“True, but . . . we had to,” Kathryn says.
“We didn’t see her or Justice or—” he glances at Eric—“or anyone.”
“We all looked around for a while, but didn’t see her,” Kathryn says.
“When they didn’t come back right away,” Amber says, “a few more of us went to help.”
“And when they didn’t come back for a while,” Derrick says, “pretty much the rest of us went.”
“So we’re all like looking for her,” McKenna says, “until someone says her car is gone and we realized she just went home—took off like she had so many times before.”
“Except she hadn’t,” Kathryn says.
“But we didn’t know,” Amber says. “We thought she had so we just . . . went back to the party.”
“Qwon and Angel were on her car that night,” Kathryn says. “It was better than his. He had a clunker but he had a cellphone.”
“That’s the thing to remember,” Darius says. “Not many of us had those at that time. It’s not like we stayed in touch back then the way we do now. Just wasn’t a thing.”
“It’s not like Qwon could call her house,” Kathryn says. “And he had done that same thing so many times before, so . . .”
“If they were on her car together,” I say, “she just left Qwon.”
“She knew we’d give him a ride,” Darius says. “He was staying at my house that night anyway.”
Something occurs to me and I sit up a bit.
“Do any of you know who drove them down that night?” I ask. “Qwon or Angel.”
“He did,” Darius says. “Saw them pull up. Why?”
“Did he lock the car?”
He nods. “Always.”
“And he still had the keys when y’all were at Fiesta,” I say, “because he went out to the car to refill and whatnot.”
“Yeah?” Darius says.
Kathryn’s eyes widen. “I see what you’re saying. He had the keys. Not her. So why did we think she had left without him? She couldn’t have. But it didn’t occur to our drunk asses that night. Damn.”
“It’s that,” I say, “sure, but . . . it’s also . . . when the car was found . . . there was no sign of forced entry. It wasn’t broken into or hot-wired.”
“Oh shit,” Derrick says. “Only Qwon could’ve opened it. Does that mean he really did it?”
“Wait,” Kathryn says. “He didn’t. He couldn’t have. So . . . there’s . . . Something’s not right. It could’ve been unlocked.”
“That would get her in but wouldn’t get it cranked,” I say. “It’s possible she had keys too. Maybe he had the spare and she always carried hers, but . . .”
“I wish he was here so we could ask him,” Kathryn says. “I’m tellin’ you there’s no way he could have done it. It’s just not possible.”
I nod. “Tell you what. Give me a minute. I’ll call the prison and ask him.”
“You can do that?” McKenna says.
“Be right back,” I say.
I walk out the back door and stand on the platform at the top of the stairs and call the institution.
It’s dark now and cooler, but it’s a nice night and downtown is peaceful and quiet.
It takes a little while, but with the help of the control room sergeant and the officer on duty in the infirmary, I get Qwon on the phone.
“How’re you feeling?” I ask.
“Better. Thanks.”
“Got a couple of questions for you,” I say, “and I need you to be as honest as you can.”
“Have been with you about everything,” he says. “Got nothin’ to hide. Not afraid of the truth.”
“How did you get downtown the night of the Maya Angelou reading and Kim and Ken’s house party?”
“We took her car. Usually did. It was better than mine.”
“Who drove?”
“I did.”
“Did you have your own keys or did you use hers?”
“Hers.”
“Did you lock the car?”
“Yes, sir. Always.”
“So when you went out to it from the Fiesta . . .”
“I had to unlock it.”
“Did you lock it back?” I ask.
“Yes, sir. I did. Alwa—”
“So if you had the keys how did she leave? Or how did the killer move her car?”
“I have no idea,” he says. “I honestly don’t. I was real drunk that night. Wasn’t thinkin’ straight. Didn’t even occur to me at first. Later when it did, when I was like, ‘Wait, I’ve got the keys, how’d she leave,’ I checked my pocket and they were gone. Then I was like . . . ‘Did she come by and get them from me and I didn’t remember?’ That’s how messed up I was that night. Later, like the next day or something, I thought maybe her killer lifted them from me without me even knowin’. You know in all this time no one’s ever asked about that, about the keys or how the killer got them. I would’ve been happy to answer the questions about them on the polygraph. Still am. I just have no idea what happened to the keys. I know it makes me look guilty, but . . . I’m tellin’ the truth—just like I have about everything.”
Back inside, I tell the others what he said.
“Doesn’t look good for him, does it?” Eric says.
“Wouldn’t he just make up something about them?” Billy says. “He could lie about her having a set or leaving them in the car.”
“Wait,” Kathryn says. “What if that’s it? What if he was so out of it, he left them in the car? What if he just thought he locked it and took the keys back with him, but what if he left them? What if Angel’s killer was going to break in and hot wire it but found out he didn’t have to?”
“Why would her killer take her car at all?” Rex asks. “Why not take his own car? Why mess with hers?”
It’s a good question and I can think of a few answers—the most obvious being that it was Qwon who killed her. The other being whoever it was knew her well enough to know that if they moved her car, everyone would think she left on her own—like she had so many times before.
“But Qwon couldn’t have done it,” Amber says. She looks at Kathryn. “He was still at the party when we left, wasn’t he?”
Kathryn nods. “We left pretty early. We just weren’t really feeling it.”
“Y’all left a good hour or more before we did,” Darius says.
Kathryn says, “Qwon stayed the night with Darius and I stayed the night with Amber.”
I nod.
“So here’s the thing,” Amber says. “Qwon is still at the party when we leave, hasn’t been out of anyone sight the entire time we’ve been downtown, stays an hour or more after we leave . . . and yet when we pass by Angel’s house, which wasn’t far from downtown and was only a few blocks from mine . . . her car was in her driveway.”
“It was?”
“Yes,” Amber says.
Kathryn nods. “It was.”
“Do you think she dead by that point?” Amber says. “It’s all so crazy. At that point we thought she was fine. Went home. Crashed. We had done so much drinking and dancing and . . . other stuff. Kathryn got the call that she was missing before I even woke up the next morning and went out searching for her immediately. But she was already dead when we passed her car on the way home earlier that night, right?”
I shrug.
“Could’ve been.”
“I just don’t see how her car got back to her house. Did she drive it? Was she killed after that?”
186
Anna calls me as I’m driving home and tells me with obvious excitement in her voice that she thinks she’s just had a major breakthrough in the case.
She’s as upbeat and genuinely thrilled as I’ve heard her in a long time, and I’m happy not only for her brilliant help but the collateral joy it’s bringing her.
But by the time I get home she is crying and shaking, too upset to talk at first.
“Take your time,” I say. “Come sit down and let’s talk about it.”
I le
ad her to our library/study in the back of the house—what was originally designed to be the formal living room—so we could have privacy and be alone. Even though Sam’s asleep in her hospital bed in the living room, it’s not the same as it truly being just the two of us.
As we walk down the hallway, I wonder if something has happened to Johanna, though I spoke to her earlier in the evening and she was fine, or Dad, who’s undergoing treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukemia, or Daniel—though in each case I think I’d be the one to get the call. Maybe it’s something to do with her parents.
I feel my way through the dark library and turn on a floor lamp in the corner, then lead her over to the old brown love seat that had been my dad’s mom’s.
For a long moment I just hold her, her head on my chest, her crying softly, tears damping my shirt.
“Take your time,” I say. “And know whatever it is, we’ll face it together, figure it out. No matter what.”
The books that once were mostly stacked on the floor of my old trailer in the Prairie Palm now line floor-to-ceiling shelves in this beautiful book room that holds everything from my earliest theology and criminology texts to books about the Shroud of Turin, the Atlanta Child Murders, the poetry of Rumi, and the most recent Paul Auster novel I purchased.
Eventually, Anna lifts her head, leans back a little and turns toward me and says, “Chris called.”
I nod. I should’ve guessed that’s what it was.
“Said he’d be out in just a few days. A few days. He was so arrogant and . . . just like he used to be. And . . . I . . . I got physically ill. Actually threw up. I kept thinking . . . he’s going to be part of Taylor’s life, part of our lives . . . forever. Always causing us problems or trying to kill us or get custody of Taylor. That’s what he said—well, one of many things he said—he plans to fight for full custody of Taylor. Going to claim that we set him up and subjected him to all sorts of horrors in prison, that you used your influence inside to have him tortured and raped and . . . said his attorney was already working on civil suit against you and he hopes to be able to convince the state’s attorney to file criminal charges as well. Said his mission in life is to get his daughter away from us and make our lives as miserable as possible.”
I reach up and wipe the tears from her cheeks. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.”
“I know how he is,” she says. “How ruthless. How relentless.”
“I know how we are,” I say. “How strong. How resilient.”
She smiles and kisses me. “I know, but . . . he fights dirty. He . . . I won’t let him get Taylor. He’ll . . . Can you imagine what he’d . . . the effect he’d have on her. He’s not going to . . . I’ll kill him first.”
“Hey, it’s not going to come to that,” I say. “We’re going to be okay. We’ll protect Taylor and—”
“We can’t afford the kind of attorney we need to fight him,” she says. “We’re barely making it now, and with you quitting the prison . . . and us trying to take care of Sam . . .”
“Just find the attorney we need,” I say, “I’ll find the money to pay him.”
“Where? How?”
“Listen to me,” I say. “I promise you . . . we’re going to protect Taylor and each other and Johanna and everyone else. Don’t let him get in your head. Don’t let him trick you into thinking he’s more powerful or capable than he is. We’ll do what we have to. Okay? You know that. We’ll move back into my little trailer in Pottersville if we have to. We’ll do whatever it takes.”
“He said when he gets out he’s moving to Wewa,” she says.
I nod. “Good. That’ll make it easier.”
“Make what easier?”
“Keeping an eye on him. Dealing with his—with him. First thing tomorrow find the attorney you want and I’ll find the money. We’ll start there.”
“Thank you.”
I have no idea where or how I’ll find the kind of money we’ll need, but . . . I’ll think about that tomorrow—or later tonight when I can’t sleep. Not now.
“I love you,” I say.
“Sorry about all this,” she says. “Sorry I came with so much baggage. Are you regretting getting together with me yet? Do you want to . . . we haven’t made it official. You can still—”
I put a finger to her lips as I push off the couch, turn, and kneel before her.
Pulling out the small box from my pocket, I say, “Anna, I’ve loved you my entire life, and it seems like I’ve waited for you about that long. There’s an awful lot that is wrong in this world, but one thing that is absolutely right is us. I love you with every cell of my body, every bit of my soul, every second of my life. I’m so grateful that we’re together and I will never, not for one moment, take that for granted. Ever. In my heart and everywhere it matters most, you are already my wife, but will you do me the honor of making it official? Will you marry me?”
“I already have,” she says. “I will again. Officially. Unofficially. Over and over again. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
I remove the ring from the box and place it on her long, elegant finger.
I had found it at an antique store in downtown Panama City before meeting Kathryn and the others, and had planned to wait for the perfect time to propose again, not knowing it would arrive so soon.
She gasps. “It’s so beautiful. I love it. I love you.”
She holds her hand out and up and admires her new ring. “Wow, I didn’t realize how much I need a manicure.”
Her hard working hands not only care for Taylor and Johanna and me, but Sam, who was a stranger to her not so long ago. Her hands are beautiful and strong and I tell her so.
“That extraordinary and truly exquisite ring is unworthy of your perfect and breathtakingly beautiful hands.”
Our eyes lock and she looks at me in that way—the way everyone should be looked at at least once in their lives, and the way I’m fortunate enough to be looked at every day.
After a long moment of us exchanging that which is unutterable—as Rumi said, Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation—she leans down and gets on the floor with me, and we kiss.
Joyful tears have joined the ones of dread and painful memories on her cheeks from before and they dampen my face as we kiss, then my body a little later as we make love for the first time as an officially engaged couple on the floor of our library.
The library, like our home and children and each other, are sacred to us, and if Chris Taunton thinks he has any chance at all of profaning or defiling or destroying any of it, he’s truly incredibly enormously mistaken—something I plan to point out to him hard enough to make a lasting impression.
187
Later, much later, after we’ve made love and looked at her ring a lot and hugged and kissed and held and comforted, we are sitting on our bed with the case notes spread out before us.
“After you hear what I have to say,” she says, “you’ll be even happier you proposed to me.”
“Not possible.”
“So sweet,” she says, leaning over to kiss me. “You make me so happy. I love my ring. I love you. Can’t believe how awful I felt earlier and how wonderful I feel now. I know Chris is going to be a . . . but I feel hopeful again . . . and I’m just so damned happy. Who knew a ring on my finger could make such a difference?”
“I’m just glad it did.”
“Thank you for asking,” she says.
“Thank you for saying yes.”
“Anytime. Every time.”
She looks back down at the papers in front of her, moves a few around finds what she’s looking for, then puts the rest back in the folder. “Okay, you ready for this?”
“I am.”
“Two things and two things only give Justice Witney’s testimony any credibility at all,” she says. “That he knew where the car was and that the cellphone tower evidence backed up his story.”
I nod.
“Without those there’s nothing,” she says, “only hi
s word against Qwon’s. No actual, tangible evidence.”
“Exactly.”
“What if I told you I can explain away both?”
“Really?”
“Really,” she says. “Aren’t I a great wife?”
“The best.”
“Let’s start with the car,” she says. “Guess whose stepdad worked at the airport and who helped him part time?”
“Ah . . . let’s see . . . How many guesses do I get?”
“Justice’s stepdad did some general caretaking and light maintenance,” she says. “Name is Carrie Gardner, Jr. Young Witney worked with him on the weekends. One of their jobs was to blow off the parking lot, keep an eye on the cars, and report any that appeared abandoned.”
“Wow.”
“Because the stepdad had a different name . . . defense investigator just missed this. Cops may have too, but even if they didn’t, it was in their best interest that it not come out—just like the identity of the Crime Stoppers tipster. I think Witney just happened to see Angel’s car out there. Knew the cops were looking for it. Sat on it until he needed it. Used it when it suited him.”
“Brilliant work,” I say. “Really fantastic. Thank you for—”
“You’re bragging on me extra because you’re about to say the prosecution would argue that the fact that he worked there part-time just means he was familiar with it and would have suggested it to Qwon as a place to dump the car. You were, weren’t you?”
I smile. “It is brilliant work. I mean it. It’s incredible. And of course the prosecution is going to argue that. Doesn’t change how valuable what you’ve uncovered is or that it could have happened just like you say. Probably did.”
“No probably to it. It did. And what I’m about to tell you next proves it.”
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“You know how everyone keeps saying that the cellphone tower evidence fits Justice’s story?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, it’s just the opposite,” she says. Justice kept changing his story to fit the cellphone evidence. Look at this.”
She hands me a transcript of Justice’s first interview. Several passages are highlighted.
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