The Perfect Cover

by Charlotte Byrd

  “More than enough for what?”

  “To start a new life, to get a new identity, to set up a way to make a living, and finally to hire a private investigator to find out what the fuck happened to my wife and her lover. Then hopefully clear my name.”

  We don’t say anything for a while as I let her stew on the story that I have just given her and take it all in. I know that is a lot.

  I didn’t think I was going to share this with anyone for a long time, if ever, but the truth is that she has to know.

  “So, is this where we’re going? To get the money?”

  I give her a slight nod.

  “Where is that?”

  “Palm Desert, California.”

  “What’s the plan? Do you just show up? What makes you think that she won’t call the police?”

  “Why would she?”

  “You do have the $100,000 reward on your head, for one.”

  I shake my head and give her a slight smile.

  “This woman makes millions,” I say quietly. “She’s very meticulous, organized, and trustworthy. There are not that many people who know what she really is or what she does or what she is capable of. She likes it that way. She will pay my debt because she already paid some of it even when I was in prison, even when I was locked up and completely incapable of enforcing any sort of contract. Verbal or not.”

  “So, do you think $200,000 is enough to start a new life?” she asks.

  “People do it with a lot less all the time.”

  “Not people in your situation.”

  “In that case, we’ll just have to try and see what happens,” I say and turn up the radio.

  7

  Isabelle

  When he tells me where we’re going...

  I’m not sure what to think about all the stuff that he just dumped on me. That’s not the right way to put it, but I can’t think of a better way.

  He couched it as if he’s telling me the truth, and he probably is, but now I feel like I have no choice but to tell him about my debt.

  I never asked him for any of the details about his silent partner, Tessa. In fact, knowing them makes me feel uncomfortable.

  It’s like our lives are becoming a lot more intertwined than they should be. What is it that happens to people in movies when they see the faces of their assailants? And what happens when they are told secrets they have no business knowing?

  I didn’t want to know about any of that. Of course, I was curious but I didn’t actually want to know.

  Now I have to drive the rest of the way knowing that I’m about to meet a woman who grew a methamphetamine empire from nothing to something that’s worth millions. You don’t do that without a few casualties along the way.

  “Why did you tell me that?” I ask, feeling like my heart is about to explode from my chest.

  “What are you talking about?” Tyler asks, turning to me as if nothing has happened.

  “I didn’t want to know any of that. I didn’t want to tell you about my debt in order to protect you and now here you are just dumping all of this shit in my lap.”

  Perhaps, I don’t have a reason to be angry.

  I’m already traveling with an escaped convict.

  I’m already fucked if a cop stops us.

  “Why are you mad at me?” he asks.

  “How can I not be? I never asked to know any of that and now I can’t undo it.”

  “You can just forget it if you don’t want to know,” he says.

  “You knew exactly what you were doing,” I say after a long pause. “You’re trying to manipulate me. You’re giving me something private. Something that’s going to make me trust you. Well, guess what? I already fucking trust you. You don’t need to prove anything to me.”

  “No, you don’t trust me,” he says. “You know how I know?”

  I don’t say anything for a moment.

  “If you did trust me, then I wouldn’t have had to share that secret in order to get you to open up and tell me about your debt. Whatever it is, it can’t be as awful as having a meth king as a silent partner in my legitimate business.”

  I shake my head.

  I’m not going to fall for this.

  “Is that the whole reason you told me?” I ask.

  He stares at me, shaking his head.

  “You only told me that to gain my trust?”

  We drive in silence for a while, neither of us saying a thing. I’m not just angry but also pissed off.

  He says that he just wanted to tell me about Tessa but we both know that’s not true.

  He wants something from me.

  Something I’m not willing to share.

  Not yet.

  Perhaps, not ever.

  One hour passes, and then another. Cornfields whiz by and the sky gets bigger, but not brighter. We are in the heart of the Midwest, where gray clouds hang so low that they almost grace the ground.

  I force myself to put my anger away, tuck it into some far away spot, and stare out at the empty black fields rolling by.

  I used to be afraid of driving at night. I used to be afraid of driving, in general. In fact, my anxiety was so strong at times that I couldn't force myself to leave the house.

  I'm not sure what happened when Tyler showed up. His presence seems to be stronger than any drug that I have ever taken.

  Of course, I’m over my anxieties, but they seem to be put on the back burner somewhere, currently unreachable. I wonder why.

  Is it because I have other things to worry about?

  Before Tyler came into my life, my days consisted of going to work, teaching kids to talk, and then spending my off time obsessing about my worries and insecurities.

  And now, on the run from the police, all of that small stuff that I spent my evenings obsessing about doesn’t seem to matter.

  Is this what it’s like for others? I have no idea. But since Tyler has come into my life, things have changed drastically.

  Tyler’s situation is so complicated and full of actual life and death stakes that it somehow puts everything about me and my worries into perspective. I used to hate going shopping in big department stores and engaging in small talk with the cashiers. I used to hate to drive at night but being here with him has made those concerns dissipate.

  Of course, I can’t tell my therapist any of this. I have a meeting coming up that I really shouldn’t cancel, but I want to, because then I will have to explain what happened to me and what I’m doing on the road.

  My therapist is well aware of my situation and how difficult certain things have been for me so, to come forward and tell her how I actually feel and what I’m actually doing, seems like an impossible situation. Especially, since I can’t really tell her the truth.

  I glance over at Tyler occasionally as he skips a few annoying songs and then settles back into his seat when a good one pops up. I don’t really agree with his choice of music, mine goes for something a lot more acoustic, but for now, I let him play it.

  I’m still angry at him. Pissed off, actually. He should have never tried to manipulate me into telling him something that I’m not willing to share.

  Despite all of that, I can’t help but feel safe. For some inexplicable crazy reason, I have felt safer on this road trip, traveling with a convicted felon, than I have in a really long time.

  I have no proof about whether or not he’s a convicted murderer and perhaps I shouldn’t trust my gut in believing that he’s not. But I do. I have always relied on my intuition and right now seems like as good a time as any to just go with it.

  8

  Isabelle

  When we talk about his case...

  When we stop to get gas, Tyler insists on getting it.

  I shake my head no.

  “We had agreed that I would be the one to pump the gas,” I remind him.

  He shrugs, turns off the engine, and grabs the door handle.

  I put my hand on his leg and he turns to look at me.

  “No,” I sa
y. “We agreed to certain things to keep you safe and away from the cameras. We have to abide by those rules.”

  He grips the steering wheel and stares into space.

  “If you don’t want to be here–” he starts to say, but I put my index finger to his lips.

  “Absolutely not,” I say quickly. “I want to be here. There are just certain things about you that make me mad as hell, but that doesn’t change anything else about our situation.”

  I wait for him to protest again, but he doesn’t. I reach for the door handle and get out of the car. I let out a small sigh of relief when I realize that he’s not following me.

  I pump the gas until it’s full. After getting my credit card back, I place it back into my wallet and get back inside.

  We drive miles and miles, getting further and further away from Pennsylvania. The rolling hills of the land back home turn into flat lands that go on for miles into the horizon where the giant sky meets the earth.

  Neither of us apologizes and instead, we try to move on. For now, it’s the best we can do.

  I tell him about the defense attorney that I’ve read about and then I look up his podcast. I’m not sure about the circulation or how many listeners he has on a weekly basis, but as a fan of true crime, I know that this one is pretty good.

  Mallory Deals’ voice is smooth, calm, and determined. There’s a little bit of arrogance, but not much. Instead, he focuses on the facts.

  There are only three episodes, forty-five minutes each, and each one goes into a different part of the trial.

  There are no audio recordings from court, but there is a trial transcript that someone reads aloud. Big chunks of it appear in the third episode when Tyler makes me turn it off.

  “He’s on your side,” I say. “He thinks that you have been railroaded.”

  “I know,” Tyler says, giving me a nod, keeping his eyes fixed on the road. “I just can’t hear all that again.”

  “About what he said? About how there’s no DNA evidence?”

  “There isn’t as far as I know,” Tyler says. “But I hope that maybe they secretly have some that just hasn’t tested.”

  “How could they have had a trial without evidence?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, shaking his head. “But it has been known to happen. Sometimes the sample is degraded or they will use up too much of it without getting a good sample. At least that’s what used to happen in the 90s and the early 2000s.”

  “Well, it’s 2019,” I say. “That can’t be the case anymore.”

  He shrugs his shoulders and stares straight ahead.

  I’m about to say something else when he stops me.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Tyler says. His voice is full of defeat and exasperation.

  “You haven’t talked about it much.” I point out. “I thought that given how long this road trip will take, I could at least get to know some of the details.”

  “If you want to know the details,” he says, whipping his head toward mine, “then read the trial transcript or listen to this podcast on your own. I was there. I have no interest in reliving all the shit that they have said about me.”

  “I’m not asking you to do that,” I say, pleading. “I just need to…”

  My voice trails off because I’m afraid of finishing the sentence.

  “You need what?” he asks. He narrows his eyes and waits for me to answer.

  “I need to understand. I need to know the truth,” I say after a long pause.

  “You already know the truth.”

  He clicks back to the CD input and turns up Led Zeppelin.

  Disappointed, I put in my earbuds. If he doesn’t want to talk about this, that’s not going to stop me from learning more about what happened.

  As I listen to Mallory Deals’ steadfast and relaxed manner of speaking, he starts to lull me into a state of relaxation. His voice isn’t boring, per se, just soothing. Honestly, he could be the narrator of one of those sleep podcasts.

  I’ve always enjoyed listening to true crime and watching shows like Dateline and 20/20. This podcast is no different, except that every twenty minutes or so, I have to force myself to remember that the story of this crime, the villain, according to the prosecution, is sitting right next to me.

  There are certain facts that the defense attorney confirms. There is no DNA evidence linking Tyler to the crime, but there is also no other DNA evidence linking anyone else to the crime. Sarah and Greg were killed at eleven o’clock at night. Tyler came home around 11:30 that night and called the police. The time of death was an approximation but Tyler’s call to the police wasn’t.

  Despite all of the advances in forensic science, the rate at which bodies decompose, the precise time of the murders was difficult to pinpoint.

  There are so many variables that affect the accuracy of the results. For instance, the temperature of the house plays a huge role. If it’s hot, the bodies will decompose faster. Blood will coagulate differently when it’s warm and humid than when it’s cold or chilly. Actually, I’m not sure about the humid part since Deals doesn’t exactly mention that.

  The authorities said they were killed at 11 PM, but in reality, time of death estimates are just that; estimates. It was sometime that evening, within the last three hours before Tyler showed up. There was also no proof as to when exactly he came home. The neighbor’s Nest video camera wasn’t working and their other security camera had been off for weeks. It doesn’t mean that there was anything suspicious about that except for, of course, it might be.

  The podcast does have a recording of the audio that Tyler gave to the police from that night. It was played in court and I hear his voice loud and clear.

  Mallory does not shy away from letting the recording run for a long time. I listen to the urgency of Tyler’s voice and the panic that set in when he was told that his wife was not only killed but also pregnant at the time of her death.

  He gasped and broke down in shock. I remember hearing somewhere that it’s easier to tell whether someone is lying not by watching them, but by listening. The truth lies in the audio.

  Without the video of Tyler on the stand, and by just listening to his testimony, I am certain that he was either the best actor in the world or a man who was just told that his wife had been murdered, along with, possibly, his unborn child.

  Later, tests confirmed that the child was in fact not his, but it doesn’t make the crimes any less horrendous.

  “You wrote Greg an email and threatened him,” I say, taking the earbuds out of my ears.

  9

  Isabelle

  When we get there...

  “So, you got to that part, huh?” Tyler asks.

  “Well, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, I did. I never denied it. It was a week before or so. Greg had taken my whole business away from me. He stole millions of dollars. I threatened him with legal action, but I also threatened to kill him unless he gave it all back. I should not have done it. I was angry but if I had known it would land me in prison…”

  I turn the phone volume up and click back ten seconds to play the recording again.

  Someone in court reads from Tyler’s email, “You better have the fucking money for me by Monday. If you don’t, then you’re a dead man. You get that? You’re fucking dead and buried.”

  “You didn’t mention any legal action there,” I say quietly.

  “I did in an earlier email. Actually, I wrote him about seven others before that. He hadn’t been returning my calls. He hadn’t returned any of my texts or emails. When I wrote that, I found out the extent of the theft and I’d had enough. The next thing I did was place a call to an attorney and send him all of the details about our business. I didn’t want to do that. It was a complicated matter and it was going to cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend it in court. I just wanted Greg to pay me my money so we could go our separate ways.”

  “That didn’t happen,” I say quietly.

  “No
, it didn’t. Listen, I know that you want to know all of the gory details and maybe you should.”

  “You don’t think I’m entitled to know the truth?” I ask.

  “Of course you are, and I want you to ask me questions, but the thing is that I can’t listen to it with you. I just can’t relive that whole trial minute by minute on that podcast. Even if that guy is on my side. So, why don’t you listen to it and if you have questions, you ask me. I’m here. I just can’t go through it again.”

  I give him a slight nod.

  I try to imagine what it would be like if I were in his situation.

  A part of me thinks that I would want to yell from the rooftops to anyone who would listen so they would believe me. Then I remind myself that Tyler has been going through this for over two years and that’s after he had been convicted.

  He has been trying to convince people of his innocence for almost four years.

  No one has believed him.

  Not the cops, not the prosecutor, not the journalists.

  His friends all left him.

  His first defense attorney ostensibly believed him, but listening to the trial transcript, I now have my doubts.

  Actually, it seems to me that the only people that Tyler has on his side are Mallory Deals and me. Are we delusional or is everyone wrong?

  I decide to give Tyler his space. Instead of asking questions as they pop up while I listen, I jot them down on a piece of paper in my journal along with the time code on the screen. This way I’ll be able to refer to it quickly in case there’s something that he needs to hear.

  By the end of the day, when we reach Hannibal, Missouri, I already have five pages of questions and notes.

  I’m almost through all of the segments, but there are still a few left.

  “How long do you want to drive today?” I ask.

  “It depends,” he says.