The Day Trader (36 page)

I’m not expecting anyone. Cox said he wouldn’t be back for a couple of weeks. He said he had everything he needed for now, and that he was going to Nantucket on vacation. “Who is it?”

Randy smiles slyly. “You’ll see,” he answers, nodding for the guard down the hall to unlock my cage.

When he opens the door of the cell, I stand up with my feet close together and hold my hands side by side in front of me so he can put the cuffs on my wrists, then the shackles on my ankles. I follow him down the cell-lined corridor in my prison grays, struggling to keep pace in the clumsy gait the shackles impose, wondering.

The visitors’ room is a large open area surrounded by bars and furnished with large tables and benches. It’s Monday afternoon so it isn’t crowded. There’s only one family over in the near corner. A mother and her two children—one of whom is a just a baby—visiting a tattoo-covered convict. The man cradles the little girl in his arms while the young boy hugs him.

“Wait a minute,” Randy says as we come to the door. He unlocks my handcuffs, then squats down and unchains the shackles. During my visits with Walter Cox I was forced to remain in chains, but once again, Randy’s taking pity on me. As he rises up, chains dangling from his hands, he points to the far corner of the large room. “Over there.”

I walk slowly through the open area toward a woman with long dark hair who sits with her back to me. As she hears me coming she turns around and I’m overcome by her beauty. “Anna.”

Anna smiles the most gorgeous smile I’ve seen in a long time as I sit down across the table from her. “Hello, Augustus.” Surprisingly, she leans across the table and kisses me on the cheek.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “I mean, I appreciate your coming, but I’m kind of shocked to see you.”

“I heard what happened and I couldn’t believe it.” She pats my hand. “I just wanted to make certain you were all right.”

“I’m fine,” I say bravely, not at all certain that I am.

We’re silent for a few moments, then she speaks up. “I have something for you,” she says, picking up a manila envelope off the bench beside her and placing it on the table. She motions toward Randy, who stands by the room’s lone door. “It’s all right for you to look. The guards have already inspected it.”

I pick up the envelope and peer inside. And there is the black-and-white photograph of Melanie that was affixed to the wall of the Two O’Clock Club. Now the animals can no longer gawk at her. “Thank you,” I whisper. I can’t believe she’s done this for me.

She squeezes my hand. “It’s the least I could do. You were so nice to me that night at the club. You could have been furious. You had every right to be. It’s so hard to believe they’ve arrested you for mur—” She glances into my eyes, then quickly away.

“I didn’t kill Melanie,” I assure her. Anna has to believe that, even though I know there will always be doubt in her mind—in everyone’s mind—unless somehow I’m let out of here
and
the real killer is brought to justice.

“I believe you.”

“Thanks.” Even if she doesn’t, it’s nice to hear her say that.

“It must be so hard in here.”

“It is. It’s—” I interrupt myself at the sight of Reggie standing behind Anna. I didn’t see him come in. I was so focused on Anna’s beauty. There is no beauty in prison.

“Hello, Augustus,” he says, staring down at me over Anna’s shoulder.

“Hello.”

“I’m Detective Reggie Dorsey,” he says, extending his hand to Anna, who has turned around.

“Hello,” she says stiffly, shaking his hand.

“I’m sorry to be rude,” he says, “but there’s something I need to discuss in private with Augustus.”

“Oh, of course.” She gives me a quick parting smile, then stands up and heads toward Randy and the door.

“Sorry about that,” Reggie says, noting the disappointment in my expression, “but I think what I have to tell you will make you forget everything else.”

I catch my breath. “What?”

“One hour ago we arrested Frank Taylor for the murder of your wife. You’re a free man.” Reggie says this as directly as the way he told me Melanie was dead. “You were right about everything.”

“My God,” is all I can murmur. The relief is overpowering. I can’t even begin to describe it.

“We found the murder weapon in his garage. It was a hunting knife and it had Melanie’s blood on it. He said he’d never seen it, but he’s lying.” Reggie begins ticking off the evidence. “We tracked down the silver Mercedes, which he had sold a few weeks ago. There were several drops of Melanie’s blood on one of the back wheel rims, and we found her hair inside the car too. You were right about his practice. He owed five hundred grand to a bank in town and he had no way to pay it off. He’d been counting on a big payoff from a case he took on a contingency basis last year, but the plaintiff ended up settling for almost nothing three months ago. Taylor was on the brink with nowhere to turn.” Reggie shakes his head. “We think he killed Erin too. That woman you spoke to at the club. She was found yesterday, strangled to death in her apartment.”

“Oh, no.”

“Yeah,” he says, grimacing. “There were fibers from Taylor’s carpet in her apartment. He must have figured she would talk.” Reggie hesitates and lowers his voice. “You must have told Taylor that you had spoken to Erin.”

“Yes, I did,” I say, stunned. Erin seemed like a nice person, and she was one of the few people willing to help me. Now she’s dead. I’ve caused more pain. “Has Taylor admitted to Melanie’s murder?” I ask quietly.

“No, but he will. The evidence is overwhelming.” Reggie smiles again. “By the way, you’ve got an alibi.”

I look at him curiously. “How is that possible? I told you, I didn’t talk to anyone when I took the drive.”

“I got your tag number from the DMV and ran a check for any traffic monitoring systems the Fairfax County police might have set up on Route 50. They do that a lot these days. You know, cameras at bad intersections to catch people who run red lights.”

“Yeah?”

“You got lucky,” he says, his smile widening. “A few months ago the county boys set up one of those systems at an intersection just east of the bridge where Route 28 crosses over Route 50 coming south from Dulles Airport. There had been several fatal accidents at that intersection within a couple of weeks. It’s a long light for people trying to turn onto Route 50 from the side road, and people were running it. It took some time, and I had to call in a lot of favors, but the county people went through tapes of that day and, sure enough, they tracked your Toyota heading east through that intersection at 11:12 p.m. The coroner confirmed that, based upon the coagulation of Melanie’s blood, she died before eleven o’clock that night, so there’s no way you could have killed her.”

I stand up slowly and reach across the table to shake Reggie’s hand. His constant search for the truth has saved me. I can’t begin to explain what I’m feeling right now. It’s as if I’ve been given a second chance at life.

“There’s one thing I don’t understand, though,” Reggie says.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, I’m sure.”

“Tell me.”

Reggie purses his lips and strokes his mustache. “I still have an anonymous source. Someone who told me to go to Erin’s apartment. Otherwise it might have been days before we found her.”

I stare into Reggie’s brown eyes, thinking. Then suddenly it hits me. Now it’s up to me to make things right.

CHAPTER 23

Two hours south-southwest of Washington, D.C., in rural Rappahannock County, Virginia, a winding Route 211 passes over the most eastward line of the ancient Appalachian Mountains at almost four thousand feet above sea level, near a point called The Pinnacle. Here you can turn off 211 onto Skyline Drive—a sliver of road that snakes along mountaintops—and pick up the Appalachian Trail, a lonely and demanding hiking path that stretches all the way from Georgia to Maine. Points on the trail provide breathtaking views of the lush Shenandoah Valley to the west and the rolling hills of Virginia’s horse country extending back toward Washington to the east. On summer weekends, Skyline Drive and the Appalachian Trail can be crowded with tourists, but from Monday to Friday, the thickly forested slopes provide a rare measure of solitude.

During times of emotional intensity—whether it’s joy or sorrow—I’m drawn to these mountains so strongly it’s difficult for me to describe. I came here the day after we won our high school football championship; the day before I asked Melanie to marry me; and a couple of days after she died—each time alone. And here I am—alone again—only a few hours after having gotten out of jail.

I don’t know why I’m drawn so intensely to this place, but I am. If I were religious, I’d say it’s because I feel closer to heaven and because up here I can truly appreciate the vastness and beauty of God’s world. But I’m not a religious man, and my stay in jail hasn’t caused me any sort of stunning epiphany, though I thought a great deal about hell while I gazed at my cell wall.

I’m headed toward a lonely cliff popular with rock climbers on weekends and a favorite destination of mine. It’s a strenuous hike from a remote parking area off Skyline Drive to get here, but it’s worth it. The panoramic view of the valley stretching out far below is incredible. You can see the thin blue line of the Shenandoah River flowing north, picturesque farms dotting its banks for miles. You have to walk for over an hour to get here, even at a brisk pace, following a steep rocky path as it rises through the dense forest. Then suddenly you break through the foliage and move out onto twenty feet of flat rock. You have to be careful not to rush ahead too quickly because at the end of the shelf the cliff falls straight down several hundred feet. I always get a nervous thrill as I inch toward the edge and crane my neck to look over the side.

For several minutes I stare out over the valley, standing only a foot from the drop-off, basking in the warm sunshine, the solitude, and my regained freedom.

When I turn back around, Roger is standing at the tree line where the earth meets the rock, pointing a revolver directly at me.

“Hello, Augustus,” he says calmly. His toupee is gone, as is his beard. He looks very different, but I still recognize him. “I was kind of hoping you’d still have on your prison grays,” he says, smirking. “I wanted to see what you looked like on the inside.”

“Is that Slammer’s revolver?” I ask, nodding at the gun.

He hesitates, surprised by the question. “Yeah.”

He should have known I’d figure out everything. There was so much time to do nothing but think in jail. “The police were looking for it after Slammer jumped. They searched the trading floor but couldn’t find it. I knew you or Mary had taken it.”

“Good for you,” he retorts sarcastically, glancing around. “What else did you know?”

“I knew you were never married. Hell, I’ve seen that picture you put up in your Bedford cubicle of your ‘wife and kids’ in a Hallmark store near my house. I had a feeling from the start that you weren’t really married. The odds of a guy being able to quit his job to day trade without telling his wife or having her find out are pretty damn small. And that night you came to the baseball game with Vincent and me, I had to remind you to call home. A man married to the kind of woman you described would have been calling home to make excuses. And you kept changing the name of your daughter. It just didn’t add up.”

“Yeah, well—”

“And it occurred to me that you’d been to the Two O’Clock Club before Vincent took us there last Thursday. You were so excited about the prospect of going to a strip club, but when you found out it was the Two O’Clock Club, you practically set an Olympic record for the hundred-yard dash getting out of there. At first I couldn’t figure out what had happened. I thought maybe you’d just gotten cold feet. But then something Erin told me made me realize it was the Two O’Clock Club in particular you wanted to stay away from, especially with me. She told me how much you liked that routine she and Melanie did.” I take a step toward him.

“Hold it right there,” he warns, raising the gun.

“That’s why you ran that night, wasn’t it?” He doesn’t answer. “You’d seen Erin dancing at the club before and you were worried she might recognize you when we walked in. Or any of the other girls for that matter. That if they did, and said hello, I might start to wonder. You weren’t ready for me to wonder at that point, were you?” I pause. “And of course that’s why you wore that pathetic toupee and grew a beard before you came to Bedford. Just in case you ran into Vincent or Taylor or anybody else who might have noticed you in the shadows of the Two O’Clock Club.” I pause again. “You’d always had to come through the front door of the club, but we were coming in through the back. You didn’t recognize the place. If you had, you would have been gone as soon as the limo stopped.”

He pulls the hammer of the gun back and it clicks menacingly in the quiet of the mountaintop.

“You saw Melanie dancing there too,” I continue. “Erin told me that. She didn’t actually mention your name,” I say, “but when she said there was a bald guy with bad acne in the back of the club almost every night Melanie danced, I figured it had to be you. I looked for you in the pictures on the wall near the back entrance. I was hoping the cameras might have caught you in the crowd, but you must have been careful about that.” My anger starts to burn. “Did you enjoy that show Melanie and Erin put on? Erin said you tipped her very well, at least in the beginning.”

“I enjoyed the hell out of it, Augustus. I enjoyed getting a real good look at your wife.”

“You killed her,” I whisper, now absolutely convinced of the revelation that struck me this morning in the visitors’ area of the jail. I was wrong about Vincent. Taylor too, as much as I wanted it to be him. It was Roger all along. “You were the one.”

“Yes, I was,” Roger confirms. “She had a habit of stopping at a convenience store a few blocks from the club. And so I followed her. When she came out of the store, I surprised her and dragged her around the side of the building. I sliced her neck wide open, then carried her back into the alley where the cops found her. It was over in a few seconds. No one ever saw a thing.”