Unreasonable Doubt

by Vicki Delany

  “I had never met Sophia, no. But I was aware of her. The youth center was just getting going in those days, and with you and Samwise still young and the store to manage, I didn’t spend as much time there as I do now. We got a grant to buy computers for kids to use after school. Twenty-five years ago, most people didn’t have a computer in their home, and certainly not one in every room as well as in their pocket. It was after the killing, during the trial, I believe, when I overheard some of the girls talking about Sophia.” Lucky’s voice trailed off.

  “What did they say, Mom?”

  “The papers were full of what a lovely young woman she was. It seemed as though everyone had fond memories of her.”

  “But…” Smith nudged. This was like interrogating a hostile witness.

  “One of the girls at the youth center said her sister, who’d been in Sophia’s classes in high school, said it was good riddance to bad rubbish. Everyone has enemies, of course, and no one more than high school girls.”

  “And, boy, do I remember that.” Smith suppressed a mental shudder.

  “The thing is, dear, the other girls said they knew what she meant. It seems her peers didn’t have quite the fond memories of her that other people did.”

  “Did you tell anyone?”

  “Heavens, no. What difference did it make? It was a horrible, brutal murder. That was all that mattered.”

  Smith wasn’t so sure. The problem with secrets is that no one knows which secrets are important and which aren’t. When the rush is on to sanitize the memory of the dearly departed, the truth can get buried as deeply as the dirty laundry. “I’ve gotta go. Thanks, Mom. Catch you later.”

  “Are you off work next Saturday, dear?”

  “As it happens, I am. Why?”

  “Paul and I are planning a barbeque in the afternoon. Nothing big, just a few friends coming over. I’d like you and Adam to come.”

  “Okay. What time?”

  “Three. Bring Norman. Sylvester misses him.” Sylvester was Lucky’s aging golden retriever. Sylvester adored the police dog, and in moments of whimsy Smith wondered if dogs could experience hero worship.

  She went back to the street. And the heat. As she walked, watching faces, peering into shops, checking out the traffic, she thought about her mother. So, Lucky and the chief were going to start entertaining family and friends as a couple.

  It wasn’t that she wanted, or expected, her mom to spend the rest of her life in widow’s weeds. Lucky and Andy Smith had had a good marriage; they’d loved each other until the day he died. All the more reason for her mom to want, and deserve, to find happiness with a new man. The chief was divorced, so no problems there. But he was the chief; he was her boss. Oh, well, she’d have to get used to it.

  Now there’s an accident looking for a place to happen. A giant black Escalade, all clean and shiny, swung into the oncoming lane to pass a Toyota Yaris waiting patiently for the car in front of it to maneuver into a parking place. The driver of the Escalade leaned on his horn, whether at the Yaris or at the Escape heading toward it in its proper lane, Smith didn’t know. She made a mental note of the license plate, suspecting she’d be seeing the Escalade again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  When he returned to the office after his useless visit to Jack McMillan, Winters’ day didn’t get any better. His desk phone rang and he picked it up.

  “Guess who,” the cheerful voice on the other end said.

  Winters didn’t bother to hide his groan. “Meredith Morgenstern.”

  “Got it in one. Your favorite girl reporter. Miss me?”

  “No.”

  And wasn’t that the truth. Meredith was a Trafalgar native. She’d been born here, lived most of her life here until a couple of years ago when she moved to Montreal. She was a journalist. The sort of damn-the-torpedoes reporter Winters hated. A few bodies strewn in her wake was the price she was prepared to pay to achieve her ambitions. Her blind stupidity had almost gotten Molly Smith killed a few years ago. When Meredith had landed a job with a muckraking Montreal tabloid, Winters hoped he’d seen the last of her. The paper she worked for featured giant scare quotes on their front pages, photos of politicians and celebrities looking their absolute worst, and as-naked-as-the-law-would-allow women on page three.

  But Meredith had strong ties to Trafalgar: her parents still lived here, and he always knew he’d be hearing from her some day.

  “How’s Montréal?” he said, in his hideous high-school French accent.

  “Lovely. But I’m not there right now. Guess where I am?”

  “What do you want, Meredith?”

  She sighed. “Very well, I’m in Vancouver. At the airport. Heading home for a visit with the folks. And, as long as I’m going to be in Trafalgar anyway, my editors are interested in what’s happening with the Walter Desmond situation. I’d love an official statement from the TCP.”

  “Then you should be talking to Chief Constable Keller.”

  “I figured I’d start with you, John. Come on, what can you tell me? Desmond’s back in town, I hear.”

  “Walter Desmond is as welcome to enjoy the amenities of Trafalgar as any other law-abiding citizen.”

  “It doesn’t look good for the TCP, though, does it? I’ve only starting reading the appeal judge’s decision. Turgid stuff, although at a quick skim I noticed the words ‘failure to’ and ‘neglect’ and ‘ungrounded.’ Do you have anything to say about that, John?”

  “Long before my time, Meredith.” Mentally, he added, “Thank God.”

  “I know that, but I’d like your personal opinion. Did the TCP knowingly arrest and charge an innocent man, or was it pure incompetence?”

  “Will you look at that,” he said, “where has the day gone? Time for my donut run.” He hung up.

  His personal opinion—one he would never share with anyone, Meredith Morgenstern least of all—was that Desmond had been deliberately railroaded. Set up for a murder the police knew he didn’t commit.

  The question was, why. Was it a couple of bad cops, or was the whole department in on it? With the detective sergeant dead, and the arresting officer not talking, they’d probably never know.

  Walter Desmond had been seen that day, on the highway outside of Trafalgar, fixing a flat tire where and when he said he was. A man, one Ryan Smethwick, had been travelling from Salt Lake City, where his parents lived, to Anchorage, Alaska, where he lived. He’d seen Desmond at the side of the road, looking helpless, Smethwick said. Smethwick pulled to a stop and helped replace the flat with the temporary tire. The men had shaken hands and he’d carried on his way.

  A few days later, he’d been in a motel room in Fort Nelson, B.C. watching the news. A man by the name of Walter Desmond, resident of Trafalgar, had been arrested for the “brutal murder” of Sophia D’Angelo. Smethwick recognized the man he’d stopped to help being hustled out of his house in handcuffs between two grim-faced police officers.

  Smethwick’s first reaction, so he told the investigators from Waterston and Gravelle twenty-five years later, had been gratitude that he himself hadn’t ended up dead on the side of the road. But when the news article mentioned the date and time of the murder, he’d turned off the TV and phoned the police station in Trafalgar. He told the officer on the phone about the emergency tire repair. He was positive of the time because he’d stopped at a gas station not more than fifteen minutes earlier, to call his wife from a pay phone and tell her he’d crossed the border. He checked the time before making the call, knowing she got home at three-thirty from the lunch shift at the restaurant where she worked. He’d made the call at three forty-five and they talked for no more than a minute or two. He’d been with Walter Desmond from four o’clock until at least four twenty or twenty-five.

  The officer had taken down his details. Name, phone number, address in Alaska. Smethwick said it would be inconvenient—he w
as due to start a new job when he got home—but if necessary he’d go into the nearest police station to make an official statement.

  He’d been told that wasn’t necessary, at this time, and someone would be in touch later.

  He’d never heard anything more about it. The next afternoon when he again called home to check in, the answering machine message told him to phone his mother-in-law immediately. His wife had been seriously injured in a car accident and was in the hospital, fighting for her life. Smethwick had driven all though the dark winter night to get to her bedside.

  Over the next weeks he spared no thought at all for Trafalgar and the man stranded at the side of the road. When Smethwick’s wife was home again, facing months of physical therapy, he did wonder if he should go down to the police station and make a statement.

  Not to bother, he decided. The cops would contact him if they needed him.

  He hadn’t thought about the case again until Waterston and Gravelle found him.

  Winters leaned back in his chair and idly rubbed his thumb over the face of his watch. Impossible to believe that whomever Smethwick had spoken to at the Trafalgar police station would have forgotten the call. Particularly considering Desmond claimed the flat tire as his alibi. He flipped through pages. Desmond had stated that someone stopped and helped him. He hadn’t gotten the man’s name or noticed his license plates. The prosecution said that was obviously a lie, a desperate attempt to provide himself with an alibi. As this Good Samaritan could not be produced, the jury agreed with the prosecutor. Unfortunately Smethwick hadn’t made a note of the name of the person he spoke to. A male, was all he remembered, Officer Someone. Officer was not a rank, and there were no women on the force at that time. It could have been just about anyone.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Walt Desmond stirred his chicken and noodles. The meal was good, but he wasn’t used to spice and heat, so he took only a few bites. Prison food had been nothing but repetitive, bland, and heavy on the carbs. Arlene had been a good cook. An adventurous one, too; she would have loved the new locovore movement: locally grown foods, organic vegetables, delivered straight from the farmer’s field or barn. Most of all, Arlene been a great baker. He’d missed, among all the other things he missed, her fruit pies and delicate cakes. Sure, they had cake and pie at the prison. The pastry was the taste and consistency of cardboard and the cakes could have been used to patch drywall.

  He thought about Arlene. How over the last years of her life her face had turned pale and doughy, and the color drained out of her eyes, like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. She’d put on weight, a lot of weight, and her muscles softened and turned to jelly. Her expensive, fashionable clothes no longer fit and, not caring, she bought replacements at Walmart or Zellers. The few good pieces of jewelry he’d bought her over the years had been sold for legal fees, along with her diamond engagement ring. Only the plain gold band that was her wedding ring remained for her to be buried in.

  He hadn’t been granted a pass to go to her funeral. Just as well. Her parents and siblings had turned against him, and tried to turn Arlene also. He didn’t need to stand at her graveside, while everyone openly stared at him and nudged and whispered to each other, in order to mourn her. He wasn’t even all that sure how she’d died. The chaplain had broken the news to him with weasel words like disturbed state of mind, depression, given up hope. In other words she’d killed herself.

  Although, ultimately, it had been those bastards who’d framed him, who’d killed her. All these years later, he still had not the slightest idea why they’d framed him. Louise had advised him not to return to Trafalgar, not to attempt to go back in time, to instead put it behind him and move forward. “No,” he said, “I have to know why.”

  “Sometimes,” Louise said, “there is no why.”

  Trafalgar Thai was full on a Thursday night, and a line snaked out the door. He thought he’d heard a collective gasp when he came in, but that might have been his imagination. A few people, some of whom he vaguely recognized, had stared as he crossed the room following the young, menu-carrying waitress to his table, and then quickly went back to their food and companions as if embarrassed to be caught gaping. Once he was seated, sipping at the green tea he’d been served without asking for it, no one paid him any outright attention, although he did catch a few peeking at him out of the corners of their eyes.

  “I’ll have the bill now, thanks,” he said to the passing waitress.

  She glanced at his nearly full plate. “Was the food okay?”

  “It was fine. Very good. But I don’t have much of an appetite tonight.”

  The dragon boat women had invited him to come to dinner with them. He’d been tempted, but in the end declined. He was trouble in this town, and they didn’t need to be saddled with Walt Desmond. After the altercation at breakfast with Sophia’s father, and his chat with Constable Smith, Walt had gone back into the B&B. He’d almost expected the women to run in horror at the sight of him, to insist he be evicted from the Glacier Chalet. Instead, they’d been sitting in the dining room, breakfasts finished, sipping coffee. They stopped talking when he came in. They’d been waiting for him.

  “If you don’t want to tell us what that was about, Walt,” Darlene said, “that’s okay.”

  “But if you do want to talk, we’re here,” Carolanne said. She gave him a soft smile, before dipping her head.

  He’d almost cried. Instead, he gave them the barest of bones of his story: “That poor man’s daughter was murdered. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but I went to prison for it. The appeals court found that there had been a miscarriage of justice. I have been completely vindicated. And now, here I am, having a little holiday. You can read all about it on the Internet.”

  He’d started to leave, to return to his room. He hesitated, and then turned back to the watching women. “Thank you for your kindness.”

  He paid cash for his unfinished Thai dinner and left a twenty-five percent tip.

  It had been too cool in the restaurant, the air conditioning turned up high, but outside the last of the day’s heat hung in the air. The streets were busy, young people mostly, tourists, checking out the restaurants and bars.

  He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and walked down the street. He kept his head up and his eyes moving. He wasn’t in prison any more, but he’d never again allow himself to let his guard down. A woman approached from the opposite direction. She was about his age; there was a trace of something familiar about her. He could tell the moment she recognized him. Her eyes opened wide and her jaw dropped. She turned and darted across the street as horns honked and cars squealed to a stop.

  Oh, well. He hadn’t expected to be welcomed with open arms.

  Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations was still open. Andy Smith’s store. Walt was sorry to hear he’d died. He hadn’t known Andy well, but from what he did know, Andy had seemed to be a good guy. Like a lot of old-time Trafalgar residents, he’d been a Vietnam War draft-dodger who’d never gone home again. What was Andy’s wife’s name? Some hippie thing? The interior of the store was brightly lit, and he could see her through the window, talking to a young woman with blond dreadlocks standing behind the counter. Mrs. Smith was older, rounder, and her shock of curly hair had turned gray, but she was still dressed in the sort of clothes that would have been popular at Woodstock. Lucky,that was what they called her.

  On impulse, he opened the door. The bell tinkled.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” the clerk called.

  He studied the equipment. Everything looked so new, so modern. Even the bright colors of the athletic clothes were strange to his eyes.

  “See you tomorrow, Flower,” Lucky Smith said. She turned to leave. She smiled at him, not really seeing him. Then she stopped and took a second look. “Walt. How are you?”

  “I’m good. Lucky, right?”

 
“Yes. Uh…welcome home.”

  “Thank you. Do you know, you’re the first person who’s said that to me? It’s nice to hear.”

  “I…uh…”

  “I was sorry to hear about Andy.”

  “Thank you.”

  He decided not to tell her he’d been talking to her daughter earlier. Everyone in town probably knew about that dustup with Gino D’Angelo, but if they didn’t, he wasn’t going to be the one to tell them.

  “I’m off home now,” Lucky said. She swallowed, and then she visibly relaxed and gave him a smile. It was a nice smile. “It is good to see you, Walt. Are you back here to stay?”

  “I haven’t made any plans yet. I’m still getting the lay of the land, so to speak.”

  “If you need anything, let me know. I was sorry to hear about Arlene. I’m…sorry about everything.”

  “It’s all over now,” he said. But that was a lie.

  “Good night.” Lucky bustled out of the shop.

  The clerk was watching the exchange with much interest. Walt said thank you and left the store.

  The place next door was new, to him at least. Rosemary’s Campfire Kitchen. Some sort of catering business. The display in the window showed tin plates and cups, foldable cutlery, and battered cooking equipment arranged around birch logs and a paper fire. Inside, he could see shelves of nuts and chocolate bars. He pushed open the door. It took him a long time to make up his mind, but he eventually decided on a bag of honey-roasted almonds. The young clerk barely glanced up from her phone long enough to take his money.

  The night was a warm, soft blanket on his shoulders, and the town an oasis of light and civilization, surrounded by the dark, looming bulk of the mountains. He munched on almonds as he walked through the busy streets, enjoying the bright lights and the happy chatter of people around him.

  A police car drove past on the other side of the street. It made a U-turn at a break in traffic and came back. It moved at walking speed, slowly, keeping pace with him. The driver was not Lucky’s daughter, but one of the cops he’d had a run-in with last night.