“Yeah, I’ve seen judges who do that. But I don’t get the impression Polly works that way.”
“Still,” she said, “keep this between us. We don’t want Lowlife hearing from anybody that you’re looking into him.”
Talking about Dupree’s sleaze had put me back in my prosecutorial frame of mind, and my old habit of cracking jokes to relieve the bleakness was coming back. “What’s he going to do if he does,” I said. “Force me into prostitution?”
That got a laugh. As an ex-cop, she had the same habit and understood it coming from me. “I don’t think you need to worry about that,” she said. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I doubt he’d see you as a big income generator. At all.”
“Did you really need to add the ‘at all’?”
She laughed. “Sorry. But look, Leland, I am deadly serious. He’s a career criminal with the resources to…” She stopped. I sensed she didn’t want to say right out that he could pay someone to attack me. She’d been trying to track down the black pickup that tried to run me down, but I had almost no information for her to go on. I hadn’t even noticed if it had South Carolina plates.
Finally she said, “Lowlife doesn’t work alone. He can give orders, and his guys will listen.” She glanced around like she was checking who was in earshot, then called her dog to make the glance look innocent. He came running, and she threw a tennis ball to send him off again.
No one was close by, but I kept my voice down when I said, “You got some intel on him you haven’t shared?”
“Only because I haven’t confirmed it yet. At least, not to my normal standard. But it’s a little hard to confirm when someone’s part of a major drug cartel.”
“That yahoo? Damn. Really?”
She nodded and said, “It helps to look like a yahoo. People don’t suspect.”
“Yeah. So what the hell cartel is operating around here?”
“The same one your friend talked about on TV.”
“Up in Charleston? Damn.” I remembered Tony Rosa and his third-largest heroin bust in state history. “That’s big.”
“It’s a lot bigger than a monthly poker game.”
“Yeah. I doubt Karl knew what he was getting into.”
“Well, maybe you can ask what he knew,” she said. “Because I found Kitty.”
“Are you kidding me?” She wasn’t. “She resurfaced? What’s she doing?”
“Going by Katie now, and dying her hair brown. She works at a restaurant up in Charleston, in the French Quarter. And if you got time to get there today, you might want to, because she usually works the Sunday brunch shift.”
I whistled and said, “Damn, you’re good.”
She accepted the tribute with lowered eyelashes and a nod. I could see she was proud of herself, and rightly so.
I checked my watch. If brunch extended into the lunch hour, which I figured it did, it was doable.
On the drive up, I thought about how to approach a potential witness scared enough to skip town, dye her hair, and start going by a different name. The fact she’d done all that made me think she must have had at least some idea that Karl was neck-deep in shit. And the fact that, according to her, it was Dunk who’d told her to get out of town made it pretty clear to me that he probably knew that too, or else he knew how Karl died, and either way he didn’t want the information to come out.
Or, of course, he knew both those things.
I parked on a side street near the French Quarter. It was a bright blue, sunny day, but down in the low sixties; there was no escaping fall. I was glad for the tweed jacket I’d grabbed on the way out.
The restaurant was in what had originally been a house, a pink Victorian with double-decker white porches. There was a short line out the door, and I took my spot. The street was lined with tall palm trees, and from the rose bushes and swirly cast-iron fence surrounding Chez Madame, I figured it was the kind of place that sold postcards of itself to out-of-town visitors. I found myself wondering how a strip club waitress like Kitty had managed to get through the job interview.
I didn’t have to wonder long. I’d missed the brunch rush, and there were a few bar seats and a two-top to choose from. I asked the girl seating me, “Do you know which section Katie’s working today? I always like having her.”
She walked me over to the two-top and handed me a menu. I held it a little high so Kitty, or Katie, wouldn’t recognize me from a distance. As I read it, I realized a year-plus of eating in Basking Rock had made me forget just how much an omelet could cost. To pay for this, I was going to be bringing peanut butter sandwiches to work for at least two weeks.
Kitty, when she showed up, played her part well. I saw her flinch when she recognized me, but just for an instant; the smile popped right back into place. She had transformed herself into a full-on southern belle: cute skirt, fluffy hair and all. She had classed up, and it suited her.
I said good morning, called her by her new name, and gave her what I hoped was a reassuring smile. She told me the specials and assured me the waffles were good. When she stumbled over a little speech about the crepes and apologized for it, I said, “Don’t worry. Really, don’t worry. I won’t tell nobody.” I looked her in the eye as I said it, hoping she’d understand I wasn’t talking about the crepes.
I had decided to approach this gently. A person who skipped town once could do it again, and the surest way to make her do that would be to try to interrogate her while she was working. I ate my waffles with no coffee to accompany them, which felt like a sin against nature, but the greater sin would have been to spend six dollars for a single cup. If I was making that kind of investment, I figured, better to put it into a tip.
When Kitty came to refill my water, she went into some waitress chitchat about whether I was in town for business or pleasure.
“Oh, I do nothing but work,” I said. “But, you know, I’m a lawyer. I’m just trying to keep an innocent kid from spending the rest of his life in jail.”
Her smile flickered to a frown, then reappeared. She nodded. “Well, okay then. If you need anything else, you just let me know.”
Apart from bringing the check, she didn’t come back. I paid with my debit card so I’d have a reason to leave a piece of paper for her. I tucked both receipts into the little leatherette folder she’d brought: the signed copy for the restaurant and the copy I was supposed to keep. On that one, I wrote my cell number and the words, “Don’t worry.”
That night after dinner, Terri called, sounding more excited than I’d ever heard her. She was talking so fast I couldn’t understand at first.
“Just a minute,” she said, and I heard her take a couple of deep breaths. “Okay. Are you sitting down?”
“I am.”
“Okay. Then let me—I’ll just start from the start. I tried so many different things. All kinds of different searches. I was up almost all night. I swear, Buster was worried about me. I conked out in bed with my laptop and woke up with him sleeping next to me. He had his head right on the other pillow.”
“What was going on? Did you track down that black truck?”
“Better than that. Or, I mean, not better—sorry, that came out wrong. I don’t mean a threat on your life is less important.”
I laughed and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you in such a tizzy. What’s going on?”
Another deep breath. “I got photographic evidence of Karl’s time of death.”
“Oh my God. How—wait, when? What time?”
“He has to have died before 11:29 p.m.”
I gave a low whistle of appreciation. If Jackson would admit to the arson, a time of death that early would mean it was almost impossible for him to have killed Karl. “I don’t know how you did that,” I said, “but it’s a big help to the case.”
“I know.”
“But how’d you do it, though? What’ve you got?”
“I’ll email the photo,” she said, “so it’s full-res.” I heard her keyboard clicking as she expl
ained what she’d done. She’d scoured every social media site for photos taken in Basking Rock and posted on the night of the murder or within two weeks after. Then she collected shots taken near the marina, and every photo where you could see even a bit of the bay or the nearby ocean. Tourists on boat rides or the beach, folks boarding yacht charters, everything.
I fired up my laptop. “Why’d you go on social media, though? I thought you said Facebook and those folks stripped out that data you need to see where and when it’s from.”
“Yeah,” she said. “The EXIF data was step two. First I wanted to find people who’d posted photos they took from the beach or the marina or out on the water. Then I looked for their other shots from the same trip. The ones that didn’t turn out good enough to post. People dump those on photo-hosting sites to free up space on their phones. That first one is from Instagram.”
On my screen, two smiling fortysomething women were leaning against the railing of a boat, raising glasses of champagne.
“The second one—well, just look. That’s from what she dumped on a hosting site, and it’s still got the data. She took it out on the bay, at the right coordinates for what we’re looking at. And the time stamp says June 6, 11:29 p.m.”
It was one of those accidental shots, like it had been taken while one of the women in the first photo was putting her phone away. I could see part of the boat railing and someone’s hand, both blurry. The background was in focus, though. And across the water, run aground on the sand, was Karl’s empty boat.
29
Tuesday, November 5, Morning
Trial was starting in less than six weeks. En route to the jail for a talk with Jackson, I waited at a stoplight and fantasized about how many paralegals I would hire if I won the lottery. The houses, cars, and other purchases that most people daydreamed about seemed beside the point. All I wanted was someone other than myself to deal with the physical logistics of preparing for a trial. Someone else to make and print out lists of exhibits, put together binders with tabbed copies of all the exhibits in order, and organize all the photographs, the maps, the timelines and forensic reports. Binders with detailed tables of contents so I could find the police report, witness statement, expert bio, case law, or statute that I needed on the fly, in front of the jury, to catch a witness in a lie or dispute some legal point with Ruiz.
I was picturing where in Roy’s office each paralegal could sit when the car behind me honked to let me know the light had changed.
In the jail, I asked for a private room and waited for Jackson. When he came in, he looked about one-third cocky teenage boy and two-thirds exhausted. For what was left of the teenage boy in him, I wanted to fight.
He slumped in his chair, looked through his bangs at me, and tried a wisecrack: “So, you proved me innocent yet?”
“Actually,” I said, “Terri found something. It’s not a home run, okay, but we really got something this time. And we tracked down the person we need. She’s a wedding planner up in Charleston. She’s a little reticent, so we might need to subpoena her, but at least we know who she is.”
I told him about the photo this woman had taken, but since the jailhouse guard had divested me of my cell phone, I couldn’t show it to him. A good paralegal, of course, would’ve anticipated that and printed out a nice big color copy for me to bring.
He looked at me blankly. “I mean, cool,” he said, “but so what?”
“Well, it comes down to the arson. And the selfie from when you were with Noah. The first 9-1-1 call about the arson came in at 10:09 p.m., and that selfie is time-stamped at 10:48 p.m.”
“Oh,” he said. His eyes brightened a touch. “Wait, so that’s like forty minutes before that photo of the boat?”
“Uh-huh. And I don’t know how fast you walk, but from where you two were on the beach, it’s just under a mile to the marina. And that’s to the entrance. From there, you still got to get to where he moored his boat, and then you got to unmoor it and ride out to halfway around St. Helena Island.”
“Halfway—oh, that’s almost impossible.” He sat up straighter in his chair.
“You got it. That’s the point.”
“So wait. If you got the photo, why do we need this lady in Charleston?”
“To authenticate it. To get up on the stand and say, yeah, I took that photo on June 6 when I was out celebrating whatever she was celebrating on that yacht. And the prosecution is probably also going to want to take a look at her phone, which she’s not happy about.”
I could see he was thinking about something, but it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of saying anything else about the wedding planner or the prosecution, he asked, “But doesn’t it sound—I mean, who wouldn’t confess to an arson if it 100 percent, for sure, got them out of murder charges? What if they think I’m just saying I did it to get out of thirty years in jail?”
“You know what,” I said, “you got a good head on your shoulders.”
He laughed. “I like how you sound surprised.”
With a smile, I said, “You got me there. I’m sorry. We haven’t talked about much other than what happened when, so I don’t suppose I’ve had that much opportunity to see how you think.”
He flicked his eyebrows up and down. I got the sense that my apology would do for now, but to him I was just one more old man who didn’t respect him. I’d added to the chip on his shoulder, and I regretted it.
I said, “Tell me what you think might help. I mean, to get the jury past that problem.”
He shrugged but said nothing. I waited. After a solid thirty or forty seconds, he leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, head down, like he had something to confess. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I didn’t sleep on the beach that night.”
“Oh? Where’d you go?”
“You know down past Broad Street, that little block of boarded-up stores?”
“Oh, yeah.” It was the derelict part of Basking Rock, about a mile inland from the beach.
“There’s one where kids go a lot, to smoke. The one in the middle. It’s boarded up, but one of the boards you can just slide right out. And then behind that, there’s… I guess it used to be a bait shack?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “That’s what it was when I was a kid. A shop, I mean, not a shack, but I guess it’s falling down a little now.”
“Yeah. So I slept in the store in front of it, and then before I went home, when the sun was coming up, I saw my jacket had burn marks on it. So I took it off and hid it under a pallet in the bait shack.”
“Oh, so could that be evidence? The jacket? I see where you’re going with that. Yeah, it could.”
He sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave me a look that said, See? You can think I’m dumb all you want. That don’t make it true.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s a good idea. I’ll stop by there now and take a look.”
“It’s a little gross in there,” he said. “Ain’t been taken care of in I don’t know how long.”
“That don’t bother me.”
It seemed like about time to leave, but first I checked the pocket notebook I scribbled reminders in. “Oh,” I said. “I did have a question about something.”
He was peering across the table at my notebook, twisting his head to see it more right side up. “What is that? I mean, are those words?”
I smiled. I was proud of my chicken-scratch shorthand. “To me they are. I write this way to maintain confidentiality.”
“Huh,” he said. “I’d have flunked out of school for that.” He thought for a second, then added, “You better take care of yourself, then. If some public defender or whatever had to replace you, them notes would be no help at all. They’d have to start from zero.”
I looked at him. He didn’t say anything more.
“Jackson, did someone in here say anything about my safety?”
“Not you, exactly.” He was looking at the table, and in that moment I saw the little boy in him. He was scared.
 
; “What’d they say?”
“Just… that there’s people of mine on the outside who could get hurt.”
I nodded slowly, taking that in.
“And are they also threatening you? Because I could see about getting you moved again.”
He shook his head. “I got it calmed down now, I think. I got it under control. And isn’t there something about keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Yeah, there is. But look, you change your mind, you call me collect right away. Anytime.”
He nodded. Then he took a deep breath. It was a lot to deal with—for anyone, much less a kid his age. To get off the subject, I guess, he gestured to my notebook and said, “You still got some scribbling to read me? You never asked your question.”
“Oh, yeah.” My question, unfortunately, was not going to cheer him up. “Uh, so, your mom told me she overheard you on the phone with Karl, yelling at him to tell Pete to stay away from ‘her.’ Just wondering, how’d you know Pete Dupree?”
His face answered for him. Not the details, but enough for me to know that was indeed the Pete he meant.
When he didn’t answer, I continued. “Pete’s a big guy. You trying to keep him away from your mom?”
“Nobody comes near my mom. Not if I can help it.”
“Uh-huh. Well, you done good. Nobody’s come near her. She’s okay.”
He gave a quick nod that I read as thanks for letting him know.
“If you got something you can tell me about Pete Dupree,” I said, “I’d appreciate it.” To soothe the fear in his face, I added, “Nothing you tell me will come out at trial unless you tell me it can. His name does not have to come up. I just want to understand what’s going on.”
Another quick nod. He didn’t often tell me things, I’d noticed, right when I asked. He preferred to think them through first. I was starting to think he had more forethought than most teenage boys, and certainly more than I’d given him credit for.
Defending Innocence (Small Town Lawyer Book 1) Page 20