Redemption (28 page)

Kit fiddled with the remote control—the only thing in the room that smelled fresh and new. “There’s too many buttons on this thing,” Kit said, befuddled. “What’s this TiVo, anyway?”

Jane reached over and took the remote from Kit, explaining as briefly as she could that TiVo was God’s answer to instant recording while you watched television. If one missed what someone
said or wanted to repeat a specific portion of a TV show, one simply pressed the REVERSE button and the program sped backward. Pressing the PLAY button, the show resumed. The handy PAUSE button allowed the viewer to freeze-frame the video. This came in handy, Jane explained, when the phone rang or one needed a bathroom break and didn’t want to miss a moment of their show. Jane resumed playback of the news program.

The announcer’s booming voice set the stage. “Tonight, see Lesley Stahl’s exclusive interview with Leann Hamilton, the
sole
witness to the kidnapping of twelve-year-old Charlotte Walker.” Leann’s chubby face filled the screen as the picture dissolved into the angelic portrait of Charlotte Walker. Jane remembered the school photo from the
Denver Post
. She knew all too well how the media slants and creates bias based on camera angles, lighting, and careful editing. Her brief sortie into the limelight that past summer had confirmed how the media makes or breaks you by how they photograph your story. In Jane’s case, they tended to shoot her with a harder, less forgiving light that made her look road-ravaged. The photo used to depict Charlotte Walker was one of innocence and prepubescent beauty. It looked especially softer in comparison to the more full-bodied shot of Leann Hamilton.

Lesley Stahl appeared on the screen, walking near the command post at the grammar school. A soft lens diffused the scene, giving it a comforting texture. The lens also did wonders for masking lines on the face—something most TV anchors demanded. “Oakhurst, California,” Lesley stated with her trademark incisive tone. “A small town known as the ‘Gateway to Yosemite.’ But the day after Christmas, this tight-knit community was rocked by the brash, daylight kidnapping of one of their own, twelve-year-old Charlotte Walker. What made this crime so brazen is that it was done under the watchful eye of at least one person. Her name is Leann Hamilton, and at age sixteen, she carries the weight of the world on her shoulders....” The screen dissolved to The Barbeque Shack. As Stahl narrated, the camera followed a painfully aware Leann as she went about taking orders at the take-out window
over her headset. Leann made frequent furtive glances toward the moving camera. Jane quickly noted a pervasive insecurity around Leann. She moved with hesitancy. Her actions were deliberate, as if she were terrified of making a mistake. The scene cut to Leann standing outside The Barbeque Shack with Lesley. Leann wore her uniform, a bright yellow shirt and striped hat that displayed the name of the fast-food joint in red embroidery. Leann pointed her fleshy hand toward the curb, acknowledging to Lesley that this was where she witnessed Charlotte getting into the car. A crowd of people could be seen gathered around the two of them, partly gawking, but mostly intrigued by the kid in the yellow shirt and striped hat talking to Lesley Stahl. Jane noticed that Leann stole a shy glance at the crowd surrounding them. She smiled a genuine grin at them and then turned back to Lesley.

The scene finally cut to a one-on-one interview between Lesley and Leann. Thankfully, Leann had changed into a navy blue, button front shirt and jeans, and sat nervously tapping her fingers on the armrest of the chair.

“This has been a big week for you, hasn’t it?” Lesley asked.

“Yeah,” Leann replied, letting out a burst of air and smiling momentarily.

“Take us back to that moment when you saw Charlotte getting into the car.”

“Well...um....” Leann nervously looked off to the left, holding that glance as she continued. “It happened so fast. I saw her from the back. But I recognized her red leather jacket. She wears it a lot.”

The show instantly cut to the birthday video that had been played ad nauseam for four straight days. As Lesley narrated, the screen once again showed Charlotte in her backyard, wearing the odd rainbow wig. The camera zoomed closer, filling the TV screen with Charlotte’s face. Her hazel eyes, painted in thick black liner, stared at the camera in a provocative manner. “I
love
my new coat! It’s
beautiful! Thank you!
” Charlotte squealed. The camera pulled back as Charlotte took off her jean jacket to reveal the tank top
with the slithering snake image. Jane unexpectedly found herself sinking her hand into her pants pocket and rubbing the snakestone totem. Charlotte donned the red jacket and paraded for the camera. Jane grabbed the remote and pressed the PAUSE button just as Charlotte completed a modellike, runway twirl and faced the camera.

“Why’d you stop it?” Kit asked.

“Pretend you don’t know she’s twelve. How old does she look?” Jane asked, her eyes boring into the seductive face looking back at her.

Kit considered the question. “Maybe fifteen...fourteen at the youngest. Why?”

Jane resumed the playback of the show. “Just curious.”

“Put it back on pause,” Kit instructed. Jane obliged. “We know that Lou is attracted to victims who match his mother’s looks: hazel eyes and brown hair. And then there’s the age of fourteen—”

“And Charlotte is batting one out of three, based on that profile.”

“But if she
looks
fourteen, then the only thing we’re missing is the color of the hair.”

“You’re trying to fit a square peg of rationale into a round hole.”

“Okay, forget the hair! Maybe Lou changed his MO!”

“So,
no
patterns? Lou just chose Charlotte for no reason?”

Kit let out a weary sigh. “Jane, it’s like you’re the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. I’m trying to make this—”

“Fit,” Jane said, finishing Kit’s sentence. “Because you hate Lou Peters. You told me so. You said you were so angry at him, that you gave yourself cancer—”

“I
did
hate him. But I don’t anymore. In my heart, I have forgiven him. I see him for who he is: A desperately confused man who is still reacting to life because of the horrific abuse he suffered at the hands of his mother—”

“Cut the pabulum—”

“Lou was easily influenced. He
still
is. He could have become a charismatic, positive member of society. But the sexual deviancy he was subjected to at a young age somehow made him choose the darker path.”

“You got one thing right: he
chose
it.”

“Oh, Jane. Sometimes, there’s a tender line between the good and the evil in a person. All it takes to fall either way is the perfect trigger.” Kit leaned her body toward Jane. “You danced on that razor sharp edge. But
you
chose to live an honorable life.”

Jane noted how Kit enjoyed turning the conversation back to Jane’s troubled childhood. She wasn’t going to take the bait. “Tell me something, Kit,” Jane’s tone was direct and unemotional, “how many times a day do you fantasize about killing Lou?”

“I don’t,” Kit replied without missing a beat.

Jane expected to hear a moment’s hesitation to her question, but Kit’s response was startlingly quick. From Jane’s experience, a lie is found within the split second between the question and the answer. Based on that, Kit passed Jane’s test. But she still wasn’t sold on the fact that Kit’s motive for tracking down Lou was completely altruistic. Jane pressed the PLAY button and the show resumed.

The camera cut to Lesley Stahl. “Did it look like Charlotte knew the man in the car?”

Leann looked right at Lesley. “From where I was sitting—”

“And where was that?”

“Um, I was on break. There’s this area next to The Barbeque Shack with a bench where you can see the street and people walking by. That’s where I was sitting.” Jane noted that Leann’s voice became stronger as she described the location.

“You were sitting on the bench and then you saw the car drive up?”

“Yeah, I just happened to be looking in that direction—”

“Describe the car,” Lesley interrupted.

Leann appeared taken aback by Lesley’s rapid question. “Um, like I told Sheriff Golden, it was an old, four-door Chevy. Blue. Grayish blue.”

“Are you aware that the man who has been picked up, Mr. Trace Fagin, owns a vehicle matching that description, except that the color has more green than blue in it.”

“Yeah, um,” Leann became visibly nervous, anxiously rubbing the arms of the chair. “It was so quick. But there could have been more green than blue—”

“You told Sheriff Golden you were unable to discern the face of the driver?”

Leann looked down at the floor. “That’s right,” she replied with breathy worry.

Lesley reached over, placing her hand over Leann’s trembling leg. “This is a lot of pressure for a sixteen-year-old.”

“I’ll be seventeen in a couple weeks,” Leann weakly offered.

“It’s obvious that this ordeal has been very traumatic for you. Hasn’t it?” Lesley’s voice was a mixture of genuine concern blended with high TV drama.

Leann’s eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to help. I saw her get into the car—”

“You saw Charlotte get in the car....” Lesley said, leading Leann.

There was a moment of hesitation from Leann. Her eyes strayed from the floor and wandered to the left, seemingly fixated. “Yes...I did.”

The rest of the interview focused on the direction the Chevy took, any unusual markings on the car, and whether Leann and Charlotte were friendly. It was patently clear to Jane that Leann found the question of a friendship totally obscure. It wasn’t just the age difference, Jane gauged, but the social clique that Charlotte rotated in. Jane imagined that Leann’s life revolved around school, her job, and home, where she probably spent all her free time watching TV, gorging on food, and feeling the abject sting of loneliness engulf her.

The interview ended and the program went to a commercial. Jane pressed the MUTE button on the remote control. Kit unraveled her salt-and-pepper braid, letting her locks flow freely across her shoulders. She tentatively maneuvered her heavy frame off the bed, grabbed a pair of pajamas from her packed suitcase, and headed into the bathroom. Jane waited until Kit closed the door and turned on the shower before pressing the REVERSE button. Skimming the interview, she landed at the point where Lesley Stahl patted Leann’s thigh. Pressing the PLAY button, the scene resumed.

“It’s obvious that this ordeal has been very traumatic for you. Hasn’t it?” Lesley said to Leann.

Leann’s eyes filled with tears. “I just wanted to help.... I saw her get into the car—”

“You saw Charlotte get in the car....”

Jane leaned closer, eyeing Leann like a hawk. The girl hesitated and then her eyes moved from the floor to the left of where she was seated. “Yes...I did.”

Jane pressed the PAUSE button and stared at Leann’s tortured face. She kept staring at it until she heard Kit turn off the shower water.

 

 

DECEMBER 31

After a restless night of sleep, Jane awoke at six A.M. feeling a mix of apprehension and confusion taking hold. Kit lay sound asleep, her buckwheat pillow perfectly contoured under her neck. It seemed like an eternity to Jane since the last time she took a morning run. Deciding it was the best way to shake the cobwebs from her troubled mind, Jane quietly changed out of her Denver Broncos nightshirt and into running pants and a hooded sweatshirt. Coffee would have to wait. Jane wanted to make as little noise as possible so she didn’t wake Kit and fend off questions such as “Where are you going?” She snagged a cigarette, a pack of matches, and her cell phone. One never knew when one may
need to make a phone call, Jane reasoned as she slipped out the front door.

The sun was just cresting over the trees that framed the front office of The Bonanza Cabins
,
illuminating the barrage of media trucks that filled the parking lot. A handful of technicians were already outside, fiddling with equipment in their van and talking on their mobile phones. The sky was a dank, cloudy mess, and the air filled with a wet coldness that shook Jane to her core. She lit her cigarette and took several drags. As was her pattern, she gently squashed the cigarette out against the pavement before resting it on the window ledge. Jane judged that it was unlikely Clinton Fredericks would be out and about this early. However, there was always a chance he’d be cruising the main drag. With that in mind, Jane opted to jog around the remote, two-lane back road around the cabins.

Curving around the front office, Jane noted a stack of
Fresno Bee
newspapers outside the door. Too small a town to have a daily newspaper, Oakhurst relied upon the
Bee
to enlighten them on local and national news. The headline to the side of the center read, REWARD FUND FOR MISSING OAKHURST GIRL TOPS $50,000. Jane knew Clinton Fredericks would be tingling with anticipation when he read that newsflash.

She meandered around the cabins and started up the dirt road when she noted three navy sedans parked in the adjacent motel parking lot. Each had government plates that Jane identified as FBI. She felt a swell of anger as the pained memories of the not-so-pleasant dealings with the FBI came to mind. A few weeks prior to this, she had felt on top of the world, working with the Feds; now she was a very small fish in a very chaotic pond. Jane ran up the dirt road in an attempt to shake off the crush of bad memories. It suddenly struck her that tonight was New Year’s Eve. A year ago, she spent it with her brother, both of them getting drunk in her home until they passed out at dawn. Since then, Mike had found a girlfriend, AA, and a new life of sobriety. Reflecting on her own last twelve months, Jane felt as if she had gone far and then
fallen to a place even more desperate than when she began.
Six months
, she thought to herself with a sense of sadness. Six months of not picking up a drink. Six months worth of sobriety chips that lay strewn in her cousin Carl’s gravel driveway. And now she had a little over thirty hours of sobriety under her ragged belt. An overwhelming sense of failure grabbed at her gut, suffocating her drive as she headed up a sharp incline. She ambled up the hill as a heavy mist blew across the road, signaling the onslaught of more inclement weather. Jane pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her head, drawing the ties closer to protect herself from the bone-chilling climate. She considered turning back when the sound of someone hammering in the distance got her attention.