Last Light (14 page)

He stopped abruptly, his gaze shuttering as if blocking out the rest of the memory. She couldn’t blame him—who would want to remember what he’d seen in that house?

“I’m sorry. I think that’s all I have time for now. I need to meet with the county commissioner about the budget.” He pushed back his chair and stood. Lucy got to her feet as well. “I’ll see to it that your people get full access to our records, Ms. Guardino. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up, I were you. Raking up all these memories twenty-nine years later, can’t see that it’s going to do anyone a lick of good.”

She shook his hand. “Thanks for your time and hospitality, Sheriff.”

“Just doing my job.” He walked her to the door. She spotted another forfeiture-auction announcement.

“How long have you all been doing these auctions?”

“Drew Saylor, the sheriff before me, started. Never really got serious about them, though. Just dipping a toe in, you know. But I attended a conference that spelled out the law and procedure and realized we could really help the county out, so I began making them a regular event. The county now has its own helicopter, we’ve got a mobile cell phone jammer that’s come in handy with barricaded persons, and we’re starting our own SWAT team. Thanks to those funds, we’ve been able to help out a lot of people, let me tell you.”

Not people like Augusta and her family, Lucy thought. “So, would there have been an auction around the time of the Martin killings?”

He tilted his head, chewing on the idea. “Not a clue. I don’t remember any, but I was just a kid. Why?”

“I was thinking that if there was, maybe there would have been records of who attended. People from outside.”

“You’re looking for a stranger—or a pair of them—who just happened on the Martins’ place even though it’s way back of beyond?” His smile was that of a politician. “You’ve been reading too much Truman Capote.
In Cold Blood
,
this was not. No. We got our killers twenty-nine years ago, that much I’m sure of.”

With that, he ushered her out to the lobby, the security door closing behind her. Lucy thought about their conversation. She had no proof, not even an inkling of an alternative theory of the crime, but something just didn’t feel right.

And one thing she’d learned in her fifteen years as a federal agent: always trust her gut.

BANISHED TO THE
sub-basement where evidence and records were stored, TK followed a deputy through a maze of shelves filled with boxes and smelling of mildew, stale pesticide, and the occasional whiff of decay. “You don’t store biologic evidence down here, do you?”

He shrugged without looking back. “Who the hell knows what’s down here? I can’t remember the last time anyone even looked at any of these. There could be anything in those damn boxes.”

“Really?” Maybe this wasn’t such bad duty to pull after all. She’d hated the thought of reading through stacks and stacks of reports. TK was a hands-on learner, not as good with words on the page. Tell her something and she’d remember, show her how to do it and she’d do it, but give her something to read? Her brain just couldn’t hold onto the words. They’d drift away, meaningless, unless she took careful notes.

But a treasure hunt through forgotten evidence? She imagined finding the clue that would solve everything—something overlooked the first time around—and a thrill ran through her. Maybe David was wrong and his father was innocent. Maybe TK would be the one to prove it and save the day.

“No. Not really.” The deputy burst her dream. “Stuff down here tends to be the stuff no one needs anymore but we’re mandated to store. Personal effects would have gone to the next-of-kin. Drugs would have been logged, tested at the state lab, and then destroyed. Same with biological evidence. Rape kits are stored separately.”

“Wouldn’t they have been tested by your state lab?”

He glanced back over his shoulder, his scorn at her naiveté evident. He was older, gray-haired, wrinkles around his eyes, sagging jowls—near retirement or past it, even. This job was probably the last one he ever had and it was clear that he hated it. “You have any idea the backlog at the lab? Not to mention the expense of testing? We send the ones that take priority. The rest wait their turn.”

Now it was her turn to be scornful of his callous dismissal of victims of sexual assault. “Except they aren’t just evidence kits, they’re women. Who’ve been violated. Besides, the statistics show that rapists don’t stop with one victim—testing sexual assault evidence kits, even old ones, can identify them sooner.”

His cadence continued as he ignored her, occasionally consulting his clipboard for the case number she’d given him along with the court order and official request to review the evidence. Then he stopped and looked up at the boxes on the shelves surrounding them. They were at the windowless concrete wall farthest from the door, the only light a flickering fluorescent bulb above them. “The Martin case? Why the hell didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“They told me to use the case number.”

“Hell, everyone knows about the Martin case.”

“Were you here for it?”

Finally, he stopped and turned to face her. “Lady, I was first on scene.”

She squinted at his nametag. “Deputy Prescott, what can you tell me?”

“Why do you want to know? Writing a book or movie or something?” His chest puffed out at the thought.

TK didn’t answer, instead pulled out her phone and notepad, juggling them as if she didn’t want to miss a word. “I know you’re busy, but a firsthand account, well,” she gushed, “that would be invaluable. Could you spare a minute to sit and go through a few of these boxes with me? Let me record your insights? It would be super helpful.”

He glanced behind her, the cavernous room silent as a tomb. She bet he got lonely, nothing to do but prowl around dead cases. She laid her hand on his arm. “I would very much appreciate it. I know how valuable your time is.”

He snorted. “Not like anyone else around here does. Okay. There’s a table at the end of the row. Help me get these boxes over there and I’ll tell you what I know.”

He grabbed one of the document boxes, hefted it easily, so TK guessed it wasn’t full of paper. She put her phone and notebook away, and lifted another box. Whoa. This one definitely filled with paperwork. A good twenty pounds’ worth. She followed him to the table and plopped it down. Another trip and they had it all. It was kind of sad, the lives and deaths of an entire family reduced to four cartons.

“Do I need to sign a waiver or something?” he asked, his hands poised on the lid of the first box. “Like a release for you to use my name?”

“My boss will have her assistant take care of the paperwork later if what you tell me is valuable enough for us to use. In the meantime,” she pulled out her phone and hit the recording app, “I just need you to state your full name and that you understand we’re recording this conversation.”

“Sure, okay.” He held the phone close to his mouth. “I’m Deputy Marc Prescott with the Blackwell County Sheriff’s Department. We’re recording this conversation with my permission.”

TK nodded for him to continue opening his box.

“Don’t you want to take notes?” he asked, holding the box lid half open, still not revealing its contents.

“Oh yes. Of course.” She tucked her bag between the boxes—there were no chairs at the table, so they both stood—and had her pen poised over her notepad.

“Good.” Again he held the phone close to his mouth. “Here’s the truth about what happened to Lily Martin and her family.”

He paused. TK stared at him. Was she going to break the case right here and now?

Prescott took a breath. “The real crime is that taxpayer money was wasted on keeping those two animals, Dicky and Michael Manning, alive. Those bastards should have bought the chair for what they did. We nailed the sonsofbitches, may their souls rot in hell.”

He handed the phone back to a stunned TK. “I went to school with both Lily and Peter. You’re wasting your time. There are cameras watching,” he continued. “You and your bag will be searched on the way out, so don’t even think of trying to take any souvenirs. The rules are posted on the wall. Ring the bell when you’re ready to leave and I’ll come, re-inventory everything, and let you out.” With that he was gone, vanished into the rows of shelves. Leaving TK alone with the dust-covered boxes.

Pretty damn obvious that no one here wanted the past brought back to life. TK returned her notebook to her bag, feeling a bit sheepish that she’d fallen for Prescott’s act, wiped her phone clean of Prescott’s spittle, turned off the recorder, set up the portable scanner and her laptop, then got to work.

The first box was filled with unbound sheets of paper jumbled together; a blue inventory sheet on top stated they were transcripts, crime lab reports, investigator notes, and “various memoranda.” Whatever the hell that meant. The next box had sheets of old-fashioned film negatives and eight-by-ten photos, plus scattered Polaroids. Glimpses of body parts turned her away. She closed that box, deciding to save it for last.

The third box contained more records—it was amazing how much paperwork a crime generated. The last box, the one Prescott had begun to open, was filled with miscellaneous evidence: sealed bags containing the Manning brothers’ personal effects from when they were taken into custody, a cardboard box that contained the revolver used to kill Peter Martin and had a variety of crime lab reports and chain of evidence receipts attached to it, an evidence bag with three bullets—no crime lab report or evidence receipts indicating that they’d ever been tested, but why would they have been?

Rattling around at the bottom was a collection of audiocassette tapes, each in its own clear plastic box, labeled with date, time and order. All from Michael Manning’s interviews. Except...according to the labels, there should have been eleven hour-long tapes.

But TK could only find ten. Hour four was missing.

She switched back to the boxes with the paperwork, rustling through them until she found a binder with the interview transcripts. Hour one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

No hour four. Drumming her fingers on the table, TK thought about that as she leafed through the first three hours’ worth of transcripts. Not a whole lot said—a variety of deputies checking on Manning, Manning asking questions about his brother’s condition and why he’d been detained and not getting any answers, no one mentioning the Martins, more exploring whatever Manning would say on his own about his movements.

Skirting the Miranda rules, she realized. Not questioning him as a suspect. Manning either was a brilliant actor or truly had no clue about the murders, seemed more concerned about his brother’s well being, along with possible drug and assault charges against Richard. The last thing on the transcript of the third hour was the deputy mentioning that the sheriff was coming to talk to Manning.

She kept reading as she fed the sheets into her scanner. None of the transcripts had been given to the defense—they were considered work product and immune from something called Brady according to a memo from the state’s attorney to the sheriff that was paper-clipped to the inside of the binder.

Tape five had both the sheriff and the state’s attorney present with Manning, and included the first of many recitations of his confession. But according to the time stamp, more than six hours had passed since the end of tape three.

What had happened during those six hours? And what had been captured on the missing tape?

TK grabbed her phone and called Lucy. “Hey. I might have something here.”

POOR KID WAS
so all alone, Drew thought as he entered the Pediatric ICU. He’d made the drive to Mercy Hospital in Abilene every night, hopeful that Alan Martin might be able to tell him something about his family’s murder. The doctors said it was doubtful, that his brain had been without oxygen for a long time because of the blood loss. But they also said you could never tell with kids, especially young ones.

Resilient
was the word they kept using as if it were a prayer or had magical properties. Looking around the ICU filled with children and their families and then seeing Alan lying in his too-big bed, no one to watch over him except the monitor connected to his body by brightly colored wires, Drew couldn’t help but wonder if resilience might be a curse rather than a blessing.

If Alan recovered his memory, what kind of hell was that for a six-year-old kid to suffer through? They hadn’t been able to find any family to take him in, but Drew hadn’t given up hope. Kid already had it tough enough without trying to survive the foster system.

He approached cautiously, asking silent permission from a nurse nearby. She smiled in recognition. Nice thing about pediatric ICUs, as long as you were as invested in helping their patients as they were, they didn’t worry about rules or regular visiting hours.

He paused at the foot of Alan’s bed. The nurse—Beth was her name—finished her charting and came over. “How’s he doing?”

“Better. His blood pressure is stable, he hasn’t needed any more transfusions, and his renal function has normalized.” Her tone was that of a proud mother. “We’ll be transferring him out to the regular floor in the morning.”

“But,” he hesitated, not sure if he actually wanted an answer, “how’s
he
doing?”

“The doctors weaned him off sedation, so he’s been more awake. But still hasn’t said a single word.” She smiled at the book in Drew’s hand—
Curious George
.
He’d seen a tattered, well-loved copy of it in Alan’s bedroom, and picked up a new one on his way here. “Reading to him is a big help.”

He nodded and settled into the vinyl recliner at the head of the bed on the opposite side from the monitor and IV poles. Many parents slept in the chair, but despite the fact that he was going on three days without more than catnaps, he couldn’t sleep. Not here, surrounded by all these sick children. The air reeked of desperation, made him fearful of letting his guard down.