by Leslie Nagel
“Tell me anyway. What you thought. What you felt. Please,” Charley added when he didn’t respond. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”
Carter lifted his shoulders and let them fall. Then he began to speak. Charley listened in fascination while yet another witness spun a version of those fateful events, relating some details she knew and others she did not. He described his father’s extreme annoyance when Carter had shown up unannounced on Friday afternoon, his mother’s blasé announcement that they wouldn’t be attending the game, despite Kendall’s participation as a varsity cheerleader. How his little sister’s surprised delight at Carter’s arrival seemed an antidote to her disappointment at their parents’ indifference.
“Are you certain Sawyer was annoyed?” Charley asked. “Could it have been something else, like anger or fear? Did you mention his reaction to the police?”
Black eyes stared into space, their expression unreadable as Carter reached into the past for the memory. “Maybe I read into it what I expected to see,” he admitted at last. “He was actually very upset, now that you ask. And no, I never told anyone. No one ever asked me before. The fact is, I was nervous and distracted, and Kendall was bouncing off the walls, all pumped up about marching through town with her best friend. They’d had special pom-poms made, the streamers all shiny blue and metallic gold. She was so young and pretty. I’d never seen her so happy.”
Carter’s face glowed again as he described the parade, watching the football team ride past on the same fire engine he’d ridden on in triumph just a few years before. He’d blended into the boisterous crowd, hungry for a glimpse of Regan but wary of being spotted with her.
“I’d planned to sit in a lower row, so I could ditch the game when the time was right.” He shook his head. “Unfortunately, a bunch of guys from my class literally dragged me up into the stands. I ended up almost directly in front of Douglas and Doris. You should’ve seen their faces when I showed up. If they could’ve grabbed their daughter and taken her home, I think they would have. And at that point, if I’d tried to change seats, they’d have known something was up.”
“What about Harding Knox?” Charley asked. “Did you see him? Or Merritt Vance?”
Carter’s eyes widened. “You think old man Vance is involved?”
“Maybe. Regan was blackmailing him, too. That’s how she got those keys.” She described Vance’s illicit garden and the true facts about his infamous encounter with Regan.
“I knew he was lying about that argument,” he muttered. “I always thought the cops moved off him as a suspect too quickly. Vance was one vindictive bastard, with a serious cruel streak. He liked to terrify junior high kids, got off on making them cry. But no,” he said regretfully, “I didn’t see him follow Regan out of the stadium, or Harding either. I will tell you the same thing I told the police. I sat in those stands and watched Regan do her cheerleading thing. The Fletchers could stare daggers at my back, and they probably did, but they couldn’t keep me from looking at my girl. I had eyes for very little else that night. When I saw Regan slip away, it was all I could do to act normally and keep pretending to watch the game. Luckily, her folks didn’t realize she’d left.”
“Really?” This didn’t seem to jibe with all Charley had been told about the overprotective Fletchers. “How could they not notice?”
“They couldn’t see her,” he said. “Toward the end of the game, when things got super intense, almost everyone was standing, and the cheerleaders stopped performing. Oakwood had driven down into field goal range, almost directly in front of us. The players, coaches, and team trainers had all moved down to follow the action, so you had a big mob of huge guys milling around. The girls were backed up against the railing that separated the stands from the field. With three seconds on the clock and the game tied, sideline protocol kind of broke down.” He smiled faintly—his first genuine smile, Charley realized, since she’d arrived. “At that point, a tank could have rolled into the stadium and nobody would have noticed. If I hadn’t been tracking Regan, I’d have missed her exit, too.”
Charley listened as Carter continued his recitation of those long-ago events, describing sights and sounds as if they’d happened yesterday. All eyes were on the field. The Oakwood Lumberjacks lined up across from their archrivals, the Valley View Spartans. The kicker stood apart, assessing the wind and distance, waiting for his moment. A hush fell over the crowd. The quarterback called the play, the ball was snapped to the holder and placed on the tee, and, as both lines surged forward, Oakwood’s kicker took half a dozen precise diagonal steps and landed the kick that sent the ball through the uprights, won the game, and ensured his place in Lumberjack history.
Finally, with Oakwood victorious and over one thousand fans going berserk, Carter managed to lose his buddies in the jubilant crowds.
“I got swept down onto the field,” he recalled. “It was like a human tidal wave.”
“That’s the photo I mentioned,” Charley said. “You’re on the field, surrounded by the celebration.”
He smiled again. “I’m not going to lie: I got caught up in the moment with everyone else. People of all ages were hugging one another, singing the alma mater—some were even crying. Horns were honking all around the stadium in a kind of rhythm. Some kid in the stands had one of those air horns. I remember the aroma of buttered popcorn. Even now, the smell takes me right back to that night.”
Charley returned his smile. “I’ve heard several descriptions of the post-game hoopla. I’m sorry to have missed it.”
Carter met her gaze, his eyes hollow with grief, all trace of joy now gone. “You know the rest. When I could break away, I ran to my car and drove straight to Smith Gardens. I waited for what felt like hours. When Regan didn’t show, I drove back to Columbus. The next day the police showed up at my dorm asking questions. They told me she was missing, that she’d never made it home or to the sleepover. I freaked out. I was afraid that she’d—”
He abruptly fell silent, turning his face away. Charley’s detective radar redlined as she saw the uncertainty in his expression, heard it in those last few words.
And with that, she had it. There it was at last: that vague bud of an idea, the action that didn’t fit the actor, a motivation that had felt fundamentally wrong as she’d read and considered Berkeley’s files, but which had kept slipping through her fingers as events overtook her, the elusive bud now in full flower and laid open before her.
“You freaked out,” she repeated. “And you were afraid? Afraid that Regan had done what, Carter?” She leaned into his personal space. “You drove back to college. A young woman goes AWOL after dark, the woman you love, and you just leave? That makes no sense. Weren’t you worried about her safety? Why didn’t you go by her house, check to see if she was all right?”
He waved a hand, eyes still averted. “The Fletchers, they hated me, they would have—”
“Nunh-unh.” Charley shook her head. “Not good enough. You were going to marry this girl, either that night or in a few months. The truth is, once Regan turned eighteen, the Fletchers were only an obstacle to her dramatic exit plan, not to your being together. What did you really think when Regan didn’t show? You believed she’d blown you off, didn’t you?” The look on his face told her she’d hit on the truth. “Why did you think that? No more lies. Had you argued? Was she getting cold feet? Was there someone else?” When Carter flinched, she knew she’d scored again. “Who? Who was Regan seeing?”
He pressed his hands to his face, muffling his words. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure there was someone. It was just that she…”
“Just that she, what?”
He dropped his hands but refused to meet her gaze. “When we got serious, Regan and I, we were both…inexperienced. Virgins.” He swallowed hard. “We figured it out, like lovers do. A lot of fumbling, trial and error: typical horny teenage sex. We were monogamous, of course—or
I thought we were. Except that a few months before she died, Regan started wanting to do…other things. In bed. Kinky stuff, things I’d only heard about in the locker room. When I asked her where she’d gotten the idea to—she wanted me, wanted us to—” He fell silent again, red-faced, unable to continue.
This was uncharted territory. Charley cleared her throat. “What, uh, did she say? When you, um, asked her?”
“She never answered. Just distracted me with…you know.” He reddened again. “I tried to convince myself it was all in my head. She loved me, and I was a lucky son of a gun. But it made me feel so insecure, both the possibility that she’d been unfaithful and my own lack of—I was only a kid, really. So, that night, when Regan didn’t show up, my first thought was that she’d dumped me for this other…partner.” He hung his head. “Forty years later, and I’m still a mess.”
“You suspected she had another lover, and you never told the police?” Charley was incredulous. “Didn’t it occur to you that this other person might be the murderer?”
“Oh, I told them.” He laughed, a single, bitter note. “This was after they’d found her body, after my arrest, when I’d been questioned twice about her disappearance. But by that point it sounded so lame and made up—that I’d conveniently just remembered this mystery person, a person I had no proof even existed. They rolled their eyes and promised to investigate, but they found no evidence Regan had been seeing anyone else. I doubt they looked too hard. When I explained about Harding, how she’d been pretending to date him, the detective in charge actually laughed.”
“He laughed?” Charley’s incredulity morphed into indignation. This man really had been railroaded, she thought.
“To the cops, it sounded like just one more desperate attempt to manufacture another suspect, to divert suspicion from myself. Besides, you’ve seen him,” Carter said. “Would anyone believe I’d be jealous of that kid? Or that Regan would let him touch her? They had their killer, Ms. Carpenter. Why would they waste time and energy chasing phantoms?”
Carter stood and began moving restlessly around the tiny attic room. Charley stood as well and maneuvered nearer the door, unwilling to have this troubled man looming over her or cutting off her escape.
“Everything was like it was happening to someone else—the trial, my mother crying. I kept thinking it would be okay, because I was innocent.” His gaze chilled. “But it wasn’t okay. Because I maintained my innocence and never expressed remorse, I never got paroled, despite being a model prisoner. Year after year, I sat in prison, desperately trying to get anyone to listen, to try to find the real killer. No one paid any attention. Until Berkeley Dye dug up that lying bastard, for all the good it did.”
Charley raised her brows in surprise. “You mean Yousef Alsayegh?”
“Who else?” he asked with a sour expression. “When he recanted, it was almost worse, because I was free, but I had to face everyone’s suspicion. My mother had cancer, but it was grief that truly killed her. My father has no friends anymore. My sister never married. Kendall drives Sawyer to his appointments; she takes care of both of us. That filthy liar took her life, too, just like he took Regan’s. He ruined all our lives.”
“Hold on. If he was guilty,” Charley reasoned, “who killed Berkeley Dye? Who kidnapped PJ?”
Carter stopped pacing and glared. “All these questions. You’re confusing me. Vance killed her, or maybe my father did, or maybe it was Knox? I cannot deal with this. Just…get out.”
Charley stared in disbelief. “Don’t you want the truth? Don’t you care that a boy is in danger?”
“I’m sorry about the kid, but I know the truth. Alsayegh killed Regan.”
“What about the missing necklace?” she insisted. “Yousef never sold it. In fact, it’s never surfaced anywhere. If he killed her, where is it?”
“That goddamned necklace!” Carter roared. Charley shrank back against the door as his face flushed with anger. “Regan had her trust fund. I don’t know why she took it, unless it was a final ‘screw you’ to her parents. Alsayegh saw that necklace, and he killed her for it.” He sagged, the brief spurt of rage draining away. “If she’d never taken it, she’d still be alive. I’d still have my beautiful Regan.”
He began to cry, great racking sobs that shook his frame. Charley watched him for several moments. Earlier she’d been alarmed by him; now she felt nothing but pity. It seemed clear she’d learned all she could, so she left Carter standing in his shrine to his dead love, surrounded by memories.
Chapter 23
Charley hurried down the driveway and back to her car, eager now to get away. When she climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, the digital dash clock told her she’d been with Carter for over an hour. And for what? She was no closer to answers now than when she’d climbed that tree.
Or was she? Carter had spun quite a story, and at least one remark was tickling the back of her brain, begging to be examined in detail. She needed to figure out where to look for PJ. But first, she needed to think.
When she reached Ridgeway Road she turned right. She glimpsed yellow tape and realized it was the scene of Berkeley’s “accident.” The official vehicles had long since departed, leaving a churned-up mess of mud and grass. Deep wheel ruts filled with rainwater led to a large walnut tree, its trunk scored and gashed near the base, leaving a whitish patch where the bark had been torn away. Above that, she could just make out a dark oblong that she guessed was the opening where the killer had baited his paper trap.
She switched off the engine and sat, staring at the scene, unable to keep from imagining how it had happened. Charley had met Berkeley only once. He’d been a bit unscrupulous, a seeker of truth but motivated by gain. And yet, he’d never pretended otherwise. And he’d never given up on Regan. He didn’t deserve to die.
Carter’s grief was exhausting, still so raw after all these years. His memories, too, were fresh and raw. Remarkable, she thought, how everyone’s memory of that night was so vivid, each recalling certain unique details. Voices singing, bells tolling, air horns, the marching band, cars honking in rhythm. Carter even remembered the aroma of buttered popcorn. A joyful night which had ended in tragedy. Except that someone at that game hadn’t felt joy.
She leaned back and let the many conversations she’d listened to over the past few days wash over her like a cool wave, the words and images swirling around in her mind, patterns forming, breaking apart, and then re-forming. This was one of her tried-and-true strategies for finding truth. She relaxed and let it find her.
And there was something bobbing around in the vast sea of information, a detail that didn’t jibe with other facts, an inconsistency or a lie. This wasn’t the dissonance of Carter’s slinking off the night his beloved went missing. While that, too, had poked at her subconscious, this feeling of discord was something else altogether. Someone had lied to her face. She was certain of it.
Charley contemplated Carter’s suspicion that Regan had taken another lover. If true, did it have anything to do with her death? Possibly. After all, most murders were motivated by strong emotions.
Question: What had motivated Regan’s killer? Hatred? Fear? Jealousy?
And as she considered motive in light of all she’d learned about the dead girl, a new and terrible possibility slipped into her mind, insidious, shocking, and yet consistent with the facts.
Charley heard a beep and glanced down to see her phone screen light up with a notification. Finally. She disconnected the charger and saw she had several dozen texts and emails dating back over the last few days, including four from Marc in the last hour.
Then she gasped. She’d received an email from PJ. He’d sent it at two-fifteen that afternoon, shortly before he’d disappeared.
With a pounding heart, she clicked on it and began to read:
Hey Charley. We all thought it was strange how Regan used code na
mes within a code, so I worked on those entries first. Once I had the names it was easy to spot the same number groups. Something def weird there. Screen shot attached so you can have them now.
Also, based on ink and handwriting, pretty sure Regan wrote in both parts of the journal, going back and forth, using both code systems until the end. Maybe the front was her life and the back was business, w/ the columns and stuff? Once we get the book key, I’ll nail it down. This is so cool!
Just realized I missed meeting Katie at the library. Guess we’ll all catch up at your place. PJ
Charley clicked on the paper-clip icon indicating an attachment, and a document opened. There was no title, just half a dozen lines of typing:
George. God, it was amazing. Cannot wait to do it again.
Feeling guilty about George. Not really cheating, but would Ned see it that way?
George got a bit too hands-on at school, had to shut that shit down hard.
I think Bess saw George and me. Cannot deal with this stupid jealousy.
Things getting way too intense with George. Need to end it. Won’t be pretty.
Just need to keep George happy a little while longer, then I’ll be free.
Bess and George again, Charley thought. Who could they be?
As she sat there, it occurred to her that this might be the last email PJ would ever send. Tears pricked her eyelids and a lump rose in her throat. Never had a case been so important, and never had she felt so inadequate to the task.
Her cellphone rang, startling her, and she answered without checking the caller ID. “Hello?”
“Charlotte? Are you crying?” Heddy’s voice was warm with concern. “What’s wrong, dear?”
Charley sniffled and wiped her eyes, berating herself for giving in to emotion when so much was at stake. “I’m fine. I just got an email PJ sent me earlier, before he disappeared. It left me rattled.”
“That sweet young man. Was it something important?”
