Proof of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  The head-shake continued.

  “I know of no connection. Pan was Charlotte’s friend, not Laurel’s. Laurel’s several years younger and had her own set. But Charlotte and Pan were always close.”

  If she hadn’t been watching the judge, sitting next to Carson, Maggie would have missed the flicker across Carson’s eyes. He didn’t share that assessment of Pan and Charlotte’s relationship.

  “Charlotte?” Maggie prompted. “Do you know of any connection between Pan’s death and your sister? Anything at all.”

  “No.”

  Maggie wasn’t ready to be cut off with that bland negative. “But there was at least one, Charlotte. You went to Carson’s trial for the murder of Pan Addington Wade.” No one even blinked at the mention of Carson being tried for murder. It wasn’t so much that they ignored the gorilla in the room as none of them seemed to recognize it was a gorilla. “Every day, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “Why did you go every day? Because your friend had been murdered, because you wanted justice for her?”

  Charlotte regarded Maggie as if she weren’t very bright. “Everyone went.”

  “It’s where Charlotte met Ed — Ed Smith — her husband,” Judge Blankenship inserted.

  A pleased expression replaced Charlotte’s frown. “That’s right, Judge.”

  “Yes, I heard. Congratulations, Charlotte,” Maggie said. “Ed’s a great guy.”

  The other woman’s pleasure smoothed out to nothing. “He has a fine legal mind.”

  “Yes, of course.” Maggie hadn’t seen signs of legal excellence from Ed. On the other hand, that wasn’t normally why people got married.

  “Judge, if you don’t mind, I have a question,” Carson said. The older man nodded permission. “Had Laurel been receiving odd phone calls?”

  “Odd?”

  “Calls that might have made her uneasy or didn’t make sense to her.”

  The judge shook his head, then stopped to look at his older daughter.

  She said, “She frequently got calls she didn’t want us to know about.”

  Charlotte clearly put Laurel on the outside of the us she created with a tip of her head toward her father. Maggie wondered how Ed fit with that us?

  Charlotte rose.

  “It’s time you rest, Judge.”

  * * * *

  Maggie didn’t fault Carson for asking about the calls, she decided as they followed Charlotte to the front door.

  On the surface, trying to confirm Tagner’s account was good sense.

  But was there more? Had Carson truly made a lucky strike asking Tagner about the calls or did he know more than he was saying?

  If he made the calls, it wouldn’t make sense to bring attention to them. But if someone else did, focusing on the calls would be a fine diversion.

  As for the judge saying there’d been nothing between Laurel and J.D., that wasn’t definitive. Lovers were known to keep their relationships secret for all sorts of reasons.

  They had descended the porch stairs when a voice stopped them.

  “Maggie? Maggie Frye? It is you!” Ed Smith came across the drive with his hand outstretched and a smile lighting his plain face. “I was at Second House and I thought it was you. It’s good to see you.”

  Maggie met his hand. He clasped it in both of his.

  “Hi, Ed. Good to see you, too. I’m sorry it’s under these circumstances.”

  “It is tragic, just tragic. Such a vibrant personality. The judge is devastated.”

  “And your wife?”

  Ed responded as if it she’d made a statement, rather than asked a question. “You’re right. It’s the worst thing imaginable. But, Maggie, to see you again — how long are you here for?” He still had her hand.

  “That’s not clear.”

  “She’s assistin’ the sheriff with his inquiries, along with J.D. and me,” Dallas said from the passenger side of the car.

  “I see.” Though it was clear Ed didn’t. “We’ll have to get together, Maggie.”

  “I’d like that.”

  Carson stepped forward, his hand out to Ed. “Sorry for your loss.”

  Ed finally released her hand to shake Carson’s. As he did, he looked beyond Carson to the house. Following his gaze, Maggie saw Charlotte standing at the door, watching.

  Good-byes quickly followed. Ed went to the house as they got in her car.

  Driving away from Rambler Farm, Maggie glanced back.

  Charlotte and Ed stood together. Ed appeared to be talking earnestly.

  * * * *

  Other than keeping an eye on Carson, the next two hours were a waste.

  Dallas Monroe had to have known all they’d gather at the hardware store, grocery store, and a private home where twelve women had a bridge group were impressions, character assessments, and outright gossip.

  Not a single fact. Not about Laurel Blankenship Tagner, not about Pan Addington Wade, not about a connection between their murders.

  By the time Dallas directed her to park near a café for lunch, she’d had her fill of chit-chat. She finished her salad well before the men were done and took herself and her phone across the street to the small park beside the courthouse, where she could call the office in privacy.

  Nancy wasn’t there. Maggie left a message asking for info on Henry Zales of Lynchburg — Why did that name seem familiar? — and when she could expect the files.

  She retrieved messages, noting two items concerning upcoming cases, erasing whatever Roy said, and, finally, hearing Nancy’s voice.

  First, Nancy said the files were on their way. Then she reminded Maggie that today was early release for the schools, which meant she’d left.

  As a preliminary report on Chester Bondelle of Roanoke, Nancy listed where he’d received his degrees, said he was a member of the bar in good standing, and had a solid record as a defense attorney. She’d keep digging.

  Carson exited the café, holding the door as Dallas faced back inside, continuing a conversation.

  Maggie angled across the corner of the square, heading for her car parked on the other side of the café.

  “Ah, Maggie,” Dallas called. “You missed an interestin’ conversation.”

  “More gossip,” she muttered.

  “Buildin’ a portrait of the victim.” Dallas had good hearing. “You know how important it is to understand the victim in order to understand the crime.”

  The portrait of Laurel was of a self-centered, materialistic, spoiled young woman who left her husband because he hadn’t paid — as in dollar signs — enough attention to her.

  How did that connect Laurel’s murder to Pan Wade’s murder?

  From what Maggie could tell, what they had in common was each had left her husband and there was talk she was — possibly — going back to him.

  The source for the about-to-return was Tagner for Laurel and Carson for Pan. Could either or both be lying to minimize his apparent motive? Oh, yes.

  As Maggie unlocked the car her phone rang.

  Recognizing the number, she slid the phone in her purse unanswered. Voice mail would pick up if her cousin Jamie chose to leave a message.

  Dallas didn’t appear to notice. Carson studied her as she got in the driver’s seat.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  2:02 p.m.

  J.D. watched Maggie Frye try to make sense of what she was seeing.

  Him, sitting in the Addingtons’ comfortable family room, welcomed by Pan’s parents, as he’d been by the judge. Maggie hadn’t gotten that either.

  She and Dallas asked the Addingtons about parallels between Pan’s murder and Laurel’s.

  They said they knew of none, though he knew the couple wished they did — in hopes solving the current murder might also solve Pan’s.

  He was about to ask if they remembered Pan getting calls like Eugene said Laurel had received, when Maggie shot him a sharp look, as if to draw attention to w
hat she would say.

  “I never had the opportunity after the trial to say how sorry I was for letting you down, Mr. and Mrs. Addington, by failing to get the conviction in your daughter’s murder.”

  Kevin Addington cleared his throat uncomfortably, but Theresa smiled. A bruised, sad smile that reminded J.D. of Pan when he’d arrived on leave.

  “You didn’t let us down, Ms. Frye — Maggie. We never believed J.D. killed Pan. Not for a moment. The trial only confirmed that.”

  “A jury’s not-guilty verdict doesn’t mean—”

  Theresa moved her head in a slow-motion shake. “Not because of the verdict. Because of what we felt when the verdict came in and because of what we saw in J.D.”

  “I understand you wouldn’t want to believe someone you helped could—”

  “No, no, you don’t understand. Yes, we felt great relief for J.D., but we also felt relief the distraction was over — the detour away from finding who really killed our girl. After the trial we hoped the investigation would truly lead somewhere. That’s what J.D. said first thing. Now we’ll get him, Mrs. A. Now we’ll get him.”

  He would stake his freedom that Maggie wanted to say they’d let Pan’s murderer go with the not-guilty verdict. But he saw she wouldn’t say it to this grieving mother.

  Maggie Frye had a weakness.

  Theresa Addington reached across the loveseat’s arm to put her hand on his forearm. “And we will, J.D. Someday, we will. As awful as poor Laurel’s death is, perhaps this will rekindle—”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  J.D. didn’t need to turn to identify who’d made the demand and who’d been addressed.

  Maggie’s eyes widened slightly at Rick Wade’s abrupt arrival, narrowed as they shifted to him and found him watching her.

  Theresa’s hand on J.D.’s arm tightened, as if to hold him down, but he wasn’t going anywhere.

  The Addingtons were too kind-hearted to shut Wade out of their lives, though J.D. knew they’d asked him not to walk in uninvited. Ignoring that was damned rude.

  “I asked you what the hell you’re doing here, Carson.”

  Wade came down one of the two steps connecting the family room with the kitchen.

  Kevin stood in his one-time son-in-law’s path. “Rick. We didn’t know you were coming by.”

  Mild, yet still a reproof.

  “I wanted to see how you’re doing. With all this about Laurel bringing up Pan and—”

  “We appreciate your caring. We’re fine. It’s the judge needs all our concern right now.”

  “Of course, but—”

  “We want to talk to you, too, Rick. About—”

  Wade interrupted Maggie. “Sheriff knows what he needs to know from me.” He focused on the Addingtons. “There’s things I’d like to talk to you about. Better things than you could hope to hear from that—”

  Kevin interrupted firmly, “We’ve got company right now.”

  J.D. started to rise, Theresa clamped down on him again, and Dallas entered the fray by saying, “We were just leavin’,” and positioning his hands on the arms of the overstuffed chair to hoist himself up.

  “There are questions to—” Maggie started.

  Dallas spoke over her. “Don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

  “I am a little tired,” Pan’s mother said, releasing her hold on J.D.’s arm.

  He stood.

  With her passengers on their feet, Maggie expelled a sharp breath. “If you don’t mind, Mrs. Addington, I’d like to come back…”

  “Of course, my dear,” Theresa said. “Any time. I’m sorry I’m not up to a longer visit now.”

  “You get some rest.” Dallas patted her hand, then led the way out.

  Amid good-byes, Maggie followed, with J.D. last. He paused beside Wade only long enough to make eye contact.

  * * * *

  “Next, we’ll call on Renee Tagner,” Dallas said.

  “No.”

  Instead of taking offense at her, he chuckled. “You have other plans, do you, Maggie? We’re captives to your whim?”

  “I went along with your agenda to this point. Now I decide where we go. I’ve been patient enough.”

  She tapped at her phone for directions.

  “You can never be too patient,” Dallas murmured. But he settled back without further argument.

  * * * *

  GPS directed Maggie between two big-box stores at the edge of town, then go two blocks to where the street dead-ended in a half-weed, half-gravel parking area in front of a two-story, gray frame building that might once have been a motel.

  Maggie got out of the car, leaving the other two to follow or stay where they were, while she contemplated ten rust-colored doors.

  The address had simply been 743 Locust. Nothing about an apartment — or motel room — number.

  She would start knocking on doors. At least she could eliminate the top five doors, since there was no staircase in sight. God, she hoped—

  “Second door from the left.” Carson walked past her.

  Maggie caught up as he knocked. Dallas approached more slowly.

  The next door to the left opened and a woman’s square face appeared, anxious and confused.

  “Mrs. Barrett? I’m Maggie Frye. I was the prosecutor in the case Teddie testified in four and a half years ago. I’d like to talk to you.” Maggie took two steps toward her. “If we could come in for—”

  “Oh! No. You stay right there. Right there.”

  She disappeared, the door closed. Maggie started toward it.

  Carson didn’t touch her, didn’t look at her, but he blocked her way. “That’s her bedroom. Give her privacy.”

  Maggie sidestepped him without moving any closer to the closed door. He not only knew the address, he knew the set-up.

  Mrs. Barrett re-emerged, bustling past them on the concrete walkway, talking fast and with a strong mountain twang.

  Maggie caught the gist about of course her remembering the lady lawyer, how kind she’d been to her poor Teddie, how much he’d liked her, how excited he’d been, and at least he’d had that before he died.

  The woman opened the other door and hurried in ahead of them, clearing a sagging couch and uneven coffee table by sweeping up magazines and the cardboard leftovers from fast-food meals. Through a half-open door, Maggie saw a decrepit microwave sitting on the closed toilet seat. A bucket with a few chunks of ice floating atop water stood in the bathtub and held a disintegrating carton of milk.

  “I’m not rightly set for visitors. But set down, do set down, y’all.”

  They sat on the couch. Maggie, Dallas — sunk deep into the couch’s sag — then Carson.

  Mrs. Barrett removed what appeared to be a flowered sheet to reveal a chair in even worse shape. Why it warranted the protection of the sheet—?

  Ah, the sheet hadn’t been protection for the chair, but for a blue dress with spaghetti straps and delicate beading.

  Mrs. Barrett wrapped the sheet carefully around the dress and laid both atop the aging, blocky TV.

  “I do a bit of work for ladies ’round about,” she said, by way of explanation, before perching her lumpy body on the edge of the chair.

  Maggie started by expressing her condolences over Teddie’s death, then, “If you don’t mind telling me more about his … accident?”

  “If only I’d’a had one of my turns that day, I’d’a told him to stay here with his mama. But I hated to. He loved going out on that bicycle—” She pronounced it bi-SIGH-cull. “—of his. Kept it clean as could be, he was that proud of it.”

  Slow tears trickled down the woman’s cheeks, catching in horizontal creases.

  “Did he say anything before he left, Mrs. Barrett? Where he was going? If he was meeting someone?”

  “No, ma’am. Nothing about meeting somebody and he near always went the same place — up to the park, to the falls. He called out I love you, Mama like always and went off laughin’ like he did. Next thing I
know, that deputy what passed on not long after was at my door, saying I should set down, he had somethin’ to tell me.” She stared at her slipper-clad feet. “Thought I’d never stop settin’, just set there ’til I joined Teddie.”

  Maggie reached across and put her hand on the woman’s arm. “He was a sweet boy, Mrs. Barrett.”

  The woman blinked, then smiled, revealing a much younger face. “He was. My Teddie was that, ma’am.”

  “Did the sheriff’s department ever tell you anything—?”

  Teddie’s mother was shaking her head.

  “Never heard anything beyond when that deputy said there’d been an accident, and the person what hit Teddie’s bike kept going. If it hadn’ta been for someone fishin’ seein’ the bike come down the river, my poor boy mighta been there a long time and only his mama wonderin’ where he was.” She straightened her shoulders and folded her hands over her stomach. “He never hurt a soul, least of all his mama. Only thing he ever … Well, I can’t say I liked his drinkin’. The drink did in my papa and more besides. But Teddie enjoyed those boys, and that’s where they were most times — Shenny’s. He didn’t like to refuse when they offered him a drink or two — said they were right generous.”

  “What boys, Mrs. Barrett?”

  “I don’t rightly know. Teddie would talk about the other boys, this one sayin’ that funny thing and that one makin’ this joke, but the names came fast and it was somebody’s brother or uncle or cousin. Not one in particular, but all mixed together. I didn’t pay much mind.”

  “Can you recall any names?”

  She started shaking her head and kept it up as Maggie added, “Especially around the time of Pan Wade’s death? Or the trial?”

  Mrs. Barrett’s head stopped shaking. “Oh. Now, wait. There was something. Before that lawyer that married Miss Charlotte came and talked to him about going to the courthouse and all — he was that proud of that. Let me think. I know he was talking’ about Pan Wade, but acourse it couldn’ta been her. But her husband, I think — yes, I think that was one he mentioned. And you, Mr. Dallas. Somethin’ about you. And … Mr. Tagner?” Her voice lifted in question.

  She was guessing at the end. Maybe she’d been right about Rick Wade. Maybe not.