Proof of Innocence Page 20

  Maggie kept her attention on the road. “Good point. Unless he was threatening her as well as grudgingly renegotiating.”

  Carson made a sound.

  “Okay,” she said, “so Eugene doesn’t seem like the threatening type.”

  “I was thinking Laurel wasn’t the type to be threatened.”

  “Never underestimate the nastiness of a fearful man backed into a corner,” Dallas said. “Eugene’s not in the clear. Need more checking on him.”

  “Before that, we need to dig more at Rambler Farm. The follow-up on what Allarene said, including—” She looked at Carson. “Earlier, when the judge said something about Pan being Charlotte’s friend, not Laurel’s, you didn’t agree.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No, but you looked it. You don’t think Pan was Charlotte’s friend.”

  “Pan was her friend.”

  His even tone gave away little, but she got it. “Pan was Charlotte’s friend, but Charlotte wasn’t Pan’s friend. If you think that, all the more reason to get back to Rambler Farm now and—”

  Dallas interrupted. “No, even if we hadn’t already been there today. We go and start askin’ Charlotte questions, she’ll know Allarene told us things. Least four cars passed slow enough to note your car. Word’ll be back to Rambler Farm anytime if it isn’t already. So, we go other places, ask other folks, and when we do get back around to Charlotte, there’ll be no straight line she can follow to Allarene.”

  “You wouldn’t know a straight line if it hit you between the eyes,” she muttered. “Okay, then Eugene.”

  “Entirely too late. We keep early hours here in the country.”

  * * * *

  Scott came out of Monroe House as she braked to drop off her passengers.

  “Still here?” murmured Dallas.

  “I was getting ready to leave when — I kept him here. Took some doing, but I was sure you’d want to talk to him. Especially when he’s in such a state.”

  “Who?”

  “Rick Wade.”

  J.D. started toward the door, but Dallas laid a hand on his arm, slowing him, at the same time he asked Scott, “What kind of state?”

  Maggie shut off the car and got out.

  “He’s all wound up. Insists on talking with Maggie tonight. I tried to tell him—”

  “What did Evelyn say?” Dallas asked.

  “She invited him right in and sat him in front of the fire.”

  Who’d kept him there? Maggie wondered wryly.

  “Well, then, let’s go see what he has to say.”

  * * * *

  Evelyn surveyed Dallas, quickly but comprehensively, then rose and excused herself.

  Wade sat in the chair Dallas usually occupied, his head down, his hands rubbing up and down his thighs.

  “Rick,” Dallas said pleasantly, taking the other chair.

  “I understand you want to talk with me.” Maggie sat on the end of the couch across from Wade. Scott took the other end of the couch and Carson pulled up a side chair.

  Wade’s head came up. “No. I won’t talk to you with him here.”

  J.D. stood.

  Maggie pointed to him. “Sit.” He did.

  She said to Wade, “You’re both staying here and you’re talking.” Playing them off each other might be the best way to get to the truth.

  Wade glared at her. “You’re like all the rest. I told you. I warned you.”

  She was aware of Carson looking at her. She kept her attention on Wade. “Never mind that.”

  “Never mind it? It’s what started everything. Pan fell for his crap. The jury fell for it. Everybody fell for it. And Laurel—”

  “Now, Rick, you can’t be sayin’—”

  Maggie sliced through Dallas’ objection. “Do you have evidence? Was Carson involved with Laurel?”

  “Laurel?” Wade sounded confused. “Not that I heard. But he fools people. So many people. Pan.”

  “Yes, let’s talk about Pan,” Maggie said. “When Pan was killed, Laurel was your alibi, Laurel and being at the charity meeting, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We know you weren’t at the meeting. Where were you?”

  His gaze bounced around. Abruptly he dropped forward, his face in his hands, his elbows between his legs.

  “Oh, God, Oh, God. I did … Oh, God. … Pan…”

  Maggie felt something thrum through her. Was he saying…?

  Carson hadn’t budged. The only change she saw was the lines in his face tighten as he watched Rick rock forward and back, forward and back.

  “Tell us what happened, Rick,” Dallas said in his most soothing voice.

  Wade lifted his head a few inches, but otherwise remained almost doubled over. “I did that to Pan — God, to Pan. I must have been crazy. To fall for that little tramp Laurel. To break Pan’s heart over a bitch like that. I was crazy.”

  Dallas huffed out a breath, and Maggie’s shoulders eased. He was confessing to the affair. Not murder.

  “So, you’re confirming what we’ve heard from others — you were carrying on with Laurel, back five years ago or so?” Dallas asked.

  “Yeah. I was a fool, but… Yeah.”

  Maggie asked again, “Where were you when Pan was murdered?”

  “With Laurel. At Piedmont Manor. We thought… We went to the meeting, well before the meeting, saying hello to people, making them remember us being there, then we slipped out. That’s how we — We did that regular.”

  “Is keeping that quiet why you give Barry a new truck every year?”

  “God, you, too? Gardner’s been going on and on about that. It’s marketing. He can do us some good, talking up the dealership at Shenny’s.”

  Interesting he’d used the same phrase as Barry.

  “Did Pan know about you and Laurel?”

  “Not at the start. She found out … later.”

  Maggie thought Carson moved. But, no. No movement, no expression, no reaction.

  Or was an absolute lack of reaction a reaction?

  “How did she find out?” she asked Wade.

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t talk to me. Said she needed time to think. If I could’ve gotten her to talk to me, to make her understand—”

  “Understand?” Carson’s voice was low and cold. “Understand you betrayed her, adding on humiliation by doing it in Shenny’s parking lot, where more people than Barry were certain to see, certain to talk, until everybody knew except her. You couldn’t have found a better way to hurt her. You—”

  “Like hell! It was you — you came between a man and his wife. You were pulling apart our marriage.”

  “You’d already done that yourself, you asshole. You never knew what you had, you never gave her the love she deserved. You did it, Wade. All you.”

  If he’d killed Wade it would make more sense.

  The thought shot through Maggie’s mind, but this was not the time to consider it.

  Wade shouted, “Everything was fine until you came back.”

  “You’re lost in your own fairytale, as always, where you’re Prince Charming. Pan was done—”

  “She loved me.”

  “She had. Until you squandered it, you sonuvabitch. Fucking Laurel in Shenny’s parking lot. You never thought about anybody but yourself. What do you think that did to her? Knowing you were running around on her. And she knew Laurel wasn’t the first.”

  “Because you told her—”

  “I wasn’t here.”

  Wade froze. Maggie suspected it was Carson’s abrupt return to rigidly calm control.

  In the same tone, Carson continued, “But other people were here to tell her. It was eating her up inside.”

  “But she was still with me,” Wade said. It was a rally of sorts. “Until you came and tried to get her to run off with you.”

  Carson’s posture didn’t change, yet Maggie had a sense of infinite weariness coming over him. “She wasn’t leaving with me, she was going to give you — give the m
arriage another chance.”

  “Like you were some fucking marriage counselor?” Wade said with an ugly twist to his face. “Like hell! She told me. That last day. She told me she was going away with you.”

  “That was earlier. We talked it over again and—”

  “After that. After you left her in the clearing. She called me and said it was over between us and she was going away with you as soon as she made you see it her way. Like she had to beg trailer trash—”

  Carson’s face went hard, yet there was a sense of movement beneath the surface.

  But Maggie had no more attention to spare for him.

  She leaned across, cutting the space to Wade, shutting off his words. “Pan called you from the clearing? After Carson left? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Yeah.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Dallas made a sort of crowing sound.

  Wade looked from her to Dallas and back. “So what?”

  “You never told anyone.” It came out as accusation. That was completely restrained compared to what she wanted to do, which began with lopping his head off with a dull object.

  “Yeah, I did. I told Sheriff Hague right off. He asked when I last saw her and I told him the day before, then I said I’d talked to her on the phone.”

  Maggie felt the muscles in her jaw going rigid. “You never told my second chair and assistant when they interviewed you, you never said anything on the stand.”

  “Nobody asked. If it was important, they’d have asked.”

  How could they ask when they didn’t know about it, since it never made it into the pathetic official file?

  Forcing her jaw muscles apart enough to let out the next words, she said, “I’m asking now. We’re asking now. Tell us exactly what she said.”

  “Exactly? I don’t know—”

  “Tell us,” she snapped. “When did she call you?”

  “She said Carson had just left, she was going home to her parents’ but she wanted me to know she’d made her decision and it was final. She was getting a divorce and she was going off with Carson. I tried to talk to her, but she wouldn’t listen and then she said someone was coming.”

  “Who?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Was she scared? Worried?”

  “No. She was crying, but said she wouldn’t change her mind. Didn’t sound scared. Said it was someone she needed to talk to. Don’t you see?” He looked only at her. “It was him. He came back and he killed her. I figured the sheriff and you prosecutors knew the best way to handle it and since nobody brought it up, I was sure—”

  “You’re lying. You didn’t want everyone to know she was leaving you.”

  “I knew he was guilty. I knew it. He is guilty. He killed her.” He jerked his head around to Carson. “You killed Pan.”

  Carson returned the glare, his cold implacability in full force. “You’re an idiot.”

  Maggie watched those three words defeat the certainty Rick Wade had held close for nearly five years. Then slowly, slowly, Wade shrank back into the chair, tears sliding down both sides of his nose.

  “He killed her,” he whimpered, “He killed her.”

  Evelyn appeared with her handbag over her arm. She hooked a hand under Wade’s arm. “Come along, Rick, come along. I’m taking you home now.”

  “My… my…” But he was already rising.

  “You’ll get your truck in the morning,” she said firmly.

  Evelyn surveyed the rest of them one by one, ending with Dallas. “Plenty enough work for one day. Time for everyone to get some rest.”

  With that pronouncement, she escorted Rick Wade out.

  The sound of the back door closing brought movement into the room as they shifted their frozen stances. Except Carson. He remained absolutely still.

  Dallas heaved a breath. “I could have gotten a second acquittal on that alone.”

  She grunted. There probably wouldn’t have been a trial if that had been in the file she received. Too much reasonable doubt. Wade was right, Carson could have returned and killed Pan. But with the limited forensic evidence…

  “It doesn’t prove anything,” she argued. “Wade said she said someone was coming. No knowing who.”

  She could have pointed out someone who’d left coming back was more likely than a total stranger arriving on the scene. She didn’t.

  Dallas responded with a reproving, “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Well, I’ll call Sheriff Gardner and let him know. First about the timin’ of Laurel’s mood changes. Maybe that’ll accelerate havin’ a conversation with Henry Zales. Suspect he’ll be less interested in what we just heard, because it doesn’t help on Laurel’s murder. Sure would be fascinatin’ to know if old Hague hid it or forgot it.”

  “Or if Rick’s telling the truth. Who’s to say he’s not lying,” Scott said.

  “We won’t figure that out tonight.” She rolled her shoulders, stood, then stretched. “Now I’m really going back to the guesthouse to read that transcript.” She added another nod of thanks to Scott.

  Carson spoke for the first time, sounding his usual unemotional self. “You’d be more comfortable here with Dallas.”

  “Of course,” Dallas said immediately. “Stay here. The nights are still chilly and it’s comfortable here by the fire.”

  “No. Thank you. I prefer to work alone. I’ll go over the file again. And the transcript—”

  “Don’t hesitate to call me if you have any problems or questions,” Scott said. “Or—”

  “I’m sure I won’t.”

  “—if you need background files or anything, let me know.”

  “There is one thing. If you can get us the phone records the sheriff’s department has so far. They weren’t with the reports.”

  “Sure, sure. Damn Abner. He must have held them back. Or forgot to copy them. Anything else, call me, contact me. Any time. I’ve listed them all here on my card. If there’s anything you have a question on, my original notes are stored at the guesthouse and I can—”

  “Thanks. I’m sure I’ll have everything I need.” She secured a transcript.

  J.D. suggested smoothly, “Scott, why don’t you walk Maggie to the guesthouse? I’m sure she’d appreciate company for that dark walk.”

  And, said his subtext, she’d be a lot less jumpy than if he accompanied her.

  “No need. My car’s here. I’ll drive down.”

  * * * *

  She read the official transcript fast this first time. She would read it many times before she was done, some slower, some not. Hopefully, she wouldn’t be as tired for those next times.

  Still, there’d been no way she’d sleep without getting this first read in.

  Something tugged at her.

  She saw her mistakes, of course. Was that it?

  Frustration with the investigation? Oh, yes. Make that plural — investigations. This one and the one four and a half years ago.

  Dallas was right. Rick Wade’s revelations tonight didn’t help Gardner any with investigating Laurel’s murder.

  At least not directly.

  You’ve missed an obvious possible reason for why now … Because Carson’s back in Bedhurst full-time. Anyone hoping to deflect suspicion onto a likely suspect would think of that.

  She hadn’t said that was the situation. Not for a moment. But she’d be a fool not to look at the defense’s point of view — to look at Carson’s explanations.

  Who better to lead them than a good eyewitness?

  Why had Carson said that? Eyewitnesses barely figured in his trial, not after Monroe disposed of Teddie Barrett’s testimony.

  He couldn’t possibly know…

  Hard evidence is always better than an eyewitness.

  She’d learned that a lifetime ago. At a cost beyond measuring.

  She sucked in a breath and picked up the transcript.

  Read. Just read.

  Commonwealth v. J.D. Carson

  Witness Oliver Zalenkia (prosecu
tion)

  Direct Examination by ACA Frye

  Q. Among the items you examined in your capacity at the state forensic lab as you have described for us was there one that was unusual?

  A. Yes. The note that the medical examiner’s office found in her mouth.

  Q. Is this the note, previously entered as an exhibit?

  A. Yes.

  Q. It appears stained and smeared in areas. Were you able to ascertain what is written on it?

  A. Yes, we were.

  Q. Will you explain to the jury how you did that?

  A. We examined and photographed it extensively in its original state first. We were able to make out the left-hand side of the five lines of writing in that state. That’s three lines together, then a single line, then another single line.

  Q. This is a photograph that was taken with the note in its original state?

  A. Yes. You can see that the first three lines appear to be from an address. The first single line begins in the format of a phone number. The second single line begins with the word ‘One and two-bedrooms with…’

  Q. Those elements are quite legible. But the right-hand side is not because of that stain. Did you have any success reading that side?

  A. Yes, by applying ALS — Alternate Light Source — as you see on this next photo. Fortunately, the writer used durable ink, which we determined was used by the defendant’s Army unit. If we put the photos of the two sides together, we see the complete address, phone number, and line of description.

  Q. Do you know what this information refers to?

  A. We called the number and checked the address. It is off-base housing for a nearby army installation.

  Q. Were you aware this is where the defendant—?

  Mr. Monroe: Your Honor, the defense stipulates that this note about off-base housing was written by Captain Carson, in durable ink, as favored by his unit, and was given to Pan for her information.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Thursday, 3:44 a.m.

  The phone rang.

  Okay. This was definitely not a coincidence.

  Three out of three nights she’d been here, a call in the middle of the night on the guesthouse phone.

  Noting the time and resolving to find out more about the calls Laurel might have been receiving — and to check if Pan had experienced anything similar — Maggie concentrated as she picked up the receiver.