Redemption Road

12

Beckett didn’t know how to help his partner. Elizabeth was not just wounded but withdrawn, hurting in a way he’d never before seen. Normally, she owned the job. That meant the street, the politics, every impossible decision a cop would ever have to make. She made hard choices and lived with them, unflinching. Even the men she’d dated took a backseat to her unshakable sense of self. If relationships ended, it was because Elizabeth said so. She set the ground rules and the tone, said when it began and when it was over. Some thought she had ice in her veins, but Beckett knew better. Fact was, she felt more than most, but knew how to hide it. It was a survival skill, an asset; but whatever happened in that goddamn basement stripped it right out of her. She was a walking nerve, now-every bit exposed-and Beckett was running out of ideas on how to protect her. Keep her out of prison. Keep her away from Adrian. Those were the obvious things.

What about the rest of it?

It was late when he parked outside the house owned by Channing’s parents. He wasn’t supposed to be here-the lawyers had made that clear-but only two people knew the truth of what happened in the basement, and Liz wasn’t talking.

That left the kid.

Problem was, her father was rich and connected and draped in lawyers. Even the state cops couldn’t get past the wall. It was one of the biggest questions, really. Why wasn’t the girl talking? The lawyers claimed it would be too traumatic, and maybe they were right. Beckett had daughters. He was sympathetic.

But still…

He peered through the heavily treed yard; saw stone and brick and yellow light. He’d met the father a few times when Channing first disappeared. Not a full-blown asshole, but he liked the word listen, as in You listen to me, Detective. But that was probably a worried-father thing, and Beckett wasn’t about to judge a man for protecting his family. Beckett would do the same thing. His wife. His kids. Make the threat big enough, and he’d tear the city down.

Turning off the car, Beckett walked down the drive and circled to the front porch. A burned smell hung in the air. Music filtered through the glass and stopped when he rang the bell. In the silence, he heard cicadas.

Channing’s mother answered the door. “Detective Beckett.” She was in an expensive dress, and obviously impaired.

“Mrs. Shore.” She was petite and pretty, a slightly weathered version of her daughter. “I’m sorry to bother you this late.”

“Is it late?”

“I was hoping to speak with your daughter.”

She blinked and swayed. Beckett thought she might fall, but she caught herself with a hand on the wall.

“Who is it, Margaret?” The voice came from stairs in the main hall.

The woman gestured vaguely. “My husband.” Channing’s father appeared in workout clothes and a full sweat. He wore boxing shoes and wraps on his hands. “He wants to talk to Channing.”

The words slurred that time. Mr. Shore touched his wife’s shoulder. “Go on upstairs, sweetheart. I’ll handle it.” Both men watched her unsteady exit. When they were alone, Mr. Shore showed his palms. “We grieve in our own ways, Detective. Come in.”

Beckett followed the man through the grand foyer and into a study lined with bookshelves and what Beckett assumed to be expensive art. Mr. Shore went to a sidebar and poured mineral water in a tall glass with ice. “Can I get you something?”

“No, thanks. You box?”

“In my youth. I keep a gym in the basement.”

It was hard to not be impressed. Alsace Shore was midfifties, with thick, muscled legs and heavy shoulders. If there was fat on him, Beckett couldn’t see it. What he did see were two large adhesive bandages, one protruding from the sleeve of his shirt, the second high on his right leg. Beckett gestured. “Have you been injured?”

“Burned, actually.” Shore swirled water in the glass and gestured toward the back of the house. “An accident with the grill. Stupid, really.”

Beckett thought that was a lie. The way he said it. The play of his eyes. Looking more closely, he saw singed fingertips and patches on both arms where hair had been cooked away. “You said people grieve in different ways. What, exactly, are you grieving?”

“Do you have children, Detective?”

“Two girls and a boy.”

“Girls.” Shore leaned against a heavy desk and smiled ruefully. “Girls are a special blessing for a father. The way they look at you, the trust that there’s no problem you can’t handle, no threat in the world from which you can’t protect them. I hope you never see that look of trust disappear from your own daughters’ eyes, Detective.”

“I won’t.”

“So certain.”

“Yes.”

Another difficult smile bent Shore’s face. “How old are they now, your daughters?”

“Seven and five.”

“Let me tell you how it happens.” Shore put down the glass and stood on the broad base of his trunklike legs. “You build your life and your redundancies, and you think you have it covered, that you know best and that you’ve built the defenses necessary to protect the ones you love. Your wife. Your child. You go to bed believing yourself untouchable, then wake one day to the realization you haven’t done enough, that the walls aren’t as strong as you think, or that the people you trust aren’t trustworthy, after all. Whatever the mistake, you realize it too late to make a difference.” Shore nodded as if seeing Channing at those same, young ages-seven and five, and full of faith. “Bringing a daughter home alive is not the same as bringing her home unchanged. Much of the child we knew is gone. That’s been difficult for us, and for Channing’s mother, in particular. You ask why we grieve. I’d say that’s reason enough.”

The message seemed heartfelt and sincere, yet Beckett wasn’t sure he believed the performance. It felt a little practiced and a little pat. The sternness and disapproval. The jaw tilted just so. What he’d said was true, though. People grieved in different ways. “I’m very sorry for what happened.”

Shore dipped his large head. “Perhaps, you could tell me why you’re here.”

Beckett nodded as if he would do just that. Instead, he walked along a wall of books, then stopped and leaned in. “You shoot?” He pointed at a row of crackled spines. The books were old and well thumbed. Tactical Marksmanship. Surgical Speed Shooting. USMC Pistol Marksmanship. There were others, maybe a dozen.

“I also skydive, kitesurf, and race my Porsche. I like adrenaline. You were getting to the point of your visit.”

But Beckett didn’t like being rushed. It was the cop in him. Situational management, he called it, though Liz claimed it was alpha-male bullshit. Button pushing, she’d say. Pure and simple. Maybe, there was some of that, too. Beckett tried not to go too deep. The job and his family, old regrets and thoughts of retirement. Usually, that was enough. But he didn’t much care for lies or liars. “What it comes down to, Mr. Shore”-Beckett pulled a few of the marksmanship books and started flipping pages-“is that I’d like to speak to Channing.”

“She doesn’t want to talk about what happened.”

“I understand that. But, your daughter’s not the only one who came out of that basement changed. Perhaps, others grieve as well. Perhaps, there are larger issues.”

“My responsibility is to my daughter.”

“Yet, it’s not a zero-sum game, is it?” Beckett closed the second book on shooting, riffled through another, then leaned into the shelf where a Kama Sutra manual caught his eye.

“Detective Black is your partner?”

“She is.”

“Family of a sort.” Beckett nodded, and Mr. Shore put down his glass. “Your partner killed the men who took my daughter, and part of me will always love her for that. But even she doesn’t talk to Channing. Not her. Not the state cops. Not you. Do I make myself clear?”

The stare between them held. Big men. Serious egos.

Beckett blinked first. “The state police will compel her testimony. It’s only a mater of time. You know that, right?”

“I know they’ll try.”

“Do you know what she’ll say when the subpoena comes?”

“She’s the victim, Detective. She has nothing to hide.”

“And yet truth, I’ve learned, can be a fluid business.”

“In this case, you’re wrong.”

“Am I?”

Beckett opened three of the shooting manuals and left them spread on the desk. The inside jacket of each one showed Channing’s signature, beautifully made.

“Those are my books.”

The father choked as he said it, and Beckett nodded sadly.

That was a lie, too.

Elizabeth woke unable to remember the dream that haunted her; only that it was dark and hot and close. The basement, she guessed.

Or prison.

Or hell.

She shrugged off a weight of blankets and felt cool wood under her feet. At the window, she saw trees like an army in the fog. It was early, barely light. The road ran off into the mist, black and still, then fading, then gone. The stillness reminded her of a morning with Gideon six years ago. He’d called her after midnight. The father was out, the boy alone and sick. I’m scared, he’d said, so she’d collected him from the porch of that tumbledown house, brought him home, and put him between clean sheets. He was feverish and shaking, said he’d heard voices in the dark beyond the creek, and that they’d kept him awake and made him afraid. She gave him aspirin and a cool cloth for his forehead. It took hours for him to fall asleep, and as he drifted, his eyes opened a final time. I wish you were my mother, he’d said; and the words were light, as if raised from a dream. She’d slept in a chair after that and woke to an empty bed and wet, gray light. The boy was on the porch watching fog roll through the trees and down the long, black road. His eyes were dark when he looked up, his arms wrapped across his narrow chest. He was shivering in the cool air so she sat on the step and pulled him against her side.

I meant what I said. His cheek found her shoulder, and she felt the warm spot of his tears. I never meant nothing so much in all my life.

He’d cried hard after that, but it was still a favorite memory, and Elizabeth kept it close every day of her life. He never said the words again, but the morning was a special thing between them, and it was hard to look at fog without feeling love of Gideon like a pain in her chest. But this was a different day, so she shook off the emotion and focused on what was coming in the next few hours. Adrian would face court, and that meant media, questions, familiar faces from better times. She wondered if he would seem as torn, and if the cops would have enough to hold him. The trespass charge was weak. Could they charge him with murder? She rolled the footage of his life and knew what she was doing as she did it, that it was easier to worry about Adrian’s future than her own. Large as he stood in the halls of memory, his suffering would remain his alone, at least until she faced her own conviction. Yet, that risk was out there, too, and it could happen now: cars in the mist, cops with weapons drawn. What would she say if Hamilton and Marsh suddenly appeared? What would she do?

“You should run.”

Elizabeth turned and found Channing awake. “What did you say?”

The girl pushed up in the bed, her eyes catching light from the window, the rest of her dim and shapeless in the gloom. “If we’re not going to tell the truth about what I did, then you should leave. Maybe, we should leave together.”

“Where would we go?”

“The desert,” Channing said. “Some place we could see forever.”

Elizabeth sat on the bed. The girl’s eyes looked so kaleidoscopic that anything seemed possible. Escape. The desert. Even a future. “Did you know what I was thinking just now?”

“How would I know that?”

Elizabeth waited half a beat, thinking the girl had known. “Go back to sleep, Channing.”

“Okay.”

“We’ll talk later.”

Elizabeth closed the bedroom door, then took the hottest shower she could stand. Afterward, she tended the wounds on her wrists, then put on jeans and boots and a shirt with tight cuffs. She was in the living room when Beckett showed up at the front door.

“Two things,” he said. “First, I was out of line last night. Way out of line. I’m sorry.”

“Just like that?”

“What can I say? You’re my partner. You matter.”

“What’s the second thing?”

“Second thing is I still want you to see the warden. He gets in early. He’s expecting you.”

“Adrian has court.”

“First appearances aren’t until ten. You have time.”

Elizabeth leaned into the door, thinking she was tired and wanted coffee and that it was too early for her to be standing in the door and talking to Charlie Beckett. “Why do you want me to see him? The real reason.”

“Same as before. I want you to recognize Adrian Wall for what he is.”

“Which is what?”

“Broken and violent and beyond redemption.”

Beckett put a big period at the end of the sentence, and Elizabeth thought hard about what he wanted. The prison mattered in the county. It meant jobs, stability. The warden had a lot of power. “He’ll show me something I don’t already know?”

“He’ll show you the truth, and that’s all I’m asking. For you to open your eyes and understand.”

“Adrian’s not a killer.”

“Just go. Please.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll see the warden.”

Elizabeth leaned on the door, but Beckett caught it before it closed. “Did you know she’s a shooter?”

Elizabeth froze.

“I looked it up last night. Channing is a competitive marksman. Did you know that?” Elizabeth looked away, but Beckett saw the truth. “It’s not in your report.”

“Because nobody needs to know.”

“Doesn’t need to know what? That she could strip your Glock in the dark, then put it back together and shoot the dick off a gnat? I dug up her scores. She can outshoot ninety-nine cops out of a hundred.”

“So can I.”

“She burned down her yard, yesterday. Did you know that, too? The fire marshal says the house could have gone up with it. The neighbor’s house, too. People could have died.”

“Why do you push, Charlie?”

“Because you’re my friend,” Beckett said. “Because Hamilton and Marsh are coming for you, and because we need an alternate story.”

“There is no alternate.”

“There’s the girl.”

“The girl?” Liz leaned on the door until the center of a single eye was all that showed. “As far as you’re concerned, there is no girl.”

Beckett disagreed. The bullet placement was perfect. Knees. Elbows. Groins. Could the girl have done it? Taken the Monroe brothers out in near dark? Tortured them, first? She was eighteen, weighed all of ninety pounds. Beyond that, he didn’t know her at all, so he couldn’t say.

But, he did know Liz.

She treated Gideon like a son, the girl like a sister, and Adrian like some kind of fallen saint. She was a sucker for lost causes, and now there were these new questions.

Could Channing have pulled the trigger?

Whose blood was on the wire?

The questions followed him into the precinct and upstairs. He checked the murder board on Ramona Morgan, but they didn’t have much. Burn marks from a stun gun were obvious, but they had no fingerprints, fibers, or DNA. No sexual assault occurred. Death was by strangulation, which apparently happened on or near the altar, and took a long time. There was no sign the body had been moved, but no sign was found of her clothing. Torn fingertips suggested that she’d been held elsewhere and tried hard to escape. Bits of rust had been scraped from beneath her nails and skin. There was no roommate or boyfriend, as far as her coworkers knew. Phone records showed three calls from a burner cell, which was interesting, but at the moment, useless. The medical examiner had promised a full report minus tox screen by the end of the day. In the meantime, the girl’s mother was pushing to claim the remains.

“One thing.”

The words were quiet, the rest of the thought unspoken.

I need one thing to tie this to Adrian Wall.

He needed Adrian to be the killer and felt the need in a way few could understand. But, there was nothing. They’d canvassed neighbors, coworkers, people who liked the same bars as Ramona, the same coffee shops and restaurants and parks. No one could put Adrian and the victim together.

Could I be wrong?

The thought was unpleasant. If Adrian didn’t kill Ramona Morgan, then maybe he didn’t kill Julia Strange, either. That meant his conviction was flawed and that every cop who’d hated him for so long and with such passion was full-on, absolutely wrong.

No.

Beckett shook off the doubt.

That was just not possible.

Beckett poured coffee and carried it to his desk, his thoughts already spinning away from the murder case and back to Liz and the girl. The distraction was a problem, but Channing mattered to Liz, and Liz mattered to him. So, he started at the beginning. Why was the girl taken? Not why, really. Why her? Why at that time and place? Abduction was rarely as random as most wanted to believe. It happened, yes-a pretty girl in the wrong place at the wrong time-but more often than not, abduction scenarios involved people known to the victim: a workman at the house, a friend of the family’s, a neighbor who always seemed so quiet and polite. He pictured Channing, her house, the case. He replayed his conversation with Channing’s father.

“Hmm.”

Beckett keyed up the sheets on Brendon Monroe and his brother, Titus. They were pretty standard. Weapons charges. Assault. Drugs. Some traffic offenses, two cases of resisting an officer. There were no sex convictions, though Titus had been charged twice with attempted rape. Beckett knew all that, so he keyed on the drug charges. Crack. Heroin. Meth. There was some pharmaceutical stuff, some weed. Beckett didn’t see what he wanted, so he rang down to narcotics. “Liam, it’s Charlie. Good morning… Look, I see your name all over the Monroe jackets… What?… No, no problem. Just a question. Was there ever any noise about them selling steroids?”

Liam Howe was a quiet cop. Solid. Dependable. Young. He worked undercover because he looked too fresh-faced to carry a badge. Dealers thought he was a college kid, a rich man’s son. “If there was money to be made, they’d sell it; but I don’t remember anything about steroids.”

“Is there much of that in town these days? Weight lifters? Jocks?”

“I don’t think so, but steroids have never been high priority. Why do you ask?”

Beckett pictured Channing’s father, sweat-soaked and massive. “Just a thought. Don’t worry about it.”

“You want me to ask around?”

Beckett’s first instinct was to say no, but Channing’s father had lied to him twice. “Alsace Shore looks like a juicer. Fifty-five, maybe. Built like a truck. I just wonder if he might have known the Monroe brothers.”

“Alsace Shore.” The drug cop whistled, low and deep. “I’d use a long stick to poke that bear, especially if you’re implying some kind of involvement with the Monroe brothers.”

“All I want is information, maybe enough to squeeze him.”

“About?”

His daughter, Beckett thought.

The basement.

“Just ask around, will you?”

“Sure thing.”

“And, Liam?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe, keep it quiet.”

Liz left Channing a note and the keys to the Mustang.

Make yourself at home.

Car’s yours if you need it.

It felt strange sliding into the unmarked cruiser, as if some part of her was no longer a cop. The awkward sensation clung as the sun edged above the trees, and she drove past the old Victorians on her way to the outskirts of town. When she got to the prison, most of it was still shrouded in gloom, only the highest walls dappled pink, the high wires glinting. At the public entrance, a uniformed guard met her at the door. He was early forties, with washed-out eyes and a pale, wide body that had few hard corners. “Ms. Black?”

Not Detective or Officer.

Ms. Black…

“That’s me.”

“My name is William Preston. The warden asked me to bring you in. Do you have any weapons? Contraband?” Elizabeth’s personal weapon was in the car, but a rumpled pack of cigarettes rode in a jacket pocket. She pulled it, showed it to the guard. “That’s fine,” he said, then walked her to a visitor processing area. “I need you to sign in.” She signed, and he slid the paperwork to an officer behind the bulletproof divider. “This way.” She went through a magnetometer, and Preston stood close as a two-hundred-pound woman administered a thorough pat down.

“You realize I’m a police officer.”

Thick hands went up one leg, then the other.

“Procedure,” Preston said. “No exceptions.”

Elizabeth endured it: the feel of hands through fabric, the smell of latex and coffee and hair gel. When it was done, she followed Preston up a flight of stairs, then down a hallway to the east corner of the building. He walked with his shoulders down, and the round head tipped forward. His shoes made rubbery noises on the floor. “You can wait here.” He indicated a small room with a sofa and chair. Beyond the room was a secretary of some sort, and beyond her a set of double doors.

“Does the warden know I’m here?” Elizabeth asked.

“The warden knows everything that happens in this prison.”

The officer left, and Elizabeth sat. The warden didn’t keep her long. “Detective Black.” He swept past the secretary, a dark-haired man pushing sixty. Elizabeth’s first thought was Charming. The second was Too charming. He took her hand with both of his, smiled with teeth too white to be anything but bleached. “I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Detective Beckett has spoken of you for so long and with such passion, I feel as if I’ve known you a lifetime.”

Elizabeth retrieved her hand, wondering at the line between charming and slick. “How do you know Beckett?”

“Corrections and law enforcement are not so dissimilar.”

“That’s not really an answer.”

“Of course, it’s not. I apologize.” He blinded her again. “Charlie and I met once at a recidivism seminar in Raleigh. We were friends for a time-professional men with similar jobs-then life, as it so often does, took us in different directions, he more deeply into his career and I more deeply into mine. Still, I know a few in law enforcement, your Captain Dyer, for instance.”

“You know Francis?”

“Captain Dyer, a few others. A handful of people in your department have maintained an interest in Adrian Wall.”

“That doesn’t seem entirely appropriate.”

“Morbid curiosity, Detective. Hardly a crime.”

He gestured to the office beyond the double doors and did not wait for a response. Inside, they sat, he behind the desk, Elizabeth in front of it. The room was institutional, and trying to hide the fact: warm art and soft light, heavy rugs under custom furniture. “So,” he said, “Adrian Wall.”

“Yes.”

“I understand you knew him before.”

“Before prison,” she said.

“Have you known many on the other side? By that, of course, I mean men who’ve served lengthy sentences. Not misdemeanor recidivists, but hardened felons. Men like Adrian Wall.”

“I’m not sure what Beckett told you-”

“I ask because this is the great difference in our chosen professions. You see the actions that lead men to places like this. The things they do, the people they hurt. We see the change that prison inflicts: hard men made crueler, soft ones unmade entirely. Loved ones rarely get the same person back when the sentence is done.”

“Adrian is not a loved one.”

“Detective Beckett led me to believe you have certain feelings-”

“Look, this is simple. Charlie asked me to come, so I’m here. I assume there’s a purpose.”

“Very well.” A drawer opened, and a file came out. The warden placed it on the desk; spread his tapered fingers. “Much of this is confidential, which means I will deny ever showing it to you.”

“Beckett’s seen it?”

“He has.”

“And Dyer?”

“Your captain as well.”

Elizabeth frowned because it still felt unseemly: the easy smile and the office that tried to be what it was not, the heavy file that should not be so well thumbed. Of course people would have kept track. How could she have presumed otherwise? The deeper question was why she had not done the same.

“Pedophiles and police.” The warden opened the file. “Convicts hate both with an equal passion.” He handed over a sheaf of photographs. There were thirty maybe; all of them full color. “Take your time.”

If Elizabeth thought she was ready, she wasn’t.

“The miracle,” the warden said, “is that he survived at all.”

Taken in the prison hospital, the photographs were a testament to both the fragility and resilience of the human body. Elizabeth saw knife wounds, ripped skin, eyes swollen bloody.

“In the first three years, Mr. Wall endured seven hospitalizations. Four stabbings, some pretty horrific beatings. That one”-the warden waved a finger when she stopped on a photograph-“your Mr. Wall went headfirst down thirty concrete stairs.”

The skin was peeled off one side of Adrian’s face, his head shaved where staples held his scalp together. Six fingers were clearly broken, as was an arm, a leg. The sight made Elizabeth nauseous. “When you say he went headfirst down the stairs, you mean he was thrown.”

“A witness in prison…” The warden turned his palms up. “Few men have the courage to talk.”

“Adrian was a cop.”

“Yet a prisoner like everyone else, and not immune to the perils of institutional life.”

She tossed the photos on the desk, watched them slide, one across the other. “He could have been killed.”

“Could have been, but was not. These men, however, were.” A stack of files hit the desk. “Three different inmates. Three different incidents. All were suspected in one or more of the attacks on your friend. All died quietly and unseen, killed by a single stab wound, perfectly placed.” The warden touched the soft place at the back of his neck.

“How does one die, unseen, in prison?”

“Even in a place like this, there are dark corners.”

“Are you suggesting that Adrian killed these men?”

“Each death followed an attack on your friend. Two months later. Four months.”

“Hardly proof.”

“And yet, it speaks to a certain patience.”

Elizabeth studied the warden’s face. He had a reputation for being smart and effective. Beyond that, she knew nothing about him. As large as the prison stood in the life of the county, the warden kept to himself. He was rarely seen at restaurants or other gatherings. The prison was his life, and while she respected the professionalism, something about the man made her uncomfortable. The false smile? Something in his eyes? Maybe it was the way he spoke of dark corners.

“Why did Beckett want me to come here? It can’t be for this.”

“Only in part.” The warden used a remote control to turn on a wall-mounted television. The scene that flickered and firmed was of Adrian in a padded cell. He was pacing, muttering. The angle was down, as if the camera was mounted high in the corner. “Suicide watch. One of many.”

Elizabeth walked to the set for a better look. Adrian’s cheeks were sunken. Stubble covered his chin. He was agitated, one hand flicking out, then the other. It looked as if he was arguing. “Who’s he talking to?”

“God.” The warden joined her and shrugged. “The devil. Who can say? His condition worsened after the first year in isolation. He was often as you see him here.”

“You took him out of the general population?”

“Some months after the final assault.” The warden froze the image, looked vaguely apologetic. “It was time. Beyond time, perhaps.”

Elizabeth considered Adrian’s image on the screen. His face was tilted toward the camera, the eyes wide and fixed, the centers pixelated black. He looked angular, unbalanced. “Why is he out?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“He was released on early parole. That could not have happened without your approval. You say he killed three people. If that’s true, why did you let him out?”

“There is no proof he was involved.”

Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s not a matter of proof, though, is it? Parole is about good behavior. A subjective standard.”

“Perhaps I am more sympathetic than you imagine.”

“Sympathetic?” Elizabeth could hide neither the doubt nor the dislike.

The warden smiled thinly and selected a photograph from the desk. It showed Adrian’s face: the ripped skin and staples, the stitches in his lips. “You have your own problems, do you not? Perhaps, that’s why Detective Beckett suggested you come, to better understand the proper use of your time.” He handed her the photograph, and she studied it, unflinching. “Prison is a horrible place, Detective. You would do well to avoid it.”

When Officer Preston took the woman away, the warden moved to the window and waited for her to appear outside. After four minutes she did, stopping once to peer up at his window. She was pretty in the morning light, not that he cared. When she was in her car, he called Beckett. “Your lady friend is a liar.” The car pulled away as the warden watched. “I studied her face when she looked at the photographs. She has feelings for Adrian Wall, perhaps very strong ones.”

“Did you convince her to stay away?”

“Keeping Adrian Wall alone and isolated is in both our interests.”

“I don’t know anything about your interests,” Beckett said. “You wanted to talk to her. I made that happen.”

“And the rest of it?”

“I’ll do what I said.”

“He really is broken, our Mr. Wall.” The warden touched the television, the pixelated eyes. “Either that or he’s the hardest man I’ve ever seen. After thirteen years I’m still unsure.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I should explain myself, why? Because we were friends, once? Because I am so generous with my time?”

The warden stopped talking, and Beckett said nothing.

They weren’t friends at all.

They weren’t even close.

If Elizabeth was looking for further insight into Adrian, she didn’t find it in the first moments of court. He entered in full restraints, the nineteenth inmate in a row of twenty. He kept his eyes down, so she saw the top of his head, the line of his nose. Elizabeth watched him shuffle to his place on the long bench and tried to reconcile the man she saw with the video from the warden’s office. As disturbing as he’d appeared, he looked ten times better, now-not filled out but heavier, troubled but not insane. She willed him to look her way, and when the brown eyes came up, she felt the same shock of communication. She sensed so many things about him, not just willfulness and fear but a profound aloneness. All that flashed in an instant, then the din of court intervened, and his head dipped again as if weighted by all the stares heaped upon it. Cops. Reporters. Other defendants. They all got it. Everybody knew. Crowded as the room was-and it was packed-nothing brought the thunder like Adrian Wall.

“Holy shit. Look at this place.” Beckett slid in beside her, craning his neck at the double row of cameras and reporters. “I can’t believe the judge allowed this kind of circus. There’s what’s-her-face. Channel Three. Shit, she’s looking at you.”

Elizabeth glanced that way, face expressionless. The reporter was pretty and blond in bright nails and a tight red sweater. She made a call-me gesture and frowned when Elizabeth ignored it.

“Did you see the warden?” Beckett asked.

“You know what? Outside.” Elizabeth pushed against his shoulder and followed him off the bench. Eyes tracked them, but she didn’t care what Dyer or Randolph or any of the other cops thought. “You know, your buddy the warden is a real asshole.”

They rounded into the hall, a sea of people milling around them, parting at the sight of Beckett’s badge. Elizabeth crowded him into a corner beside a trash can and a tattooed kid sleeping on a bench.

“He’s not exactly my buddy,” Beckett said.

“Then, what?”

“He helped me once when I was in a bad place. That’s all. I thought he could help you, too.”

“Why was he at Nathan’s?”

“I don’t know. He just showed up.”

“What were you arguing about?”

“The fact I didn’t want him on my fucking crime scene. What’s going on here, Liz? You have no reason to be angry with me.”

He was right, and she knew it. Moving to a narrow window, Elizabeth wrapped her arms around her chest. Outside, the day was too perfect for what was coming. “He showed me the tape.”

“And the people Adrian killed?”

“The people he might have killed.”

“You don’t think he’s capable?”

Elizabeth stared through the glass. Adrian had been gentler than most, but like all good cops he had steel in his spine and an unflinching will. Could suffering such as his twist those things into something deformed and violent? Of course it could. But, had it? “People are rushing to judgment, Charlie. I feel it.”

“That’s not true.”

“Come on. When was the last time you saw so many cops at first appearance? I counted twenty-three, including the captain. What is it normally? Six or seven? Look at that.” She gestured at the crowd gathered at the courtroom door. It was twice as large as one might normally see: spectators and press, the angry, the curious.

“People are scared,” Beckett said. “Another woman. The same church.”

“This is a witch hunt.”

“Liz, wait.”

But she didn’t. She pushed through the crowd and found another seat in the area reserved for cops. People were still staring, but she didn’t care. Could Charlie be right? What was the path when your heart said one thing, and facts hinted at another? Adrian was tried in a courtroom very much like this, convicted by a jury of his peers. But they didn’t know everything, did they? There was a reason his DNA was under the dead woman’s nails.

Reasons and secrets, infidelity and death.

Adrian said no one knew he was sleeping with the victim, but was it really such a blur? What about Gideon’s father? If Adrian was sleeping with his wife, Robert Strange may have known. Sex. Betrayal. Wives had been murdered for less. If he framed her lover for the murder, it would be a neat little package: cheating wife dead, boyfriend locked away. But Robert Strange had an alibi. Beckett himself had verified it.

What about Adrian’s wife?

That was an interesting question. Did Catherine Wall know her husband was cheating? She was pregnant, possibly jealous. She wasn’t investigated because no one other than Adrian and his attorney knew about the affair.

What if that was not entirely true?

Against his own attorney’s advice, Adrian had refused to take the stand. Had he done so, he could have explained all the things that led to his conviction. He said he kept quiet because he didn’t wish to hurt his wife, and because no one would believe him, anyway. What if it was more than that? What if he didn’t want to implicate her? Take the stand against her?

Did Adrian go to prison to protect his wife?

If Catherine Wall knew of the affair, she had motive to kill Julia Strange. Did she have an alibi? Most likely, no one would ever know. The woman was gone, the case closed. So Elizabeth considered the crime itself. Manual strangulation took some strength. So did lifting bodies, posing them on altars. Could a woman do it?

Maybe.

If she was strong enough. Angry enough.

Maybe she had help.

Elizabeth watched Adrian, but he did not look up again. So, she scrubbed at her face and settled into the drudgery of court as first appearances took over. Prisoners met the judge, had their charges read, waited for lawyers to be appointed. She’d seen it a hundred times on a hundred different days. The first ripple came long before Adrian was even called. It started in front of the bar, and Elizabeth saw it like a breeze over grass. Heads came together; people muttered. She didn’t understand until the prosecutor leaned into his assistant and whispered, “What the hell is Crybaby Jones doing here?”

Elizabeth followed the stares and saw Faircloth Jones at a side door beyond the bar. He was frail but elegant, dressed in the same kind of bow tie and seersucker suit he’d worn for most of his fifty years in practice. He stood above a dark-wood cane and held perfectly still until even the judge turned his way. After that, the old lawyer had the stage, crossing the room as if he owned it, nodding at older lawyers, who grinned or nodded back or brooded over old cases and long-wounded pride. The younger lawyers nudged each other and leaned close, each one asking more or less the same question: Is that really Crybaby Jones? Elizabeth understood that, too. Faircloth Jones was the finest lawyer to come through the county; yet, he’d not been seen outside his own house in close to ten years. Even the judge accepted the impact of the old lawyer’s presence, leaning back in his chair and saying, “Okay. May as well deal with this, now. Mr. Jones.” He projected his voice at the row of seated lawyers. “Very nice to see you again.”

Faircloth stopped beside the first bench and seemed to bow without doing so. “The pleasure is entirely mine, Your Honor.”

“I’d rather not assume, but may I ask…?”

“Adrian Wall, Your Honor. Yes. I’d like to be noted as counsel of record.”

The DA rose, large and unhappy. “Your Honor, Attorney Jones hasn’t been seen in court for over ten years. I don’t even know if his license is current.”

“Let’s ask him, then. Mr. Jones?”

“My license is quite current, Your Honor.”

“There you are, Mr. DA. Quite current.” The judge glanced at the rowed prisoners, lifted a finger, and said, “Bailiff.”

Two bailiffs culled Adrian from the prisoner’s bench. He kept his head up this time and nodded at the old lawyer. Faircloth touched him once on the shoulder, then said, “I’d like to have these cuffs removed, if I may.”

The judge motioned again, and the DA could not hide his frustration. “Your Honor!”

The judge held up a hand and leaned forward. “It’s my understanding that the defendant is not before this court on a violent offense.”

“Second-degree trespass, Your Honor.”

“That’s it? A misdemeanor?”

“Also, resisting arrest,” the DA said.

“Another misdemeanor, Your Honor.”

“Yet, there are other circumstances-”

“The only relevant circumstance,” Faircloth interrupted the DA, “is that the authorities want my client locked away while they investigate another crime for which they have insufficient evidence to charge. It’s no mystery, Your Honor. You know it. The reporters know it.” Faircloth gestured at the press bench, which was packed shoulder to shoulder. Some famous faces were there, including some from the big stations in Charlotte, Atlanta, Raleigh. Many had covered the original trial. None of them could take their eyes off the old lawyer, and Faircloth knew it. “While no one would argue with the tragedy of another young woman’s early demise, the district attorney is trying to end-run the constitutional restraints of due process. Have things changed so much in my absence, Your Honor? Are we now some kind of banana republic that the state, in all its might and glory, could even contemplate such a thing?”

The judge drummed his fingers and glanced twice at the reporters. He was an ex-prosecutor and generally leaned in that direction. The reporters changed the math, and the old attorney knew it. So did the judge. “Mr. DA?”

“Adrian Wall is a convicted killer, Your Honor. He has no family in the community. He owns no property. Any expectations for an appearance at some later court date would be based on hope alone. The state requests remand.”

“For two misdemeanors?” Crybaby half turned to face the reporters. “Your Honor, I implore you.”

The judge pursed his lips and frowned at the DA. “Do you intend to file felony charges?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

“Mr. Jones?”

“My client was arrested on land that had been in his family since before the Civil War. After thirteen years of incarceration, the impulse to return there is understandable. I’d further argue that any resistance he might have offered at the time of his arrest was in response to police overzealousness. Police reports indicate that twelve officers were involved-and I’d stress that number again-twelve officers on a trespass complaint. I think that speaks clearly to the state’s intent. On the other hand, Mr. Wall’s family has been in this county since the winter of 1807. He has no plans to leave and is eager to appear before this court so we might offer a vigorous defense to frivolous charges. Given all that, Your Honor, we consider remand an absurd request and ask only that bond be reasonable.”

The lawyer finished softly, the room so silent every word carried. Elizabeth could feel tension in the space around her. It went beyond the DA’s frustration or Faircloth’s dignified air. A woman was dead, and Adrian was the most notorious convicted killer of the past fifty years. Reporters craned where they sat. Even the DA was holding his breath.

“Bond is five hundred dollars.”

The gavel came down.

The room erupted.

“Next case.”

Outside, Elizabeth found Faircloth Jones on the edge of a crowd. He leaned on his cane as if waiting for her. “It’s good to see you, Faircloth.” She took his hand, gave it a squeeze. “Unexpected but really, really good.”

“Take my arm,” he said. “Walk with me.”

Elizabeth looped her arm in his and guided him through the crowd. They took the wide, granite stairs, found the sidewalk. A half dozen people spoke a word or touched the lawyer’s arm. He smiled at each, dipping his head, murmuring a kind word back. When they were beyond the crowd, Elizabeth pressed his arm against her side. “You made a very nice entrance.”

“The law, as you may have surmised, is equal parts theater and reason. The finest scholars might struggle in court, while mediocre thinkers excel. Logic and flair, and leverage where appropriate, such are the makings of a trial attorney. Did you see His Honor’s face when I mentioned the reporters? Good Lord. It appeared as if something unpleasant had taken up sudden residence beneath his robe.”

He chuckled, and Elizabeth joined him. “It was good of you to come, Faircloth. I doubt Adrian would have fared as well with a court-appointed attorney that didn’t know or care for him.”

Faircloth waved off the compliment. “The smallest thing. One courtroom appearance among a multitude of thousands.”

“You’re not fooling me, Mr. Jones.” She pressed his arm more tightly. “I was only one row behind you.”

“Ah.” He dipped his still-lean jaw. “And you noticed the sweat stain on my collar. The slight but unfortunate tremor in my hands.”

“I saw no such things.”

“Indeed?” Humor was in the word, a twinkle so lively she couldn’t help but smile again. “Then, perhaps, my dear, you should have those lovely eyes checked.”

They passed the last edge of the crowd and moved thirty yards in a slow shuffle, tarmac on the left, sun-cooked grass to the right. Neither spoke, but he pressed her hand with his arm. When they reached a bench in a spot of shade, they sat and watched a line of uniformed officers stand at the balustrade and stare in their direction. They disliked that Adrian was bonding out, that Liz was sitting with the lawyer who made it happen. “That’s a grim spectacle,” Faircloth said.

“Not everyone sees Adrian as we do.”

“How could they when they barely know the man? Such is the nature of headlines and innuendo.”

“And murder convictions.” The old lawyer looked away, but not before Elizabeth saw the pain she’d caused. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”

“It’s quite all right. It’s not as if I’ve forgotten.”

Elizabeth looked back at the officers. They were still watching her, most likely hating her. “I never visited,” she said. “I tried a few times, but never got past the parking lot. It was hard. I couldn’t do it.”

“Because you loved him.”

It was not a question. Elizabeth felt her jaw drop, the sudden flush. “Why would you say that?”

“I may be old, my dear, but I have never been blind. Beautiful young ladies don’t sit so devotedly in court without good reason. It was hard to miss the way you looked at him.”

“I never… I wasn’t…”

The old lawyer nudged her with a shoulder. “I imply no impropriety. And completely understand why a woman might feel that way. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.”

She shrugged once, then shifted on the bench and wrapped her arms around a single knee. “How about you?”

“Visit? No. Never.”

“Why not?”

He sighed and stared at the courthouse as another man might stare at an old lover. “I tried at first, but he wouldn’t see me. Everyone hurt. There was nothing to say. Maybe he blamed me for the verdict. I never found out. After that first month, it became a matter of simple avoidance. I told myself I’d try again, then a week went by, and then another. I found reasons to avoid that side of town, the prison, even the road that would take me there. I made up lies and stories, told myself he understood, that I was old and done with the law, and that the relationship had been purely professional. Every day I whittled at the truth of my feelings, buried them deep because it hurt like hell, all of it.” He shook his head, but kept his eyes on the courthouse. “Adrian was there because of my inadequacy. That’s a hard truth for a man like me to accept. So, maybe I drank too much and slept too little. Maybe I turned from my wife and friends and all that ever mattered to me as a man and a lawyer. I lost myself in the guilt because Adrian was, perhaps, the finest man I’d ever represented, and I knew he’d never come out the same. After that, the hatred came like a thief.”

“He doesn’t hate you, Faircloth.”

“I was referring to myself. To the power of self-loathing.”

“Do you still feel that way?”

“Now? No.”

Elizabeth looked away from the lie. The old man had hurt for a long time. He still did. “How long until he’s out?”

“I’ll post the bond,” Faircloth said. “They’ll drag their feet on principle. A few hours, I imagine. He can come home with me, if he likes. I have room and spare clothes and life, still, in these old bones. He can stay as long as he likes.” The old man struggled to his feet, and Elizabeth guided him back to the sidewalk. “If you’ll help me to my car. It’s there.” He pointed with the cane, and she saw a black car with a driver by the rear door. They moved down the walk, but Faircloth stopped a few feet from the bumper, one hand white on the cane, the other still on her arm. “He did not seem well, did he?”

“No.” Elizabeth frowned. “He did not.”

“The perils of confinement, I suppose.” The driver opened the door, but the lawyer waved him off, a sudden twinkle in his eye. “Why don’t you come by the house tonight? Perhaps between the two of us we can make him feel less forgotten. Shall we say drinks at eight, dinner after?”

She looked away, and he said, “Please, do come. The house is large, and the two of us, alone, insufferably male. It would be so much livelier with your company.”

“Then, I’ll be there.”

“Beautiful. Excellent.” He tilted his head skyward and breathed deeply. “You know, I’d almost forgotten how it feels. Fresh air. Open sky. I should appreciate it more, I suppose, today being the first time in eighty-nine years I’ve risked my own involuntary confinement.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s illegal to practice law without a license, my dear.” He flashed a wink and an old man’s wicked grin. “Mine has been expired for ages.”