Swan Song (Julie O'Hara Mystery Series) (15 page)

Hoyt quickly lowered his eyes.

Too soon, the bus lumbered through a guarded gate, passage through a twelve-foot high chain link fence draped with razor wire. That fence would separate him from all that was normal in life for the next seven to ten years. The reality
of it was crushing. As if to emphasize the point, the chain link gates clanged together, closing behind the bus.

At a signal from the armed guard, they all stood and shuffled off the bus and into the building to be processed. The prisoners were silent, yet it was noisy inside. The guards’ voices seemed to echo off the gray cement-block walls.

“Stay in line!”

“Over here, HERE!”

They pushed and they shoved as each man moved along.

Hoyt wanted to cry, but he didn’t.

And then they were in a cold room where they were forced to take off all their clothes and stand naked before everyone to be examined. Hoyt couldn’t help himself; fear made him steal a glance at the man who had smiled at him on the bus. Gold Tooth smiled again…only this time he wasn’t looking at Hoyt’s face.

* * * * * 

Chapter
29

B
etty Wieland wiped her eyes with a tissue and put her hand on the shoebox.

Julie and Joe leaned forward, listening intently.

“These are letters Hoyt sent to Dianna,” said Betty. “I read a few of them. You think your heart is broken and you can’t feel any more pain…and then you do.

“The Red Cross called to see if we had any household goods to donate, and I was going through some things in our storage room. I noticed a cardboard box we had never unpacked from when we moved here. Frank had stacked some cans of paint on top of it. I removed them. I dragged the box out into the garage and tore it open. It looked like it was filled with old towels but there were some things underneath. I started sorting through
them: old pictures of Frank in his hockey gear, a tarnished silver-plated trophy…and this shoebox.

“Frank was the one who brought the mail in every day, you see. He was the one who paid the bills and there was rarely anything for me. Obviously, he intercepted these letters from Hoyt and kept them hidden away all these years.

“I couldn’t have been more shocked! Hoyt wasn’t allowed to contact Dianna, of course. How did he manage to send letters to her? And, more important, why did Frank
save
them, why didn’t he report them?

“It was
guilt
, I realized, pure and simple. Just like he was with Dianna, Frank was oblivious to the wreckage he’d made of Hoyt’s life until it was too late…until he read his letters. Frank would never admit his guilt to anyone, mind you, but he couldn’t bring himself to throw away a
single
letter.

Betty’s chin trembled as she began to cry.

“I wanted to confront him, to throw them at him!” she cried. Taking a breath, she composed herself once again. “But I knew for sure that he would destroy them.”

“So that was why you moved,” said Joe.

“Yes. I realize now that Frank didn’t want Hoyt to know where Dianna lived. The letters stopped when we moved here. There are none after that date.”

“I’m
so
glad you brought them,” said Julie. “Can you leave them with us?”

“Yes. I put everything back in the cardboard box in the storeroom and put the paint cans back on top,” she said, rising from her seat. “It looks the same as it did before.”

Quickly, she crossed the room, opening the office door. She turned back to face them.

“I don’t know if the letters are important, but I know Dianna would want the whole truth to come out.” And then she was gone, leaving one battered shoebox and two stunned investigators in her wake.

* * * * * 

Chapter 30

M
ike Menello was trying to calm himself as he eased the big SUV into the curbside Downtown parking space. He felt anxious, like he had butterflies in his gut.

There’s no way she could know for sure
.
That sleeping pill knocks her out cold; she wouldn’t wake up if a bomb went off next to her. She never remembers anything, either.

Despite his confidence that Sabrina could not have known that he was absent that night, Mike was still a nervous wreck. Without her alibi he was up Shit Creek without a paddle. His life was literally hanging by a thread and Sabrina held the scissors.

Pushing the unsettling thought aside, he walked across West Robinson to the Mint Julep. Putting on his best face, he sauntered in and sat at the bar.

“Hey, Tony.
Beautiful day! What’s up?”

“Hi, Mike,” said the bartender, a handsome frosted-blond guy. He was dressed head-to-toe in black, which was the uniform, day or night, in the Downtown bistro. “I don’t usually see you this early. What can I get you? You want a lunch menu?”

“No. Nothing, thanks. I’m looking for Bo. Is he in?”

“Bo” was Robert Connolly, the owner of the Mint Julep.

“No. He had some business in Miami. I’m in charge today, that’s why
I’m
in so early,” he said. “He’ll be here tomorrow night, upstairs. You coming in?”

“Yeah,” said Mike, getting up. “That’s good. Tell him I’ll be here.”

“Will do,” said Tony with a wink.

The butterflies were subsiding by the time Mike
Menello got back to his SUV. He was feeling a lot more hopeful about the whole situation.

•

Sabrina was putting together two copies of settlement papers for a buyer and a seller who were scheduled to arrive at her agency for a closing in thirty minutes. She slipped them into separate Nolen Title file folders.

It was a relief to have the distraction of work. Now that it was done, her worrisome thoughts drifted back to Mike. She sat back in her chair, her brow knit with concern. There was no point in kidding herself, she thought; she had fallen for the guy. Otherwise, she would have kicked him out.

Had he left her bed the night Dianna Wieland died? She honestly didn’t know. But she did know that he’d done
exactly
that on another night…

* * * * * 

Chapter
31

Massachusetts, 1997

“I
’m next,” said Gold Tooth.

“Shut up!” said the prisoner hurting Hoyt. “You’re lucky you’re here.”

“Look at him crying!” said the third guy in the maintenance closet. “That’s it, Baby, go ahead and cry, just like a girl!”

And Hoyt did.

They all laughed uproariously.

The guard outside stuck his head in.

“Quiet down, you perverts. And shut
him
up, too!” he said. “Five more minutes and that’s it.”

Shaking his head with disgust, the guard pulled the door closed again.

•

For the next several days, Hoyt kept his eyes on the floor, not daring to make eye contact with anyone. Every so often one of the other prisoners would call him “Baby” and laugh.

A skinny blond guy, a head shorter than Hoyt, threw him a sympathetic glance.

Hoyt sat at the end of a bench in the cafeteria trying to eat some horrible stew,
hoping Gold Tooth and the other two men didn’t come anywhere near him. He was terrified. What was he to do? Tell the warden? Then he’d be dead.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Benny Dahlgren sat next to him.

Benny was a thirty-five year old divorce lawyer who got involved with a client. He and his client ended up killing the client’s wife. Both men were serving life sentences in different correctional institutions.

“You okay, Hoyt?” he asked quietly.

“Yeah,” said Hoyt, hoping Benny would drop the subject.

“A kid before you…he hung himself with some shoelaces,” said Benny.

Hoyt almost choked on the mystery meat in his stew.

They ate quietly for a while.

“They’d stop if you were with me,” said Benny under his breath, picking up his tray. “And I’d never force you to do anything.”

Hoyt swallowed hard and turned, looking at Benny wide-eyed.

In the same low-key voice, Benny said, “Eat your lunch and don’t look so scared. I’m not like them; you wouldn’t have to do that again. I’d take good care of you. I’ve got a lot of connections. Think about it. I like you, Hoyt, but only if you want to do it.”

And then he was gone.

It didn’t take long to decide that Benny beat shoelaces.

* * * * * 

Chapter
32

“T
his ‘Hoyt Geller’ who went to prison back then could be our killer,” said Joe.

“I don’t know,” said Julie, shaking her head. “It sounds like he loved Dianna to me.”

“Yeah…
past tense
. A guy could get bitter sitting in jail for seven years. From what Betty said, it sounds like he’s out now. I’ll look into that today.”

“Even so, we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Let’s read the letters.”

She pulled her chair up to his as he pulled one out.

“Wait, check the date,” said Julie. “We should read them in order, don’t you think?”

“Right,” said Joe, looking at the postmarks. “Okay…they’re filed front to back.” He pulled the first one out and slid the letter out of its envelope. There were two neatly written pages on white, lined paper:

Dear Dianna,

I miss you so much!
I miss being at home with my Mom and Dad, too. I feel terrible for what I’ve done to them.
But at least they can visit me.
I wish you could!
Please don’t worry about me and don’t feel bad.
What happened is MY fault because I’m older. I should have known about that law.
It sounds stupid – it WAS stupid - but I always thought of New Hampshire more like the next town, not a separate state, you know what I mean?

(I have to tell you something - I know we both felt bad about how things turned out that night, but now I THANK GOD we didn’t do it.
What if you got pregnant and they sent me away?
That would have been much, much worse.)

Anyway, DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME.
I have a friend now and he looks out for me.
He says he can get this letter out. He’s been here a long time and I’m not going to say his name, just in case somebody else gets it.
I made up the girl’s name on the return address so your parents won’t know this is from me.
God knows I don’t want to get you in any more trouble!
If nothing happens, I’ll know you got it and I’ll write you again!

I love you, Dianna. Thinking of you is the ONE thing that can get me through this. I know you can’t write me but I hope you love me, too.

I pray to God that this reaches you.

Love,

Hoyt

“A ‘friend’ who ‘looks out’ for him,” said Joe. “Geez. Do you know what that means, Julie? Nobody does favors for nothing in prison. Poor guy…”

* * * * * 

Chapter
33

Massachusetts, 1998

“Y
ou’ve got to stop thinking about the outside, Hoyt,” said Benny. “You’re never going to make it through if you don’t.”

“It’s only four months and it feels like four years.”

Benny took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was an average looking man, about as tall as Hoyt, with short, wiry, dark hair. Benny had never been happier since the beginning of his sentence. He didn’t take Hoyt’s comment personally. For Benny, Hoyt was a dream come true; he didn’t want him to be unhappy.

“Why don’t you write Dianna again? We would have heard about it by now if she didn’t get your letter.”

“It’s not too soon?” asked Hoyt, a new light in his eyes.

“No. Here’s what you do. Take a few days to think about what you want to say and then write her a nice long letter. I’ll get it mailed for you.”

It killed Benny to think that Hoyt was in love with Dianna Wieland, but, at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. Hoyt would be happy for awhile…and grateful.

•

Dear Dianna,

I hope you went back to school and everything is all right with your mother and father.
I miss you SO much.
I think about you every day and every night. My friend says I should stop thinking about life outside of the prison because it makes the time here go slower.
I know he’s right…except for YOU.

I’m going to ask my mother and father not to come here so often.
At first, I couldn’t wait to see them, especially my mother.
But now, it just makes it harder to be in here.
They can write me letters.
I wish you could write me…but DON’T…you’ll get us both in trouble and I won’t be able to write.