “I’m okay.” He released her immediately. “Thanks.”

  Without responding, he continued up the path. How far ahead had he been? She hadn’t seen him, yet he’d reached her in almost no time.

  She started after him.

  “You shouldn’t come up here.” He didn’t look back.

  “I’m not afraid of a little mud.”

  “Going into these woods alone with a man might not be the smartest thing to do. Two women who look like you—” She snorted. It didn’t ruffle his flow. “—have ended up dead. Granted, I have more reason to be afraid of you, since you’re bent on a do-over to get me convicted. And maybe you think to right other old wrongs?”

  She bypassed the irrelevant question. “This murderer doesn’t operate when he’s exposed. The sheriff knows I’m with you.” Maybe. But surely Scott did. He must have seen her follow.

  “Two isn’t much of a pattern to bank on. And logic isn’t much of a weapon against murder. You’re willing to gamble your life on that?”

  “I don’t see it as a gamble. Besides, you wanted me to follow you. What are these things?” In annoyance, she shoved away a stiff cluster of big, streaming leaves slapping her face.

  “Rhododendron.” Still moving, he looked back. “You think you know I wanted you to follow, because…?”

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t rustle those bu
shes on purpose when I’d passed the opening.” She hated she was puffing while he didn’t seem the least bit pressed. “You had Special Ops training — and excelled. So, you did it on purpose.”

  “Better to know where your enemy is,” he muttered.

  Her sentiments exactly.

  She didn’t say that. She probably didn’t need to. Whatever else he was, J.D. Carson wasn’t stupid.

  Climbing behind him, her eyes leveled with where the hem of his slicker caught on the top edge of his jeans pockets. It highlighted the hard shape under those pockets. The muscles working in perfect, powerful rhythm to get him where he wanted to go.

  She kept her focus on the ground in front of her.

  Her puffing eased by the time she followed him into a clearing that was a smaller, rougher version of the crime scene, including a track of narrow ruts roughly parallel to the dirt road below.

  Without moving, Carson examined the ground.

  “What are you looking for?” She finger-combed her hair again, the rain sluicing from the ends under her collar and down her backbone. She squelched a shiver.

  “Don’t know until I see it.”

  He gazed along the rutted track, frowning, then slowly walked the outside of the hard-packed area, examining the pale, sprouting grass around it.

  The rain came harder in the clearing. It slid off the ends of his hair and dripped in his face. He made no move to wipe it away, barely blinked when a drop hit his lashes.

  Having completed his circuit of the clearing, Carson walked past her toward an opening opposite from where they’d climbed up.

  She was on his heels when he edged into the path, his head barely moving, but his eyes taking in everything.

  His hand slashed the air, gesturing for her to move to the side. “If you have to come, get behind me. In my footprints. Not in the middle.”

  “Nothing this narrow has a middle. And I’m coming, all right.” She plastered herself against the prickly wall of vegetation. “What are you looking for now?”

  “Nothing.” They’d gone maybe twenty yards when he stopped. “Nothing,” he repeated, but it sounded different. “Let’s go.”

  He gestured for her to lead back the way they’d come. She hesitated. It was pure instinct not to turn her back on him.

  His expression didn’t change.

  He stepped around her, leaving one additional footprint in the path, before retracing their steps.

  A branch slapped sticky wet leaves against her cheek, like cloth soaked in sugar water. She pushed it away impatiently.

  “Why aren’t there better paths?”

  “Deer aren’t as picky as you city types.” He gestured to indentations in the mud.

  They resembled elongated teardrops. Now she saw the tracks were everywhere, crossing and re-crossing each other.

  “This is a deer trail? Why in hell are we on a deer trail?”

  “I’m on it because I wanted to see if any humans used it lately. You can supply your own motivation.”

  “What difference are you saying it would make if humans used it lately?”

  “Maybe none. Doesn’t matter. Only deer’ve been there.”

  “What about the one from the main clearing toward the waterfall — aren’t you interested if anyone’s used that path lately?”

  It was also the path that eventually led to his shack in the woods.

  The path he’d testified he took after leaving Pan Wade — alive — in the clearing.

  The one Teddie Barrett initially said he was on when he heard Carson and Pan arguing.

  It had been broader, better used four and a half years ago. Now it had mostly gone back to the wild.

  “I know that’s been used. My tracks were there from last week, though not as far as the clearing. After Laurel was found Sunday, there were a lot of other tracks added.”

  “Your footprints must have been as far as the clearing. You’re still living in that cabin and that’s the only way to get to it. You must be parking there—”

  His head shake sent off a spray. “Built a private road four years ago. This is park land. Okay to use it now and then. Not permanent. My road comes in further along the county road.”

  He crossed the clearing to the edge of the dense vegetation on the slope they’d come up, and squatted, balancing on his toes.

  Her calves and thighs ached from the climb. Her feet were stridently complaining that her flats had long ago forfeited their sensible status. And the only level spot to mimic his position and see what he was seeing would put her hip to hip with him.

  There was a log on his far side. She stepped over it and sat. Under an overarching fir tree and between bare branches, a view of the crime scene below opened like a curtain had been raised.

  The clearing in the middle, the entrance to the path to his old shack on the left, the first few yards of the road to the right. If someone had been here at the time of the murder — either murder — there’d be one hell of a witness.

  Carson said dryly, “Good thing we’re not hoping to find evidence there.”

  “Evidence?” She looked at the log. “Of what?”

  “Nothing this time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer. He squinted at the area spotlighted by yellow ribbon, where figures in slickers toiled.

  Now she got it. This pantomime was meant to lead her to ask a certain question. Then he’d give her a piece of information he was dying to dump on her while making it seem she’d wormed it out of him.

  He didn’t know she’d trained under the master of that technique, Vic Upton. And she’d learned the solution was to not ask the question.

  The figures below were fading. Despite the rain and the woven roof of the forest some light had filtered to them, but soon wouldn’t be as generous.

  Carson stood. “I’m going. If you don’t want to let me loose in the woods alone, you better come, too.”

  She rose without comment. He squinted toward the crime scene, murmured something. That was part of the technique, too. She didn’t ask what he’d said. Besides, she had a pretty good idea it was a repeat.

  “Nothing. This time.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  10:24 p.m.

  Maggie piled pillows against the headboard of the guesthouse’s double bed, adjusted the lamp, placed her open briefcase on the far side of the bed, and slid in between the covers.

  She hesitated, her hand at the opening of the lid pocket. She limited herself to running her finger across the outside surface, feeling the edge of the plastic sleeve that always stayed there.

  At least some things were where they belonged.

  Just now, when she’d reached for the green tube of facial cleanser it hadn’t been where it belonged.

  The toothpaste, floss, and glass with her toothbrush huddled together where she’d put them when she unpacked this afternoon. A few inches apart sat moisturizing lotion. In between, where the facial cleanser should reside, was an empty swath of vanity.

  She’d widened her view, and there was the cleanser. On the right side, between her makeup and hairdryer.

  She put things in the same place. Always. It helped her put her hands on necessities even in the depths of a trial.

  But there was the cleanser on the wrong side.

  Listen, Maggie, we all have a case or two like this. The ones that go bad. … Let it go.

  The hell with that. The hell with Vic Upton’s ambitious pragmatism.

  You’re bent on a do-over to get me convicted. And maybe you think to right old wrongs?

  What exactly did J.D. Carson think he knew?

  She adjusted her position and took out the copy of the original investigative file into the murder of Pan Wade.

  It didn’t matter what Carson thought he knew. All that mattered was catching him.

  Or, she mentally added in strict fairness, whoever the murderer was.

  She began to read.

  The file was even worse than Sheriff Gardner
said and she remembered.

  Next up was her case summary of Commonwealth of Virginia v. J.D. Carson.

  Maybe Scott Tomlinson would have the complete and certified trial transcript tomorrow. When Nancy sent the material from her files she’d also go over the dailies where she’d made notes during the trial.

  Finally, she re-read the preliminary information Carson had written on Laurel’s murder. It was concise, organized, and devoid of commentary or local color.

  When she’d finished, she made a call.

  “Belichek.”

  “Got some time, Bel?”

  “Yeah. Shoot.”

  She outlined the case she’d made four and a half years ago in her opening statement, then built up layer by layer through testimony.

  J.D. Carson, home on leave from the Army, had been seen with the victim numerous times in the days before the murder. Witness after witness provided observations of a man falling deeper and deeper for this woman.

  The day before the murder, he called about off-base housing where he was stationed. Why would he do that if he wasn’t anticipating Pan returning with him?

  But her estranged husband, his family, and her family all were urging Pan to give the marriage another try.

  She had told her hairdresser she was meeting Carson that afternoon, and expected, the hairdresser had testified, “a turning point.”

  It added up to a woman returning to her husband, cutting off Carson, a man who was no stranger to violence. He knew how to take the life of a man — or woman — in a cold heartbeat.

  Maggie had told the jury they didn’t need to know what was said between Pan and Carson, because they had the evidence of what happened.

  They were sighted in her car, turning off the paved county road that provided back access to Bedhurst Falls Park and surrounding woods that had been Carson’s second home since childhood. The next morning, Pan’s body was found in an isolated clearing.

  Dirt around her body had been carefully brushed out. But on the path leading into the woods toward the shack Carson had recently inherited, had been two clear prints. His.

  Two of his dark hairs had been found on her clothes. A strand of her hair was found wrapped around his shirt cuff button.