A Judgment of Whispers

by Sallie Bissell

  He turned in, parking in an empty space marked Customers Only. Toyota Corollas, Subaru Foresters, a couple of old Saturns were lined up in front of small office, where other cars were parked behind a tall chain-link fence. Though the cars out front were clean, he could tell by the rusty wheels and clouded headlights that their best miles were behind them. They reminded him of dogs at the pound, tails wagging hopefully at everyone who passed their cage. Pick me! he imagined the Saturn saying. I’m loyal. Reliable. I’ve got another hundred thousand miles if you’ll just keep my oil changed!

  As he got out of his car, a fresh pang of guilt struck him. He’d had a good life, a privileged life. He would never be stuck in Hartsville, selling junkers from a building with a dwarf on top. He hesitated a moment, wondering if Dev might punch him if he went inside. Certainly he had reason to. Then he thought, so what? If taking a punch would clear the slate, then he would walk out with a black eye. After all this time, it seemed a small price to pay. And besides, they could hardly call him a coward if he took a hit like that.

  He took a deep breath and headed for the office. He pushed open the door and stepped inside a dark, paneled interior that smelled of cigarettes and disinfectant. When his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he saw that the same desk took up the same space, except that instead of Big Jim McConnell, Devin McConnell was sitting there, poring over some kind of notebook with a white-haired guy. The two were nursing liters of Foster’s Lager, and Devin looked as Adam had imagined him—bulked up with muscle, ink-black hair falling onto his forehead, one green eye wandering while its partner stayed straight.

  “I’m sorry, buddy.” Devin stood up, swallowing a burp as he shifted into salesman mode. “I didn’t hear you drive up. What can I help you with?”

  “Dev?” He took a step forward. “It’s me. Adam—Adam Shaw.”

  For a moment, Dev looked at him as if he didn’t remember who he was. Then, as his errant eye briefly converged with his good one, the corners of his mouth drew down. “Well, I’ll be damned. Chicken Little Shit has returned.”

  The white-haired man looked up over his shoulder. This time Adam was the one who stared. It was Butch Russell. His red hair had gone white and a tonsure of pink scalp was beginning on the top of his head. His boyhood chubbiness had become an adult-sized paunch and the inside of his forearm was tattooed with an array of religious symbols—an ankh, a cross, a Star of David.

  Butch squinted at him. “I saw you at your house yesterday.”

  “I’m helping my folks move. And giving a DNA sample.”

  “You do that at the police station, Adam,” said Devin. “Not here.”

  He looked at them and realized that they hated him too much to even bother with a punch. Better that he just say what he had to say and leave. “Look, I don’t know what you’ve heard, or what my parents have put out there. But leaving wasn’t my call. I woke up one morning and got in the car to go to school. Instead, my father drove me to the airport. ‘You’re getting a new life,’ he told me. ‘Don’t fuck it up.’”

  He paused, and took another deep breath. “So I just wanted to come by and say—I don’t know—say I’m sorry, I guess. I know you hate me and I don’t blame you. But I did want you to know that I would have stayed if they’d let me.”

  Both men looked at him with hard faces. There was no more he could say, no greater apology he could make. He turned to go. He was halfway to the door when Devin spoke.

  “You know what my parents made me do?”

  Adam turned, shook his head.

  “They put me in house arrest. Until I turned seventeen, I only went to school and church. No baseball. No car. No girls. Nothing but my shitty brothers and mass at St. Boniface.”

  “What happened when you were seventeen?” asked Adam.

  “I ran the fuck away. Forged some signatures, joined the army.”

  “Wow,” Adam said, impressed.

  Devin rubbed the back of his neck. “I fought in the Gulf War. Got married, got divorced. Then my dad died and left me this lot. I guess he felt bad about treating me like a damn criminal for all those years.”

  “Do your brothers still live here?” Adam’s memory of Dev’s house was of many children, squirming around the floor, ubiquitous as dust bunnies.

  “Hell, no,” he said. “They took so much heat for being related to me that they all moved to Florida. Took my mother with them, thank God.”

  Adam ventured a few steps closer, turned to Butch. “How about you?”

  He checked his watch, which covered the lower half of his ankh tattoo. “Until forty-seven minutes ago, I was a security guard at the college. My boss called me in this morning. I thought it was my annual review. Instead, he told me they were letting me go.”

  “That sucks,” said Adam. “Did they give you a reason?”

  “Said it didn’t look good to have a murder suspect working campus security.” Butch held up the newspaper. “We all made the front page. Case reopened, killer never caught, all suspects to give new DNA.”

  “I saw a reporter at the police station this morning,” said Adam. “I told him no comment. Then I almost ran over him.”

  “Too bad you missed.” Dev slowly crushed a beer can. “You know, it’s always the same for us. We think it’s over, people have finally forgotten. Then every couple of years, it all comes back, like a case of the clap. Cars take root on this lot, Butch loses another job, and for what? Nothing! I’ve got two little girls—one’s in the seventh grade, same as we were back then. What’s she going to think when nobody will hang out with her because they think her daddy’s a murderer?”

  Adam had no children—had no interest in children. He turned to Butch. “You have kids?”

  “No,” said Butch. “You?”

  Adam shook his head. “Never been married. Never had kids.”

  “Too busy living the good life, huh?” Dev’s tone was bitter.

  Adam remained silent. He could not deny it. He was living a good life, or at least a much better life than these guys. He felt sorry for them, but he wouldn’t for one second trade his life for either of theirs.

  “So who all was down there this morning?” asked Butch.

  “Whale-Ass. Zack and his mother and their attorney.”

  Dev sat up straighter. “Zack’s got an attorney?”

  “A woman,” Adam replied. “Whaley started ragging Zack. He freaked out and pushed her right into Whaley’s face. Gave him a nosebleed.”

  Butch giggled. “I bet Whaley went nuts.”

  “He went for his Taser but didn’t pull it,” said Adam. “I think having that lawyer there scared him. She must be good.”

  “What was Zack like?” asked Devin.

  Adam frowned. “Don’t you ever see him?”

  “Not if I can help it,” Devin replied.

  “He’s a head taller, fifty pounds heavier. Otherwise, he’s still about twelve.”

  “God, he must be a monster,” Butch said. “Did he have his Barbie dolls with him?”

  “Not that I saw.” Suddenly Adam felt protective of Zack. He’d been genuinely happy to see him—the Teresa Ewing mess had not altered his affection.

  Dev cracked open another beer. “So what did the cops do this time? Draw your blood? Pluck out your pubic hair?”

  “Just a cheek swab,” said Adam. “No big deal.” He looked at them. “Aren’t you guys going down there too?”

  “I’ve got cars to sell,” said Dev. “I can’t take a break from my job like you can.”

  “And I gotta start looking for a new job,” said Butch.

  “Guys, it looks better if you just go and do it. If they have to serve a subpoena, it makes you look guiltier.”

  Dev’s gaze narrowed. “And Mr. Fancy Photographer couldn’t look guilty, could he?”

  Adam realized then that there was no bridging the gap betw
een them. Their resentment was too deep, their bitterness too ingrained. “Whatever,” he said, taking a step toward the door. “I’d better get going. Nice talking to you.”

  Butch started to offer his hand, but then dropped it awkwardly to his side. “See you around,” he finally muttered.

  “Come back any time, Chicken Little Shit,” Dev called, rearing back in his chair. “You get tired of the jet set, Butch and I and the ghost of Teresa will be right here, waiting.”

  Fourteen

  After Grace and Zack left the Justice Center, Mary Crow drove back to her office. Though it had not been her first time to accompany a suspect for DNA testing, it was the first time she’d delivered an autistic adult. That Zack Collier had bloodied Buck Whaley’s nose and avoided jail was remarkable. Whaley prided himself on being the heavy hand of justice—he would have tased and thrown anyone else into jail on an assault charge. But Zack Collier had gone home with his mother. Maybe Cochran really had talked to Whaley. Or maybe Whaley had thought better of bullying a compromised suspect in front of so many witnesses.

  Still, she thought as she pulled into her parking space, Zack Collier is a real wild card. Huge, yet childish. Smart, according to Grace, but totally unable to cope with the frustrations of real life. He’d shoved her and Whaley as if they were ragdolls, yet he’d been gentle as a puppy with his friend Adam.

  “Jeez,” she whispered. She couldn’t imagine living through forty minutes of that kind of behavior, much less forty years. However pouty and hateful Lily Walkingstick had been, things had never gotten that bad.

  She parked her car and walked toward Main Street. She should go back to the office and work on the squabbling Burtons, but the morning had left her feeling off-balance. So instead of turning into Ravenel & Crow, she walked down three more storefronts to HairTwister’s Style Salon. As she neared the little salon, she stopped, stunned. Her campaign signs—the incredible ones Grace had designed—plastered the front window. She couldn’t believe it. Quickly, she opened the door. Ross and Meilani, the younger operators, were working on two old ladies. Juanita Wolfe, the owner, looked up from sweeping hair cuttings into a dustpan.

  “Mary!” called Juanita. “How do you like the front window?”

  “It’s amazing! When did you put these up?”

  “Some woman came around this morning, asking if I’d take one. I told her I’d take ten. This town needs a Tsalagi woman in office.”

  “Wahdoe,” Mary thanked her in Cherokee. Juanita was one of the few tribe members who ran businesses in Hartsville. “I really appreciate it, Juanita. I’m the underdog in this fight.”

  Juanita laughed. “So when weren’t we Cherokees underdogs?”

  “Good point,” said Mary. “Hey, do you have time to work me in?”

  “Come sit down,” said Juanita. “My next appointment’s not till noon.”

  Mary settled into Juanita’s station. As she clipped a warm towel around her neck, she asked, “So what does the next DA want? A bright pink Mohawk?”

  “Just a trim.” Mary looked in the mirror. Her straight, black hair had just begun to touch her shoulders. “No more than an inch.”

  Juanita fluffed up Mary’s hair. “Whoa,” she said, fingering a spot on the top of her scalp. “Girl, you’ve got a goose egg.”

  “Collided with a shelf this morning,” she said, unwilling to admit that her head had connected with Buck Whaley’s nose.

  “That’s what they all say.” Ross winked at her from the next station. “You’ve just been out having too much fun.”

  Mary laughed. “Can’t slip anything by you, Ross.”

  Juanita turned the chair around and began washing Mary’s hair. The warm, sudsy water felt wonderful, and Juanita expertly avoided the tender spot on her skull. Mary could have happily sat there for the rest of the day, but Juanita quickly had her upright and looking into the mirror again.

  “So how’ve you been?” Juanita asked, starting to shape the wedge Mary had worn for years.

  “Busy,” said Mary. “Speeches, lunches, the whole campaign thing.”

  “Are you still lawyering, or did you put your day job on hold?”

  “No, I’m still taking cases.”

  “Hey, Miss DA—what’s your take on Teresa Ewing?” asked Ross.

  “Who?” Mary played dumb, wondering what the street talk was about Teresa Ewing.

  “The little girl who got killed so long ago. Haven’t you read today’s paper?”

  Juanita handed Mary the paper they’d all apparently been reading. The headline blared in massive type: New Evidence in Teresa Ewing Case. She scanned it quickly. Jerry Cochran had downplayed the story, warning everyone that it was a slim lead at best, but the paper had run with the news, giving new readers a brief history of the case, then listing the “Salola Street Gang” and Two Toes McCoy as the last surviving suspects. She returned the paper to Juanita and sighed. Grace’s worst nightmare really was coming true.

  “Well?” said Ross. “Who do you think did it?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Mary. “I was in the fourth grade at the time.”

  “Ooooh,” said Ross. “Just like Teresa. Did you know her?”

  “No. I went to public school. She went to Hartsville Academy.”

  “I was teaching English at Hartsville High when that child was murdered,” said the old lady in Ross’s chair. “I never saw anything like it. Everybody was combing the bushes for that child—all the clubs at school, the football boys. A psychic said she was at the bottom of Santeetlah Lake. And then they found her under that tree, which had been searched fifty times, at least. It just didn’t make any sense!”

  “That’s because that big retarded boy killed her and hid her,” chimed in the old woman in Meilani’s chair.

  “He had a funny name—Zeb, I think,” said the first woman.

  “Zachary,” corrected her friend. “Zachary Collier. He raped and killed that child, then he carried her to his house. His mother put the little girl’s body in their freezer and kept her there for a month. She didn’t want her boy going to prison for the rest of his life.”

  “I heard something else,” said Ross, rolling his client’s cottony hair. “That the mother slept with Logan to keep him from arresting the boy.”

  Meilani’s client went on, speaking with great authority. “I don’t know about that. But I do know that my late husband’s cousin Steve worked for Simpson’s appliance company. That Collier woman ordered a new freezer right after they found that little girl. Steve delivered it and picked up the old one. He said that old freezer was horrible—full of bloodstains and it smelled like rotting meat.”

  Ross shuddered. “Did he call the police?”

  “No. He said he was afraid to get involved. And then the boy’s father just up and goes to Canada!”

  “He couldn’t take it anymore,” said Meilani’s client. “Didn’t seem to bother the mother too much. She’s still living here with that maniac, though I heard she keeps him locked up behind a fence.”

  “There you go, Mary,” said Juanita, her scissors snipping around Mary’s right ear. “Your first case as DA will be to convict that Collier kid.”

  “I guess so.” Though Mary tried to smile, the alacrity with which these people had convicted Zack of murder and Grace of a cover-up sickened her. “Just remember—everyone’s innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Oh Lord.” Meilani’s client glared at Mary with disgust. “You must be a liberal.”

  “I’m just an attorney, ma’am,” Mary replied. “Sworn to uphold the Constitution. It guarantees due process, even for autistic people.”

  The talk then veered to autism, about one autistic man who could do calculus in his head but could barely talk; somebody else had heard of an autistic teenager who was good as gold until the day he woke up and killed his mother with a butcher knife. By the time
Juanita finished, Mary had an inch less hair and a whole new appreciation for the powers of rumor and innuendo.

  “I’m sorry if they jumped on you,” whispered Juanita as Mary paid for her haircut. “People still have strong feelings about Teresa Ewing. They really want to hang whoever killed her.”

  “I do, too, Juanita,” said Mary. “But I want to hang the right person.”

  Mary nodded at Meilani and Ross as she left, but was glad to step out into the bright sunlight. Though HairTwister’s abounded in lights and mirrors, today it felt dark inside. She knew gossip always swirled around a murder case, but those old women at HairTwister’s had made Grace Collier sound as conniving as a spider.

  “Well, hello there, Mary,” a voice called from behind her. “We were just talking about you.”

  She turned. George Turpin stood there, Harvey Pugh beside him. The Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the courthouse crowd, today in seersucker suits and striped ties—the summer uniform of certain Southern gentlemen.

  “Those are terrific signs,” said Turpin. “Really a fresh take on the usual red, white, and blue stuff.”

  “Thanks,” Mary replied. “Grace Collier did them.”

  Turpin’s mouth curled in a smug grin. “That’s what we heard. She’s such a talented gal. Too bad about her son.”

  “What about her son?” Mary wondered what Turpin was implying.

  “Oh you know. All that Teresa Ewing business, right now with the election coming up.” Turpin rocked back slightly on his heels.