Music of Ghosts (26 page)

Thirty-Six

“What the hell?” cried
Mary. She scrolled down, thinking there must be some kind of further addendum, but Pisgah County Smith's records ended there, his autopsy report showing the face of a totally different man.

She clicked back several screens, thinking she'd gotten the two Robert Thomas Smiths mixed up. Pulling up both sets of records, she compared them. The two men were similar in size—both 5'8", around 150 pounds, but where Pisgah County Smith was redheaded and young looking, Iredell County Smith had dark hair and coarser features. Iredell Smith's photo was the one attached to Pisgah Smith's autopsy report.

“Some clerk's messed this up,” she muttered. She read on, amazed by the similarities between the two men. Both had been fingerprinted in August 1960, both had been sentenced to death for capital murder. But according to the Department of Corrections, Iredell County Smith's execution had been stayed twice on appeal by the ACLU, arguing grounds of mental competence. The last entry in his file was an appellate court case number, dated September 23, 1974. After that, nothing. She went back to Pisgah County Smith. According to the NCLERC records, he was executed on May 8, 1971. Iredell County Smith was still awaiting an appellate court ruling in September of 1974.

“So what happened?” Mary whispered, as she fished around the site. “Did they put the wrong picture with the wrong record?”

Exasperated, she left NCLERC and searched for North Carolina executions. She found that capital punishment had a varied history in the Tar Heel state, and in the early 1970s, North Carolina had squabbled with the Supreme Court over having a death penalty at all. In 1976, Washington slapped Raleigh's hand, overturning a long-standing mandatory execution statute.

“The Court vacated the sentences of over a hundred inmates awaiting execution,” she read aloud. “Many received new trials, though most were re-sentenced to life in prison.”

She tapped her pencil on the computer screen. “So they executed one Robert Thomas Smith in 1971. But what happened to the other one? And which is which?”

Her tea had grown cold, so she got up and fixed another cup. To her surprise, a pale, anemic dawn was beginning to lighten the room. She looked at her watch. It was 6:46. Abashed, as if she'd shirked some important duty, she hurried over to the window and looked for Jonathan's truck. She didn't see it—just a few cars in the parking lot and a white cat meandering toward the trash dumpster, its tail a curl in the air.

She checked her cell phone, but she'd gotten no messages, so she returned to the computer. “Let's see what Iredell County Smith was in for,” she whispered.

She left Google, logged onto Lexis-Nexis, and typed in “Robert Smith, Iredell County, NC.” The hourglass icon turned while the computer went through the files, then an index of records from the local paper appeared on the screen. The articles were ancient, dating from 1960, when Robby Smith of Troutman, North Carolina, was found guilty for the murder of Officer Frank Quinn of the Statesville police force. “Somebody put Robby up to this,” his grandmother was quoted as saying, “I raised that child to be a good boy, but anybody could talk him into anything.”

“Like change places with someone on death row?” asked Mary, scrolling through the articles. The paper reported that Smith was arrested, provided with a public defender, brought to trial in 1961, was found guilty, and received the death penalty.

At that point, the story died. She found only two more articles—one in 1962, describing how Smith spent his days open-mouthed and staring at the walls of an 8x8 cell. The last one appeared in 1974, stating that Smith remained on death row, awaiting a decision from the Court of Appeals.

“Which means he should be in the NCLERC database,” Mary whispered. Logging out of Lexis-Nexis, she returned to the Department of Corrections website. As she waited for the home page to appear, she thought of Ginger. What a story this would make. At the very least it was grossly inept record keeping—at the worst, they may have executed the wrong man.

“Okay,” she told herself. “Robert Thomas Smith, Iredell, gets you a guy still waiting on a court decision in 1974. Let's try Grandma's name for him—Robby Smith.”

She keyed in “Robby Smith.” The computer hummed, but no records appeared. She keyed in “Robby Thomas Smith,” then “Robby Tommy Smith.” Again, nothing.

“Well, nuts,” she said. “The guy can't just evaporate.” She thought a moment, then decided to widen the search. Still in the Central Prison database, she left the first name field blank and keyed in “Smith, Iredell, 1974.” The computer churned for a second, then came up with four names. Audie Smith, Indigo Sayles Smith, Robert Thomas Smith, then Thomas Robert Smith.

“Did somebody reverse the names?” She clicked on the file. The information for Thomas Robert Smith was identical to the Robert Thomas Smith file, except it continued beyond 1974. Iredell County's Smith had lingered on death row from 1962 to 1977, then they transferred him to Naughton State Hospital.

“That's it!” she cried. Iredell Smith had been caught in the glitch when Raleigh and the Supreme Court were fighting it out over the death penalty. She scrolled down through a dozen more reports until finally, she came to the last record. She blinked, unbelieving. The last record was a mug shot—not of a coarse-featured, brown-haired man, but the same boyish-looking man pictured in Ginger's article. Though the red hair was graying and the face had grown pudgy, it was definitely the man who had walked down the courthouse steps in handcuffs.

“Fiddlesticks, alive and well.”

Thirty-seven

Bett scratched at his
window the night the moon was full. He thought she might—for days he'd felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach that wavered between terror and excitement. He'd gone to bed with a snootful of whiskey, hoping Dr. Jack Daniels might render him immune to her. But his eyes had flown open with her first rasp on the screen, as clear-headed as if he'd never touched a drop of liquor in his life. So much for Jack D. Even the mighty doctor is powerless against Bett Lovelace.

She scratched again, cat's claws on slate. He sat up in bed and turned toward her. It always gave him goose flesh, the way she stood there, staring at him with those near-colorless eyes. Tonight her skin looked like untracked snow, her hair a mass of long, black curls. A scarlet cape draped across her shoulders. It matched the shade of her lips, exactly.

“Bobby?” Her voice sounded the same as always—low, but musical, as if he'd just done something she found amusing. “You awake?”

He nodded, knowing it was pointless to feign sleep. Bett never left until she got what she came for.

She smiled, coy and wheedling. “May I come in?”

Before he could answer she vanished from the window, a dark form swirling through the night. A moment later she stood at the foot of his bed, bringing the smell of lilacs and moldering earth.

“How have you been?”

He glanced wistfully at the half-empty bottle of whiskey. “I've been okay.”

She sat down on the side of the bed. “Have you missed me?”

He looked down at her cape, a curl of crimson against his dirty sheets. That question was harder to answer. He loved her. He missed her. He'd been terrified of her since the day they met.

She reached forward, lifting his beard-stubbled chin. When his gaze met hers, she smiled. Those pale amber eyes flashed behind dark lashes, like distant lightning in mid-July. He caught his breath, once again wondering how anything this beautiful had ever been his.

“I think you've missed me, Bobby,” she whispered.

She leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips were juicy as a plum, her tongue inebriating parts of him that not even Dr. Jack could touch.

“I think you've missed me quite a bit.” Laughing, she pulled her lips from his and let her cape drop to the floor. She stood before him naked and luminous. She seemed composed of only three colors—white skin, black hair, and three touches of red—a succulent mouth and two rosy, erect nipples.

He felt himself grow hard as she pushed him down and climbed on top of him. With her breasts pendulous above him, she started kissing him, working her way by inches from his mouth to his throat, then down his chest. By the time she reached his waist, he was hard as a rock. Just as she began to move lower, she lifted her face to look up at him.

“They're talking about us again.” Her voice was still low, but less musical now.

He couldn't speak; he felt as if he might explode.

“You know how that makes me feel.”

He clung to the bedstead, as if some vortex might suck him up into space.

“They'll spread lies about us again. Call me a whore. And you a fool.”

He tried to answer her, but he felt only her warmth on his hips,
her breath on his skin, the agony of a release she would not allow.

“You need to stop that woman, Bobby.” She licked him; a sweet, sick fire crackled through his whole body. “You need to make them leave us alone.”

She might have spoken in English; she might haven spoken Chinese. He whimpered like a dog.

“Will you do it? Or should I get Ray?”

Ray Hopson: his oldest enemy. How like her to mention him now. He looked up at her and managed to shake his head.

She licked him again. “Do you mean no, you won't do it? Or no, don't get Ray?”

“Don't get Hopson,” he croaked, a cold sweat soaking him. “I'll take care of it.”

“Good. I thought I could persuade you.”

She lowered her head—a sudden warmth enveloped him. All at once she granted him release—he exploded, every fiber in his body sending rage and shame and God knows what else out of him. As he screamed with the pure, hot pleasure of it, she lay back on the bed and laughed.

For a while he lay there helpless as a baby, his muscles drained, his body limp. When he could open his eyes, Bett again stood by the side of his bed, her red cape draped across her body.

“So you'll fix it, Bobby?” Her eyes glittered with the question.

“I'll fix it,” he mumbled, his voice coming out dry as a corn husk.

“I knew you would.” Smiling again, she knelt beside the bed. “You always were the best.” She kissed him, all tongue and teeth and teasing, then as he felt himself grow hard again, she rose to leave.

“I've got to go now,” she said. “But after you make things right, I'll come again.” She laughed. “And so will you. Many times over.”

He watched her leave, her cape swirling as she crossed his bedroom, then let herself out his front door. He heard soft footsteps on the gravel outside, then he heard nothing more but the hoot of an owl, far off in the night.

He closed his eyes, fighting tears. Always, he kept the small hope burning that she might be different, might be kind. But every time she flicked his hope out like a cheap match. Still, he knew he would do what she asked. He would do anything to see Bett Lovelace standing naked in front of him.

Thirty-eight

Abruptly, someone knocked on
her door. Mary jumped, startled. She'd been utterly enrapt in the unfolding drama in the databases on her screen. Hurriedly, she crossed the room and opened the door. Alex stood there in shorts and a T-shirt, bringing her a cup of coffee.

“Have you heard from Jonathan?” she asked.

“No,” said Mary.

“Me neither.”

“Damn,” said Alex. “I was hoping he'd called you. Have you tried to call him?”

“Not since last night.” Mary shrugged. “You can only leave so many desperate messages.”

Alex peered over her shoulder, her gaze falling on the computer, the papers strewn out across the bed. “So what have you been doing?”

Mary felt sheepish, as if she'd been caught doing something wrong. “Working,” she finally admitted.

Alex rolled her eyes. “On the Fiddlesticks case?”

“It seemed better than pacing around the room all night.” Mary stepped back.

“Mary, you don't have to solve the case. If you're playing defense, all you have to do is cast reasonable doubt on the state's evidence.”

“I know—but this is fascinating.”

Sighing, Alex sat down on the bed while Mary gave her the short version of her night's research.

“My client Stratton is accused of a murder that occurred near a cabin where two other murders took place fifty years ago.”

“Fiddlesticks,” said Alex. “Killed his wife and her lover with a razor.”

Mary frowned. “How do you know?”

“I read the
Snitch
, too, Pocahontas.”

“Okay. Fiddlesticks, whose real name is Robert Thomas Smith, gets sent to death row in 1959. At the same time, another guy named Robert Thomas Smith is also sentenced to death row for killing a cop. Both are from North Carolina—one from Iredell County, the other from Pisgah.”

“Okay.” Alex took a sip of coffee.

“Somehow, Pisgah County Smith, aka Fiddlesticks, manages to switch places with the Iredell County Smith and was
not
executed as reported on May 8, 1971.”

“How do you know?” asked Alex.

“The autopsy photo is totally different from the mug shot.”

“It's a clerical error. Somebody must have gotten them confused when they digitized the records.”

“I thought that, too,” said Mary. “Only there's no autopsy report for Iredell County Smith.”

Alex frowned. “Why not?”

“First, the ACLU kept appealing his conviction on grounds of mental incompetence. Then, North Carolina got in a huge flap with the feds over the legality of the death penalty. A lot of death row sentences got commuted to life.”

“Then Iredell County Smith is still in prison.”

“No. In April of 1977, Iredell County Smith was transferred from death row to Naughton Mental Hospital,” said Mary. “As far as North Carolina is concerned, he's still there. No death records for this guy, no transfers back to prison or to any other hospital.”

“No online obits? Nothing in the Social Security death index?”

Mary shook her head. “Nada.”

“Well, shit, Mary.” Alex sat up straight on the bed. “If your Fiddlesticks somehow switched identities with this Iredell guy, he could still be alive. There's your client's defense, right there.”

Mary grinned. “Why do you think I stayed up all night?”

“Google the mental hospital,” said Alex, moving closer to the computer. “See if they have any records.”

Mary Googled the place that warehoused most of Western North Carolina's mentally ill felons. The computer hummed a moment, then a long list of hits came on the screen—one an official website that showed a pretty Victorian building in Morton, North Carolina, but gave little information about the place. Another whistle-blower website recounted a scandal where a caregiver had allegedly sat on a patient until he died from suffocation.

“Wow,” said Alex, reading along with Mary. “This sounds like Texas. I thought North Carolina was more evolved.”

“Not hardly,” said Mary. “They just amended their constitution to deny marriage to same-sex couples.”

They read on, through nearly a hundred posts about the place. Former patients accused the staff of being negligent and abusive; former caregivers responded defensively, citing broken bones, missing teeth all due to unruly patients. Rape was an accusation levied at both sides; an undercurrent of rage and frustration seemed to flow darkly among all the posts.

“Look!” said Alex. “There's a woman from Texas, trying to find her brother.”

“He was sent to Naughton in 1993
,” read Mary, picking up the story.
“
‘We haven't heard from him since. That place is a hellhole. I'm sure they've killed him.
'
”

“Gosh,” said Alex. “Can you imagine not hearing from somebody you love for eighteen years?”

“No,” said Mary softly, Jonathan and Lily flashing across her mind. “I hope I won't have to find out.”

Alex squeezed her shoulder. “You won't, honey. Jonathan loves you. That much I know for sure.”

“I know he does,” Mary said, staring at the bed they'd made love on just one night ago. “But children trump lovers, Al. And that's as it should be. I should have realized that from the get-go.”

“But it may not be an either-or deal,” cried Alex. “The judge hasn't ruled yet.”

“The judge hasn't ruled, but I think Jonathan has.” Mary turned back to the computer. “Anyway, let's look at this.”

They returned to the Naughton Hospital website. Mary scrolled down, reading a few more distraught posts, then Alex said, “Naughton's pretty closed mouth about their patients.”

“Yeah—if they won't tell that woman about her brother, they're sure as hell not going to tell me about Fiddlesticks,” said Mary. “I'm nowhere near a relative.”

“You could get a court order,” said Alex.

“I don't necessarily want them to know I'm interested,” Mary replied. “Once they see a court order, things get cleaned up, records disappear, patients become unavailable.”

“You need someone to go undercover.” Alex sprawled back on the bed and laughed. “Get your partner to go over there. Ravenel would fit right in a mental institution.”

Mary laughed at the notion of Sam Ravenel among the inmates. “Ravenel can't do it—he's settling some historic estate in Charleston. But I do know somebody who might just love to go over there.”

“Who?”

“Ginger Malloy. She's the reporter who wrote about Fiddlesticks in the first place.”

“In the
Snitch
?” cried Alex.

“No, no,” said Mary, reaching for her cell phone. “In our local paper. If she could tie an old ghost story to a botched execution and a killer in a mental institution, she'd probably win the Pulitzer Prize.”

Alex glanced at her watch. “Mary, it's barely six a.m. in North Carolina.”

“Trust me,” Mary said as she punched in Ginger's number. “She won't mind waking up for this.”