Redemption Road: A Novel (16 page)

A lot of deep, quiet, dark-as-hell woods.

She gave him ten minutes inside the station, then called his cell. “James, hey. It’s me.” She stared at the window near his desk, thought she saw a shadow move. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“I was about to order takeout.”

“Wong’s?”

“Am I that predictable?”

“Let me buy it for you.”

She heard his chair creak and pictured his feet going up on the desk. “It’s been a long day, Liz, and a long night, coming. How about you tell me what you want?”

“You heard about Adrian?”

“’Course.”

“I want to talk to him.”

Seven seconds ticked past. Cars moved on the street. “Crispy beef,” he said. “Don’t forget the sticks.”

*   *   *

They met twenty minutes later at a below-grade door set flush with the concrete wall.

“Here’s how we do this.”

He let her into the building. The hall was painted green, the floor was buffed vinyl.

“We go quick and quiet, and you keep your mouth shut. If we pass anyone in the hall, try to look humble, and remember what I said about your mouth. Any talking needs doing, I’m the one that does it.”

“I understand.”

“I’m doing this because you’re a good cop and you’re pretty, and because you’ve never cared that I’m as ugly as an old tire. None of that means I’m willing to lose my job getting you in to see this son of a bitch. Are we clear on that?”

She nodded, mouth tight.

“Good girl,” he said, and offered the only smile she was liable to see. “Tight on my six; humble fucking pie.”

*   *   *

She did as he asked and wasn’t surprised that they made it unseen. They’d come in low and from the side. The action would be at the sergeant’s desk near the front of the building and in the detective squad upstairs. The holding area would be a dead zone this late, and they were counting on that. Rounding a final corner, they saw a single guard at a desk near the heavy, steel door. He looked up, and James waved an easy hand. “Matthew Matheny. How’s it hanging?”

Matheny crossed his arms, looked at Elizabeth. “What’s going on, James?”

“Why don’t you catch a smoke?”

“Are you asking or telling?”

“I don’t tell you what to do. Come on.”

Matheny looked at Elizabeth, his skin washed out in the fluorescent light. Like James, he was in his fifties and bald. Unlike James, he was thin and stooped, a mean-eyed man who, every day, seemed to hate his life a little bit more. “You know who’s in there, right? Public enemy number one.” Matheny pointed. “She may as well be public enemy number two. That makes this a big goddamn favor.”

“The lady just wants a word. That’s all.”

“Why?”

“What does it matter? It’s a word, an exchange of syllables. It’s not like we’re walking him out of here. Don’t be such a girl.”

“Why do you always do that? I don’t like it, James. I never have.”

“Do what? I’m not doing anything.”

Matheny stared at Liz, doing the math. “If I say yes, we’re even. I don’t want to hear about
the day
ever again. It’s done. Even if Dyer himself walks in here and finds her. We’re even forever.”

“Done. Fine.”

“I can give you two minutes.”

“She wants five.”

“I’ll give you three.” Matheny stood. “He’s in the lockdown cell. All the way down on the right.”

“Why is he in lockdown?” Elizabeth asked.

“Why?” Matheny dropped keys on the desk. “Because fuck him, that’s why.”

When he was gone, she raised an eyebrow at James Randolph, who shrugged. “It’s a pretty common sentiment around here.”

“So, why is he helping us?”

“Matthew shot me on a quail hunt when we were kids. I tend to remind him about it from time to time. It irks him.”

“But, a lockdown cell…”

“I bought you an extra minute.” James unlocked the big door. “Don’t make me come in there after you.”

*   *   *

Elizabeth stepped into the hall, saw big cages on the right and left, the blank door of the lockdown cell at the far end. She moved deeper, and the hall darkened as old fluorescents flickered and snapped and made her uncomfortable. The place felt too much like prison, and prison, for her, was becoming a little too real. Low ceilings. Sweaty metal. She kept her eyes on the lockdown cell, which butted against the end wall. A grim affair, it had a solid-steel door, and an eight-inch cutout at face height. It was reserved for junkies, biters, the mentally disturbed. The walls and floors were padded with ancient canvas, stained with fecal matter and blood and every other possible fluid. Beyond anger, spite, and small-mindedness, no legitimate reason existed for Adrian’s confinement there.

Slipping a bolt, she opened a hinged plate and peered into the cell. For some reason she held her breath, and the silence seemed to radiate outward. No movement in the cell. No sound beyond a whisper.

It was Adrian, in the corner, on the floor. He had bare feet. No shirt. His face was tucked into knees.

“Adrian?”

The cell was dark, dim light fingering its way past Elizabeth’s head. She said his name again, and he looked up, blinking. “Who’s there?”

“It’s Liz.”

He pushed himself up. “Who’s there with you?”

“It’s just me.”

“I heard voices.”

“No.” Liz glanced down the hall. “No one else.” He shuffled closer. “Where’s your shirt? Your shoes?”

He made a vague gesture. “It’s hot in here.”

It looked it. Sweat glinted on his skin, beaded under his eyes. Parts of him seemed to be missing. The intellect. Much of his awareness. He tilted his head and sweat rolled on his face.

“Why are you here, Liz?”

“Are you okay, Adrian? Look at me.” She gave him time, and he took it. She noticed small twitches in the muscles of his shoulders, the single shudder that led to a cough. “Did something happen after they brought you in? I know it was rough, but were you mistreated? Threatened? You seem…” She trailed off because she didn’t want to finish the thought, that he seemed
less
.

“Darkness. Walls.” He offered a difficult smile. “I don’t do well in small spaces.”

“Claustrophobia?”

“Something like that.”

He tried to smile, but it turned into another round of coughing, another twenty seconds of the shakes. Her eyes moved down his chest, and across his stomach.

“Jesus, Adrian.”

He saw her looking at the scars and turned away. His back, though, was as bad as his chest. How many pale, white lines were there? Twenty-five? Forty?

“Adrian…”

“It’s nothing.”

“What did they do to you?”

He picked up the shirt and shrugged it on. “I said it’s nothing.”

She looked more closely at his face and saw for the first time how bones did not line up as she remembered. Shadows filled the hollow place beside his left eye. The nose was not quite the same. She threw a glance down the hall. She had minutes. No more. “Have they questioned you about the church?”

Adrian put his palms flat against the door and kept his head down. “I thought you were suspended.”

“How do you know about that?”

“Francis told me.”

“What else did he tell you?”

“To stay away from you. To keep my mouth shut and not drag you into my problems.” Adrian looked up, and for an instant the years faded. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t kill her.”

He was talking about the church, the new victim.

“Did you kill Julia Strange?”

It was the first time Elizabeth had ever questioned his innocence, and the moment stretched as muscles tightened in his jaw and old wounds pulled apart. “I did the time, didn’t I?”

His gaze, then, was clear and angry. Same Adrian. None of the weakness.

“You should have taken the stand,” she said. “You should have answered the question.”

“The question.”

“Yes.”

“Shall I answer it, now?”

The words were flat, but the stare was so intent a throb began at the base of Elizabeth’s skull. He knew what she wanted. Of course, he knew. She’d waited every day of his trial for the question to be answered. There would be an explanation, she’d thought. Everything would make sense.

But he never took the stand.

The question was never answered.

“It’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?” He watched her. “The scratches on my neck. The skin under her nails.”

“An innocent man would have explained it.”

“Things were complicated, then.”

“So, explain it now.”

“Will you help me if I do?”

There it was, she thought. The convict Beckett had warned her about. The user. The player.

“Why your skin was under Julia Strange’s nails?” He looked away, jawline clenched. “Tell me or I walk.”

“Is that a threat?”

“A requirement.”

Adrian sighed and shook his head. When he spoke, he knew how it would sound. “I was sleeping with her.”

A pause. A slow blink. “You were having an affair with Julia Strange?”

“Catherine and I were in a bad place.…”

“Catherine was pregnant.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant. That came after.”

“Jesus…”

“I’m not trying to justify it, Liz. I just want you to understand. The marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t love Catherine, and she didn’t much love me, either. The baby was a last, desperate try, I think. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until she lost it.”

Elizabeth took a step away; came back. The pieces were ugly. She didn’t want them to fit. “Why didn’t you testify about the affair? The DNA evidence convicted you. If there was an explanation, you should have given it.”

“I couldn’t do it to Catherine.”

“Bullshit.”

“Hurt her. Humiliate her.” He shook his head again. “Not after what I’d done to her.”

“You should have testified.”

“It’s easy to say that now, but to what purpose? Think about it.” He looked every inch a broken man, the face scarred, the eyes a dark stain. “No one knew the truth but Julia, and she was dead. Who would believe me if I claimed adultery as my defense? You’ve seen the trials same as me, the desperate men willing to lie and squirm and barter their souls for the barest chance of a decent verdict. My testimony would look like a string of self-serving, calculated lies. And what could I possibly get from it? Not sympathy or dignity or reasonable doubt. I’d open myself to cross-examination and look even guiltier by the end of it. No, I stared down that road more than once, thinking about it. I’d humiliate Catherine and get nothing for it. Julia was dead. Bringing up the relationship could only hurt me.”

“No one saw you together?”

“Not in that way. No.”

“No letters? Voice mails?”

“We were very careful. I couldn’t prove the affair if I wanted to.”

Elizabeth plucked at the edges. “It’s all very convenient.”

“There’s more,” he said. “You won’t like it.”

“Tell me.”

“Someone planted evidence.”

“For God’s sake, Adrian…”

“My prints in her house, the DNA—that all makes sense. I get it. I was there all the time. We were intimate. But the can at the church doesn’t fit. I was never near the church. I never drank a beer there.”

“And who do you think planted it?”

“Whoever wanted me in prison.”

“I’m sorry, Adrian.…”

“Don’t say that.”

“Say what? That you sound like every convict I’ve ever met. ‘I didn’t do it. Someone set me up.’”

Elizabeth stepped back, and it was hard to hide the disbelief. Adrian saw it; hated it. “I can’t go back to prison, Liz. You don’t understand what it’s like for me, there. You can’t. Please. I’m asking for your help.”

She studied the grimy skin and dark eyes, unsure if she would help. She’d changed her life because of him, yet he was just a man, and seriously, perhaps fatally, flawed. What did that mean for her? Her choices?

“I’ll think about it,” she said and left without another word.

*   *   *

It took two minutes to exit the building. Randolph stayed at her side, moving her quickly down one hall and then another. At the same low door on the same side street, he walked her onto the sidewalk and let the door clank shut behind him. The sky burned red in the west. A hot wind licked the concrete as Randolph shook out two cigarettes and offered one to Elizabeth.

“Thanks.”

She took it. He lit them both, and they smoked in silence for half a minute.

“So, what is it?” She flicked ash. “The real reason?”

“For what?”

“Helping me.”

He shrugged, a misshapen grin on his face. “Maybe I dislike authority.”

“I
know
you dislike authority.”

“You also know why I helped you. Same reason I’d have helped you bury the Monroe brothers in the darkest woods in the deepest part of the county.”

“Because you have daughters.”

“Because fuck them for doing what they did to that girl. I’d have shot them, too, and I don’t think you should go down for it. You’ve been a cop for what? Thirteen years? Fifteen? Shit.” He sucked hard; blew smoke. “Defense lawyers would have put that girl through hell all over again, and some knee-jerk judge might let them go on a goddamn technicality. We both know it happens.” He cracked his neck, unapologetic. “Sometimes justice matters more than the law.”

“That’s a dangerous way for a cop to look at things.”

“System’s broken, Liz. You know it same as me.”

Elizabeth leaned against the wall and watched the man beside her, how light touched his face, the cigarette, the knotted fingers. “How old are they now? Your daughters?”

“Susan’s twenty-three. Charlotte’s twenty-seven.”

“They’re both in town?”

“By the grace of God.”

They smoked in silence for a moment, the lean woman, the hump-shouldered man. She thought of justice and the law and the sound his neck made when he cracked it. “Did Adrian have enemies?”

“All cops have enemies.”

“I mean inside the system. Other cops? Lawyers? Maybe someone from the DA’s office?”

“Back in the day? Maybe. For a while you couldn’t turn on the TV without seeing Adrian’s face on the screen beside one pretty reporter or another. A lot of cops resented that. You should really ask Dyer.”