15 Seconds

by Andrew Gross

  “Others?” Jack put the schedule back on the table.

  Carrie nodded. “You already know about his daughter. He claims he traced the OxyContin back to a clinic owned by Steadman, so no doubt there are a few gaping holes in the chain of supply that may turn up somewhere. And there’s motive. His life was in shambles. The last straw was his daughter. He twisted the blame to Henry—”

  “Henry?” Her brother raised an eyebrow.

  “Gimme a break, Jack. If anyone back in Jacksonville was doing their police work, they could have found the car at both scenes. They could have checked that Steadman was at his office the day the gun was supposedly bought. They could have asked where he would possibly have gotten a gun, just getting off a plane. Instead of running around pulling triggers . . . Check with this gun-store guy Bud in town. He’ll tell you—”

  “I’ve already spoken with Bud,” her brother said. He let out a breath and loosened his tie. “Chief McDaniels said he was the one who alerted him, so I stopped on the way in. I also traced that plate back to a guy from that metalworks factory, where Hofer worked—”

  “So then you know! You know Steadman didn’t do it. So stop making it out like I’m protecting some kind of insane double murderer. I was only doing what the guys with the gold shields back home should have been doing. It was all a setup, Jack. He could be dead . . . Henry . . .” She swallowed grudgingly, correcting herself. “I mean Steadman.”

  “Attaway.” He winked at her and smiled.

  “But it’s gotten deeper, Jack. A lot deeper . . . No one will tell me anything. What’s happened? I need to speak with him.”

  “Don’t. I’ve spoken with the JSO. In light of all this, they’ve agreed to rescind the arrest warrant against Steadman. I mean, Henry”—he smiled—“to merely a person of interest and hear out his side. Which should clear him, Carrie. We’ll put out a joint APB on this Hofer and—”

  “No, Jack, you can’t!” Carrie’s blood rose with a jolt of panic. “You can’t release Hofer’s name! Like I said, everything’s changed. That’s why Henry had to run. He got this call—from Hofer. The first one was before I even spoke with him. Back in Jacksonville. Then another this afternoon. Just as I was talking to you about bringing him in.”

  “What call, Carrie?”

  She hesitated, not knowing what was right, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “I don’t know, Jack, I can’t—”

  “What call?” Jack shifted closer, his eyes growing more serious. “Sis, I’ve gone to bat in some pretty serious ways to get you off the hook on this and not face any local, not to mention federal charges for, say, harboring a fugitive, or transporting one across state lines. Abetting a fugitive in the commission of a crime is a—”

  “Jack!” Tears rose up in Carrie’s eyes, tears of confusion and frustration. “You don’t understand . . .” She drew in a steadying breath, unsure of what to do. She’d given her word to Henry. But she didn’t even know where he was; if he’d been caught or not. Or hurt. No one was giving her any information. Ultimately she had to trust Jack. That he would do the right thing. Henry’s daughter’s life depended on it. She was almost shaking. “Jack, I have to have your trust on what I’m going to tell you. You need to give me your word.”

  “Sis . . .” Her brother leaned forward and took her hands, which were now trembling ever so slightly, and he squeezed them in his own. “I know you’re involved, but if you can’t trust me on this, who the hell are you going to trust?”

  Carrie closed her eyes and let out a breath she’d been holding in for hours Then she nodded. There was nothing else she could do.

  She told him. About Hofer’s call when Henry had fled to his friend Mike’s house, moments after finding his body. “How you enjoying this so far?” And then today. About him having taken Henry’s daughter, and what he had threatened to do if word got out. What he had done to others . . .

  “He’s crazy, Jack. He’ll do everything he says. Whatever you do, you can’t let his name get out, or else . . . He’ll kill her, Jack. He will!”

  “I understand . . .” Jack nodded, his brow furrowed in thought. His look seemed to say, No good choices here. “I’ll talk to the sheriff’s office. Let me see what I can do about keeping this all under wraps. We still have to find this guy, though . . .”

  “Jack, once it leaks out to the press that Henry’s no longer a suspect, you know there’ll be no stopping them. Hofer will know!”

  Jack nodded, tight-lipped. “You may have to spend the night here. The JSO is on the way and I’m thinking they may want a word or two with you. Sorry to make you stay here and check out Chief McDaniels’ two-foot bass a little bit longer . . .”

  Carrie forced a tight smile, not feeling much like laughing. “Thank you, Jack, but the JSO—”

  “I’ve already spoken with them. I think I can assure there won’t be any charges, if it all checks out.”

  “All right, but . . .”

  “ ’Course, I can’t say how they plan on handling the matter internally. Still”—he stood up—“unless they’re as dumb as bean curds, I can’t imagine that they want their investigative teams totally looking like a bunch of asses on this . . . Who knows, you may even end up with a promotion.” He grinned and headed to the door. Then he winked with approval. “I know what you need, Carrie. And good work on this. Whatever it was, you did good.”

  She swallowed appreciatively.

  “ ’Course, I can’t make any promises about Pop’s reaction. I’ll leave you to square that one with him yourself . . .”

  “Jack . . .”

  Her brother turned.

  “Where is he? Steadman. No one’s told me a thing. He’s okay, right?” She looked unsure. “I’d like to see him if I can.”

  “Is he okay?” Her brother chuckled. “Your guess is as good as mine, sis. Right now we don’t have any idea where he is. He just disappeared.”

  “Disappeared . . .” Carrie’s eyes grew wide, and she was unable to hold back her smile. “You mean he got away?”

  Jack laughed. “Canny little bastard, huh? We’re thinking in a laundry truck. We’re checking now. But I damn well know where I’d be headed if it was Cara who’d been taken and I’d gotten that call.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  I pulled off the highway near Columbia and spent the night in the parking lot of a Fairfield Inn, a couple of miles from the University of South Carolina.

  I was glued to the car’s radio, and caught several updates on the incident in Mount Holly, but nothing about a car being heisted at a gas station in Charlotte, so hopefully no one had put that together. I desperately wanted to call Carrie, to let her know how I’d gotten away and find out what she’d told the police, but I didn’t know if she even had her phone and I didn’t want to put her, or myself, at further risk. I didn’t know if the police were still chasing me or still believed I was guilty. I only knew I had to find Hofer—and Hallie—before the police found me. Before Hofer followed through on his threat!

  And as I sat there, huddled in a car in South Carolina, not knowing what my next move would be, not knowing if every cop in the state was looking for my car, I did think of someone who might know where Hofer was.

  His daughter. Amanda.

  I did the old McDonald’s drive-through thing again for breakfast burrito and located the nearest library, and I was at the small stone building when it opened at 10 A.M.

  The woman at the information desk pointed me to two computers in a kind of reading room, a bunch of magazines and newspapers arranged neatly on a round table. The old, large-monitor Dell warmed up creakily, taking me to the state library homepage. I clicked over to Google and typed in “Amanda Hofer.”

  Dozens of items came up. The first, from the Lancaster County Crier, which I assumed was the hometown paper.

  “LOCAL TEEN, 19, KILLS MOTHER AND BABY”

  Then below it: “Said to be on Painkiller at Time of Accident. OxyContin and Xanax Linked to Auto Double Homicide.”

/>   Farther down, “Local D.A. Seeks Murder Conviction in Tragic Double Homicide.”

  I scanned the details, about how elevated traces of OxyContin and Xanax had been found in Amanda’s blood as she drove to her cosmetology class that morning. How she had been seen driving erratically through traffic. How she had driven right off the road and onto the victim’s lawn, bouncing off a tree and right up to the house, where she mowed down Deborah Jean Jenkins and her two-month-old son, Brett. How the child’s father was in the army serving in Afghanistan and had never even seen his newborn son in person.

  As I read the actual details, my heart filled with compassion for this man, and for a moment I had to stop and take a couple of breaths, my thoughts finding their way to Hallie, who was around the same age as Amanda Hofer.

  Then I scrolled farther down and found what I was looking for in the Atlanta Constitution:

  “TEEN AUTO KILLER PLEADS TO TWO COUNTS OF AGGRAVATED VEHICULAR HOMICIDE. RECEIVES 20 YEARS”

  It showed Amanda, drawn and pale-looking, as she was led from the courthouse.

  To begin her sentence at the medium security Pulaski Women’s Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

  That was exactly what I wanted!

  I switched to the website for the Georgia State Prison System, clicked on “Women’s Institutions,” and immediately found Pulaski. It wasn’t far from I-75. A two- or three-hour drive from where I was.

  Visiting hours were from 11 A.M. to 4 P.M. All visitors had to present a valid photo ID.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out Carrie’s husband’s license that I had taken.

  And his business card. Attorney-at-Law.

  I knew it was a long shot, but that’s all I had right now.

  I looked again at Rick’s face. Okay, hardly a perfect match—I had blue eyes; his were green. His hair a bit lighter.

  Still, it could work. I mean, we weren’t exactly talking the Supermax at Florence, Colorado, here . . . This was a medium-security women’s prison in backwoods Georgia. Probably a work-farm facility.

  And it had to be the last place on earth anyone would be looking for me.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Vance Hofer stood above the circular saw in the remote woodshed. He eased a two-by-four along the line, splitting it seamlessly down the grain line. He liked how it felt, like he was back at the mill before everything fell apart. He used to come out here back then, and his wife, Joyce, would make something cool to drink and Amanda would bring it out, asking, “What are you making out here, Daddy?” and he would just go, “Nothing. Just thinking.” The bright sparks and whine of the serrated blade were like a hymn in church to him, making his thoughts clear.

  He raised his goggles and wiped a thick mixture of sweat and sawdust off the back of his neck.

  Vance accepted that his time had come, but he had one final act to see through. They may build but I will tear asunder, the Good Book read. They may repent, but all judgment is still mine. He knew he had done things to warrant judgment. Some had seemed to rise up from someplace deep inside him, like steam from somewhere deep in the earth. And some just felt justified. But this last thing . . .

  He had decided that Henry Steadman was the root of all that had gone bad in his ruined life. The man had no true sense of what he had done, no deep contrition. Only selfish regret at having lost his easy life. And so he had to pay, like the rest had paid. And Vance had devised something good, something that would make him beg and cry before he died. That was a vow, Vance reflected as he eased another plank through the blade. One he’d take to the grave.

  He gathered the remnants into a pile, the smell of raw, split pine like incense to him. He brought them over to the chipper. Not a big, fine machine, like what they had had at the plant, which could reduce a full-grown tree to pulp as fast as you could feed it. But it would do what he asked of it. Vance felt there was a beautiful magic to the job it did—the way it transformed something palpable and real one minute into the smallest of inalterable parts the next. It hummed as it chewed up the disparate pieces, raising a foul-smelling dust like vapor.

  Purification in its truest, most elemental form.

  A shout came from the locker in the back room. He almost didn’t hear it over the chipper’s noise. “Please . . . Please . . .” the girl called out. “Let me talk to my father!”

  “Keep quiet, child, if you know what’s good for you,” he called back, feeding the split pieces of wood into the chipper’s mouth. “You hear I’m busy.”

  His own daughter was no better than a whore and deserved all that fate had levied on her. Still, life didn’t degrade its victims in a vacuum, Vance thought. Evil had to be drawn out of you, by an agent, a snake. And then let loose in the world. And then the only way to remedy it was for it to be purified. As well as all who had touched it. That was the only way to make it go away . . .

  He fed the split wood into the machine, rendering it into its natural, purified state.

  Pulp.

  He had never fully appreciated the wonderful magic of it until now.

  From the shed, the girl cried out again, only a muffled noise above the chipper’s grating whir. Truth was, he could hear it all night and it wouldn’t sway him now.

  “Let me out. I’m begging you. Please. Let me call my father. He’ll give you whatever you want. Can’t you hear me in here? Please!”

  Go at it all you want, Vance said to himself. That’s about all you have left in this world. And don’t worry, you’ll see him soon enough. That I promise.

  She yelled and yelled again as he continued feeding the wood, returning it to its natural state. Eventually her voice became like daggers in his ears. Reminding him of things he didn’t want to hear. Things he had put away forever.

  He paused the chipper with the foot pedal, got up, and went over to the locked shed door, and slammed on it with all his might.

  “Shut the hell on up, Amanda!” he yelled.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  Pulaski was a three-hour drive.

  I’d called and left my name with the visitors’ center, identifying myself as Rick Holmes, an attorney from Jacksonville, and saying that I wanted to meet with Amanda Hofer. I stopped at a men’s haberdashery store and picked out a sport jacket straight off the rack along with a white dress shirt. I wore them out of the shop.

  The prison came up out of nowhere, about twenty minutes south of Macon, a town I recalled from my Allman Brothers stage, and was ringed by a barbed-wire fence and a handful of guard towers. The only times I’d ever even been inside one was during med school, at Vandy, where I did some procedures on inmates, but not like this.

  Of course, this wasn’t exactly San Quentin and we were in the middle of nowhere, and Amanda Hofer wasn’t exactly the Unabomber—not to mention that I was relying on the fact that no one ever assumes someone is trying to break into prison.

  At just before 1 P.M. I left the car and headed toward the main entrance. Inside, on the left, was a sign marked VISITORS. My heart started to pound. At the counter, I waited behind an African-American family; the mother, in jeans and a tight halter top, seemed to know her way around, and her two talkative boys in NFL jerseys. I told myself to calm down. When they were done, I stepped up to the heavyset woman in a khaki guard’s uniform behind the counter.

  “Richard Holmes. I’m here to see Amanda Hofer.”

  The guard checked over the log. “Are you carrying any firearms or any other weapons? If so, you’ll have to check them here.”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Any food, paraphernalia, or materials you’re planning to leave with the inmate?”

  Again, I shook my head. “No. None.”

  She began to fill out a visitor’s form. “May I see your ID?”

  I pulled Carrie’s husband’s license from my wallet and passed it across the counter, along with his card, identifying me as an attorney, and waited, sure that the guard was able to hear the bass drum that was booming in my chest. If there�
�d been some kind of meter measuring heart rate or agitation aimed at me, the needle would be off the chart!

  Instead, she just looked them over, glancing at me once, and slid them back. No request to see anything else. No alarms sounding—or guards rushing out with their guns drawn.

  Just: “Up from Florida, huh? Warm down there as it is up here?”

  “You got off easy,” I said with a grin, sure it was a trick question, and realizing I hadn’t checked the weather back there in days.

  The guard laughed. “Wait till July and you won’t be sayin’ that . . .” Then she got on a mike. “Can you bring up 334596 to Booth Three?” she asked, then pushed across an admittance form for me to sign.

  I was in!

  “Go through the door on the right and down to Booth Three,” she instructed. “Remove anything metal from your pockets inside. Enjoy your visit.” She looked beyond me. “Next in line . . .”

  I went through the door and then through a security station, with a metal detector and a long metal table, like I’d seen in courthouses. I emptied my pockets: just my three cell phones and my wallet. Another guard checked my paperwork and then pointed me through. “Down the hall. Booth Three is on the left.”

  I took my things and proceeded down the hallway. I came upon a row of ten or twelve visiting booths—four-foot-wide compartments with microphones and a Plexiglas wall separating the inmate from the visitor.

  I went over for about the tenth time how I was going to play it, hoping it would work. I had absolutely no idea how Amanda would react. But I was here. I’d gotten this far. And Hallie’s life depended on it.

  A door on the back wall opened and a pale-looking girl in a purple jumpsuit stepped in. She looked across the glass and clearly didn’t know who I was or why I was here. For a split second I thought she might turn around.

  But she didn’t. Two khaki-clad guards stood against the wall. Amanda Hofer shuffled over and sat across from me. She wasn’t bound, and her face was kind of gaunt and pale. Her light brown hair was straggly and held in place by a band. Her eyes were kind of dull gray and like a deer’s, fearful and mistrusting. She didn’t look a day older than Hallie and my first thought was that I couldn’t help but look at her as any father might, thinking, Jesus, twenty years . . .