Beyond Innocence (18 page)

Cory didn’t bother replying. Instead, she directed her anger into a well-crafted argument before Judge Fowler. Fowler had unseated the former judge, the one who’d presided over Eric’s trial. She’d hoped his lack of investment in the original case would make him more receptive to her motion. He’d listened to her arguments and asked thoughtful questions, but at the end of the day, he did what she expected and ruled against her.

“I can’t authorize what amounts to a fishing expedition. If you file a writ that raises genuine questions of fact regarding Mr. Washington’s innocence, then I’ll authorize discovery.” Her only comfort was that he instructed Rick, on the record, that everything in the file should be preserved, at least until time ran out for Eric.

She couldn’t believe how naive she’d been, thinking she could bounce into court and use her law-and-order cred to get a fellow prosecutor to hand over his file. Cory was thankful Serena hadn’t witnessed the behind-the-scenes confrontation, but she wished she’d been there to see Cory argue in the courtroom. Impressing Serena seemed to be high on her list of priorities these days.

“What’s good here?”

Serena’s question brought her back to the present. “Everything. Precisely the reason I’m glad this place isn’t on my way to work every day.”

They settled on pancakes and split an order of bacon. When their food arrived, quick and hot, Serena groaned after the first bite. “These are amazing. I can never get pancakes to turn out right. They’re either too tough or runny in the middle.”

“I know, right? I don’t even bother trying to make them myself. Nothing can compare to my mom’s except this place.” Cory immediately regretted the reference to her mother. Did Serena feel a sense of loss whenever anyone else talked about their parents?

“We had pancakes every Saturday morning when I was a kid. My adoptive parents, the Clarks, were big on tradition.”

Since Serena had opened the subject, Cory forged ahead. “Do you call them Mom and Dad? Are you close? How does that work?”

“You sure ask a lot of questions.” She looked more amused than annoyed.

“Occupational hazard.”

“It varies. I love them, but when I first went to live with them, I’d been ripped away from everything familiar. I was angry because Eric couldn’t come with us. I didn’t understand why my mother was no longer in the picture, not that she ever really was. I couldn’t process all the changes at once. It took me a while to warm up to the idea of having replacement parents, let alone acknowledging their roles by calling them Mom and Dad.”

“And now?”

“Now, they’re Mom and Dad to their faces, but I still have a habit of referring to them as Don and Marion Clark when I’m talking to other people.”

“You didn’t take their name?”

“They let me choose. I had this strange idea that if my mother ever came looking for me, she wouldn’t be able to find me if I changed my name.” Serena grunted. “Like she’d ever find her way out of whatever crack house she happened to be in to give it a go. She lived the life of a junkie and died with a needle in her arm.”

Cory stretched her hand across the table and placed it over Serena’s. “I’m sorry.”

Serena didn’t pull away, but when she looked into Cory’s eyes, her stare was blank. “Not your problem.”

Cory knew from experience that sometimes the most extreme pain burrows so deep it looks like nonchalance. Time to veer away from this subject. “What do you do in Florida?”

“I’m the head teller at a bank. Nothing glamorous.”

“I know all about non-glamorous occupations.”

“Really? I know plenty of people who think attorneys are at the top of the food chain.”

“Not those who work for the county. Prosecutors probably make the least money of anyone in the law biz.” Shit. She’d stepped in rough conversational waters again. Bad enough she regularly worked on the other side, she didn’t need to call attention to it.

Serena didn’t let her off the hook. “How long did you work as a prosecutor?”

“I started right out of law school. Actually, I interned at the office before I graduated, so besides a stint serving ice cream at Braum’s, it’s the only job I’ve ever had.”

“Guess you liked it?”

Cory didn’t read any sarcasm behind the question, only a genuine interest. “I did. It felt good representing victims, some who couldn’t speak for themselves.”

“You became successful.”

“I’ve won more cases than I’ve lost.” Cory didn’t feel like bragging about her ninety percent victory rate. She knew some defense attorneys would say she came by that number by cherry picking her cases, but it wasn’t true. She worked harder than anyone she knew. That’s why Julie had noticed her. Taken her under her wing. Promoted her through the ranks. At least that’s what she had to believe.

“I think you’re being modest. I Googled you.”

“Well then, you’ve probably read just as many bad things as good things.” Cory didn’t try to hide a smile, flattered that Serena had taken the time to get to know more about her. “I’m sure the recent news has you a bit on edge.”

“Understatement. Prosecutor hides evidence and man lingers behind bars. Not a confidence builder, for sure.”

Cory fiddled with her pancakes, her appetite gone. The master litigator was at a loss for words, but Serena wasn’t going to let her off so easy.

“Care to tell me what happened?”

Cory flashed to an image of Julie, placing a finger over her lips, telling her, “Let’s get past this, and everything will work out just fine. You do your part and I’ll do mine.” For once, she didn’t care what Julie thought. She wanted to tell Serena the whole story. But she wouldn’t. Too much at stake. She did want what Julie promised—just to get past this, no matter what respect she could buy from Serena with the truth. She settled on a half-truth. “Maybe someday.”

“Right.” Serena didn’t have to say it. Cory knew she didn’t believe her. Didn’t believe she would ever share what happened, ever tell the truth, ever come clean. Didn’t matter. They would work Eric’s case together and it would all be over soon. Serena would go back to her noncontroversial job at a bank in Florida, and Cory would try to survive the swirl of bad PR and return to her life as it had been. Their lives could not be more different. So why did she desperately want to find similarities?

Serena’s cell phone rang and Cory feigned disinterest as she answered it. Would it be her parents, calling to check on her? A significant other? The thought made her seethe with jealousy. She was surprised when Serena passed the phone to her.

“It’s Skye. She’s been trying to reach you, but her calls are going straight to voice mail.”

“I turned my phone off when I was in court. I must’ve forgotten to turn it back on.” She spoke into the phone. “Skye, where’s the fire? You’re kidding? What time?” She glanced at her watch. “We’re about forty minutes out. We’ll meet you there.” She ended the call and handed the phone back to Serena. “Want to tag along on a witness interview? Skye just located Leonard Wilkens and he’s interested in repenting before he dies.”

Leonard aka Lenny Wilkins’s house was not much more than a beat-up shack with paint peeling from the siding and only a few uncracked windows. Lenny was in worse shape than his house.

After a brief discussion on the front porch with Skye, Cory decided no harm would come from letting Serena sit in on the interview as long as she understood the ground rules. Skye and Cory would ask all the questions. When the time came for Skye to get a written statement from Leonard, Cory and Serena would both leave to keep him from claiming that he felt undue pressure from having Eric’s entire legal team standing over his shoulder.

“You sure you’re up for this?” Serena’s presence was Skye’s idea. She’d hypothesized that having Eric’s sister on hand would motivate the old man to tell the truth, especially if it meant the telling might spare Eric’s life. Cory’s reservations were more about protecting Serena’s feelings than for any other reason. She’d read the statement Leonard gave to the police. It was laced with racial epithets. They’d cleaned up his language for trial, and Eric’s attorneys were ineffective at pointing out the difference in his polished courtroom presence and the bigoted self he’d shown the cops. But here, in his own home, he wouldn’t bother hiding his coarse manner, and Cory wanted to protect Serena from any further harm.

“I’ve read the file. I know guys like this. They don’t change. If anything, the older they get, the worse they are. I can handle it.” Serena’s face was steel. Cory knew she had to hurt inside, but the last thing she needed was to be patronized. She offered an encouraging nod and held open the door. Skye introduced them to Wilkins. She didn’t bother explaining Serena’s role, probably assuming he would get the connection by the fact she and Eric had the same last name.

Wilkins sat in an aging vinyl recliner, his lower body wrapped in a dingy afghan. Tubes ran from his nose to the oxygen tank on the floor beside him. He motioned at the couch and gasped a welcome. “Come in. Sit down.”

Cory wished she had a tarp or something to put between her suit and the filthy piece of furniture. The entire room, with stacks of newspapers and magazines, used fast food containers, and half full abandoned mugs of coffee was a showpiece for one of those reality shows that featured hoarders or people who didn’t know the definition of sanitary. The faster they heard what he had to say, the faster they could leave. She took a seat on the couch and tried to ignore the slight crunch when she made contact with the upholstery. Serena sat close beside her. The only bright light in an otherwise dismal room.

Skye opened the interview. “Mr. Wilkins, I’d like you to tell Ms. Lance what you told me. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No. Don’t want anything. It’ll just make me have to piss. You have no idea what that involves.”

And we don’t want to know.
Cory tried to summon some reserve of sympathy for Wilkins. He’d been diagnosed with testicular cancer the year before and the disease had advanced rapidly. Skye had found all of this out from the woman who came by once a day to help him with his bodily functions. Lucky lady. She’d also pumped the woman for helpful information, like what time of day he was likely to be in the best mood. They were still in the window of supposedly pleasant behavior. Around lunchtime, he got surly. They had a short time frame to get the information they needed.

“Where do you want me to start?”

“Start with what you told me about firing Eric.”

“I fired him all right. Pretty sure it was him that stole that money out of the drawer.”

“The cash that was short, that was from a drawer behind the bar, right?”

“Best I remember, yes.”

“Did Eric work back there?” Skye did a stellar job of keeping her tone easy and even. Cory was pleased to see her interrogation skills had only gotten better over the years.

“He did all kinds of stuff. Odds and ends. He did take a shine to that McGowan girl. I do remember that.”

“How did she react to his attention?”

“That girl? She was smooth as silk. I’m sure she was used to getting all sorts of attention. She didn’t act like it bothered her.”

“The police, they seemed to think she might have been annoyed by his attention. That he may have made unwanted advances. What’s your opinion?”

“That detective, can’t remember his name now, but he was hot on the idea. Had a theory that boy got a little too familiar and was rebuked.”

“He ask you to feed into that? Play it up at trial?”

Cory tapped her foot, just enough to try to get Skye’s attention. Exaggeration wasn’t fabrication. If they filed a writ stating only that Wilkins had embellished his testimony, they’d be bounced out of court. She prayed this wasn’t the extent of his coming clean. Skye caught her stare and patted the air with her palm. Cory bit her tongue and tried to be patient.

“I may have made a bigger deal of it than it really was.” He shrugged. “Detective said they had a rock solid case.”

You lying bastard.
Cory could imagine how the questioning went down. The detective had probably worked with him for hours, asking leading questions so many times that when he took the stand, the lies were easier than the truth to tell. She couldn’t resist getting to the heart of the matter. “Tell us about the night that Eric came by to ask questions about his final paycheck. The night Nancy McGowan disappeared.”

The police had assumed Nancy disappeared that night because no one had seen her the next day. Fact was, she hadn’t been scheduled to work, and it wasn’t that abnormal for her not to have been seen. The medical examiner placed the time of death in the range of twenty-four to forty-eight hours from when she was found, so she could have died much later.

“That boy didn’t know his place. I fired him and he comes back in here, trying to cozy up to Gerry.” He stopped and placed the oxygen mask over his face and drew several wheezing breaths.

When he finished, Cory asked, “Was Gerald there?” She knew the answer, but she asked anyway to prompt him along. An objective observer might conclude her behavior toward the old man was callous. She didn’t care. The only person’s feelings she cared about right now were Serena’s. The sooner they could get out of this hateful man’s wretched house, the better off she would feel.

“He was there and he fell for that boy’s sob story. I figured he’d already taken whatever he might be owed, but Gerry apparently saw things differently. I saw him in the parking lot after he squirrelled some money out of Gerry, and I told him to get the hell out.”

Cory couldn’t help but glance in Serena’s direction. She admired her stoicism in the face of Wilkins’s callous remarks. She pressed on. “Did he do what you asked?”

“You bet he did. I don’t make idle threats.”

“He drove off? You watched him.”

“Yep, that’s right.”

“How late did you work that night?”

“Same as always, ’til they closed. Around three.”

“Did Eric come back?”

“Didn’t come back in the bar. I know that for a fact.”

“How late did Nancy work that night?” Skye posed the question and Cory scooted forward, sure that they were finally getting to the reason they were here.