by J W Becton
“So why didn’t those other gumshoes get the proof?” Mrs. Twilley demanded again.
Before I could answer, the bathroom door opened, and Sydney emerged.
Vincent turned and looked at us over his shoulder. Behind him the sky had grown dark, and raindrops were pattering faster on the window.
Mrs. Twilley cleared her throat, returning my attention to her small form.
Instead of answering her, I said, “That’s a good question. Sydney, have any other investigators come here that you know of? Has anyone else offered you or any of your neighbors a deal like this?”
He shook his head as he walked to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.
“I’ve lived here longer than most, and you’re the first people who’ve approached me.”
“What about your neighbors?” Vincent asked.
“Hard to say,” Sydney said. “This place has a lot of turnover, so there’s a chance that someone had a PI in and kept it mum.”
“Or maybe you’re the first resident to sublet,” I said, sounding doubtful even to my own ears.
“Or maybe you officers just need some help,” Mrs. Twilley offered. “We could help get the picture, right, Sydney? You could deputize us.”
At that, Vincent’s head snapped up and his blue eyes met mine with an expression bordering on panic.
I almost laughed, but Sydney clucked his tongue and said, “They’re not going to deputize us. That’s only in the movies. Leave them alone, old woman, and you’d better not jeopardize my sweet deal here by irritating them with your nonstop commentary.”
And that’s pretty much how things went until eleven o’clock, when Sydney and Mrs. Twilley shuffled off to the Old Country Buffet to eat lunch, leaving Vincent and me mercifully alone in the small apartment. I had a couple of hours before my meeting with Judge Preece, and so far, surveillance—or more honestly, Mrs. Twilley—had distracted me from it.
Now that I didn’t have to run interference on Mrs. Twilley, I pulled one of Sydney’s club chairs over to the window beside Vincent and the camera, and for a while we sat in silence, and I forced my mind not to think about my upcoming meeting.
That didn’t work so well.
“Nothing ever turns out quite how I expect it to,” I mused some time later.
“No, it never does,” Vincent agreed. “I didn’t expect Mrs. Twilley to be here today.”
Then he turned his head to study me. His expression grew serious.
“Anything specific on your mind?” he asked.
I shrugged, trying to decide if I should claim that I was talking about the rain or maybe our stalled romance. Or if I should admit the truth: that I’d been ruminating on my personal crisis again.
“No,” I said and then changed my mind. “Yes.”
“That was equivocation at its finest.” He chuckled. “I think you’re ready to run for public office or testify in a court of law now.”
“What a coincidence,” I said before reminding him about my meeting with Henry Martling III and our plan to get my butt out of the fire. “My meeting with Judge Preece is at two o’clock. Will you cover for me?”
“Sure,” he said, checking his watch. “Anything else I can do?”
I shook my head and listened to the sound of rainfall.
“I was just thinking,” I said, feeling contemplative, “that this was the last place I expected to be at this stage in my life.”
“Yeah, I wasn’t planning to be in a senior living facility at my age,” he quipped. Then he sobered. “What did you see yourself doing now?”
I shrugged a shoulder as I thought.
“I don’t know. I never really thought this far ahead,” I confessed. “Even when I was planning to save my sister, I didn’t imagine it would take this long or that I would put the whole case in danger.”
“And I didn’t expect to be supporting my estranged son like some huge chump,” Vincent muttered.
I definitely hadn’t expected him to say that.
“You’re not a chump,” I said, envisioning myself reaching across the distance to take his left hand and pull it into my lap.
I stopped myself before a finger twitched in his direction. I wanted him to reach for me, not the other way around.
“Are you kidding?” he scoffed. “I’m a prize chump. I know that paying his rent and bringing him food are not helping him. He’s gotten himself into trouble. No job, no school. He might as well take a year off to find himself or backpack through Europe.”
He suggested the last two options with obvious disdain, and I smiled. Vincent wasn’t exactly the touchy-feely sort, and I doubted he ever needed a moment to “find himself.” He was just so himself. Probably always had been.
After Justin had been arrested at the drag race, Vincent had been adamant that he wasn’t going to facilitate his son’s bad choices by paying his way through life, and then he’d turned around and done exactly that.
“I understand,” I said quietly. “Tough love is a lot easier in theory than in practice.”
I knew that a little too well. I always claimed that I didn’t enable Tricia’s drinking or make my life all about finding her attacker, but to a pretty overwhelming degree, I had done both.
“He’s your Tricia,” I said finally. “Justin’s the only person who could make you simultaneously want to throttle him and make things easier for him.”
Vincent grunted and remained pensive.
“Did something happen?” I asked as gently as I could.
“No, and that’s just it. He came up to the lake the other night. The neighbors were grilling, and I thought…well, I asked him about his plans for the hundredth time, and he blew me off for the hundredth time. He claims he’s working, but….”
“You don’t believe him.”
He shook his head.
“I don’t want to cut him off,” he said. “But I have to.”
I thought he would end the conversation there, but he spoke again and sounded almost wistful.
“I know this is ridiculous, but I keep hoping that something dramatic will happen to show Justin that I really care about him. That I love him and want to be there for him.”
“I think you’ve got dramatic covered already,” I said. “You bailed him out of jail and saved him a lot of legal hassle on that underage drinking charge.”
“Fat lot of good it did me. Maybe I need something more extreme. Saving him from something life threatening would be good.”
“What? Like rescuing him from Russian terrorists?”
“I’m not picky,” he said. “Any nationality of terrorist will do. Doesn’t have to be Russian. As long as I take a bullet, it should get the job done.”
Vincent’s joke held some truth. He would take a bullet for his son, but the darker side of me was skeptical that even that would be enough. Besides, he’d taken a bullet in the line of duty once already. I didn’t want that to happen again.
I reflected on my attempts at grand gestures with Tricia. Today with the judge, I would take a metaphorical bullet for my sister, but I doubted it would get me more than a potential felony charge.
I sighed. “I don’t think it works that way.”
“Me neither,” he admitted. “So how does it work?”
“No clue, but if you figure it out, let me know.”
“Oh, crap,” Vincent said suddenly. He grabbed the binoculars off the floor and peered through them. “I think Sydney and Mrs. Twilley are doing a drive-by of Blissett’s house.”
“What?” I asked, blinking at him.
He handed me the binoculars.
“Look,” he said, pointing to the road below. “See that navy sedan?”
“The one with the yellow trunk?” I asked, raising the binoculars to my eyes and tracking the car’s slow progress down the block.
“It’s passed Randy’s house at least four times now,” he said. “I noticed it in the parking lot here. It’s got to be Sydney’s.”
“Good grief,” I
said, lowering the binoculars. “I’ll speak to them again.”
“You think it’ll do any good?”
“Probably not. I don’t think Mrs. Twilley can be controlled.”
“Yeah, we’re going to regret using this apartment, aren’t we?”
“Yup,” I said simply. Then I glanced at the time. “I need to head over to the courthouse,” I said with reluctance.
“Can I come too?” he asked. “I’d rather face a judge than wrangle Mrs. Twilley.”
Despite the dread that settled in the pit of my stomach, I laughed.
“You stay here. Make sure they get home safe. We still don’t know what we’re dealing with in Randy Blissett.”
Vincent heaved a dramatic sigh. “Once they’re back, can I lock them in?”
Pretty sure he was joking, I smiled, shook my head, and walked toward the door.
“Hey,” Vincent said to my back. I looked over my shoulder to find that he’d turned away from the window and regarded me with concern.
“You’ll call me when it’s over? Tell me what happens?” he asked, his voice as tender as I’d ever heard it. His expression threatened to undo me right there in Sydney’s apartment.
Vincent cared. He was here, and he cared what happened to me. I blinked a few times.
“I thought you already knew everything would turn out fine,” I challenged, trying for a jovial tone.
“I just want to make sure you acknowledge my rightness,” he said, following my lead, but the tenderness in his blue eyes never wavered.
As I made my way back down the flight of stairs at Dowell Heights, I found myself clinging to the naive wish that Vincent really could come with me to the courthouse.
But this meeting was mine to do alone.
Seventeen
The time had come. No more distraction. No more avoidance.
I was sitting in Judge Preece’s chambers, and I was as comfortable as I would ever be. Henry Martling III had reviewed his strategy, and I’d turned over the sliver of cloth I’d carefully preserved all these years.
In a few minutes, Judge Cathleen Preece would arrive, and I would admit to a felony.
After that, everything would be out of my hands.
And then who would hold my fate? Prosecuting attorney Kay Lanyon, Slidell’s defense attorney Nora Hild, and the judge.
I studied Nora Hild, wondering why she had taken Slidell’s case. Nothing in her look or demeanor offered a clue. I’d expected Slidell’s attorney to be vaguely reptilian, potentially to sport horns and a tail, but this woman looked like any other attorney working on any other case. I shifted my gaze and took in the other people in the room. The atmosphere was somber, professional, and I felt like I was the only one who was uneasy.
For everyone else, this was just another day at the office. Mundane, run of the mill, nothing special. Their lives didn’t ride on what would happen in this room today. Not like mine or Clayton Leslie Slidell’s, and he wasn’t even at the meeting.
Closing my eyes to block out the room and the people in it, I tried to imagine Slidell. I visualized a man of average height with a graying buzz cut and a paunch around his center. I couldn’t see much detail in his face or anything remarkable about him. I thought harder. What did he look like? Clayton Leslie Slidell was one of the most important men in my life. I’d chased after him for seventeen years and committed a felony in order to ensure his eventual capture.
And I didn’t even know what he looked like.
Squeezing my eyes tighter, I leaned against my chair. How was that possible?
It made an odd kind of sense. I had refrained from having any contact with Slidell since the moment I’d identified and located him. I’d seen him very few times. In fact, most of the details in my memory came directly from his mug shot and not from personal contact.
This was the man who had ruined my sister’s life and destroyed my family, and I could barely picture his face.
Slidell’s image should have imprinted on my brain. It should be indelibly burned into my retinas. Every time I closed my eyes, I should see him so clearly that I could describe him in the minutest detail.
But I couldn’t.
That seemed wrong to me. Slidell had been the focus of my whole life. I should know what he looked like. Slowly, I opened my eyes, but I didn’t see the judge’s chambers or the attorneys in their places. I saw the past, all those years I’d thought I was pursuing Slidell. All those times I imagined him walking just out of my reach. But that wasn’t true.
Slidell wasn’t walking ahead of me. He was a faceless shadow that lurked behind me and my whole family. He was fear. He was the uncertainty that drove my mother to yearn for the days before. He was the weakness that drove my father to rage. He was the terror and helplessness that caused Tricia to drink.
He was the fear that made me draw back from relationships, hesitate to move on, question every decision, even this one.
The judge’s chambers materialized before me, and I blinked a few times when I realized my attorney was trying to get my attention.
“You ready?” Martling asked, a wrinkle of concern on his forehead.
Was I ready? I wasn’t sure. I wanted to be, but fear lurked behind me. I faced Martling and met his eyes steadily.
“I’m afraid,” I admitted. “But I’m ready.”
Martling gave my hand a fatherly pat. Though I appreciated the gesture, I suddenly wished Helena—and Vincent too—were here with me instead.
A few minutes later, Judge Preece arrived. She was a tall, sharp-eyed woman in her sixties, with a thick braid of gray hair hanging neatly down her back. She did not engage in chitchat, but brought the meeting quickly to order. Business as usual.
I had to hand it to Martling. He was good. He handled the preliminaries with authority and candor as I quietly looked on.
Finally, it was my turn.
“My client, Special Agent Jackson, is here today in good faith to offer information regarding your investigation into the allegedly altered evidence in the Slidell rape case,” Martling said. “There are some extenuating circumstances in the matter, and she would like to make sure you adequately understand them before any further action is taken.”
“Let’s hear it from your client,” the judge prompted.
I took a deep breath.
“As you already know, I am the sister of Tricia Jackson, the victim in this case. I was also formerly employed as an MPD officer, but when budget cuts forced my layoff, I was worried that her case would be shuffled into a storage facility somewhere and never thought of again. Or worse, given the state of the evidence lockup at the time, I feared that the evidence might be lost.
“I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen. I needed justice for my sister and my family, and that meant I had to assure myself that the evidence would be available for any new tests that might be developed over the intervening years.
“Therefore, I used my knowledge of evidence gathering and storage to take a small sample of the cloth in question. I did so with no motivation other than ensuring that the evidence was preserved. I needed to know that every new test was available to my sister so that her attacker could be identified and prosecuted.”
Martling picked up the narrative from there, and my insides tightened as he held up my baggie of evidence.
“We are here about this,” he said, turning so that all the room’s occupants could see the plastic bag. “This tiny sliver of fabric. Special Agent Jackson removed this sample with the same care used in handling all evidence. Her goal was to preserve the DNA and to ensure the best chance of apprehending and trying her sister’s rapist. Now that the man has been arrested, Special Agent Jackson felt compelled to come forward and explain.”
Hild snorted. “Her compulsion seems rather well timed.”
“I couldn’t agree more with my adversary,” Kay Lanyon said.
Martling turned and smiled charmingly at his opposing counsel.
“What better time to admit what sh
e did, Ms. Lanyon? She wanted to come forward before the case went to trial. Special Agent Jackson wants nothing more than to ensure a fair trial.”
“Please,” Lanyon said. “She got wind of our investigation and is trying to cover herself.”
She turned to me.
“You realize, Special Agent, that you have just confessed to a felony?”
I opened my mouth, but Martling jumped in.
“On the contrary, Ms. Lanyon. My client has made no confession. She has merely admitted certain facts that by themselves do not satisfy all the elements of the offense of evidence tampering. My client’s actions do not meet the legal definition of tampering. A person commits the offense of tampering with evidence when, with the intent to prevent the apprehension or cause the wrongful apprehension of any person or to obstruct the prosecution or defense of any person, he knowingly destroys, alters, conceals, or disguises physical evidence or makes, devises, prepares, or plants false evidence.
“Special Agent Jackson has already stated that her intention was to ensure that her sister’s case did not go cold, a realistic fear given the fact that last year alone, the GBI received more than 2,000 reports of rape. Of those 2,000 incidents, only slightly more than 300 arrests were made. That leaves nearly 1,700 unsolved rape complaints in the last year alone. Would anyone care to add up the figures over the past seventeen years since Patricia Jackson was brutally attacked and sexually assaulted?”
Here, Martling paused for dramatic effect.
“Even if many reports of rape were cleared without making an arrest, that certainly cannot account for the balance of the unsolved cases. Looking at those figures in which roughly two-thirds of all rape complaints do not lead to an arrest, can anyone blame Special Agent Jackson for fearing the same fate might befall her sister? And that’s not even taking into account the very real concern that the evidence might be lost or destroyed before the alleged attacker could be identified. My client’s only motivation was to prop up a system that is clearly flawed, and she certainly did not act recklessly or negligently. She took no actions with the intent to do anything other than to arrest the guilty party.”
