Proof of Innocence

by Patricia McLinn

  “And then there was the night you brought him home, J.D. So grateful I was, because he surely shouldn’ta been in that state.”

  Maggie flicked a look toward him, but there was nothing to read in his expression. She focused again on Teddie’s mother.

  Her brow furrowed. “But that had to be after the trial, or you’da been in the jail. Oh, yes, acourse it was. Because it was early spring, but hot as scalded milk it was, and I was hemmin’ up Miss Charlotte’s good spring coat, sweatin’ like all get out. I gave you an iced tea and — Oh. Oh.”

  “What is it, Mrs. Barrett?”

  “Why, if I was hemmin’ up Miss Charlotte’s good spring coat, then it had to be right before Teddie’s accident. Because I took that coat all finished up to Rambler Farm the next week, and I remember the judge being nice as could be, sayin’ how sorry he was, putting’ his arm ’round my shoulders. Tears in his eyes. And insisted on givin’ me something extra over what Miss Charlotte paid. And now here’s that poor man lost his girl, and me lost my boy.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Maggie twisted in the driver’s seat toward Carson.

  He continued facing the side window as he said one word, “Ask.”

  “You gave him alcohol?”

  “No.”

  “His mother said—”

  “She said I drove him home when he was drunk.”

  “How did he get drunk?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “He must have said something during the drive—”

  “No.”

  “Surely, he—”

  “No. Any more questions?”

  “Not at this time.”

  “And I can assure you,” Dallas said with full-blown sincerity, “I never sat in Shenny’s bar plyin’ that poor boy with alcohol. He must have confused it with talkin’ to me before the trial.”

  Commonwealth v. J.D. Carson

  Witness Theodore Barrett (prosecution)

  Cross-Examination by Mr. Monroe

  Q. Well, now, Teddie, how’re you doing today?

  A. Just fine, Dallas.

  Q. Good, good. You enjoying sitting up here next to Judge Blankenship?

  Ms. Frye: Objection. Relevance.

  Mr. Monroe: Just passing the time of day with Teddie, here, Your Honor.

  THE COURT: Sustained. This isn’t the Café.

  Mr. Monroe: Yes, Judge.

  Q. Now, Teddie, let’s talk some about that day you were in the park, that day you heard voices when you were on the Waterfall Path. Was that the first day you’d been to the park that week?

  A. (laugh) No. I go pretty near every day.

  Q. Every day? Now that’s interesting. You know, things I do every day, like getting dressed sometimes I can’t remember if I put on my black shoes or my brown shoes. Does—

  A. Black shoes. You got black shoes on today.

  Q. Why, yes, I do, thank you, Teddie. But does that ever happen to you, that you’re not sure if something happened this day or that day?

  A. Sometimes.

  Q. Well, I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one.

  Ms. Frye: Objection. This—

  THE COURT: Overruled. We’re going to allow some latitude with this particular witness. Just don’t get carried away, Mr. Monroe.

  Mr. Monroe: Thank you, Judge.

  Q. So, Teddie, what with sometimes you and me forgetting what happened one day and what happened another day, how do you keep straight something like hearing those voices at the park on that particular day.

  A. They helped me remember.

  Q. Who helped you remember?

  A. The other people, the people who told me about it.

  Q. Do you mean Ms. Frye or Mr. Smith?

  A. No, not them. Way before them. When it was all happening.

  Q. The same day Pan Wade was found?

  A. No, I wouldn’t have needed no help remembering right then.

  Q. That makes sense, Teddie. So, it was some time later? Along with nodding your head, you have to say the word, Teddie.

  A. Yes.

  Q. It was later?

  A. Yes.

  Q. Do you know when it was?

  A. Don’t know. But not right then. And not a real long time later, like when that pretty lady there — Maggie — when she talked to me. Somewhere in between.

  Q. Was it before you went to Sheriff Hague and told him you’d heard voices? That was about the middle of September — yes, here it is, September 17. Is that right?

  A. I guess so. I must have remembered before I told the sheriff.

  Q. Very true, Teddie. Do you remember any of the specific people who helped you remember?

  A. No. It was just, you know, everybody talking. Trying to help. Because of Pan being killed and all.

  Q. Okay, well, tell me this, how’d they help you remember, because maybe it’s something I could use when I’m not remembering?

  A. I was telling about what I heard when I was hearing the waterfall, and how I ride my bike to the park most every day, and we started working through the days like, and they told me that was the same day Pan got killed. (Unintelligible.)

  Q. That’s okay, Teddie. Remembering that makes all of us feel like crying. Would you like to take a little break?

  THE COURT: We’ll break for lunch now.

  * * * *

  Maggie stopped at the red light off the square and felt a sudden shift in atmosphere in the car, like a plane descending. But this air pressure shift had no physical cause. She checked the rearview mirror. Carson faced the side window, his profile impassive. Nothing new there.

  Dallas, too, stared out. But she remembered something from the trial: He’d stared away from Teddie Barrett that way during her direct questioning of him.

  Like he didn’t want to alert his prey.

  She quickly looked in the direction the two men were not looking. First checking cross-traffic, then vehicles coming the opposite direction. A beat up gray sedan sat first in line. Behind it was a gleaming dark-green pickup.

  She squinted against late afternoon sun. The driver of the car was a kid — good God, they let twelve-year-olds behind the wheel — but the driver of the truck…

  Green light. She eased forward, trying to keep the angle right to see up into the truck’s cab.

  Rick Wade.

  The sheriff had nailed it about the animosity between Wade and Carson.

  With the Addingtons caught in the middle.

  Their faith in Carson was obvious, though God knew they wouldn’t be the first relatives of a victim fooled by a murderer. Charm made monsters all the more monstrous.

  Wade seemed deep in thought — the kind of thought that produced a scowl — and showed no sign of recognizing her car or its occupants. Neither passenger glanced his direction.

  A block down, when Maggie braked for a stop sign, Carson abruptly opened his door and said, “This is good for me. Thanks.”

  “Wait. Where—?”

  “If you’ll take me to the office, Maggie,” Dallas said.

  “Carson!” she shouted.

  He loped in the direction they’d come from, disappearing down an alley.

  The car behind them tooted.

  “Office is up ahead, another block,” Dallas said, as if she’d stopped because she were lost. He had his professionally benign expression aimed straight ahead.

  She dropped him off with no ceremony, turned right at the first opportunity and took the street parallel to Main back to the exit of the alley Carson disappeared down. Directly across was a parking lot, if that wasn’t too formal a name for an empty patch accommodating cars.

  If his truck had been there, he could have gone anywhere.

  Damn it. She’d accepted Gardner’s arrangement largely to keep an eye on Carson, and now he was in the wind.

  She could call the sheriff—

  And say what? Carson jumped out of her car, she didn’t like it, and she wanted an all-points bulletin?

  She consciously eased the cla
mp on her jaw and drove on.

  She found an open parking spot around the corner from Monroe’s office.

  She did call Gardner, but it was to recap the little they’d found out.

  “You could order Monroe to stay away from anyone connected to Laurel’s murder,” she said.

  He snorted. “As long as I talk to them first, I won’t mind Dallas keeping the coals hot under folks’ feet. Might help. As long as you can keep hold of his reins.”

  Her turn to snort.

  She returned two work calls — one to a colleague, the other to a defense attorney’s office about scheduling.

  Jamie had called again, this message saying only to give her a call. That could wait.

  The final call was from another cousin — hers and Jamie’s.

  Ally Northcutt, too, said to give her a call, though the phrase “as soon as you have time” added more urgency. As did Ally’s circumstances.

  Ally was married to a police officer who had been shot in the head three years ago as he left their home one ordinary weekday morning and had been in a coma ever since.

  Maggie listened to the message again.

  Surely, Ally would say if something had changed with Chad. There’d be more in her voice. Or—

  “Oh, for God’s sake, call her,” she said aloud as she pounded speed dial.

  “Hello?” The person who answered was not Ally.

  “Who is this?” Maggie demanded.

  “Oh, Maggie, it’s you. Ally, it’s your cousin.”

  Ally came on, as cool and unflappable as ever. “Maggie?”

  “Your mother-in-law is now answering your phone? Has she planted listening devices in the house, too?”

  “Yes, I know it’s complicated—”

  And there’s the fact you’re all from complicated families. … Google’s a wonderful thing.

  “—but it’s good to hear from you,” Ally finished.

  In other words, Iris Northcutt was listening in. She’d never been a hands-off mother-in-law, but since Chad’s shooting, she’d become an incessant presence while Ally spent all day, every day beside her husband’s bed.

  “Ally, you have got to tell that woman—”

  “Of course, I’ll be sure to tell everyone you send your best wishes. But the reason I called is Foundation business.”

  A door closed on the other end of the phone connection. Ally had probably gone into the bathroom.

  “Can you talk openly now?” Maggie asked.

  “No. But you can.”

  “Is everything okay?”

  “No change. I called because Jamie said—”

  “I told her I’d think about the damned fund-raiser. Give me a break. She doesn’t harass you about going — Oh, God. I’m sorry, Ally. Of course, she doesn’t. I just wish she’d let up on me.”

  “I know you do. As a matter of fact, she didn’t even mention the fund-raiser to me, much less ask me to call you about it. I just used that in Iris’ hearing.”

  “Oh. Good. Because I’m out of town on a case.”

  “Yes, I know. Jamie worries—”

  Maggie’s momentary chastisement fled. “Now what is she carrying on about?”

  “She’s concerned about you being in Bedhurst County again.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “You were upset after that case—”

  “I failed to get a conviction on my first murder trial as lead. Of course I was upset.”

  “Was that the only reason? I did wonder if it brought up feeli—”

  “No.”

  Silence hung between them. Silence filled with too many thoughts, too many memories. Maggie couldn’t break it for fear of one escaping.

  “Okay, then,” Ally said slowly. In someone else, it might have sounded sarcastic. “I thought we could go to brunch Saturday. Chad’s aunt is in town and will be here with him, so I’m available, and Jamie said she’d make time—”

  “Sorry. I can’t. You two have fun.”

  “You won’t be back by the weekend?”

  “No.” The word was a decision, as well as an answer.

  “I don’t get opportunities like this often.”

  No, she didn’t. Her days were a routine of sitting with her brain-dead husband and keeping their home in the condition his family thought befitted a shrine.

  Maggie gentled her voice. “I know. I am sorry. But I need to be here. Sorry it didn’t work out.”

  “Well, maybe Aunt Dawn will come back soon.”

  After quick good-byes, she hurried to Monroe’s office.

  * * * *

  She shivered. Somewhere behind darkening clouds, the sun must be near to dropping behind the ragged mountain line.

  As her eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness of the waiting room, Carson emerged from gloom at the back of the hallway holding a coffee mug.

  She hadn’t been on her phone that long, yet here he was, apparently settled in. Could he have been here all along?

  The front office was empty. “Where’s Monroe?” she asked.

  “Courthouse.”

  Scott appeared behind Carson, also with a mug. Was that a hint of relief she felt at having a third party here?

  “Dallas asked me to clear you space at the table in his office,” Scott said to her. “If you ever need anything, I’m set up in back, to take calls and such.”

  Carson stepped into the doorway of the room halfway along the hall, which she assumed was his office, to let Scott pass.

  There was an atmosphere she couldn’t pin down.

  She followed Scott into Monroe’s haphazard office. He restacked files, papers, and books to clear a section of the conference table. She moved a lamp to shine on the newly opened area.

  After she assured Scott she had everything she needed, he went back down the hall.

  She’d left her briefcase in the guesthouse, but started making electronic notes from today’s interviews.

  The exterior door opened and closed. The fact that the tread heading into the office was not Dallas’ barely registered before a familiar voice came.

  “Surprise.”

  She turned in her chair, not getting up. “What are you doing here, Roy?”

  “Doing you a favor, babe.” He placed a file box in the middle of the cleared space. “Brought these files Nancy said you wanted.”

  He tried to make it sound as if Nancy had asked him to make this delivery.

  “A courier—” She tapped the completed label attached to the box. “—would have done fine — better, in fact.”

  “They don’t provide TLC. I wanted to see how you’re doing—” His tilted grin deepened as he looked out the window to Bedhurst’s town square. “—in this metropolis.”

  “I’ve only been here overnight.”

  “That should be plenty of time to appreciate what you’d left behind. And to think about things.”

  “I’m working.”

  “Yeah, I heard. A cop calling in lawyers to help with an investigation. Christ.” He hitched one thigh on the edge of the table, pulling his jeans even tighter. “Maybe this will be good for us. You being up here breathing in the fresh air and relaxing and—”

  “I told you—”

  “I know, I know, you’re working. But I also know investigating a murder doesn’t have to stop somebody from paying attention to the important things.” He leaned closer. “You know it, too, if you think back to your kitchen last month, right after I made the Ortanovich arrest.”

  Important things … In other words, him and sex.

  She hadn’t given a thought to him. Or to sex. Except as it might have played into the murder of Laurel.

  And possibly the murder of Pan Wade.

  They’d never been able to pin down evidence that Pan and Carson had been lovers. The autopsy hadn’t shown any sign of sexual activity. What details would Laurel’s show?

  She supposed the autopsy would be done at the state medical examiner’s regional office in Roanoke, as Pan’s had. She ne
eded to check—

  Roy’s deep chuckle snapped her attention back to him. He leaned over, slipping one hand down to her waist. “I always know what you’re thinking when you get all dreamy-eyed.”

  She resisted his effort to draw her in, but the chair limited her maneuverability.

  “Roy—”

  “It’s okay, babe.” He slid his free hand to the side of her neck and leaned toward her. She leaned away. “You don’t have to say a word.”

  She pushed back the chair to stand.

  “Nothing has changed, Roy.” She went to the doorway. “It was unnecessary, but thank you for bringing the files. Now it’s time for you to leave, and no need to return.”

  Anger mottled his cheeks, but he kept the smile as he crowded her. She stepped back into the hall. “Depends on your definition of need, Maggie.”

  “Please go, Roy.”

  He took hold of the back of her neck with a fast move she didn’t see coming. His other hand grasped her shoulder, as his mouth ground against hers. After an instant of shock, she clamped her mouth shut and jabbed the heels of both hands against his chest.

  She was debating between kneeing him in the groin and stamping her heel into his foot when he released her and stepped back, trailing his hand over her cheek, still grinning — the jackass.

  “See you soon, babe.”

  He was gone before she could express the brimstone details of where she’d like to see him.

  Her arms jangled with the desire to pound something. She drew in air through her mouth, expelled it through her nose. Once, twice.

  Then she became aware.

  Of what, precisely, she couldn’t say, but it made her turn.

  J.D. Carson leaned against the frame of his office door, as if he’d been there all along.

  “I’ve got to wonder—”

  “Go ahead and wonder,” she snapped, heading for the tiny bathroom beyond Carson’s office that Scott had pointed out earlier.

  He picked up the sentence as if she’d never spoken. “—what forensics would find of him on you and you on him after that clinch.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  3:47 p.m.

  Without missing any words coming through the phone held to his ear, Belichek eyed the woman across from him.