Miscarriage Of Justice (9 page)

A few blocks farther was the high school where, finally admitting their feelings for each other, they’d shared more than classes together. Slowly, Ethan drove past the movie theater and the pizza parlor. Then he moved on, cruising by the bowling alley, his and Jenna’s favorite hamburger joint, and finally, the hospital where both of his sons had made their grand entrance into the world. Continuing on his sentimental journey, he passed the park, the fairgrounds, and the bank. Each held a glimmer of a splendid past that had faded into feeling of gloom and despair.

While still in prison, he’d sworn to himself that he would never go anywhere near the house where his family had lived. Now caught up in his emotional reverie, thinking only of the moment, he gave in to the sudden urge.

Turning down Maple Street, he took a deep breath and tried to steady his hand on the wheel. As the two-story brick house came into view, his first thought was one of relief. It was still there! Although, it did look a little different. The row of evergreen saplings that Jenna had planted, and then nurtured into a healthy miniature forest, was gone. The big oak tree, which had stood in the back yard, the one where he’d hung a tire swing for his boys, had been cut down. A new six-foot fence enclosed the entire property and the part of the house that wasn’t bricked was painted a sick and ugly pale green!

The changes were depressing, indicative of the rest of his life, as if sending him a subtle message that what he’d once had here was gone forever. And yet, life goes on.

The house, once a warm cozy home, full of love, and laughter, alive with promise, now held a foreboding stigma of gloominess and misery. The familiar setting no longer offered the peaceful serenity and comfort it once did. No longer could he call the place home. If any lingering doubt remained, concerning his intentions to repay the crooked District Attorney, it too, was now gone.

Ethan didn’t let the emotion cloud his judgment. It would’ve been easy, right then, to jump the gun and drive right to the D.A.’s office for a grand showdown. But he stifled the impulse. “Stick to the plan,” he kept telling himself.

Part of that plan—to not be seen here in his old neighborhood, had already been compromised. The years and his incarceration had changed him, but not so much that he wouldn’t easily be recognized in the city where he’d grown up, attended school, and of course been tried for murder. Someone, probably a lot of people he’d known, would be sure to spot him if he stayed too long. He didn’t need that! A simple chance encounter with an old acquaintance could drastically and negatively impact his scheme, and the mayhem he had planned for Mariana Clark.

The desire to stay out of sight was more than to avoid complications; Ethan didn’t relish the idea of facing anyone. He’d been convicted of a capital crime—murder, and although the District Attorney knew he hadn’t done it, apparently no one else on earth did. As far as most people were concerned, he was guilty, and that is precisely the way they would treat him. So, while there were a lot of old friends he otherwise would have liked to see and many people with whom he would’ve loved to renew acquaintances, there could be no happy reunion. Obviously, if he’d had his way, things would have been drastically different, but he couldn’t change the past and he wasn’t going to waste time crying over it. More important matters were waiting. He’d spend his time concentrating on the future.

Steering the car away from the house, back downtown to the business section, Ethan drove to the post office. Without a second thought, he deposited the letter in the blue mailbox. The deed was done, he thought, pulling back into traffic. For better or worse, the ball had now started rolling.

On the way back to Fulton, he mulled over the possible outcome and the almost certain results. Mariana would likely receive the letter the following day, but there was no guarantee she’d read it immediately, or the next day for that matter. He decided to wait four or five days, just to give things time to percolate. Even if she read the letter sooner, the wait would mean more time for her worry, fret, and wonder.

Ethan chuckled then. The fact that Mariana would know who had written the letter held a deep satisfaction for him. Of course, even more satisfying was that she would be powerless to do anything about it. His lip turned up in a sneer. For the D.A. to react in any official capacity would open up a can of worms he was confident she’d rather keep closed.

Parking the car on the street and riding the elevator up the ten stories to his room, he couldn’t help but think how great it felt to know that things were finally underway. The mission he’d contemplated for fifteen years was at last being put into action. Unlocking the door, he didn’t dwell on the emotional high long.

Though he hadn’t noticed or paid much attention to the nervous anticipation since being released Granite Hills, now that things were set in motion, and he’d started down the road of his private retribution, he could sense an immense relief. The chance he had waited for, to extend a little payback to the system, and one contemptible D.A. in particular, had finally come. It had a soothing and calming effect.

He realized the feeling was likely only temporary. The tension and little worries would probably flare up again and likely become worse. Soon, he’d once more be constantly wondering if anyone was watching and fretting over being caught. That, he was sure, was just the beginning.

Still, he felt better than at any time since having been arrested and that was quite a feeling. In fact, he felt better, both physically and mentally, than he had in years. Sixteen years to be exact.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Like she did every Saturday, Mariana spent the late evening hours opening the mounds of mail that continuously piled up on her desk throughout the week. A month and a half had now passed since she had received the notification letter that her number one nemesis, Ethan Rafferty was being released, and there’d been no sign of the man. She’d almost forgotten about him. The thought of Ethan triggered something in her memory reminding her of the terrifying incident with the neighbor’s cat, and she burst out laughing. She still hadn’t done anything about the insufferable feline and evidently; Ethan was following the same course with her.

“That works for me,” she said merrily as her long fingernail sliced open another envelope. “It’s great to be on the right side of the law,” she laughed. “To be the one in charge of sending other people away for their mistakes and misdeeds—or mine.”

With an arrogant toss of her head, Mariana peered into the envelope. It looked like a personal hand written letter, but the way her name and address were gracefully printed on the envelope, it almost appeared to be a computer-generated piece of junk mail. She almost added it to the overflowing trash bin but then something else in the envelope caught her eye.

As she pulled out the single page letter, the copy of the newspaper article fell to the floor. Bending to pick it up and unfolding the letter at the same time, Mariana gave a short gasp as she read the opening line. Immediately, she knew who had sent it. Only one person on Earth could’ve written what she was reading. Ethan!

Her heart pounding, face turning pale, the anxious woman read the short but evocative note again. She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant about juror number four, but a quick glance at the news column confirmed her suspicion. She’d heard about the accident, but not recognizing the name, hadn’t paid much attention to it. That the victim had previously been a juror in Ethan’s trial was news to her. Apparently, Mr. George Duncan hadn’t made much of an impression on her during the trial. But now, he was dead. And judging by what Ethan had written, it appeared the wreck, which had caused the man to take an early leave for parts unknown, hadn’t been an accident at all.

The article stated the crash was under investigation, but if the letter she held in her hand were accurate, and she could see no reason why it wasn’t, Ethan had been responsible for causing it. With the date of the “accident” being just three days after his release, it all fit.

Instinctively, her first impulse was to contact the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department investigators and then file charges against Ethan the next Monday. Immediately, she realized the inherent flaw in that reasoning. Some way, as the letter so poignantly implied, Ethan had found out about the pictures. Just how he’d managed to do that she didn’t know. Were there more copies? That was definitely a possibility. Did Ethan actually have them? That too, was possible. If so, what did he plan to do with them? Blackmail her? Maybe, but the letter hadn’t suggested that was his intent. Going strictly by what he’d written, the man meant to kill her!

Picking up the envelope again, Mariana saw there was no return address, but the postmark was from Cedar Springs. Ethan was in town! Feeling a lump in her throat, she cast a furtive glance toward the open window and instantly sprang from her chair, sliding it shut with enough force to shatter the glass. Biting her lip, she firmly fastened the lock and then tested the window to make sure it wouldn’t open. Cold chills ran up her spine as she shivered involuntarily. The guy was probably lurking outside even now, watching her. Laughing at her. In a dither, she ran from room to room, double checking all the windows and closing the curtains.

Finishing the securing of the house as best she could, Mariana was struck by another germane point, one she’d completely overlooked. How had Ethan discovered the identity of the juror? That information was supposed to be sealed. No one should have access to it, for precisely this reason. So how...?

Abruptly, her line of thought changed. She smiled, attempting to ease her worried mind. Had she over reacted? Mr. Duncan may have indeed died in the car wreck, as the newspaper clipping proved, but she’d taken Ethan’s word for it that the man had been on the jury. What if he hadn’t been? She certainly didn’t remember the name. Could this whole thing be a fabrication, designed just to freak her out? Was this an attempt to make her the laughingstock of the town, or the whole county, if she chose to report it? Maybe the letter was nothing more than a test. A trial run to see how far she’d let things go before getting the legal system involved.

“It shouldn’t take long to find out,” Mariana muttered, sliding open the heavy drawer of the filing cabinet, which held the archives of her past cases. Her entire case history notes were there, including Ethan’s case. It has to be here somewhere, she thought to herself, flipping through the folders.

Halfway through the P-R section of files she spotted it. “Rafferty,” she read aloud, snatching the folder from the drawer. Sorting through the copies of documents and handwritten notes, Mariana quickly found the little yellow sheet of paper from a legal pad, on which she’d listed the jurors. Running her finger down to number four, she read the name. “George Duncan.”

So, it was the guy after all! The queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach was returning. How had Ethan known? Now, she had to admit, she was a little scared. Too much here was beyond mere coincidence. Ethan’s not so subtle threat was becoming a very real danger. The worst part was, with her previous handling of the case, she was incapable of doing anything about it. Any probe into the matter would be sure to implicate her starring role in the trumped up trial, sixteen years ago.

Easing back into the chair, Mariana stared thoughtfully at the picture of her father on the fireplace mantle, wishing now she would have listened to him years ago when first he’d advised, and then practically begged her to get a gun.

From the day he heard she had passed the bar exam, until his death three years ago, the man had insisted she needed a weapon. “For personal protection,” he’d said.

The night they had learned she’d been elected District Attorney, the sixty-year-old veteran had nearly exploded. “One of these days you’ll realize your dad was right. Some crazy guy you put in the pen will come back with payback on his mind, looking to settle the score.”

She had pooh-poohed the notion. “Dad, that’s crazy. I have the whole local police force and the Sheriff’s office to protect me. And I’m backed by the courts. No one is going to get around that.”

But now, she knew differently. And to further complicate the situation, she couldn’t realistically buy a gun either. Not now, not at this stage of the game. It would look rather odd and create more than a little suspicion; suddenly deciding she needed a gun after all the years of laughing it off anytime someone suggested the idea. So, although her experience in dealing with the criminal mindset and a close association with the underworld element should have told her otherwise, Mariana again convinced herself she really didn’t need to worry. If Ethan actually wanted to cause her harm, or kill her, he wouldn’t have warned her by sending the letter she reasoned. That stunt, she decided, had been solely designed to throw a scare into her. And it had done just that—briefly. But it also had served to anger her. Ethan was just trying to mess with her head. Playing games. She didn’t like games.

“The creep needs to be taught a lesson,” she spouted. “And if he keeps up this sort of behavior, I’ll gladly be the one to teach it to him!”

Leaving the mess of unopened mail and scattered files lying haphazardly on her desk in the den, Mariana retreated to her bedroom and tried to fall asleep. Tried desperately, but sleep wouldn’t come. Her insomnia was due more to being mad than afraid, she told herself. But, she was nevertheless, edgy. Jumping at every sound, listening intently to the old house and all it’s creaks. After living there for nearly twenty years, she should have been accustomed to the normal noises unique to the place, but every time she dozed off, another board would pop, or the central air would kick on. Then the wind would pick up, rustling the tree branches against the house, scraping along the roof, and she’d wake with a start.

“This is insane,” she grumbled after rising out of bed for the countless time to blindly peer into the darkness outside. “It’s two o’clock in the morning! He’s probably home sound asleep, while here I am acting like a paranoid fool!”