Before I Sleep (37 page)

“This is Carey Justice, and you're listening to the Talk of the Coast, 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station. For those of you tuning in late, we've just had a call from Governor David Howell…”

The words kept coming, but she no longer heard herself. In the control booth she could see Marge making gestures, then suddenly the cop went outside. Glancing down, Carey felt her heart stop. Bob from Gulfport was on the line.

Keep him waiting.
Staring at the screen, she talked about the governor's call, about what she'd said and what Howell had said, encouraging her listeners to call and express their opinions. And then she knew she couldn't keep Jamie waiting any longer. He would know that he'd gotten through during a commercial break, and the longer she made him wait, the more likely he was to get suspicious. Her hand hovered over the buttons, trying to decide whether she could risk making him wait a little longer, while she took another call. He must have heard what she said to the governor. He must know they were looking for him. Oh, God, she shouldn't have mentioned him by name…

She put her finger on the button, but before she pressed it, the light went out He was gone.

She got through the rest of the show somehow, but she was never able to remember it. She clung to the hope that the cops had interrupted Jamie's call, and had apprehended him.

Forty minutes later, that hope was dashed, too. Jamie had slipped the net. No one knew where he was.

C
HAPTER
21

Twenty hours

C
arey awoke crying from another nightmare. Seamus rolled over and hugged her tightly until the tremors began to ease. He hadn't been sleeping at all. His mind was running overtime, trying to find some way to prevent the execution at midnight, trying to find some little link that might lead him to the real killer. And absolutely furious at the officer who'd wandered away from his post to find himself a cup of coffee right in the critical time frame. But for him, they would probably have Jamie right now.

“It's okay,” he murmured to Carey. Useless words, but the only ones he could offer. “What did you dream about?”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Carey…”

He felt her turn her face away in the dark, and heard her sniffle. The sheet rustled as she wiped her wet face. “I dreamed that they both did it,” she said finally.

“What?”

“I dreamed that John and Jamie killed the Klines together.”

“Christ.” The thought sent an icy trickle down his spine.

Carey sat up suddenly and switched on the bedside lamp. A moment later she lit a cigarette. He didn't say anything, although he promised himself that as soon as this was over he was going to ride her butt about it

“What if it's true?” she asked, her voice shaking.

He looked at the slender line of her back and wondered how it was that she always took so much on herself. “So what if it's true,” he said finally. “What earthly difference does it make? We've still got to find Jamie. And we will.”

“But… what if this is all a scam? What if they did it together and now Jamie's trying to muddy the waters so much that both of them get off?”

“You can't really believe that.”

She puffed on her cigarette, and finally sighed. “No. But what if they did it together?”

He moved over so that he sat beside her. “There comes a time when you just have to believe in something, Carey. Even the worst cynic among us believes in something, even if it's only the misery of the human estate. You've believed in John Otis this long. Don't desert the ship now.”

“But what if…” She couldn't say it again.

“If that's true, we'll deal with it when we know for sure. And somehow you'll learn to live with the fact that you were misled by a convicted killer. You wouldn't be the first person who was. But what's the point of worrying about it now? It won't change a damn thing. We've got to find Jamie so we can prevent the execution. Then we can sort it all out.”

A shudder ran through her, so strong that he felt the bed tremble. She turned a gaunt face to him and looked him dead in the eye. “I don't know if I can handle being wrong about John Otis. I think… I think I would never believe in anything again.”

“What do you want me to do? Stop trying to solve this case? Sorry, Carey, but I won't do that. I can't do that. I'm going to find that s.o.b. and let the chips fall where they may.”

She nodded and looked down at the burning cigarette in her hand.

He sighed in frustration and ran his fingers through her hair. “Carey, honey, you've believed for five years now that this guy didn't do it. Now you've got me and half the St Pete PD convinced he didn't do it. And it's all because of you. All because you listened to your instinct when the whole damn world thought you were crazy. Don't flake out on me now. Remember the evidence.”

“What evidence? That Jamie was in town? Like the governor said, there were a lot of people in town that night.”

“Not that.” He reached out and took her hand, squeezing it gently while he watched her take another drag on that damn cigarette. “Not that” he said again. “You're forgetting the evidence from the first trial. Bloody footprints.”

“They were never matched to any shoes.”

“I know that. But they also indicated there was only one killer. One set of footprints, not two. And there sure as hell would have been two sets if two people had been in the room when the Klines died.”

She sat very still for the longest time, so long he began to wonder if she'd heard him. But finally she looked at him, and there was the tiniest easing of the strain on her face. “You're right,” she said.

“Of course.” He flashed a smile. “I'm always right. Jamie killed those people, and we're going to find him. Before it's too late.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

So did he, but he didn't want to tell her that. He wanted her to believe, at least for today, that right would triumph. If anybody deserved to beheve that, it was Carissa Stover.

But the simple fact was, if Jamie didn't call the station tonight, and they didn't catch him at the pay phone, in less than twenty hours, John William Otis was going to be dead.

Carey went to the station early. She couldn't stand the misery of her own company any longer, and she'd given up hoping the phone would ring with the news that Jamie Otis had been caught.

At least at the station, she had other people to talk to, and other things to think about. The station was hyping the hell out of the “death watch” program, which made her feel sick to her stomach, so she stayed away from the speakers where she could hear the promotions. She picked a few stories off the wire for the first half of her show, then wandered into Bill Hayes's office.

“The owners aren't real happy about this remote,” he told her the instant he saw her.

She shrugged.

“I figured you'd feel that way. Close the door.”

She did as he bid, and wasn't surprised when he lit a cigarette and tossed the pack to her. Turning, he popped open the window and let in the warm, humid air and the incessant sound of traffic.

“They think it's a waste of money,” he continued. “It's been done to death, was how one of them put it.”

“Not for an innocent man, it hasn't.”

“Well, this guy is no Ted Bundy. They don't figure the interest is going to be all that high, you know?”

“So what did you tell them?” Giving in, she lit a cigarette, and took a deep drag of the welcome smoke.

He swiveled his chair around and looked out the window. “See that live oak tree out there?”

She leaned forward. “The one beside the royal palm?”

“Yeah. You see that itty-bitty little limb sticking out at the top? The one that looks like it isn't strong enough to support a squirrel?”

“Yeah?”

“I crawled out on that limb for you.”

All day her face had felt heavy, unwilling to smile, but now one corner of her mouth tugged upward. It was almost painful to give him the smile. “Thanks, Bill.”

He shrugged. “I told ‘em what you told me yesterday, and told ‘em they'd be a lot happier if they were on the side of the angels on this one.”

“I thought they were on the side of profits.”

“Well, of course, but think what advertising hay they can make out of being right if the cops catch the real killer.”

“And if they don't?”

“Well, then they can fall back on the old disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this program are not necessarily those of the management.” His eyes twinkled.

“Thanks, Bill.”

He waved her gratitude aside. “However, Ed wasn't as happy about having to go up to Starke. He, too, was of the opinion that this has been done to death, and he wasn't keen on interviewing the weirdos who show up for executions. He called them lunatics, if I remember correctly.”

“They are.”

“Well, of course they are. Both sides. But the ones who give me the willies are the ones who cheer. It's all well and good to support the death penalty, but I don't see an execution as a reason for jubilation.”

“Families of victims might not agree with you.”

“Yeah, I wonder about some of them, too. But, thank God, I've never been in their position, so I'll keep my mouth shut. If something happened to one of my kids, I might be every bit as bloodthirsty.”

“Me, too.” She blew a cloud of smoke across the room and tipped back in her chair. “I haven't been thinking about much else lately. Part of me still supports the death penalty, you know? Some crimes are just so awful, it's as if the perp has lost the right to be considered human. But on the other hand…” She shook her head. “I don't know. I keep wondering if there can be any justification for doing something so irrevocable when there might be a possibility, however slim, that the convicted person is innocent.”

“I heard you hammering that. It made me think.” Sighing, he put out his cigarette. “I don't think there are any good answers, Carey. But I'm no longer going to buy into the ‘you've got to break eggs to make an omelet’ approach to this.”

“Yeah. Like Blackstone said a couple hundred years ago, ‘It's better that ten guilty men go free, than that one innocent man be punished.’”

He flashed a grin. “I don't know if I want to go that far.”

“Most of us don't seem to.”

His expression sobered. “Are you going to be okay? I realize a guy should never tell a woman this, but you look like hell, Carey. You're losing weight, you've got these great big circles under your eyes, and you're as jumpy as a cat.”

“I haven't been sleeping well. I'll get over it, Bill.”

“I hope so. And for your sake as much as anyone's, I hope they catch this guy before it's too late.”

The rest of the day both dragged and sped by too fast. At times Carey's nerves seemed to stretch to breaking as she kept waiting for the phone to ring with news that would save John Otis. At other times the hands of the clock seemed to crawl as she wished for this interminable day to end.

By nine o'clock her hands were trembling. At the break, she stood out behind the station and chain-smoked. Less than three hours to go, and John William Otis would be no more. In less than three hours, his only appeal would be to God.

Three hours. The thought kept hammering at her in time to her pulsebeat. Three hours … three hours… Hope was dying a painful death in her breast. She'd waded through the first two hours of her show feeling as if she were drowning in the depths of the sea, crushed by the pressure of thousands of tons of water above her. Somehow she had managed to talk, and even laugh, with her callers about the quirks in maritime law that had gotten two scalawag teenagers off’ a theft charge.

But now she couldn't pretend any longer that it wasn't happening. In a few more minutes she was going to return to the studio to begin the death watch in the company of Ted Sanders. Ted was unabashedly pro-death penalty. It would make for lively discussion. It would cause ratings to soar. And she felt guilty for that even as she felt it was absolutely essential not to let the final moments of John Otis's life slip away in silence.

Swearing under her breath, she ground the cigarette out beneath her heel and went back in.

“How do you want to start?” Ted asked, as she sat at the console and reached for her headphones.

“I'm going to read one of John Otis's poems. Then I'm going to make an appeal for his brother to call the station.”

Ted nodded.

Carey glanced at the control booth. Marge was shifting carts and talking to the cop who was there again tonight. If Jamie let his brother die without making at least one more call to her in an attempt to save him, she was going to tell the world exactly what a scumbag he was. And when they caught him, she was going to spit in his eye.

Yeah, right.

Marge gave her the countdown.

“This is Carey Justice, and you're listening to the Talk of the Coast, 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station. Tonight we're going to do something different. Ted Sanders is with me in the studio, and we're going to host the next four hours together. Ed Rich is on location in Starke, right outside the walls of Raiford Prison, and will be giving us updates from the scene, as we broadcast the death watch for John William Otis.

“Those of you who have listened to my show over the last few weeks know that I think John Otis is innocent. Those of you who were tuned in last night heard that there's new evidence in the case, and that the police are even now seeking the man who they suspect really killed Harvey and Linda Kline. And those of you who listened to the governor's call last night know that even
that
is not enough to stop the justice train once it's rolling.

“In two hours and fifty-three minutes, innocent or guilty, John William Otis will die. And when we wake up tomorrow morning, or the next morning, or next week, and read in the papers that the real killer of Harvey and Linda Kline has been found, we're not going to be able to give John Otis his life back.

“The justice train is rolling, and it stops for no one. No one, unless the real killer steps forward and confesses before midnight tonight. Jamie? Do you hear me? If you want to save your brother, this is your last chance. Call me. Now.”