The Last Hope

by C. C. Jameson

  Kate busied herself with the empty coffee mugs, placing them in the sink before heading back to the living room, hoping to give Smitty a subtle sign that it was time for him to go.

  “Did you hear about my shift last night?” he asked, following her to the door.

  “No, what happened?” Kate asked, her curiosity piqued.

  “We found a John Doe in a cardboard box behind a rundown building.”

  Kate suddenly forgot about her issues and took an interest in what Smitty was saying. “What happened?”

  “Dead. Homeless. Maybe a bad heart. Maybe drugs, don’t know yet. Makes you re-think your life, doesn’t it?” he asked.

  “Life is short indeed.” Kate didn’t know what else to say. She felt bad for the homeless man and still felt guilty for standing Smitty up. “Once again, I’m sorry for not meeting you at the restaurant. Thanks for the pizza and the company. You’re a nice guy, Smitty.”

  He wrapped his arms around her and patted her on the back.

  “You’re a nice girl too, Blondie. You should let people in once in a while. You may be surprised.”

  Kate pulled out of his embrace.

  “Listen, Smitty. I’ve got to get up early tomorrow. Long day. I’m going to visit a prisoner in Pennsylvania. Can I help you take those boxes to your car?”

  “Sure, or you can help me bring them to the elevator. That would be awesome.”

  As they carried the final boxes to the elevator, Smitty asked, “Traveling to help with your uncle’s case?”

  “Yeah,” Kate said, nodding as she dropped the last box by his feet. “I hope I’ll find a golden nugget we can use in court. His trial starts on Friday and his defense is pretty thin right now.”

  She stood in front of the elevator and watched him lean sideways to press a button.

  “Good luck with that,” he said as the doors closed on him.

  “Thanks and good night, Smitty,” she said, a genuine smile on her face.

  Chapter Thirteen

  July 11, 2015

  Kate Murphy

  Lewisburg Penitentiary, PA

  After going through the imposed visitor procedure, Kate was escorted to one of the prison phone booths. She was instructed to sit at the third one and wait. Samuel Forrester would be sitting across the corresponding window in a few minutes.

  She didn’t know what to expect.

  Is this guy guilty? Is he a creep?

  I hope he’s just an innocent man like my uncle.

  This high-security prison held cold-blooded murderers that came in all shapes and sizes. From her training, Kate knew that physical appearances were not always indicative of a person’s temperament, but when a tall and slender elderly man sat across from her, her apprehension began melting. A vertical line appeared on Forrester’s forehead when he saw Kate. She reached for the phone receiver, and he followed suit.

  “Hi, Mr. Forrester, my name’s Kate Murphy.”

  “What do you want? I don’t know you. You’re not a former colleague.”

  “I know, but that was the only way I would be allowed to visit you. I’ll do my best to be brief. My uncle is accused of murder. I’m trying to prove his innocence, and your case sounds similar to his. I’m hoping to connect some dots and find a pattern that could prove that my uncle, you, and other people like you, were framed for murders you didn’t commit.”

  “Are you a lawyer?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m running my own investigation, as the niece of a wrongly-accused man.” Kate hoped he wasn’t going to ask if she was a cop. He probably didn’t like cops.

  He stayed silent, his gaze sizing her up. She could tell he needed more convincing.

  “I’m only interested in hearing what you have to say, and maybe asking a few questions. I’m doing the same tomorrow with another man who may have also been wrongly accused.”

  “Could this get me out of here?”

  “No,” Kate said, not wanting to lie to the man.

  He stood up, and Kate knew she had to say something—anything—to keep him on the phone for a second longer.

  “Maybe!” she yelped as Forrester moved the receiver away from his ear.

  He brought it back, but Kate knew she only had this one shot to get him to stick around.

  “I mean your talking to me won’t free you this instant, but I may learn something that could force the state to reopen your case, and then... Maybe.”

  He squinted, staring at her.

  “Nothing to lose, and maybe you could gain your freedom back,” Kate said after a few seconds of uncomfortable silence.

  He twisted his mouth then finally spoke again. “What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me about you, what you do... um... what you did for a living and what your life was like until the day they accused you.”

  “Married, wife, two kids, three grandkids. Happy most days. Typical life. Suburbs. Mortgage. Car loans. What else do you want to know?” he asked as he scratched his head.

  “When did they arrest you?”

  “They showed up at my home one Monday afternoon. Totally freaked my wife out. Arrested me right there and then, and then searched my home.”

  “Can you describe the murder, as you understand it, based on what they said in court?” Kate didn’t want to push his buttons, so she clarified that she didn’t think he was guilty. “What kind of story did the lawyers invent to make the jury believe you did it?”

  “I’ve heard it so many times, and I’ve repeated it in my dreams. I can almost picture it as if it happened for real now,” he paused, then leaned forward before continuing. “I’ve never been to the guy’s home, but from the trial photos, he looked super wealthy. Nice foreign artifacts. Almost like what Indiana Jones would have in his office. The murderer used one of the heavy statues and smacked the guy on the back of the head, and he fell on his Persian rug. Then, the murderer used a small blade to slit his neck. They never found the blade. That’s what they were searching for at my house.”

  “What evidence did they have against you?” Kate pressed, even though she already knew the answer. She hoped he’d mention a tiny detail that could prove helpful.

  “Somehow my blood ended up at the crime scene.”

  His phrasing caught her interest. “What do you mean? Where was it?”

  “I’ll never forget the attorney demonstrating it on a dummy in court. It was ridiculous.”

  Kate waited.

  “Imagine I’m holding a knife and sitting on top of the knocked out guy,” he started, his fist demonstrating the position. “I dig the blade into his neck. I cut between him and the rug, so I don’t get splashed with the blood. You know, blood pressure in a major artery, and all of that. So, blood starts pouring out. There must be a lot of it oozing out, and it’s probably starting to pool around the dead guy. The killer freaks out a little, probably wanting to get his feet out of there without stepping into the blood, so he gets up, forgetting that his blade was still in the victim’s neck, or maybe he loses his balance a little, and he cuts himself with his own blade, leaving a bloody fingerprint on the back of the dead guy’s neck.”

  He shook his head.

  Kate let the silence hang, hoping he’d have more information to give her, and she was rewarded after thirty seconds or so.

  “How the fuck did my blood get there? No idea.”

  “Did the fingerprints match?”

  He shook his head once more. “No, but DNA from the blood was a perfect match.”

  “Same thing as Kenny,” Kate said, nodding.

  “Who?”

  “My uncle. I guess that’s a good sign. There could be a larger thing at play here. What do you know about the victim?”

  “From personal experience, nothing,” he said. “I’ve never met the guy, but some witnesses say he was involved in community events. I attended one of his charity golf tournaments, but I didn’t know it at the time. Who cares who organizes those? I just like to play golf. I was retired, see? Golfing was my one a
ctivity that got me out of the house. I signed up for all sorts of tournaments. Anything within fifty miles, I’d be there. I’d join threesomes who needed a fourth. I liked talking with strangers back then.”

  “Do you know if he had political connections?”

  “They said something about him running for office, but I forget. He didn’t win, though. Organizing events was one way for him to mingle and become known so he’d get more votes, or raise money for stuff he was into.”

  Kate kept him talking. “What did they say was your motive for killing him?”

  “Something about me being angry at him.”

  “Were you?”

  “No, but I did get upset during that tournament. At the seventh hole, on a par three, we had to sit there and wait because a freaking Canadian goose had decided to take the hole hostage. They had one of the stewards at the tee with us, with a walkie-talkie, and another guy near the green, relaying the goose’s movements. She had her goslings with her, see? These birds are protective as hell and fucking dangerous, so the stewards couldn’t just shoo them away, and they wouldn’t let us play, just in case we hit one of them and killed it with a ball. You know, I told ’em one ball should scare them, and they’d take off without getting anyone hurt. But no. We had to wait there for fifty minutes. Fifty goddamn minutes! Needless to say, a line started to form behind us at that point. No matter how scattered the tee-off times had been, we now had three groups breathing down our necks for the rest of the game. The remaining eleven holes sucked! My worst game ever.”

  “Did you blame the victim?” Kate asked.

  “I blamed the fucking geese! They’re freaking everywhere. I don’t understand why the golf course owner didn’t let us scare off the damn birds. A few dead ones would have been a good thing, if you ask me. They shit all over the place, too.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Forrester, I get the picture. Is there anything else you could tell me? Anything that seemed odd or out of place to you?”

  “You mean other than my blood being there in the first place?” he asked with a blank stare.

  “Yeah.”

  “The freaking fingerprint. Whose was it? They never found out.”

  She made a note of this. “Did this come up in court?”

  “Sure, but they dismissed it, saying DNA from blood was stronger evidence. First, they thought I had an accomplice, then they stuck to the print belonging to a stranger or maybe an off-the-record employee of the guy who checked his pulse then freaked out and left town. Don’t know many people who’d bother to check the pulse of a man sitting in a pool of blood, but whatever. I’m the one rotting here, and the owner of that fingerprint got away with murder.”

  Kate thanked him for his time and promised to be in touch should she discover anything helpful.

  He nodded, stood up, and then left the visiting area without saying another word.

  Once out of the penitentiary and back into the comforts of her economy rental car, Kate went over Forrester’s words in her head.

  No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t find a stronger connection than the weird DNA match with an unmatched fingerprint. Maybe the fingerprint from Forrester’s case would match one of the unknown prints from her uncle’s case?

  No. She knew the detectives would have run the print against all those that were already in the system. But then again, people had ten fingers.

  Could it have been the same guy, but a different hand or a different finger?

  She took out her phone and Googled the victim again. He was pro-life and anti-genome projects, but he was more into creating a greener world, so he was not an oil supporter.

  If the two cases were related, she had to eliminate environmentalism as a possible motive.

  She’d seen several pictures of the victim with US senators, the New York City mayor, and many actors, singers, and other celebrities. Sure, he had been involved in some minor controversial topics, and he had friends in high places, but was that reason enough to kill someone? Maybe he was just a brown-noser who had offended the wrong person?

  She put her notepad down on the passenger seat and turned on the radio. The clock read 3:12 p.m. She knew she had four hours of driving between here and her next visit tomorrow, so she looked at the map on her GPS and decided to drive to Youngstown, Ohio.

  She hoped the town would have a cheap but comfortable hotel where she could relax and prepare for tomorrow’s visit.

  Kate awoke in her motel room on Sunday morning, her mind lingering on the remnants of the previous night’s dreams, something that involved Luko.

  Her alarm clock hadn’t gone off yet. The light peeking through the sides of the plastic shades suggested it was around seven or eight o’clock. She reached for the phone she’d left on her nightstand: 7:35 a.m. She opened up the messaging app and started to type a note for Luke:

  Sorry

  However, she couldn’t find the courage to send it. She deleted it and played a few rounds of Candy Crush. When she ran out of lives, she got out of bed and hopped in the shower.

  She had a few hours to kill, so she turned on the television and watched sitcom re-runs before checking out and grabbing an unhealthy breakfast in town.

  Coffee in hand, she drove to meet Timothy Swanson. She got there an hour before the official start of visiting hours, with plenty of time to review her notes.

  The murder he’d been charged with involved a gun, which was never found. The accused’s hair had been recovered at the crime scene. They’d also discovered a footprint that matched his shoe size but never found the matching boots. This particular victim was a religious figure, not a political one, but then again, those two groups were a lot more intertwined than most would acknowledge. He was a pastor in a small parish, but quite outspoken on the Internet. She’d found his blog last week, and the pastor had strong views on homosexuality, abortion, and other subjects.

  The visit turned out to be uneventful. Swanson confirmed one detail: no fingerprint this time. Just the shoe print.

  Similar lines, but no real connection. Swanson didn’t offer anything else she didn’t already know. She ran out of questions, and he couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she thanked him for his time and left the penitentiary.

  Kate had to catch her return flight from Pittsburg, so she hit the road.

  Along the way, before crossing the Ohio-Pennsylvania border, she spotted a gas station and stopped to fill her tank and grab a snack. She filled up, locked her car, and opened the door to the convenience store, which triggered a small chime.

  “Hi there,” the middle-aged woman behind the cash register said.

  “Hi,” Kate replied. “I’m just going to use your bathroom and pick up a few things before paying for my gas.”

  “Sure thing, dear. In the back,” she said, pointing toward a sign across the store.

  Her bladder relieved of all the caffeine she’d ingested, Kate took her time and wandered the three aisles, looking for something a little healthier than chips, candy, or chocolate, but the selection was slim.

  The doorbell chimed again.

  “Hi there, Sonia. A pack of Marlboros, please,” a man’s voice said.

  “Here you go, Sheriff. That’ll be $8.95. How’s your day going?”

  “Well, you know. Typical, but we found a dead John Doe a few hours ago.”

  Kate grabbed a 7UP, a bag of white cheese popcorn, and a pepperoni stick before heading toward the cash register.

  The sheriff was still standing there, putting the change the cashier had given him back into his pocket. He then pulled a picture out of his notebook.

  “Do you know this man?” he asked the clerk.

  “No, never saw him in my life.”

  Kate stayed back by a couple of feet. She didn’t want to interrupt him; she was in no hurry. But the sheriff turned around and addressed her.

  “Ma’am, don’t believe you’re from around here.”

  “No, sir. I’m not.”

  He approached her anywa
y. “Could you tell me if you’ve seen this man before?”

  Kate grabbed the picture to have a closer look. The man on the photograph had his eyes closed and was resting on a horizontal stainless steel surface.

  The picture must have been taken at the morgue.

  He had dark blond hair, a scruffy beard, and a pointed nose. Probably Caucasian, but his skin looked leathered by too much sun.

  “Sorry. I don’t think so,” Kate said, shaking her head before handing back the photo.

  He returned it to his notebook and grabbed something else from his breast pocket. “Here’s my card if you remember seeing him somewhere. Thanks for your help.”

  The sheriff then turned to the clerk and waved her a two-finger salute. “Have a great afternoon, Sonia. Stay safe.” Then he left.

  Kate paid for her gas and her snacks, tucked the sheriff’s card in her wallet and headed to the Pittsburgh International airport to drop off her rental vehicle and catch her flight back to Boston.

  When Kate finally got home, after sitting on the tarmac for two hours and being in the air for nearly two more, she felt exhausted and deflated.

  She grabbed a pint of ice cream and a can of 7UP and made herself an ice cream float. She sat at her kitchen island and played with her spoon, pushing the ice cream ball down into the liquid and twirling it around. It reminded her of the floats her dad would order at the diner in her hometown.

  Simpler days. Where have they gone?

  She tried to remember the last time she’d had such a treat.

  It was a long time ago.

  Her parents were still alive. Her dad used to take her to the diner on Sundays, and he’d have coffee and get her a float, but not with root beer like the menu offered. Kate had never liked root beer, so the waitress had tried various soda and ice cream combinations to please her, and they’d finally settled on the plainest of the plain: vanilla ice cream with 7UP.