Truth and Consequences

by V. J. Chambers

“I know about the DNA,” said Elke. She pointed at Iain. “Hudson, tell me, is there anything that makes his explanation for his DNA being on the victim not plausible?”

  “I guess not,” said Iain.

  “Then let’s forget about the DNA.”

  “No, let’s not forget about the DNA,” said Iain. “Because, look, if someone else killed her, then we’re talking about someone who had to be very, very careful not to leave anything behind, because the body wasn’t cleaned. And it’s really hard not to leave anything behind.”

  “But not impossible?” said Elke.

  “What’s your deal with this case?” said Frankie. “Why are you so sure that Fisher is innocent?”

  Elke sighed. “I’m not. But we started this, and I want to look at every avenue. Now, are you guys going to argue with me, or are we going to work this case?”

  “I’m not arguing,” said Iain. “I’m only saying that we have to look at the evidence.”

  “So, is it impossible that someone could have kept from leaving DNA on the body? He could have worn gloves, a hairnet, a condom if he assaulted her. Right?”

  “Right,” said Iain. “I guess there are ways to make sure of that.”

  “And we’re only talking five years ago,” said Frankie. “The killer would have known about DNA, unlike a case from twenty years ago or something.”

  “True,” said Iain. He shrugged. “So, this Sanders person? Who is he?”

  “English teacher,” said Elke. “Fisher says that there were rumors he was having affairs with multiple girls in the school. He says that they were brazen about the privileges Sanders gave them, like not having to take tests or write papers. He gave me the names of the girls as well. Also, Allison was supposed to meet with Sanders the day she was murdered.”

  “Sanders says she never showed up,” said Frankie.

  “Which means that she either didn’t show up or that he’s lying,” said Elke. “And if he’s lying, there’s a good chance it’s because he killed her.”

  “Listen,” said Frankie, “even if he was sleeping with female students, that doesn’t make him a murderer.”

  Elke arched an eyebrow at her. “Are you listening to yourself? If he was doing that, that makes him a predator.”

  “Sure,” said Frankie. “I’m not saying he’s a good guy. I’m only saying that there’s no reason to shift our focus from Fisher. If we did uncover information about this teacher, it might color our ability to objectively evaluate the facts of this case.”

  “I’m not sure you’re being objective right now,” said Elke. “I think you’re convinced Fisher is guilty, and you won’t consider any other options.”

  “And I think you’re convinced he’s innocent,” said Frankie. “The difference between the two of us is that I have a good reason to consider him guilty, and you don’t.”

  Amos poked his head into the conference room. “Um, guys? Everything okay?”

  “Fine,” said Elke.

  “Fine,” said Frankie.

  The two women were glaring at each other.

  Iain cleared his throat. “Maybe if we took a few moments—”

  “Have you considered the implications of what might happen if we freed a guilty man?” said Frankie. “Can you imagine how disastrous that would be?”

  “Have I considered?” Elke pointed at her chest. “I used to be a prosecuting attorney. Of course I consider the consequences of a murderer going free. You’re the one who used to be a defense attorney. You’re the one who fought for criminals.”

  “No, I didn’t. Never once,” said Frankie. “I would not take a case unless I was sure my client was innocent.”

  “There couldn’t have possibly been that many wrongly arrested people in the area,” said Elke. “And if you truly think there were, you’re fooling yourself.”

  Frankie’s eyes widened. “How dare you say that?”

  Elke shrugged. “I’ve always thought that. I’ve always thought you were a sentimental pushover. You believe any sob story that some scumbag comes to you with—”

  “And yet, I’m not the one who’s trying to free Curtis Fisher, who likes to draw pictures of naked, dead girls.”

  “I’m not trying to free him,” said Elke. “I’m looking for the truth. Isn’t that what we do here? Look for truth?” She turned to Iain for support.

  Iain shook his head. “I’m not getting into… I’m bad with conflict.”

  Frankie rolled her eyes. “You know what, whatever. I know you’re the boss and we have to do what you say, but until I think this man is innocent, I can’t just keep my mouth shut. If I believe he’s guilty, I will fight to keep him locked up.” She flounced out of the conference room.

  Elke let out a low sigh. “Well, I guess it’s you and me going to talk to Sanders, Hudson.”

  * * *

  By the time they got to the school to see Joel Sanders, it was mid-afternoon, and classes were being dismissed. Iain had to navigate around a sea of cars, students fleeing the parking lot en mass. There were buses to contend with as well. But as annoying as it was, Iain was glad to have the distraction, because he didn’t want to talk to Elke.

  He was afraid she’d bring up her feelings about the case, and he didn’t know what to say to her. He couldn’t reassure her that they were doing the right thing digging in with Fisher, because he was far from convinced that Fisher was innocent. So much of the evidence seemed to point to him, and that was what Iain based his opinions on, not anything else.

  He also didn’t want to deal with whatever power struggle there was between Frankie and Elke. He didn’t want to touch that. The fact that they’d been yelling at each other earlier made him feel very nervous. Yelling people always threw him for a loop. He was no good at that kind of thing.

  But Elke didn’t say anything about any of that. Whether that was because she could see he was concentrating on trying to navigate the parking lot or because she didn’t want to talk to him about it, he didn’t know.

  Finally, they found a parking space and they got out of the car.

  They had to go to the office to find out where Sanders’s classroom was. Even though it was after hours, the secretary made them sign in and put on visitor badges. Iain knew it was for security purposes. They wanted to know who was in the building at all times.

  Sanders was on the top floor. When they got to his room, he was actually at the door, turning off the lights. He had a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and he was wearing a burgundy shirt with a matching paisley tie. He was an attractive man who looked to be in his late twenties. So, five years ago, he would have been fresh out of college. Maybe young enough to be involved with teenage girls.

  Not that Iain wanted to think about that one way or the other. As far as it went, he tended to agree with Frankie. Teachers sleeping with students was a crime, but it was a separate crime than murder. Whether or not he’d done it had basically no bearing on the case.

  “Um, hello?” said Sanders.

  “Hi there,” said Elke. “My name is Elke Lawrence and this is my associate Iain Hudson. We’re with the Haven Hills Conviction Review Unit, and we wonder if we could ask you a few questions.”

  “Sure,” said Sanders, who looked confused. He flipped the light back on in his classroom and headed back in, gesturing for them to follow him. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s an old case we’re looking into,” said Elke. “The murder of Allison Ross.”

  Sanders unslung his messenger bag and set it on a desk. He turned around to face them. “Oh, man. That was terrible. She was my student, you know. The first student I ever had who, uh, passed away. It was pretty brutal.” He shook his head.

  “Yes,” said Elke. “I’m sorry to bring it back up.”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “What am I saying? Of course you know that she was my student. That’s why you want to talk to me. What do you want to know?”

  “You were scheduled to meet with Allison the day she was killed,” sai
d Elke.

  “Yes,” said Sanders. “But she didn’t show up for obvious reasons.”

  “And when she didn’t arrive for her scheduled meeting, what did you do?”

  “I waited for her and then I went home.”

  “You didn’t alert anyone?”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Sanders. “At the time, I didn’t think anything of it, because high school kids are not always very reliable. After what happened with Allison, though, I definitely do take any absence seriously. I don’t know if I could have saved her if I’d called her parents to tell her she hadn’t come to see me, but I’ll always wonder, and it will always haunt me.” He swallowed. Then he squared his shoulders. “Listen, not that I’m not willing to help any way I can, but I don’t understand why you’re here or what the interest is in Allison?”

  “We’re reviewing the case, that’s all,” said Elke. “If we come to the conclusion that the wrong person was convicted for the crime, then we have the ability to free the person convicted.”

  “You mean Curtis? You might get Curtis out of jail? That’d be great. I never thought he did it.”

  Elke raised her eyebrows and shot a glance at Iain. He shrugged at her. It was true that this was basically the first person besides Curtis’s mother who agreed that he was innocent.

  “Why not?” said Elke.

  “He just seemed like a good kid to me,” said Sanders. “I remember he always had some interesting insights into the reading material, and he didn’t seem angry or violent or any of the things that everyone said about him afterward. I think that kid got a raw deal.”

  “I’m sure he’d appreciate that you said that,” said Elke.

  “Or not,” Iain spoke up, “considering he thinks you might be a suspect.”

  Elke glared at him.

  Damn it. Should he not have said that?

  “Me?” said Sanders. “What? Why would I kill Allison?”

  “I have to ask you if you have any response to allegations of a sexual relationship between you and—”

  “And Allison?” Sanders was incredulous. “God, this rumor won’t die. And it keeps getting worse.” He turned away from them, running his hands through his hair again.

  “What rumor?” said Elke.

  Sanders walked over to the window. “I’m not even going to repeat it. It was ludicrous, but it got so bad that it was brought up to the school board and they did an investigation.” He turned to look at them. “They found nothing, of course. I would never do anything like that. Even the girls who were my supposed targets denied it.”

  Girls denying it meant nothing, Iain mused. An abuser could easily manipulate them. But again, whether or not Sanders had done it was probably irrelevant to their case.

  “It was only that year,” said Sanders. “After that, there haven’t been any other rumors.”

  Because you stopped, thought Iain. Almost got caught and stopped. Geez, why was he doing that? He was practically condemning the guy in his head, which wasn’t like him. He usually was able to remain pretty disconnected from stuff like this.

  “I see,” said Elke. “After you didn’t meet with Allison that afternoon, what did you do?”

  “I went home,” said Sanders.

  “Anyone that can verify that?”

  Sanders let out a little disbelieving laugh. “You’re not serious.”

  “I am quite serious, Mr. Sanders,” said Elke. “Do you have an alibi or not?”

  He shook his head. “I was the target here, do you get that? Some girls made up stories about me and spread that all over the school, and I suffered because of that. I almost lost my job. I hadn’t done anything wrong. And now you’re telling me I’m a murder suspect because of it?”

  “I guess that means you don’t have an alibi.”

  “I live alone,” said Sanders. “And I don’t know if I should keep talking to you. Maybe I should get a lawyer or something.”

  Elke shrugged. “That’s your choice. Actually, I don’t have any other questions. Thank you for your time, Mr. Sanders.”

  They left his room and walked down the empty hallway to the exit.

  “He seemed pretty defensive,” said Elke. “Nervous too? You agree?”

  “You know I’m no good at reading people,” said Iain.

  “Still, what do you think about that guy? You think he’s hiding something?”

  Iain didn’t say anything.

  She sighed. “Oh, fine. You and Hart are on the same side.”

  “I’m not on any side,” he protested.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Wait, what?” Felix was saying. He was sitting in the visitor’s room at the jail, and he looked thoroughly confused. “This man in the parking lot attacked you?”

  Elke wasn’t even sure why she was here. She knew that going back to Felix would only make him try harder to manipulate her, because he would think he had the upper hand. His deal had been to see her more, and here she was. But she was beginning to worry that she was losing her mind.

  Everyone at the office thought she was wrong about the Fisher case. She couldn’t help but wonder if the stress of what was going on with Patrick and Felix was affecting her ability to think clearly.

  So, here she was, back talking to Felix, hoping he could make things right.

  “You say he had a knife?” said Felix. “He threatened you with a knife?”

  She glared at him. “Oh, don’t play innocent. As if you aren’t behind all of this.”

  “I’m not.” He spread his hands.

  She wanted to believe him. If it had been a year ago, she would have believed him. But now she knew what a good liar he was. She didn’t believe anything he said.

  “El, sweetheart, you are my wife. I would never—”

  “I am not your wife.”

  “Whatever,” said Felix. “I don’t want you stabbed. I don’t want you hurt at all.”

  “Well, Patrick isn’t with me anymore so don’t send any more men to my apartment.”

  “I didn’t do that. I’m telling you. It must be Jeremiah, that asshole. When I talk to him next, I’m going to get this straightened out. I thought you were exaggerating before when you came by. No one would harm a hair on Patrick’s head. Not when I was running the show. But now, if Jeremiah’s sending men with knives after you, all bets are off. I don’t know what he’s doing. But I am going to fix it.”

  “You are? How?” She waited, sure now he would give her some new set of hoops she’d need to jump through.

  “Well, I’m going to talk to Jeremiah, that’s how. And I’m going to make sure he understands that you and Patrick are off limits.”

  “And what do I have to do in return?”

  “Nothing, El, I’m sorry I said that stuff to you last time. I didn’t realize what was going on. Damn, I go on the inside for a few months and everything goes to hell out there.” He shook his head in disgust.

  She gazed at him for a moment, unsure of how to take everything he’d said. And then she decided to believe him. She grimaced. “You aren’t in charge anymore, Felix. It’s like you said last time. But you meant it. You really aren’t in charge.”

  “Jeremiah is.”

  She got up from the table. “Well, then I guess there’s not really any point in talking to you, is there? You can’t get anything done.”

  “Hey, that’s not true,” said Felix. “Sit back down, let’s talk.”

  “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

  “Let’s talk like we used to,” said Felix. “Tell me about work. Tell me about whatever case you’re putting together right now.”

  “Felix.” She peered down at him, and she almost felt sorry for him. If he hadn’t been a lying scumbag who had hurt her so badly, she would have felt sorry for him. “Goodbye.” She left.

  * * *

  Bob’s Bar and Grill was really more of a bar than a grill. They did serve some food, mostly burgers and fried foods, but no one went there for the food.

  Hones
tly, Iain wasn’t entirely sure why anyone went there at all. Near as he could tell, the allure of the place was only that they had cheap drinks. The atmosphere was pretty dreadful. The bar was in a strip mall out on the edge of town. The strip mall had once contained a grocery store and a video rental store, but both had closed, so now they sat empty and blank on either end of the place. The other stores in the strip mall were a beauty salon and a pet supply store.

  Inside, Bob’s was dimly lit and narrow. The bar ran up the right side of the place, from the front all the way to the back. In the back, there was a concrete patio where people could sit outside in the summer. It was winter now, but Iain knew he’d spent half his time outside freezing his ass off at one of the picnic tables. That was because Harley liked to smoke a lot when she drank, and smoking was forbidden indoors.

  Harley was the reason Iain was at Bob’s Bar and Grill in the first place.

  She wanted him to come out and socialize with her friends. So, he was here. He’d been a bit late because he’d been doing research on Joel Sanders. He’d been looking into the school board’s investigation into the teacher, but he hadn’t found much out. It seemed to have gone exactly as Sanders had said. The girls who were his supposed victims had claimed to have made the whole thing up on account of Mr. Sanders “being so young and cute,” and said they hadn’t realized it would cause so much trouble. They were very, very sorry.

  Iain wasn’t sure if he bought it. But he kept telling himself to leave it alone, because it wasn’t relevant. He was having trouble with that, though. When he got it in his head to get to the bottom of something, he usually couldn’t stop himself.

  Anyway, he’d had to leave work, because he’d promised to go out with Harley that night, so he’d rushed to Bob’s to meet her. When he got there, she’d taken in his suit and made disapproving noises. Apparently, he looked like an insurance salesman.

  He didn’t care what clothes he was wearing, not particularly, but he got the sense that he was wearing the wrong clothes for Bob’s, and that did make him a little uncomfortable.

  But he was there, and Harley seemed happy about that. She strutted him around practically the entire bar, introducing him to nearly everyone there. Apparently, they were all her close, personal friends. He couldn’t remember any of the names. Eventually, though, they settled in a booth with two of Harley’s friends, who he managed to retain names for. Jennifer and Marissa.