Stay of Execution (4 page)

 

Chapter Nine

T
HE CROWD RELEASED
a collective breath, and the air of hostility evaporated in an instant, swept away by Spradlin's words. Cancini stood at the edge of the crowd, avoiding the fray. He frowned. Spradlin forgave them? The folks of Little Springs stood speechless, but the silence wouldn't last. Cancini knew all too well the backlash the man's words might ignite.

Spradlin stood in front of the very ­people who'd accused him, hated him, and turned their backs on him, as though he were standing at a pulpit, a holy reverend forgiving his ­people their multitude of sins. A benevolent smile on his face, he spoke again, his tone soft and inviting. “I have a confession to make.”

Cancini squinted in the sun, shading his eyes with his hand, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tightening. He scanned the stunned faces in the crowd, one hand on the pistol hidden under his suit jacket. No one moved. No one spoke. They waited for Spradlin to explain, their anger turning to disbelief and curiosity.

“All those years in prison, all that time on death row, I was waiting for this moment.” He surveyed the crowd as his voice grew louder, more insistent. “I am not a stupid man. I wasn't stupid back then, and I'm not stupid now. I made some mistakes, and those mistakes cost me the support of my friends and ­people who had known me my whole life. I didn't understand back then, but I understand now.”

A new restlessness came over some of the locals in the crowd. An angry man, his fists clenched at his side, stood near Cancini. Others were losing patience with the speech. Still others listened, eyes and mouths round.

“I guess I deserved it. I was a jerk. Maybe I made it easy to believe I was guilty.” Spradlin hung his head, his voice breaking on the last words. Several moments went by before he spoke again. “The hardest part, and my biggest regret, is that my mother is not here to see my exoneration, to hear the truth from those who condemned me.” He sighed deeply. “She deserved better than she got from this town after I was sent away, but for reasons I didn't understand at the time, she refused to leave. She loved this town so much.”

Cancini had met Spradlin's mother only a ­couple of times. He remembered her as a lady with a raspy voice and prematurely gray hair, deep lines creasing the corners of her eyes and mouth. The investigation and the trial had nearly done her in. She'd lost her job. She'd lost everything. Cancini never understood why she'd stayed in Little Springs despite being ostracized, unemployed, and alone.

“Not long before she died, my mom came to see me. She told me she knew I was going to get out and that I would be free someday. She gave me new hope, never losing faith in my innocence. She told me that when that day came, when I walked out of prison, I must return to Little Springs. So, here I am. Like her, I won't run away. God rest her soul, she told me to hold my head high.” He paused, bracing both sides of the podium. “She was right. I am free, and I will not run away. This is my home, and you are forgiven.”

He spun on his heel and walked to the row of cars, the uniformed police scrambling into position. He halted in front of the press box, the cameras clicking furiously, and then he was gone, ducking into a car and speeding off before the crowd could figure out what had happened.

Cancini's eyes followed the dark sedan until it turned the corner and disappeared from view. The knot between his shoulders hardened, a sign that a full-­blown tension headache was setting in. His head throbbed, and the pain began its inevitable movement up from the base of his skull. He needed to lie down in a cold, dark room. Around him, the anger that had defined the crowd earlier simmered again, voices raised in indignation. He ducked his head, moving away from the corner and the crowd, escaping before tempers flared and erupted.

Soon he was stretched out on his bed, an ice pack from the hotel kitchen plastered on his forehead and another propped under his neck. He lay still, his mind preoccupied with Spradlin's speech. He had to give the guy credit. It took balls to show up and stand before a crowd who'd surely stone you if they could, and remain so calm and cool. Then again, Spradlin had always been a cool customer. When they'd first started looking at him for the rapes and murders, he'd seemed unperturbed, amused even. A cocky young man, Leo Spradlin had carried himself with a brash confidence, a combination of youthful ego and innate arrogance. He was tall and handsome with thick, wavy hair, but it was his charisma, an uncommon magnetism, that seemed to draw in both men and women. Naturally athletic, he was the type of guy who might lead a varsity football team or win the title of prom king—­or would have if he'd cared. But he hadn't. In fact, Spradlin hadn't seemed to care about much of anything. After a while, those who gravitated toward him fell away.

Cancini took the ice packs from behind his neck and off his forehead. All of that had been a long time ago. It was true he hadn't liked Spradlin, but that wasn't what made him a suspect. The evidence had pointed toward the man. He knew all the girls. But most importantly, physical evidence linked him to the first crime scene, and Spradlin couldn't produce a solid alibi. Cancini sat up and swung his legs around to ease the stiffness in his limbs. What was happening in Little Springs now had nothing to do with him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he needed to stay. Walking to the window, he pushed aside the worn curtains. The crowds had thinned, but a few folks still lingered on the street. The podium had been taken down, and the press area was now empty. It almost looked peaceful.

Spradlin's words replayed in Cancini's mind, the throbbing in his head intensifying in spite of the ice. Maybe Teddy was right. Maybe Spradlin was up to something after all. That whole bit about forgiveness? The press would eat that up. None of the reporters there today could possibly understand the hysteria that had gripped the town during the weeks and months of rapes and murders. By the time the police had gathered enough evidence to charge Spradlin, the townsfolk would have strung up the college president if it meant an end to the terror. The press from Washington, New York, and the AP wouldn't know any of that. In fact, most of the reporters were only children at the time or weren't from around here.

One thing was for sure. Spradlin was no fool, adept at deception and operating under a smooth façade. Today, he'd played the part well—­the victim, the devoted son. Cancini had to hand it to him. But Cancini knew the truth. The late Mrs. Spradlin, the mother Leo claimed believed in his innocence, begging him to return to his hometown, did not visit him before her death. In fact, she had never visited him once in all those years.

 

Chapter Ten

S
QUINTING, HE STARED
out the window at the setting sun. His body was tired, fatigued after the day's events, but his mind was wide-­awake. The day had been a great success, but a sudden pang of loneliness tainted his heady reliving of it. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cared about being alone. Why should this night be any different? Then he remembered the girl and all that she promised.

He'd spotted her in the crowd wearing one of those tight sorority T-­shirts, her breasts high and mighty under the thin cotton fabric. Standing on the sidewalk with her back pressed against a storefront, she'd whispered in the ear of a girlfriend. Beads of sweat had glistened on her forehead, and damp blond tendrils had framed her face. He'd known immediately she was more of a curious onlooker than part of the hostile mob. Besides, the sorority girl was too young to remember the old crimes. She'd been there for the show. It was exactly as he'd expected; the news of the release was everywhere.

From under his lashes, he'd watched her wipe her brow and fan her face. The crowd had pressed in, and she'd been momentarily swallowed up. A vein in the man's temple had pulsed, and he'd shaded his eyes from the sun, careful to keep his head steady. He'd been keenly aware of the unfriendly crowd, watching and waiting.

She'd appeared again, a little ways down the wall, farther from the podium. His heartbeat had quickened, and his mouth had gone dry. Without warning, the sight of the pretty coed had brought back all the old feelings, the urges he'd worked so hard to repress. It had been so goddamn long since he'd acted on them, given in to them. Of course, it wasn't as though he'd had much of a choice. His circumstances had made that difficult. His eyes had followed her as she'd pushed off the brick, weaving in and out of the crowd, her friend trailing behind. He'd had only one thought as she moved down the street and out of his view. Her presence was surely a sign.

He'd committed the letters on her shirt to memory. Kappa Kappa Delta. Did she live there? Even if she didn't, she had to go there sometime. His fingers tingled, and he licked his lips. He'd find her when the time was right.

His thoughts strayed to the reporters at the press conference and the row of cameras perched on tripods above the crowd. He'd watched as one lens panned the ­people with their signs and their small-­town attitudes. Uniformed police circled the crowd and stood guard on the steps. He'd suppressed a smile. It was perfect in every way. He couldn't have planned it better if he'd tried.

“So fucking easy,” he said out loud. He leaned back, folding his arms behind his head. The stage was set and now that he'd seen the girl—­chosen her—­everything would fall into place. She didn't know it yet, but soon, she would be famous.

 

Chapter Eleven

C
ANCINI SIFTED THROUGH
the trial transcript, stopping on the testimony of the forensic specialist. He could recite the questions and answers word for word, but it was moot now. Everything she'd said in the first trial had been wiped away by the new testing. He looked up from the file. The light in the hotel room was fading with the sun. Cancini switched on the desk lamp and read the prosecution's summation. He could still hear the man making his case, his deep baritone laying out the evidence piece by piece until it culminated with the DNA. “How,” he'd asked, “can there be any reasonable doubt?”

Cancini flipped back through the file, pulling out his daily reports. Months of investigative work had yielded scraps of evidence, much of it circumstantial but eventually enough for a warrant. That warrant led to the DNA evidence that sold the FBI, the police chief, and the jury. Now that same DNA evidence was the sole reason for Spradlin's exoneration. It made Cancini's head hurt. He gathered the papers, closed the file, and stowed it back in the hotel room safe.

He swallowed some aspirin and stretched out on the bed. The quiet should have made him feel better but instead reminded him he was far from home, far from traffic and horns and weekly homicides. He missed the frenetic pace of Washington life. He missed the job that kept him busy all hours and helped him forget his ex and his empty apartment. Here, the silence stung. The hours crawled by and there was too much time to think, too much time to wonder about things he couldn't change.

Cancini closed his eyes. When the case had gone to trial, Spradlin hadn't helped himself. He'd said almost nothing in the interviews, and the little he had said was oddly incriminating. He'd never denied knowing the victims. He'd never offered an alibi. When the killings had stopped after Spradlin's arrest, even the few doubters were convinced of the man's guilt. Relief had spread among the townsfolk like the smell of summer rain after weeks of dry and dusty weather.

Without the DNA evidence, would Spradlin have been convicted? Cancini couldn't be sure. He relied on DNA—­he had to—­but knew better than to build a case solely on one piece of evidence. Lawyers used it on both sides of the bench, but it could come back to haunt you. Detectives both prized and hated DNA. Cases turned on it, and now, in the world of ever-­evolving technology and science, justice could barely be achieved without it. Even old cases, long forgotten by anyone except the principals, were alive and fresh again, front-­page news when a reversal made headlines. The state of Virginia was no exception.

When a former governor ordered old cases be reviewed and any stored DNA evidence be tested, the goal was not to close unsolved cases or seek out the guilty; rather it was to find men and women who had been wrongly incarcerated and grant them the freedom they had lost. Anti–death penalty groups and activists rejoiced, convinced this testing was the first step in eliminating the death penalty altogether.

Conservatives shouted with dismay that juries might be fearful of convicting anyone in the future if mistakes were uncovered and publicized. More than one judge agreed with this assessment, even going so far as to say the standard “beyond a reasonable doubt” was nearly impossible to meet. All of this was relevant in the abstract but took on new significance when the case of the Coed Killer came along. Now, a convicted murderer sitting on death row had been granted a full pardon, his freedom the direct result of DNA testing. What was a small town with virtually no political clout to do?

The jury hadn't needed long to convict Leo Spradlin, deliberating less than two hours and presenting their verdict in front of a packed courthouse. Things in Little Springs had returned to normal. Years had passed. Now old pictures of Spradlin, along with a few from prison, were plastered across the front page and the nightly news. Politicians, civil rights groups, and talking heads all chimed in. No one asked the residents of Little Springs how they felt or what they thought, but Cancini knew and he understood.

He sat up. The pills had reduced the pounding at the base of his skull to a dull ache. He switched on the overhead light and pushed aside the curtains. Outside, the streetlamps illuminated glass storefronts and lit up the courthouse. A ­couple strolled hand in hand before ducking inside a cafe. Life moved on.

His hand dropped and the drapes fell closed. He paced the room, ten steps toward the door, ten steps back to the window. Coed Killer. Cancini hadn't liked the label then, and he didn't like it now. To him, it trivialized the horror the young girls and the town had endured. With the pardon, the name had no face. The Coed Killer was a phantom.

At the press conference, Spradlin had promised to stay in Little Springs. Yet, after the reporters were gone and the media frenzy had faded, would he? If he did stay, would the townsfolk's antagonism toward him fade, too? Cancini couldn't see how, at least not until another face could be named the Coed Killer. Talbot was right. It wasn't his problem, his case, anymore. The press conference was over. The sun would rise on a new day, and everyone would go about their business as usual. He stopped pacing. So why was he still there, sitting in a bland hotel room, haunting the streets of his past?

After Spradlin's conviction, Cancini had needed to escape, to wash away the horror. He'd spent a month on a Florida beach alone, burning his pale skin day after day, swilling beer from a cooler until he was drunk enough to forget. No one in sunny Florida knew or cared about the Coed Killer, at least not back then, before today's constant barrage of news and tabloid coverage. The days had passed. Restless by nature, he'd wondered idly what he would do with his life. Should he go back to police work? And if he did, would he be destined for the lonely life he anticipated? In the end, he'd had no choice. It was in his soul, in his heart.

Cancini pulled on his jacket and pocketed the plastic hotel key. He switched off the overhead light and closed the door. He didn't have the ability to be anything other than what he was—­a homicide detective.