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her index finger with enough force that I expected to see the skin tear open.
 I can t take it, she sobbed.  I can t. I can t. I have tried so hard. So
fucking hard. But I can t take any more.
Bobby Scott dropped to his knees in front of her. Now he was crying, too.
 Baby, I m so sorry, he said.  I did it for Joey. And I did it for all the
other kids I knew would suffer the same thing he did. And I thought I was
doing it for you and me, too. I thought it was the only way to get some
justice, so I could quit being so furious all the time. I never thought& I
never dreamed& Oh, baby, I m sorry. So sorry. And he buried his head in her
lap and sobbed. She sat there, stunned and unmoving, and I thought, This is
when this marriage lives or dies. And finally she laid her hands on his head,
and stroked his hair, and leaned forward to cradle him in her arms and her
bosom, and they grieved together.
After they were cried out and it took some time Bobby raised his head and
turned to Art.  So what happens now? Are you here to arrest me?
 No, said Art.  I think it s best if you turn yourself in and confess. He
grimaced, but then slowly nodded.  Things might not be as bad as they seem,
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Art said to Susan.  With a good lawyer and a reasonably understanding DA,
there s a shot at a pretty decent plea bargain. Could be out in a year or two.
Other possibility, if it goes to trial, is an acquittal. Sometimes juries
ignore the letter of the law in favor of a higher form of justice. Even cops
and prosecutors sometimes hope for that. No guarantees, but speaking as a cop,
that s what I d hope for in this case. And speaking as a parent, I know how
I d vote if I were in the jury box.
 Me too, I said.  I need to ask you something, Bobby. I m pretty sure I know
the answer, but I have to ask anyhow. Did you kill Dr. Carter? To cover your
tracks?
He shook his head. His face looked ravaged, but it looked open and honest.
 No, of course not, he said.  I could never kill an innocent person. I m
sorry she s been murdered. He pointed at the photo Art still held, as if from
a lifetime ago. The photo we d used to trick him into giving us a fingerprint.
 What about her?
 She s maybe mad enough, I said,  and maybe crazy enough. But the reality is,
she s not strong enough. I found that out today, when she came at me with a
pair of pruning shears. Whoever killed Dr. Carter carried her body fifty yards
up a hillside. No drag marks. A sixty-year-old woman couldn t have done that.
Hell, I m not sure I could ve done that. Gotta be a pretty strong man.
Besides, there s a surveillance video showing a man.
He shook his head again.  I swear to you, on my son s life, I didn t kill Dr.
Carter.
 I believe you, I said.  I think you re an honest man. A decent man who got
pushed past his breaking point. Can I ask you something else? He nodded
mutely.  Why that out-of-the-way trail in Prentice Cooper State Forest? That
took some doing, and it must have been risky, too.
An odd, sad smile flitted over his features for a moment.  Joey and I went
camping down there. It was right before he& We hiked that trail, and saw that
TVA place across the river gorge, and the next day, before we drove home to
Knoxville, we went over there and toured the place. It was the last time and
the last place I saw Joey really happy. Purely happy.
 It won t be easy, I said,  but I think maybe you all can still be okay. I
hope you ll try. I looked at Susan, who still seemed shell-shocked.  You two
must love each other very much, I added.  And you still need each other. And
Joey still needs you both.
We talked a few more minutes lawyers and court proceedings; the nuts and bolts
and cogs of the Rube Goldberg machine that was the legal system and then Art
and I left. As we reached the end of their sidewalk, I looked back. They were
standing on the front porch, dark forms silhouetted in golden light, each with
an arm around the other s waist. Despite the hard row ahead of them, I envied
them in that moment. They had one another.
Art and I did not speak on the drive back to KPD. He got out wordlessly and
trudged to his car, looking ten years older and tireder than I d ever seen him
look. He might have thought the same about me if I d been the one crossing the
pavement beneath unforgiving sodium lights.
I grieved the whole way back to the cabin at Norris. For the first time since
Jess s death, I wasn t grieving for her, or feeling sorry for myself. The
horizon of my grief had broadened enough to take in others, and to allow me to
recognize that my pain was far from unique, and far from the heaviest burden
to be borne.
CHAPTER 40
MY CELLPHONE RANG AT seven the next morning; it took some groping to find it
in the early morning darkness of the cabin.  Bill, it s Burt. Listen, I got
Owen Thomas s report last night, and it s great. Besides writing up the video
analysis and e-mailing a movie highlighting the differences between your truck
and the mystery truck that s what we re calling it from now on he also did
some additional voice analysis that s very interesting.
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 Interesting how?
 Well, after he confirmed that it was not your voice on Jess s voice mail, he
downloaded a couple of TV news stories covering the creationist protest. One
of the creationists the lawyer who s really pulling the strings used a few of
the same words in his interview as the guy on Jess s voice mail. So Thomas was
able to do some comparisons.
 Jennings Bryan used profanity and death threats in his TV interview?
 No, no; words like  the and  we. A few paired words  will wish and  had
never, I think. Anyhow, it s not enough to be conclusive, but based on the
waveforms and the spacing between words and so on, he says there s a strong
possibility that it was Bryan who left those messages for Jess. So we ll turn
that over to the DA and Detective Evers, and push them to interrogate that
guy. See if they ll haul him in and make him repeat the messages verbatim, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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