“You and I both know it’s not over.”
She looked at her hand, and I realized she’d brought her phone to the floor with her, continuing to clutch it while we were talking. The hand reacted as if to a vibration. She looked at the screen. “Oh Jesus, it’s an Amber Alert. I gotta go,” Alison said.
“But you’re hearing what I said about Laura Coleman, right?”
“I hear you. And thanks for coming to see me. Talking actually made me feel a little better.”
We left together, me heading over to the Howard Johnson’s, and Alison God knew where. She didn’t bother to change out of her running clothes and was loading Larry into her jeep as I pulled away from the house. I guess she intended to keep going for now.
On the way back to the hotel I wondered what family Alison might have run away from, what kind of abuse might have been happening at home that drove her. I had not run away, and I reluctantly admitted one could do worse than the mother I was given.
Thirty-nine
Laura wasn’t answering her phone the next day, and regarding my father I stupidly contented myself with the no-news-is-good-news logic. I called to find out what Todd was up to.
He said, “I can’t talk. I’m on my way to St. Luke’s. That woman from the Haven.”
An officer was waiting in the lobby and escorted me to the emergency ward, where Todd was talking to one of the doctors. He turned to me without introductions or preamble. “She was assaulted. From her description to the paramedics we figure it was a stun gun.”
“Where?”
“In her driveway.”
You didn’t have to be his sister to know the conclusion he was reaching. I have to admit it was reaching me. I said, “Do you mind if I talk to her with you?”
He nodded and pulled aside the curtain to the small area where Alison Samuels lay, looking tranquil despite the deepening bruise on her chin.
“Brigid,” she slurred, and her eyes were a little unfocused.
“Did they give you some good stuff?”
“Oh yeah, better than wine.”
I introduced Todd and asked if she was okay to talk. When she said yes, Todd asked, “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was on my way to work, had my back turned to close the front door…” She squinted, maybe losing control of the details at that point.
“Did you see anyone?” I asked, thinking Please say yes and describe some random guy.
“No, and I’m usually pretty alert. I’ve had my share of people wanting a piece of me for something or other, dads accused of kidnapping their children, and stuff.”
She was more talkative and off point, probably from the effect of whatever they’d given her to sedate her.
“So you pulled the door shut,” Todd said.
“Mm, maybe, but I don’t think I could have because of Larry. I think I heard a footstep behind me, but I couldn’t swear to that. I felt something hit my back and then this electric shock that made all my muscles contract at once. Like a full-body cramp.” Alison explained they were keeping her for observation in case she was concussed from hitting her head.
“But the assailant didn’t try anything more?” Todd was the one asking the questions now. I was too busy holding my breath.
“No. I was unconscious for just a moment, I think, the doctor thinks from hitting my head. I think Larry must have saved me. He was in the house. He must have gone after the guy, or stood guard until I came to. I called nine-one-one.” She smiled. “Good thing I was coherent so I could tell Larry to stand down when the paramedics came.” The drugs she’d been given seemed to fail at that point, and she cried, “Oh my God, my dog. Where’s Larry? Is Larry all right?”
“He’s fine,” Todd said. “A little tense. He’s trying to gnaw his way out of the backseat of my car. But the windows are halfway open,” he assured her.
She started to cry. “I want to see him. Please let me see my dog. I know they won’t let him in the hospital. Let me just go see him.” She started to get off the bed, but her knees buckled from the effects of the sedative. Todd kept her from falling, and held her.
“I gotta see my dog.” She wouldn’t stop crying, and held the sides of her head as if the crying hurt while her nose ran onto her upper lip. “You can’t leave him in the car.”
“Wait a second,” I said. “He’s a service dog, right? And Todd’s a cop, right?” I went out and commandeered a wheelchair. “If we take you out to Todd’s car to get Larry, could you make sure he doesn’t bite me? I can take him back to your place.”
Alison nodded, and when Todd got her into the chair, she grabbed her purse off a side chair. Scrabbled around in it, feeling. Took out a tissue first and blew her nose, threw the tissue onto the gurney, and reached back in the bag. “I don’t think I’d taken the keys out of the lock yet. Oh, here they are, someone got them for me.”
“You didn’t get a look at him?” I asked.
“I couldn’t even say whether it was a him.”
“You said guy,” I insisted.
“Brigid, let her talk,” Todd said.
Alison shrugged. “Generic.”
Dammit. I kept trying. “Can you think of anyone who might have witnessed the attack?”
“Yeah, Larry. If you find a suspect, Larry should be able to identify him. He’s been used as an eyewitness before. Well, a nose witness.” Alison had stopped crying and started hiccuping.
We went out to Todd’s car, and Alison comforted Larry in short order, reintroducing him to me in the process, saying I was a friend. On the way back into the hospital I told her I’d drop her keys back off after I took Larry home.
Alison reached behind her to touch my hand that was on the bars of the wheelchair. I bent over slightly. She kept her voice low so Todd couldn’t hear. “Would you also please bring me a change of clothes? T-shirt, jeans, underwear.” Her voice dropped lower. “Mine are on the chair next to the bed, and they already stink. I must have pissed myself when I fell down.”
The four of us came back into the hospital, Alison riding with her hand on Larry’s back while he walked beside her, Todd muttering, “Police,” and me muttering, “Service dog,” over the fussings of the emergency room staff. We put Alison back where we found her, and she made sure we had the keys to her place.
Todd wanted to talk before he would let me take Larry home.
We were right there in St. Luke’s, and I could have insisted he come up to Dad’s room while we talked. He was just one floor up. That was my second chance. I told myself it wasn’t because I was avoiding talking to Mom. Instead, we sat down in the emergency waiting room. Larry whimpered and looked back in Alison’s direction a couple of times but understood his orders.
“When did you see her last?” Todd said. He knew he didn’t have to say Laura Coleman’s name; I would understand.
“At the briefing. With you,” I said. I thought that much was safe to say. “I told you I’d stay out of the way.”
“I’m bringing her in,” Todd said. “The only people who know Shayna Murry was killed with a stun gun are part of the investigation. We withheld the information.”
Well, not from Manny Gutierrez. “But it’s someone who doesn’t know about Larry.”
Larry looked up at the mention of his name, then went back to sniffing one of the chairs, which might have held some trace scent of a wounded patient.
Todd said, “Not necessarily. She might have thought the door was shut and he wouldn’t be able to come after her. I’ll put someone on Alison Samuels for twenty-four-hour security. She won’t know what Alison might have seen. I don’t want her to finish the job.”
I guess we didn’t have that much to talk about after all. That made me sad. Right now he felt like just one more of those people who thought we were on different sides. We left, and put Larry in my car. I took him back to Alison’s place.
Todd and I parted without him pressing the issue further. He didn’t have to; despite our not keeping in constant connection
, he knew how I thought as well as anyone, as well as I knew him. And he knew I’d be thinking, What if it’s Laura? What will I do then?
Forty
I swear I had every intention of going back to spend some time at the hospital, but somewhere between the car and the lobby, who called me but Tracy Mack. He said it was because he wasn’t sure who else he could trust, and he needed to talk. So I picked up Todd and headed over to his place. When Mack answered the door, he looked angry that I had Todd with me, but I assured him he was my brother and I would vouch for him with my life.
We entered one of those living rooms filled with shiny brocade furniture and the same stink I’d noticed the last time I’d been there, one of the downsides of living in an area that has the air-conditioning on all the time and the windows unopened.
Mack wasn’t the sort to offer a seat, so we took one. Without pleasantries he began, “Madeline Stanley was here to see me this morning. She said I might be in danger. Some vigilante killing people who put Marcus Creighton away. Oh God.” He put his face in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair. When he looked up again I noted that people really do look ashen when they’re experiencing mortal fear. His skin was the color of charcoal the day after the cookout.
“I was afraid this was going to happen,” he said. “All these years. Those indictments. Then when you started investigating the case again I figured that was that, I was up shit’s creek.”
“What are you going on about?” Todd asked.
“I couldn’t have gotten the guy off with a hand job. I was just a piece of the whole puzzle. They said they didn’t even need my evidence because they had him with the alibi. That I was ‘just in case.’ You know what I mean?”
“Are you talking about Creighton?” Todd asked. I kept my mouth shut. This was Todd’s investigation, and I had only come to allow him to gain access to the house.
Once Mack started, there was no prompting necessary. Like for most people, it seemed to feel good, at least in the moment. Later he’d think about what he said, and wonder what he should regret.
“Madeline Stanley was here this morning. You know her, right?”
“I put her in charge of security detail,” Todd said, not mentioning that Mack was repeating himself. “I didn’t think she was going to let you know, just make sure you had a drive-by now and then, keep an eye out.”
“Hoo-boy. She told me I should watch my back, that some vigilante was going after the people who got Creighton convicted. But listen. I know it wasn’t a friendly call. She was warning me to keep my mouth shut.”
“Why would you think that?” Todd asked. I think it was only because I knew him so well that I could hear the edge in his voice.
“When she was working up in Vero with Delgado, they were tight. You know, like I mean tight. Delgado gave me the hair dryer and encouraged me to find the print that would convict Creighton. Encouraged, you know what I mean?” He laughed a mirthless laugh. “Stanley said she had my back, but I can’t trust her. The way she said it. It’s in her interest if I go away.”
I did want to say Tracy, maybe this isn’t the best person to be confessing to. Maybe you should be a little more circumspect, not spill everything. Maybe one of us wouldn’t appreciate you snitching on his girlfriend. In the meantime, I wasn’t sure how to shut Mack up short of taking out my pistol and shooting him in the foot to stop him from doing it to himself.
“I’m not going to risk my own life to protect her,” Mack said. “But I don’t know who I can trust.”
In the midst of this who-struck-John clusterfuck, Todd’s phone rang, and the three of us detached as if to go to our various corners and take a deep breath. He wasn’t on long.
Todd said, “All kinds of intel coming in. Puccio called.”
“You got Puccio to look at the evidence?” Mack asked.
Todd ignored him. “And the Maples center called. They finished defleshing the bones and laid them out pieced together. They also did a rush on the DNA, and will fax photographs down to the office first thing tomorrow.”
“What about me?” Tracy Mack said softly, trying not to whine and failing.
Todd looked at him as if he was already dead, and just a piece of evidence. He looked like the sound of Mack’s voice in his ear was dirty.
“You should call someone,” I said to Todd.
“I’ll let them know when we get to the office in the morning.”
“Todd, now. Call now.”
Todd walked out of the room, leaving me trying to listen to what he was saying while Mack sniveled. “I told you, didn’t I? You try to do the right thing, but it gets messy. You go with the good guys. You try to do what the good guys want.”
“And now people are dying,” I said. “Go figure.”
Todd came back faster than I would have expected. “Someone will be here within the hour,” he said.
“An hour?” Mack asked. You could tell he thought that was an inordinately long time when his life was in danger. “And not Stanley, right? You didn’t call Stanley.”
Todd looked like it was all he could do not to punch Mack in the face. “I didn’t give them any details about why you needed extra protection. Right now the three of us are the only ones who know. We’ll keep it that way,” Todd said.
“You understand I was over a barrel, right?”
“Were ya?” Todd asked, and then jerked his head away from Mack like he wasn’t worth the words used to shame him. “Look, just keep this to yourself and you should be safe for the time being.”
* * *
Distractions momentarily gone, I went back to the hospital. Dad was out of the room, Mom sound asleep in the chair at the foot of the empty bed. Gratefully, I went down to the end of the hall, to a visitor area with hard couches pretending to be inviting. I dug the business card out of my tote bag and got Will Hench on the phone just because I was in the mood for some cage-rattling.
“Laura hasn’t been answering her phone. Do you know where she is right now?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said, and then, “She did call. She told me she thinks there’s a list. That I might be on it. Am I?”
“I think you’re one of the few people not on the list of potential victims.”
“Maybe we’re talking about different lists.”
“Ah, that list. And I’m going to tell you you’re a suspect? That would be highly inappropriate, wouldn’t you say? Nope, afraid I can’t share that with you right now. Why did you do this, Will?”
He understood and said readily, “Because I thought he was innocent.”
Time to push on the white knight a little. “You already made that speech. Enough.”
“Okay, okay, it was high profile,” he added. “Exactly the kind of case that makes the news and gets national attention. I was honest when I told you I wanted to show the flaws in the system. One more step in creating enough doubt to make people question the death penalty again.”
Push a little more. “So if he lived you win, and if he died an innocent you win more. Lucky you. I’ll bet you’re writing a book.”
You’d think Will Hench’s profession would have made him too thick-skinned to rise to that bait, but he snapped it like a bigmouth bass. He thrust the words at me. “There are four hundred people on death row in Florida. Average time spent there is thirteen years, but a hundred have been there for more than twenty. This new Timely Justice Act has the purpose of getting them executed the way most people declutter a house. Even though as many as half of those inmates, half of them, would be exonerated if we had DNA available to test.”
“And Marcus Creighton, upper-middle-class white guy, makes the perfect poster child for your crusade. I bet you got a hefty advance, because it’s gonna be a bestseller.”
Direct hit. I knew it. He hung up on me. I often have that effect on people.
Forty-one
The summer downpour smacked against the windows in the hospital guest waiting area at the same time as my phone rang.
Make it stop, I thought. Just for a little while let me worry about one life at a time. I could have gone down to the room, but I was fresh out of the emotional endurance it required to get up from the armchair, walk down the hall, and face her judgment or whatever was the Mom du jour.
“Hi, Mom,” I said, wary about what she might have to say.
“It started raining,” she said. “Is it raining where you are?”
“Mm, must be raining all over,” I said, looking out at the same sky she must be looking at. “How are you holding up?”
There was a pause before she answered with a little tremor I’d never noticed before, “Not real well, Brigid. I’m feeling a little blue. You’re the only person who’s come to visit, willingly, that is. Sitting here so much, I’ve been thinking about how not even the priest at our church knows my name.”
That was code for I forgive you. Before I asked for it. There was something different in her voice, a tone more vulnerable and yet more brave in its frankness, not like Martyr Mom at all. She spoke as if to a contemporary rather than a child, which made her voice all right.
“It’s hard to keep going, isn’t it?” I said.
“Yes. It is.”
“Is Dad still on track to go home tomorrow?”
“I’m not so sure now. He doesn’t look as good today. The doctor looked a little concerned when he stopped by. He’s off having some tests run. But so far he didn’t say Dad had to go back to ICU, or even stay here. Things are up in the air, and I’ve made arrangements to put him in the Canopy for a while.”
The Canopy was the area of their assisted living facility where people got extra attention.
I said, “That’s smart. It will be a little less stressful for you, too, not having to do all the work taking care of him.” I didn’t offer to stay and do it, but she didn’t hint at my neglect the way she might have in the past.
She said, “I was thinking about Todd just now, and how hard I’ve always been on him. Even when he was taking care of Marylin all those years. How did he do it?”
A Twist of the Knife Page 26