Don't Take Any Wooden Nickels (11 page)

The air was cold, but I quickly warmed up by paddling hard against the current. It was stronger than usual, and I liked the pull on my arms, the optical illusion of speed as I sailed along against the flow of the waves. As I paddled, I went into a sort of autopilot, the same nowhere-land my brain inhabited whenever I canoed or went jogging or did some other mindless physical task. The rhythm of it was comforting—plant, stroke, lift; plant, stroke, lift—adding a small twist at the end of each J-stroke for correction.

Oblivious to the surrounding landscape, I breathed in cold air and huffed out white vapor and rowed until I pushed past stinging hands and burning muscles to the deep, pleasurable ache of a good workout. Once I reached the giant deserted osprey nest that marked the five-mile point for me, I stopped paddling and let the canoe simply float. Finally, I executed a slow reverse sweep, and then I held the paddle across my lap, caught my breath, and let myself drift back toward the way I had come.

What a glorious morning! Truly, the Lord had blessed me here with the bouquet of autumn leaves that lined the winding river. We were past the peak fall colors, of course, but there were still hints of orange and yellow among the brown. I let my eyes scan
the shore, looking for the telltale shells of unio clams. I had spotted a wily old raccoon at dawn here a few weeks before, sitting among scattered shells on the bank, prying one of them open with his tiny black fingers.

I didn’t see the raccoon now, but I did notice a pair of loons floating ahead of us, unremarkable in the gray-brown coats they wore for the winter. Sal remained in her perch at the bow, sniffing at them as we floated by.

We passed one of my favorite landmarks on the river, a point that jutted out from the shore where an unusual tree grew. I called it the “lovers’ pine.” It was actually
two
trees that at some juncture early in their growth had become intertwined—so much so that it looked as if the two trunks had melded into one. At the base it was still two trees, but several feet up the trunk it almost became a single tree, tall and solid and beautiful, towering over the river like a watchman.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time,” I said to my dog, quoting from Ecclesiastes. Certainly, my little corner of the world was a very beautiful place.

Canoeing was often my best time for prayer, so as I gently paddled my way back home I talked to God—out loud, but softly—about the incident last night, about my surge of anger toward my late husband. Long ago, I had reached a point where I had specifically forgiven Bryan for dying.

Now, as I recalled that past moment in my mind, I felt a surge of peace. I continued to paddle, deciding that maybe I hadn’t really regressed in the grieving process at all, but rather this had been just a momentary lapse, a repository of all of the turmoil and confusion of the afternoon and evening.

That led me to think of Shayna and her predicament as well as Tom and whatever issues were besetting him and his family. I prayed for them all, putting everything into God’s hands, knowing that He could make something good out of every bad situation.

By the time I arrived back to my dock, I was starving. I fed Sal a can of dog food and then tended to my own breakfast of hot tea, poached eggs, and whole wheat toast. Deviating just a bit from my routine, I also sliced up an orange and set it on the corner of my plate. I sat and ate in the peace and quiet of my empty kitchen, flipping through a mail-order catalog that had come in yesterday’s mail.

Once I had eaten, I cleaned my dishes and then phoned Barbara Hightower. She answered on the first ring, her voice sounding muffled and tired.

“It’s Callie,” I told her. “I’m sorry. Sounds like I woke you up.”

“I wish,” she replied. “I haven’t even gone home yet.”

“Busy night?”

“You know the drill. Lots of hurry up and do nothing. How can I help you? Did you find another murder scene for me this morning?”

“Just wondering about how things progressed last night. Any big surprises after I left?”

She hesitated.

“Come on, Callie. I’d like to cooperate with you, but you’ve got to be more specific than that. You know I can’t just sit here and tell you everything.”

“Okay. Well, let’s start with Shayna. Is she still being held on drug charges, or has that changed?”

“Still just the drugs. But the report on the tire iron should be back any minute. If her fingerprints are on it, all bets are off.”

“It was her tire iron from her car. Of course her fingerprints are on it.”

“It was the murder weapon, Callie. What can I say?”

I toyed with the phone cord, remembering the sight of Eddie Ray’s head wound. It hadn’t been pretty.

“Has she been assigned a lawyer yet?” I asked.

“Yeah, she got Max Nealson, over in the PD’s office. Nice guy but way overloaded right now. If you’re really interested in helping Shayna, you might talk with him, see if he’d like you to do
some of the footwork. That is, if you have the time. You said you’re off this week, right?”

“It looks that way.”

“She’s being held here at the barracks, not the detention center. They’re going at her pretty hard.”

I thought about poor Shayna being interrogated by the police, a murder rap hovering just over her head.

“So what’s your take on all of this, Barbara? Do you think Shayna killed Eddie Ray?”

Barbara exhaled slowly, and I could picture her rubbing her forehead with her hand, elbows tiredly propped on top of her desk.

“Look, Callie,” she said, lowering her voice. “Some of the guys here knew Eddie Ray Higgins in high school. They say he was a slimeball way back then.”

“Really.”

“I see it this way. If she did kill him, he probably drove her to it. And if she didn’t kill him, then I’d hate to see her life ruined because of an overworked public defender and a little circumstantial evidence.”

“She’s a nice kid,” I said. “I don’t know her all that well, but I feel certain there’s no blood on her hands, so to speak.”

“We’ll find out, I guess. We’re still looking at other possibilities, though I wouldn’t count on anything.”

Barbara then gave me the phone number for the public defender’s office in Barrington. I thanked her for her help and gave that number a try. After working my way through several different people, I was able to get Max Nealson on the line, and he agreed to see me as soon as I could get over to his office.

After a quick shower, I was on my way. I took the Osprey Cove bypass off of the peninsula before heading due east toward Barrington on an uneven road past miles and miles of farm fields, weathered houses, and the occasional country store. I rarely came this way for anything, and I had forgotten how deserted it was. Barrington was the county seat, though, so as I drew closer to town
the houses increased in number, if not in size, and they were punctuated with strip malls, discount stores, and big grocery outlets.

Once there, I found my way to the center of town, to the cluster of buildings that comprised the county’s legal hub. At some point early on, at least some of the city planners must’ve had a little vision as to how things should be laid out, because the courthouse and the county clerk’s office and the cluster of other county buildings sat on three sides of a square surrounding a picturesque little park. The fourth side of the park fronted the river, which was wide and lovely and fringed with weeping willow trees. A mother and child were standing near the water’s edge with a bag of bread, and as I parked my car and got out I could hear a couple of ducks making a ruckus at their feet.

Strolling up the walk, I found the building I needed and went inside, walking my way along the entire length of the first floor before I located the office I wanted. The sign on the frosted glass door said “Public Defender” and I entered, expecting to find a waiting room filled with agitated people and squirming babies. Instead, there was simply a woman at a desk who informed me that, yes, I was in the right place and that the public-access part of the PD’s office was in another building across the way.

The woman pointed me toward the cubicle of Max Nealson, who stood when I entered and shook my hand. He had a receding hairline and wire-rimmed glasses and was a bit older than he had sounded on the phone, perhaps in his mid-forties. To my experience, that was pretty old for this type of work. By his age, most lawyers had burned out on defending the downtrodden and switched to a more profitable area of the legal profession.

“Thanks for seeing me on such short notice,” I said, settling into the chair opposite his desk. “I know you’re very busy, so I won’t take up much of your time.”

He sat back down and shuffled through a massive mess of papers, finally coming up with a manila file that he opened in front of him.

“No problem, no problem,” he said, flipping quickly through the slim file. “Shayna Greer, right? I’ve got it right here. Just handed to me this morning.”

“How’s she holding up?” I asked.

He skimmed the few pages in front of him.

“I don’t know,” he said absently. “We haven’t spoken yet.”

I nodded, wondering how quickly things worked around here. I was about to ask when he thought he would get a chance to meet with her when he set down the file and peered at me over the rim of his glasses.

“I hear nice things about you from Officer Hightower,” he said, offering a half smile. “I understand you’re a private investigator? I’m surprised we haven’t connected before.”

“Oh, I don’t work freelance,” I said. “My background is PI work and then law. But I’m with a foundation out of DC now. I’m full-time with that.”

“I see,” he said. “So what’s your interest in this case?”

“I know the defendant. Not really well, but I think she could use a friend right now.”

“Oh, yeah, couldn’t they all?” he said, rolling his eyes. He was just being facetious, but the callous nature of his comment disturbed me. “I expect the prints will come back with her name on them. I figure with a guilty plea to manslaughter one, she’ll get fifteen and serve maybe twelve. That’s not too bad.”

“It is if she isn’t guilty.”

“Oh, come on,” he said. “From her list of priors alone—”

“Any violent crimes on those priors?”

He looked back down at the file and flipped to the last page, producing a computer printout I assumed had come from the police.

“Let’s see. Possession, shoplifting, petty theft…” His voice trailed off as he ran his finger down the list, reading to himself. “No, not really.”

“So why do you think she’s guilty? Do you know all the details of her situation?”

He dropped the paper and gestured toward the mess on his desk.

“Look, Ms. Webber, I was only assigned this case a few hours ago. I’ll have a clearer picture once I’ve had more time to review the file.”

“Meanwhile, she sits in jail.”

“Oh, no. She’s not in jail.”

He went to the file again, this time pulling out the top sheet of paper and waving it toward me.

“They’ve still got her down at the police barracks,” he said. “She signed a Waiver of Prompt Presentment last night, before I was even assigned to the case.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means she’s locked up, but not at the county detention center. By signing the waiver, she gave them the right to keep her at the barracks. So they can keep questioning her, ostensibly until she cracks.”

“She hasn’t even been to the commissioner’s office?”

“Nope. Still down at the station. Once she signed this waiver, they had a lot more freedom to keep her around.”

“Shouldn’t you be there with her while they question her?”

“That would be nice,” he said. “Maybe I can fit it in between my massage and a leisurely lunch.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t have the time, Ms. Webber! Get a clue! I’ve got plenty of other people who need my attention, plenty of other people with problems just as pressing as Mrs. Greer’s.”

“Miss,” I said softly.

“Huh?”

“Miss
Greer.”

“Whatever. If I had the luxury of sitting there and handholding every suspect the police decided to question, I’d never get another single thing done. It’s all a matter of priorities.”

I thought about that, revising my earlier opinion of this man and his relatively advanced age for a public defender. He may not have left this post physically, but for all practical purposes, it seemed to me he was already long gone.

I decided to change gears, asking if he thought they might let me in to see her.

“I can make a call,” he told me, glancing at the phone. “I’m sure it won’t be a problem. I expect to talk to her myself this afternoon.”

“Better late than never.”

“Look, Ms. Webber,” he said, gesturing in front of him, his arms wide. “You can see the quantity of cases that comes across my desk. If you don’t like the way I handle this particular one, you’re more than welcome to hire the woman a private attorney.”

“Maybe further down the line,” I said. “For right now, I’d like to see what I can accomplish as an investigator, if I may.”

“Hey, if you think she’s innocent, and you wanna run with this, then fine. Go for it.”

Our eyes met in challenge. After a beat, he looked away.

“Obviously,” he added, his ears tinting a bright red, “she can use all the help she can get.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. Maybe I was judging this man a bit harshly. After all, my legal career had been limited to the board room, not the court room. Perhaps if I did what he did for a living, day in and day out, I’d grow to be a bit cynical as well.

“I’m off from work this week,” I said more calmly. “So I’ll talk to her and do some poking around in my spare time. If I come up with anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Good.”

“Although, if I get called back to work before we’ve straightened out this mess, I’ll have no choice but to drop everything and go.”

“Of course. I’ll take whatever assistance you can provide.”

“Fine, then. I guess we’re on the same page.”

“I guess so.”

I stood, shook his hand, and then waited as he made the phone call that would get me in to see Shayna. As I made my way out of his building and back to my car, I couldn’t help wondering what it was about this case that made me care. Shayna was just some kid from the boonies who had made some bad choices and now was paying for them. Even if she hadn’t killed Eddie Ray, she had allowed herself to get involved with him again, had allowed him to move back into her home and her life.