Seeing Red (29 page)

“I see.” Why wasn’t Daniel here with her?

As if she’d read Ellis’s thoughts, Ava said, “Daniel and I broke up a month ago. So, you see, there’s no reason for me to stay here.”

Ellis gave a sympathetic nod. Ava had moved here and found a job after meeting Daniel at USC, Columbia, some eighteen months or so ago. She’d been visiting a cousin going to school there.

Ava motioned for Ellis to have a seat. Then the girl just sat there looking at her with those wounded brown eyes.

There was no way to ease into this, so Ellis stated it plain and simple. “I think I know who killed Kimberly.”

“Who?” She sat up a little straighter.

“The same man who attacked my cousin.”

“Oh!” Ava’s hand went to her throat. “I didn’t know there had been another . . . ”

“My cousin was attacked several years ago. The man who did it is now out of prison.”

Ava said, “Then the police know who it is.”

“I don’t know that they’re making the connection. That’s why I need to know the details, so I can go to them and press the issue, make them see the attacks are related. Can you answer some questions for me?”

“Sure, if it’ll help catch this guy.”

“Where had Kimberly been that night?” Ellis asked.

“At a birthday party for someone she worked with. I think she said they were meeting at the Palmetto Grill. They’re all older, I mean married and stuff, so I don’t know if she went anywhere after that.”

“You were home all evening?”

Ava nodded. “I went to bed around eleven.”

“I know it’s hard, but can you go over how you found her?”

Ava’s throat worked as she swallowed so dryly that Ellis could hear the girl’s tissues rasping against one another. Her eyes were wide and haunted. Her chin puckered in a way that said she was struggling not to cry.

Ellis hated herself for putting the girl through this. She knew all too well what it was like to have to go over and over something that you wanted to forget.

She prompted, “What time, and what made you go looking?”

“It was around five forty-five. I got up and saw her car out there with the door open. Kim can come home pretty wasted, but never so far gone that she’d leave the car door open like that. She wasn’t in her room. I went out to her car and saw her purse on the passenger seat and keys still in the ignition.

“That’s when I really freaked. I started calling her name. I’m not sure why I headed to the beach.” Ava drew a shuddering breath. “But that’s where I found her.”

Ava’s eyes squeezed closed. Ellis knew the futility of such an action. That image would always be there, day and night, burned into her memory.

“Can you describe what you saw when you found her?” Ellis asked.

Ava’s eyes snapped open. She looked at Ellis like she was some freakish ghoul.

Ellis said softly, “I really need to know. It’s the only way I can find the truth.”

After a moment, Ava nodded and drew in a deep breath. After she released it, she continued. “I found one of her sandals at the start of the boardwalk that goes over the dunes to the beach.” A pitiful smile curved the corners of her mouth, as if relishing a fond memory. “She’d just gotten those shoes. Had waited for them to go on sale. I don’t know why she liked them. They were this god-awful green . . . .” She paused. “I kept calling her name, hoping to hear her answer or call for help.

“I saw her other sandal about halfway down the boardwalk. I walked out to that shoe . . . and then I saw her.” Ava’s eyes squeezed closed and her lips pressed together. Her voice was a mere breathy squeak when she said, “I knew right away it was too late.” Tears slipped from her closed eyes, and her hand covered her mouth.

Ellis felt tears welling in her own eyes. She hadn’t seen Laura when they found her on the beach; her mother had made her stay in the house. But she’d created the picture in her mind often enough to understand how it could rob a person of their ability to speak.

After a sniffle, Ava said, “She was in the weeds, lying between two dunes. Her clothes had been cut.” She ran her hand from collarbone to hips. “Split open down the middle.” She shuddered. “Her panties were stuffed in her mouth.”

Ava kept her gaze on the floor, as if too embarrassed for her friend to look Ellis in the face.

“What about her injuries?” Ellis prompted softly.

“Her skin . . . her skin was blue-gray, like an oyster. And there was”—she swallowed convulsively—“there was a screwdriver stuck in her throat.” Ava touched the hollow at the base of her own throat.

Ellis stopped breathing. The murder weapon with Nate’s prints. A screwdriver.

Alexander would have known that Nate’s prints had been processed in the crime investigation sixteen years ago. Where had he gotten the screwdriver with Nate’s prints? From the stables?

The boat motor cut out, and my flashlight went dead, so I couldn’t find the damn screwdriver to fix it.
. . .

Had Alexander taken it while the boat was tied up in the marsh near Ellis’s condo?

Why, if the killer had used a knife or something to cut Kimberly’s clothes, would he have stabbed her with a screwdriver? Surely the police had seen that as odd. Of course, the more obvious question was, Why would a murderer with half a brain have left that screwdriver at the scene? This entire thing screamed “setup.”

Ellis wanted to spring from her chair and run to the police. But she couldn’t dash out of here without a thought for Ava.

The girl was clenching her hands so tightly in her lap the knuckles were white. Ellis reached out and put her hand on Ava’s. “I know how horribly difficult this has been for you.”

Ava kept her eyes averted and gave a jerky nod.

“Is there anything else you can tell me?”

Ava shook her head and sniffled, but then said, “Just that somebody said they’d seen a black Hummer in the lot. Maybe that’s what the guy was driving.”

Ellis’s heart skipped a beat. “Who? Who saw it?”

Lifting a shoulder, Ava said, “I guess one of the people living here. I just heard that someone said they’d seen it. It stuck out in a place like this, you know.”

“Could it have been that
morning
that they saw the Hummer? There had to have been lots of confusion.”

Ava seemed to be shrinking right before Ellis’s eyes. She curled deeper into her chair. “I really don’t know. I’m so tired. everything is running together.”

“I can’t thank you enough for talking with me. You’ve been a huge help. Is there anything I can do for you before I leave?”

Ava raised her eyes to meet Ellis’s. “You can make sure that bastard pays.”

Ellis nodded. She knew how the violation of someone close to you, someone you shared your home and your life with, left you feeling vulnerable and violated as well.

Hollis loved the way Wayne Carr’s voice trembled whenever they spoke on the phone. Carr was one of those guys Hollis’s father had called a secret faggot, married because he wasn’t man enough to admit he was a queer—all clothes and shoes, prancing around with manicured hands and hair just so. Weak, for all his self-important bluster. Of course, that self-importance was currently serving Hollis well.

“Nice job on the newspaper articles,” Hollis said. “But we’re not done yet.”

“Oh?” Carr’s tone said he was scared shitless—as he should be. Hollis had yet to decide how Carr’s part in this little game would end.

“We have the book to discuss,” Hollis said.

“Oh, yes.”

“And I want a list of the lawyers you’ve talked to about my case. I’d like to do a little follow-up.”

Carr hesitated just long enough that Hollis thought perhaps the man hadn’t carried through with his end of their bargain. “You have contacted them, haven’t you? I’d hate for these photographs to come to light—might tarnish my reputation. Oh, what was I thinking? I won’t be able to take credit for them. Still . . . ”

“I’ve done everything you asked!”

“Then the names will be no problem.”

There was the sound of rustling papers. Then Carr gave Hollis the names of several very good defense attorneys.

“I’m impressed,” Hollis said. “Anyone showing interest?”

“A couple. I should be hearing back today or tomorrow.”

“Excellent.”

“What assurance do I have that once I do what you want, you won’t still expose those photos?”

“Why, none. But you can be certain that if you don’t, or if I get the slightest hint that you’re betraying our agreement, you can kiss your cushy life good-bye.” Hollis hung up. Depending on the outcome of one of his future errands, the decision about Carr’s fate might take care of itself.

Hollis decided he’d settle in as a spectator for the next few hours.

Although she hadn’t felt her phone vibrate in her pocket while she’d been talking to Ava, Ellis checked for missed calls as soon as she stepped out of the apartment.

There were none.

Come on, Nate.
She pushed away the possibility he might well be in police custody at this very moment.

She decided to knock on a few doors and see if anyone knew exactly who had mentioned the Hummer.

The first four doors went unanswered. With the fifth, she hit some luck. It was answered by a guy who looked to be about the same age as Kimberly and Ava. He was barefooted and shirtless, wearing khaki cargo shorts with boxers showing at the waist. His hair stood on end, and he had one of those scruffy four-day beards that really wasn’t working for him; he looked like a bum, not a movie star. He also looked like she’d awakened him.

She told him she was investigating the murder (misleading and yet still true). Once she’d established he hadn’t seen or heard anything that night, she asked about the black Hummer.

He ran a hand over his messy hair. “I do remember somebody saying something about it.”

“Was it someone you recognized?” she asked.

His mouth screwed to the side. “There were lots of people out there that morning . . . .” Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t remember who said it, so I guess not. If I’d known the person, I would have remembered. Maybe I just overheard someone saying it. Everybody was talking, trying to figure out what was going on.”

She thanked him and went on. She knocked on twenty doors. Only two more were answered. No one had a more definite answer than the first guy. They all remembered hearing it. No one remembered who said it, or exactly when.

Ellis returned to her car. She locked the doors and started it, getting the air-conditioning going. She decided to wait to call the police with her theory—at least until she’d spoken to Nate. This whole Hummer thing added another stone in the basket that could sink him.

Did Alexander hope to prove his innocence by making Nate look like a murderer? Nate killed Kimberly Potter, so he must have killed Laura too? Could Alexander actually think it would play out like that?

Kimberly Potter’s murder wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment act of insanity, not with that screwdriver from Nate’s boat used in the crime. Not with the striking similarity between Laura and Kimberly. It, like everything else going on, had been planned. Alexander had watched and studied and capitalized on his opportunities.

Had pinning a murder on Nate been part of Alexander’s original plan for revenge? If so, what was Nate’s sin against Alexander? As far as Ellis knew, Nate hadn’t offered any damning testimony that contributed to Alexander’s conviction. It had been Ellis’s testimony alone that had done that.

Hadn’t it?

It hit her then that she didn’t really know the details of what had transpired in the courtroom, other than during her own testimony and the reading of the verdict. There could be clues in those court documents.

She looked at her watch. Eleven-fifteen. She could be at the courthouse in forty minutes.

She pulled out of the parking spot and headed toward Charleston.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY-TWO

M
ost of our court transcripts and records are in a database. We’re very proud of our system,” Pamela, the woman assisting Ellis in the Charleston County Clerk of Courts office, said. “We have transcriptions of most of our criminal cases and judgments as far back as 1991 now. The cases that haven’t been transcribed yet will only have the main identification page listing the arrest, the charge, and the judgment.”

Ellis followed her to a computer terminal in a small semiprivate carrel near the front of the office.

Pamela continued. “Some of them are scanned pdf files. Just click on the document icon to bring those up. You can search by defendant’s name or by case number. As long as the file hasn’t been sealed by the court, it should be here. Print out anything you want. There is a charge of ten cents per page.”

“Do these files include the statements police used in building the case?” Ellis asked.

“No,” Pamela said. “Those are kept with the case evidence by the investigating police department.”

“Thank you.” Ellis took a seat, excitement and dread mixing like a deadly cocktail in her stomach.