by Marti Green
“We don’t even know for sure that he is your father.”
Sunny looked up from the mixing bowl. “I know. He’s my father. And if he dies, it’ll be because of me.”
Eric took Sunny’s hands and led her from the kitchen. He sat her down on a chair at the dining table and then sat down next to her. “Listen to me. If he is your father, if the DNA tells you that, he made a decision to give you a second chance at life. He did that out of love for you. Tell me, is there anything you wouldn’t do for Rachel?”
Sunny shook her head.
“Whatever happens next, always remember, your parents made that decision. Not you. And you’re not responsible for the consequences of their decision.”
“I don’t know how I can live with those consequences.”
“You live with them to honor their sacrifice.”
Sunny nodded. Somehow, she knew that’s what her parents would want. She also knew it would not be easy.
CHAPTER
38
Five Hours
It felt like déjà vu to Dani. She could only imagine what it felt like for George. They were back together, enduring the long wait. Only this time it was taking much longer. Coates had bent his rules even further and allowed her to stay in George’s cell overnight. He’d brought in a cot and a blanket for Dani. “Hell, the rules say it’s supposed to happen right after midnight. If that can be changed, I don’t see any reason why I can’t allow him your company overnight,” he’d said. Coates stayed in his office overnight as well, ready to answer the phone if the test results came back.
Dani encouraged George to try to sleep, but he couldn’t, and neither could she, so they talked quietly.
“You should have seen Sallie when I first met her. We were in high school together, both freshmen, and she really was the prettiest one in the whole class. I almost passed out cold when she said she’d go out with me, I was so surprised. She could’ve had her pick, but she chose me.… I know it sounds corny, but she’s the only girl I ever loved.”
“There must have been something about you that attracted her.”
“I suppose. It’s funny, we were so worried back then in high school that she’d get pregnant. We’d seen it happen to buddies of ours and it sure messed them up. We couldn’t have been any more careful. Then, when we wanted to have a baby, it took us the longest time. But, oh, Angelina was worth waiting for. What a beauty! People just stopped us on the street all the time to ooh and aah over her.”
“I suppose all parents think their children are beautiful, but I have to admit—I’ve seen pictures of Angelina, and she was exceptionally pretty.”
“You have kids of your own?”
“I do. A son. His name is Jonah.”
“I bet he means the world to you.”
“Yes, of course.”
“You know, I never blamed Sallie. Not once. It was grief that made her say we killed our Angelina. I think she believed we did.”
“Have you had any contact with Sallie since the trial?”
George stared in the distance and shook his head slowly. “I tried writing to her, but she never answered. My mom went to visit her once, drove a long time to get there too, but Sallie wouldn’t see her.” He turned to Dani. “You’ve seen her, haven’t you?”
I nodded.
“Is she doing okay? I mean, is she holding up inside?”
“She’s been treated well by the other women, but it’s been hard for her. Not prison. I think she feels she belongs there. But I don’t think she’s ever been able to reconcile leaving Angelina.”
They were both quiet for a while.
“Are you afraid of dying?” George asked.
“I suppose so. I try not to think about it.”
“They wanted me to speak to the preacher, but I said no. God is either going to understand what I did or not, and there’s nothing I can do about that now.”
“I understand what you did. And I think your daughter will understand too.”
“That’s all that matters to me.”
Feeling herself getting sleepy, Dani knew she needed to move around to rouse herself. She wanted to be awake for George, whether he needed to talk or just silently contemplate what was to come. As she stood, she heard the faint ring of the telephone in the guard’s station down the hall. Moments later, footsteps approached. “Ms. Trumball, there’s a call for you in the warden’s office.”
Her heart did acrobatics in her chest. It was 4:00 a.m. The call could mean only one thing: The DNA results were in. George looked up at her, his eyes moist. “Whatever happens, thank you for believing in me,” he said. Dani nodded and followed the guard upstairs to Coates’s office, where she found him at his desk, looking anxious. Unlike he had done with her earlier phone calls, he remained in the office.
“Dani,” Bruce said. “It’s a match. One hundred percent certainty. Sunshine Harrington is George and Sallie’s daughter. I’m faxing over a copy of the report to you right now.”
She was too overwhelmed to respond. She looked at Coates and nodded. He understood. They both knew what this meant. George Calhoun would live.
CHAPTER
39
One Week Later
“All rise,” the bailiff intoned. They were all back at the LaGrange County Courthouse again, Melanie, Tommy, and Dani. This time, in the courtroom of Judge Andrea Hermann, and this time with both George and Sallie sitting in the prisoners row—the first time they’d seen each other in seventeen years. “You may be seated,” the bailiff said after Judge Hermann had taken her seat.
“I understand the state has a motion,” the judge said.
The assistant prosecutor stood up. “We do, Your Honor. The people move to dismiss all charges against George Calhoun and Sallie Calhoun based on exculpatory evidence that has just come to light.”
“I understand Mr. Calhoun came within hours of the needle,” the judge said. “I’m grateful our system didn’t fail him.”
Dani didn’t see it that way. Seventeen years in prison for an innocent couple seemed like a failure to her. But it was one in which the Calhouns shared culpability.
“I hereby order that George Calhoun and Sallie Calhoun be released from custody as expeditiously as possible, but in no event later than one week from today.” Judge Hermann turned to the Calhouns. “I want to wish you both the best of luck. I understand there’s someone with whom you have some catching up to do.”
“Yes, sir, I hope so,” George said.
Sallie had been quiet all morning. When Dani had visited her in the holding cell, she’d seemed to be in a state of shock, unsure of what had happened. It would take time to reorient herself to freedom.
The guard came to take George and Sallie back to their holding cells. They had to be transported back to their respective prisons for purposes of paperwork. Before they’d walk out the prison doors, counselors would try to prepare them for the changes they would encounter. Dani knew how difficult it was for exonerees to adjust to the outside world. For George and Sallie, the time they’d spent inside had been so long that the adjustment would be monumental.
Before the guard led him away, George turned to Dani. “I never believed this would happen,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Is this real? Am I really free?”
“You will be soon, very soon.”
“When I wrote to you, I didn’t mind dying. I’d come to accept it. I just needed to know if there was a purpose for it. That Angelina—” He shook his head. “I keep forgetting that’s not her name anymore. Sunshine. It’s a good name.”
“You shouldn’t have had to make that sacrifice, to choose between your life and Angelina’s.”
“No, ma’am. No one should. But at least it had a purpose. At least she’s had a good life.”
The guard, who usually brusquely whisked prisoners back to the jailho
use cell, waited patiently by George’s side. It seemed to Dani he understood that an innocent man had spent seventeen years behind bars and was entitled to the few extra minutes he needed.
George took Dani’s hand in his. “Thank you.” He didn’t need to say more. He nodded at the guard and was led out of the courtroom, back to a cell that had changed from a waiting room outside death’s door to a last step toward freedom.
As soon as her plane from Indiana landed at LaGuardia, Dani headed to Sunny with the news of her parents’ exoneration. The quiet in the apartment seemed out of place in the middle of Manhattan. Rachel had gone to sleep shortly after she’d arrived, and although Eric had chatted with her earlier, he’d retreated to his bedroom. It was just Dani and Sunny.
Dani had met with Sunny and her family several times since Melanie broke the disquieting news of her parentage. Up close, the differences between Rachel and the pictures Dani had seen of three-year-old Angelina Calhoun were apparent. But the similarities were strong enough that she suspected they would be unsettling for George and Sallie, a stark reminder of the little girl they’d loved so dearly. If Sunny could let them into her life, perhaps seeing their granddaughter would give them a second chance to watch a child they loved as she grew up.
“It should take a week, no more, for George and Sallie’s release,” she told Sunny. Dani didn’t refer to them as her parents. Sunny wasn’t ready to embrace them as such.
“Where will they go then?”
“Back to Pennsylvania. Your grandmother still lives there. George is moving in with her. And Sallie, she’s moving into sort of a halfway house.”
“But why? Aren’t they still married?”
“Yes, but they’ve had no contact with each other during all those years in prison. They’ve both changed. It’s best for them to first adjust to their freedom. Then maybe they can try to reconnect with each other.”
Sunny stood and began pacing. She was a striking woman, but now her body looked caved in, as if it couldn’t bear the burden of the past week. “It’s my fault. I did this to them.” The tears she’d held back filled her eyes and fell down her cheeks.
Dani put her hands on Sunny’s shoulders and turned her so that they faced each other. “No, Sunny. It’s not your fault that you got sick. It’s not your fault that the hospital wouldn’t treat you. And it’s certainly not your fault that your parents left you alone in Minnesota.”
Sunny stopped pacing and stared at Dani. She looked like a frightened child, not the mother of a little girl. “I don’t know whether to hate myself for what happened to them or hate them for leaving me. I just can’t get my head around it. I don’t know what’s right for me to think.”
“There’s nothing ‘right’ for you to think. And there’s nothing ‘right’ for you to feel. Give yourself time. When you’re ready, if you want to meet them, I’ll take you there. Until then, just keep remembering that their decision allowed you to have all this,” Dani said, spreading her arms.
Sunny sat back on the couch. “Tell me, what are they like?”
For the next hour, Dani filled Sunny in on what George had told her about his and Sallie’s life, from the time they’d met in high school to the fateful decision to leave their daughter at the Mayo Clinic. “But most of all,” she finished, “George always struck me as very courageous and very strong. I didn’t spend much time with Sallie, so I can’t tell you as much about her.” She didn’t want Sunny to know the extent of Sallie’s damage from years of believing she and George had been responsible for Angelina’s death. That could come later.
After leaving Sunny, Dani stopped by the office to pick up some files. Her work had piled up over the past seven weeks. There were motions to file, briefs to write, and letters to answer from inmates around the country, men and women claiming to be innocent and for whom HIPP was the last hope, the only hope.
Before she knew it, it was almost eight o’clock. She needed to go home. With any luck, she’d get there before the honeymoon hour. She’d lie on the couch and let Doug massage the knots in her neck. She’d forget about the stress of the past seven weeks. And she wouldn’t think at all about the murderer of a young child who remained unpunished.
CHAPTER
40
Mickey Conklin had expected the knock on the door all week. As soon as he read in the newspaper that Angelina Calhoun was alive, he knew it was over. When Cannon showed up, it was almost a relief. He followed him willingly to police headquarters, waived his Miranda rights, and waited patiently for the questioning to begin. He sat across a small table from the beefy detective. He knew that others were watching on the other side of the mirrored wall. But in the room, it was just him and Cannon. No one to play good cop.
“You must have had a good laugh stringing me along all these years,” Cannon said after he settled himself into the chair across from Mickey.
Mickey just shook his head.
Cannon took a sheet from inside a folder and held it in front of him. “You know what we did after we found out the child in the woods wasn’t Angelina Calhoun? We went and got an order to dig up the grave. Guess what we found?”
Mickey shrugged.
Cannon slammed his fist onto the table and screamed at Mickey. “You know goddamn well what we found! It was Stacy. Your precious daughter that you’ve been mourning for two decades. The one you said couldn’t have been Stacy when we brought you in for an ID.”
“What makes you so sure it’s Stacy?” Mickey knew he’d cleansed her room of any remnants that could identify her.
“’Cause, jackass, I decided to go check our evidence kit from back when she went missing. And sure enough, we’d collected some of her things, including her hairbrush.”
Mickey remained silent. Talking wouldn’t help him, only hurt him.
“So, how did she die, you son of a bitch?”
Silence.
It went like that for two hours, with Cannon pushing and Mickey remaining quiet. Finally, Cannon said, “We have you on this; you’re gonna be booked for murder.”
“You have nothing. So what if it’s Stacy? Somebody grabbed her and killed her. I was too much in shock to identify her body. You know, denial. I didn’t want it to be her.”
Cannon leaned back in his chair. “You’re wrong, Mickey. We have plenty. Explain the note you left for the investigator from New York.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do. We checked. It’s your fingerprints all over it.”
He knew the note had been a mistake. He’d been too impulsive. Shit.
“You’re bullshitting me. My fingerprints aren’t in any system to compare.”
Cannon nodded. “That’s true. But they were on the pen you gave me last time I was at your house. A perfect match. So, my only question is, did you kill her on your own, or was Janine in on it?”
Mickey practically jumped out of his seat. “You leave her out of this!”
Cannon smiled a slow grin that grew bigger and bigger until all Mickey saw were two rows of yellowed teeth.
“Why? You do it all by yourself? You been lying to Janine too all these years?”
It was over. He needed to come clean. It wasn’t murder. Maybe Cannon would understand. With his voice barely above a whisper, Mickey began his story. “I never meant to hurt Stacy. I loved her. But, see, I’d been working double shifts back then, raking in the overtime. I’d come home so damn tired and just fall into bed. Janine would already be asleep. I never woke her. She was always a deep sleeper. When Stacy was an infant, before she slept through the night, it was me who woke up first. I always had to nudge Janine awake.”
Cannon didn’t need to take notes. The tape recorder was running, and cameras were capturing the whole thing.
“I came home wired one night. See, there was this woman at work—Darlene. She was new at the plant and worked the
night shift, too. When she first flirted with me, I thought it was a joke and played along. But that night, it went beyond joking. She cornered me when I came out of the john and asked when I’d finally get around to kissing her. I acted like a dumb fool, all fumbling and mumbling. She must have thought I was an idiot. But I didn’t kiss her. When I came home, though, I was rattled, and so instead of going to bed, I had a couple of beers first, maybe more than a couple.… I’d been dreaming when I first heard Stacy’s cries. Dreaming about Darlene. I still remember that dream all these years later. I keep thinking my head would’ve been clearer if I hadn’t been dreaming of her. But you can’t control your dreams, right?”
“Keep going. You’re helping yourself now. That’s good.”
“I was annoyed that the dream had been cut short, annoyed at Stacy for waking me up. I went over to her room and turned on the light and sat next to her on her bed. ‘What’s wrong, pumpkin?’ I said. I soothed her for a while, but all the time I was seething.
“‘I want a glass of water,’ she said.
“‘Stay in bed. I’ll get it for you.’ I told her. I walked out of her room and was by the steps when I heard her whimpering behind me.
“‘Don’t leave me alone,’ she said.
“I yelled at her. ‘Go back to your room.’ She just stood there crying. I said, ‘Be quiet. You’ll wake up Mommy.’ She didn’t move. I don’t know what happened. I just felt this fury flood over me, fury that Stacy had gotten out of bed, fury that it wasn’t Janine taking care of her, fury that I didn’t kiss Darlene back even though I wanted to so badly. I smacked her behind, just a little, just to let her know I meant business. It was just a tap. She must have lost her balance, ’cause she fell down the stairs. I just stood there. And then it was so quiet. I ran down the steps. Her body was limp. Her eyes were wide open, but she didn’t move. I kept tapping her face—I knew I shouldn’t move her. But she didn’t wake up. She must have broken her neck in the fall.”