“It is possible,” I admitted. “Not likely, but possible. She says she heard the car pull up and he knocked on her door shortly after. She could have heard a different car, making the timing a coincidence. When she goes out to speak with him at 10 o’clock, the lights in the Thomas house are out. Whether Isaac killed her or not, by that time Vanda is already lying dead in the house. I didn’t think to ask Miss Johnson if she heard another car earlier. If Vanda took someone home with her, he had to park somewhere.”
This time Richard spoke. “So if Isaac were going to trial today, with a decent lawyer and a good jury, we might have enough for a not guilty verdict. But now, over 20 years after he’s pled guilty and almost two years after his death, we don’t have enough to prove him innocent. There’s only one thing to do.”
Richard looked at each of us in turn to see if we were with him. “We have to find the real killer.”
Richard let his words sink in before saying he had some information for us as well. He’d gotten a couple of phone calls at work. In the morning, ASA Jim Gilbert had called. The idea of Gilbert calling when they were in the same building struck me as funny and emblematic of our lazy 21st century. That is, until I heard what he’d had to say.
“This is one those conversations that, after you’ve had them, never happened. Jim didn’t even call me on the office phone; he called my cell phone. He’s been concerned about the missing notes from the Thomas file. He hasn’t figured it out yet, but he has some disturbing leads. He wants to meet with me tomorrow, me and me alone. We have lunch together a few times a month, so no one will think it’s unusual.”
“Why is he so paranoid?” I asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t know what he’s found out. He sort of hinted around that there may be additional records related to Isaac Thomas that could not yet legally be disclosed. And before you ask why, he didn’t say.”
“An active investigation,” Mike said. I looked at him blankly. My experience with Chapter 119, the public records disclosure law in Florida, was limited. I knew that agencies were supposed to provide public records to the person requesting them, including records relating to criminal investigations, unless the agency could claim that an exemption applied. Those exemptions were set out in the statute. Mike clarified his statement right about the time I reached the end of my own logical deductions.
“There are probably dozens of exemptions from disclosure. That’s one of them. Records relating to an active, ongoing investigation cannot be turned over because of the danger of compromising the investigation.”
“Remember,” I said, “someone did get Isaac transferred to Latham for a medical visit he apparently didn’t need, just a few weeks before his suicide. That transfer could have been related to the investigation. The question is, what’s the investigation?”
We brainstormed for a while, but we kept coming back to Vanda’s murder. Someone from the State could have figured out Isaac was innocent. It may sound cynical (I prefer well-informed) but the three of us had been around long enough to know that, like most states, Florida does not correct its own mistakes. The State would never have initiated an investigation to exonerate Isaac. There would have to be something more, perhaps another murder. It would have to be something sufficiently similar for someone to make the connection to Vanda’s murder and start wondering if the man who killed her was still out there killing more people.
“Seems like a long shot,” I said.
“Yes,” Richard agreed, “but right now it’s the only thing we’ve got.”
“We’re forgetting something,” Mike had obviously had his caffeine ration for the day because he was thinking circles around me. “What about Sydney’s stinky attacker?”
“Maybe he’s Vanda’s killer,” I volunteered.
Mike was skeptical. “Him and all of his buddies? It seems unlikely that Sydney’s investigation of the 24-year-old murder of—forgive me—a crack whore would motivate half a dozen men to dress in black, kidnap Sydney and beat the crap out of her.”
“Unlikely and ill-advised,” Richard added. “All they’ve done is make her, and us, more determined to figure out what it is they’re trying to hide. But your point is well-taken, Mike. We’re missing a connection here.”
We were spinning our wheels with the speculation so we moved on to Richard’s afternoon caller, Rudy Nagroski. “He kept copies of all his case notes, and he’s been going back through them, trying to find something to help us. I think he’s trying to figure out how they could have missed the fire connection. Of course, he doesn’t even know what Claire Johnson told Sydney today, but he can still put two and two together. He knows there’s a good chance he helped put an innocent man in prison.”
Richard turned to me. “Have you spoken to Noel about this stuff?”
“No,” I said. I hadn’t told Mike and Richard about our fight Monday, so I filled them in. “Quickest reconciliation and subsequent break-up in the history of, well, my life anyway. Today at lunch I left a message for her at her house, but I haven’t heard back from her. I tried to let her know how important it was, told her we needed to talk to her about what happened the night her mother died, but I don’t know if she’ll call me. Richard, maybe she’d talk to you.”
He nodded his head. “I’ll get the numbers from you. It can’t hurt to try.”
“I don’t know if I ever told you this, but Noel originally hired me, as she said, to find out why her father waited so long to commit suicide. I wanted to reconstruct the last months of his life to see if I could find some insight there, but we’ve sort of gotten distracted by Vanda’s murder. I may follow up on that end some tomorrow, head over to WFC to make sure they didn’t find any more records for me. There’s also a woman guard that I’m trying to get to talk to me. She’s pretty rabbitty, but it could be something totally unrelated to Isaac. Personal problems. Who knows?”
Richard liked that plan. “I think it’s a good idea if you don’t follow up on Vanda’s murder until I’ve had a chance to talk to Jim tomorrow about this phantom investigation. We don’t need you—“ He stopped, looked briefly at me, then at Mike.
“Was that too patronizing?” he asked one of us, I wasn’t sure which one.
“How patronizing is too patronizing?” I asked. I got a flicker of a smile, but Richard wasn’t about to be side-tracked.
“You’re not going to do something stupid just because you think I told you not to, are you?” That one was definitely directed at me.
“No,” I said. “No Nancy Drew for me tomorrow. I intend to stay out of trouble. Better annoyed than dead, and all that stuff.”
I really meant it. I did, but what’s that aphorism about best intentions gone awry? I never was very good at those things.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
We went our separate ways that evening. Well, I didn’t actually go anywhere except around the corner for some magazines and candy bars. I had pizza delivered to my room and spent the evening hours vegging, falling asleep early to the sounds of a cooking show. There’s nothing like a cooking show to lull a confirmed non-cooker to sleep, unless of course it’s one of those cooking shows where the chef makes up for the impossibility of achieving his recipe by overwhelming you with his loud and eccentric charm.
I didn’t set an alarm, just let myself wake up when I woke up, which turned out to be when the phone rang at 9:30 a.m. It was Mike.
“Richard wanted me to give you call. He tried Noel’s home number last night and this morning and couldn’t reach her either. He said the beep on her answering machine was really long, so I looked up her work number—don’t ask, it was a good use of taxpayer money. Her boss said she hasn’t been at work all week. She came in Monday and said she was taking some personal time and they haven’t heard from her since. They’re a little worried. Apparently she’s never taken this much time off before.”
“Sounds like Noel. I’ll drive over to her grandmother’s and see if she’s there.”
The thought of
seeing Grandma Harrison was enough to send me back to bed, but I persevered. As a reward for my diligence and professionalism in the face of adversity, I had some of my pizza for breakfast before heading out the door. (It was veggie; only a college freshman can eat pepperoni for breakfast.)
Shockingly, Mrs. Harrison was even less happy to see me than I her. In her words, “I thought I made it clear to you the last time you were here that you are not welcome in my home or on my property. You will never be welcome here. Now get out!”
The same daughter, Ginny, had greeted me and let me in. Bet she was in for a tongue-lashing, or maybe not. Maybe chewing me out made the old broad’s day. Ginny had immediately made herself scarce (this time not even bothering with the bogus offer of drinks), but Mrs. Harrison’s yells brought another younger woman from the back of the house to see the commotion. She looked a lot like Noel, but slightly older. I could imagine Noel facing her grandmother down. This woman looked like she wanted to do the same, but was afraid of looking at Mrs. Harrison directly.
“Mrs. Harrison, I just came by to see if Noel was here or if you’ve heard from her recently,” I said in my very best ‘don’t bite me, crazy dog, I swear I’m not a burglar’ voice.
“Don’t you even presume to speak my granddaughter’s name in this house. This is all your fault, you and your scam. You don’t fool me. You’re not really an investigator. You’re just some sort of pervert who gets paid to nose into other people’s lives and stir up trouble.”
She rose, and I looked quickly around the room to make sure she didn’t have a shotgun within reach. I saw the younger woman do the same assessment before stepping forward.
“It’s okay, nana, I’ll take care of it. Don’t exert yourself.”
She took me by the arm and led me from the house. Mrs. Harrison’s loud insults followed me as far as my car, where the woman finally introduced herself.
“I’m Noel’s cousin, Sarah. She’s not here, and she hasn’t been here since Monday. I’m worried about her. Can you meet me at the Pancake House out on the main road, say in about 15 minutes? I have something for you.”
I agreed, and 15 minutes later we were seated in a booth with cups of coffee that Sarah had recommended. “The water here tastes pretty bad, and the tea’s not strong enough to hide the flavor, but the coffee’s okay with lots of milk and sugar.”
“So you’re Noel’s cousin?” I asked, after heavily doctoring my coffee.
“Yes. Nana Harrison—she hates when I call her that, but I don’t have the strength to really stand up against her, so I have to go the passive-aggressive route. Nana Harrison had three daughters: Viola, Virginia (Ginny), and Vanda. I don’t know what she ate during pregnancy that made her psychotic with the V’s. My mother was Viola. She died of cancer several years ago. She was diagnosed with cervical cancer within a few months after Aunt Vanda was killed. Noel had been staying with us, but Nana used that as an excuse to take her away from us.”
“Why?”
“You have met my grandmother, haven’t you?”
I grinned. “I gotcha. So Mrs. Harrison takes Noel because she’s on her usual power trip.”
“That, and Vanda was always her favorite. It wasn’t just that she wanted Vanda’s child, she wanted to mold Vanda’s child, or at least her memories of her mother. She wanted Noel to see Vanda as she did—perfect.”
“And she wasn’t?”
“Far from it. I’m three years older than Noel, so I remember some of the stories they used to tell about Vanda. Let me put it this way, the stories they told after she died weren’t anything like the stories they told about her while she was still alive. Of course, even when she was alive, they had to tell them behind Nana’s back.”
“But you never really knew her, or her husband?”
“I think I met Isaac a couple of times, and Vanda a few more. All I personally remember is that she was a gorgeous woman, with a diva attitude to match. There was one time, not long before Vanda was killed, that she came to visit with Nana for a couple of weeks, but they kept all the kids away from her. Nana said she was staying there because her husband beat her, but mom said that was bullshit, that he sent her there to dry out.”
“So your mom gets diagnosed with cancer, and Mrs. Harrison decides that with your mother’s condition, it’s best for the family if Noel leaves your home and moves in with her. Then what happens?”
Sarah smiled. “You’ve got her pegged all right. Well, mom and Nana fought all the time after Vanda was killed. Mom thought Noel should see her father, even if he had killed her mother, and of course Nana would have none of that. Mom also didn’t appreciate the revisionist history of Vanda. She said she loved her sister, but Vanda was no saint, and Noel shouldn’t be brought up to think she was. Mom was a fighter, and she battled the cancer off and on for a couple of years until she went into a real remission. It took a lot out of her though, and she was never the same. She just didn’t have the energy to fight with Nana any more.”
“How long was she in remission?”
“Eighteen months. Then it came back, and she was dead within a year.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sarah nodded her head. “It was hard for her. Toward the end, she felt a lot of regret over Noel, that she hadn’t done enough or told her enough. When she knew she was dying, mom tried to see Noel, but Nana did a good job of keeping them apart. Mom died in the summer, and I think Nana had sent Noel away to some kind of Baptist bible camp.”
The echoes with my own life hit me in the gut like one of stinky guy’s punches. My throat started to burn and I thought I’d throw up my coffee.
“Are you all right?”
I took a deep breath and tried to shake off 18 years of anger. “Yeah. Sorry, something just didn’t sit right with me for a minute. Do you know what your mother wanted to tell Noel?”
“No. I wish I did. But she had a box of letters from Vanda, and she asked me to give them to Noel. I don’t think Nana knew they kept in touch over the years. She was furious when she found out. Somehow she got her hands on them and burned the whole box.”
Sarah reached in her purse and pulled out a slightly discolored envelope. “Except this one. I found it in my mother’s belongings, and I’ve been holding on to it ever since. I was pretty messed up after my mother died. I put this away and never got around to giving it to Noel. I forgot all about it until Noel told us about you, about what she was doing. I guess I’ve been waiting for the right time.”
Sarah handed the envelope to me. “Noel came by Monday afternoon, absolutely furious. I don’t know what they were arguing about, but she and Nana were screaming at each other. It’s the first time I’d ever heard Noel raise her voice. They must have gone at it for about 15 minutes, and then Noel took off. She didn’t say where she was going, and we haven’t heard from her since. Nana sent Ginny to Noel’s work and her home, but nobody seems to know anything.”
“I haven’t been able to track her down either,” I said. “I’m afraid this is my fault. I told her some things about her mother and father that I’d found out, probably the kinds of things your mother would have told her if she’s had the chance. But I’m not family, and I didn’t do it as tactfully as I should have. To make things worse, I wasn’t straight with her about some other things.”
I looked up quickly. I didn’t see the familiar distrust or even disapproval in Sarah’s eyes, but I heard myself babbling anyway. “It’s nothing about your family. And it’s not like I was trying to lie to Noel in particular. It was just personal stuff that apparently I lie to everybody about. It’s involuntary, like breathing. I tried to explain. I don’t think she trusts me anymore, and now she probably doesn’t know who to trust.”
Sarah smiled and squeezed my hand impulsively. “Oh, I think she does, or she will. Don’t worry. She’ll come around.”
We left a couple of dollars in the booth and walked out to our cars together. I thanked her and said I’d let her know if I heard from Noel, and she promised
to do the same.
“Sydney, you need to read the letter. In all those years, I only read it once. Maybe I was afraid I’d wear it out, folding and refolding it, or maybe it just stuck with me. Well, I know it stuck with me.” She started to get in her car, then reiterated her thought. “I think it’s really important that you read the letter.”
I had one last question for Sarah as well, one that I’d tried to repress because it had nothing to do with the investigation, but I had to ask.
“Sarah, why do you stay?” She didn’t seem offended, and she didn’t need me to elaborate.
“I almost didn’t, right after my mom died, especially when she burned those letters. I was so angry, and I did leave for a while. Like I said, I went a little crazy. And then I got that out of my system and came back. It’s like egg-laying turtles or spawning salmon. I can’t explain it any better than that. I had to come back here. I didn’t have a choice. She’s family.”
I tried deep breathing when I left the Pancake House, sort of driving meditation. I was so sick of family secrets, of high-handed, self-righteous people who justified lying to their children and grandchildren because it was in the children’s best interest. In actuality, it was nothing more than a power trip, a means to control the future by re-writing the past, a way to avoid answering difficult questions about decisions their egos would never admit had been wrong. My deep breathing kept going shallow and quick, so instead I drove too fast and listened to some of Mike’s obnoxious music way too loud. I’m sure that didn’t help in a healthy way, but it did help. In a scratch your poison ivy, pick at your scab, wallow in your resentment sort of way. I’d take it.
I’d calmed down and turned the music down by the time I saw the signs for WFC. I parked Mike’s Jeep and sat in silence in the heat, looking at the envelope on the seat next to me. Well, shit, I thought, rolled down the window and pulled out the letter. For some reason I’d expected the handwriting to be perfectly vertical and plump, maybe with faces or things written in the margin. Instead, it was nicely proportioned with the proper right slant, the kind of handwriting they show you on flash cards in the second grade. One illusion shattered; what was next? I scooted the seat back a bit for comfort and began reading.
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