The Reckoning Stones: A Novel of Suspense (9 page)

An hour later she was almost back to Colorado Springs, forced to slow by clotting traffic, when the shock drained away enough for her to look at her father’s actions in another light. He might not have believed her, but he’d gone to prison for what he thought was her crime. Her lungs burned and it was hard to breathe through the toxic mix of anger and grief that swelled within her at the realization that he thought her capable of beating a man, even Pastor Matt, into a coma. She coughed and breathed deeply, her chest expanding against the seatbelt. He’d spent twenty-three years locked up to protect her. Twenty-three years for a crime he didn’t commit. Resolve tightened Iris’s grip on the steering wheel. She had to get him out.

It was only mid-afternoon when she got back to the motel, but Iris was tempted to head for the nearest bar, slug back a couple of beers, and see what the local action looked like. The melancholy anonymity of the motel room had a calming effect, however, and by the time she’d showered off the probably imaginary prison stink and changed into faded jeans and a Henley shirt, she’d plotted her next step. She needed an Internet café to find the name and address of her father’s lawyer. Giving her jewelry-making tools a wistful look, Iris slung her computer bag over her shoulder and closed the motel door firmly behind her. Maybe she’d try to sketch some designs for the new commission this evening, after energizing her father’s lawyer for a new appeal or whatever it took to free him.

fourteen

iris

The law firm of
Weber and Parrish was located on Tejon Street in downtown Colorado Springs. Beyond noting brown stone and tinted glass, Iris gave the building little thought as she fed the meter, checked the lobby directory, and headed for the elevator. It spit her out on the seventh floor, and she found herself facing a travertine counter behind which sat a male receptionist talking on the phone. When the man hung up and gave Iris an enquiring look, she stepped forward.

“I’m Iris Dashwood. I’d like to talk to Susan Tzudiker about the Neil Asher case. I don’t have an appointment.”

The receptionist’s brows twitched together. “I’m afraid Ms. Tzudiker is no longer with the firm. She’s gone over to the other side.”

Iris hated coy references to death. “She died?”

The receptionist permitted himself a prim smile. “She joined the DA’s office. Lawyer joke.”

“I’m really not in the mood for jokes,” Iris said. “Just hook me up with whoever took over Neil Asher’s case when Ms. Tzudiker moved on.”

“What is your interest in the case?” the receptionist asked, clearly miffed by Iris’s tone. He picked up his phone and pushed an intercom button.

“I’m Neil Asher’s daughter.” She’d been avoiding talking about her family for so long that claiming the relationship out loud felt strange.

The receptionist’s brows soared and he turned away from Iris to murmur into the phone. “Someone will be with you in just a few minutes,” he said more cordially, gesturing toward a small sitting area.

Too restless to sit, Iris prowled the reception area, inspecting the artwork on the walls, the predictable magazines on the glass-topped table, the array of plaques that extolled the firm’s contributions to the city. She’d looked at them all twice over before a man’s footsteps sounded behind her. She turned.

“My God, it is you. Mercy Asher. I thought you were dead.”

The man standing there, immaculate in a suit and tie, was still recognizable as the eighteen-year-old she’d last seen in jeans and worn leather jacket the night of her humiliation. There were crow’s feet around his brown eyes now, and silver strands in the black hair, but he still wore it in a low ponytail. The establishment suit dimmed the electric charge he used to give off; he’d been a wire thinly wrapped in leather and denim, apt to burn through at any moment. They’d met in Spanish class when Cade was a senior and Iris a sophomore. The attraction was mutual and violent. She knew her parents would never let her hang out with a friend who wasn’t from the Community, so she used to sneak out to meet him in the woods, on the rockslide, or in his car. She’d gotten good at lying to her parents about her whereabouts when she was meeting Pastor Matt—oh, irony—and she put the training to good use to steal an hour here and there with Cade.

The faint odor of cigarette smoke clung to him. Iris’s lips tingled, as they had when he’d kissed her for hours on end, making her flush with heat, and she put two fingers against her mouth. Like Pavlov’s dogs, she thought, annoyed with her body for its instantaneous reaction to the stimulus of her former boyfriend’s presence. “Cade? What—?”

“Let’s go into my office, Ms. Asher,” Cade Zuniga said with a meaningful glance at the curious receptionist.

“Dashwood. Iris Dashwood.” Without another word, Iris trailed him through the carpeted hallways to a corner office guarded by a secretary’s desk, currently empty. “A lawyer, huh? I’d never have guessed. You’ve done well for a boy who wasn’t sure he’d graduate on time,” she said, glancing at the Pikes Peak view from the window before her gaze caught on the photos of a dark-haired boy and girl, maybe four and six, on the desk. She swallowed hard.

“The DWI conviction didn’t help, either,” he agreed, closing the door. An expensive watch gleamed from his wrist and a band of white on his ring finger testified to the recent presence of a wedding ring.

“I didn’t know about that.”

“The night you left.” He didn’t move, but his gaze flicked over her before returning to her face. “You’re looking well. Beautiful.”

“And you. Well, I mean.”

“It’s good to see you. Really good. I worried about you.” He paused and the tip of his tongue moistened his lips. “I would have gone with you, if you’d told me you were going.”

Exactly why she hadn’t told him. “You couldn’t. Your sister, your grandfather—. How’s your grandmother?” Cade had been raised by his grandparents after the courts took him and his sister away from their parents. Cade’s mother had later kicked her drug habit, but Cade and his sister had remained with their grandparents.

“Still kicking. Still the church secretary, even though she’s pushing eighty. The fathers make noises about her retiring now and then, but the parish would fall apart without her and they know it.”

Iris smiled at her memories of the four-foot-nine dynamo, her thick hair pulled into a low bun, laying down the law to her husband and Cade. She could easily imagine her bossing the priests around. “Say ‘hello’ to her for me.”

“Aw, hell.” Cade rubbed a hand down his tanned face and moved toward his desk. As if the movement had snapped him back to the present, his voice assumed a professional overtone, less raw, more distant. “Bernard said you were asking for Susan Tzudiker, so obviously you didn’t come here looking for me.”

“I did if you’re my father’s lawyer. How did you end up representing him?” Without waiting for Cade to ask her to sit, Iris settled into a squashy blue chair positioned in front of the desk. She shifted it so she wasn’t gazing directly at the photos of Cade’s children. Reaching out, she let her fingers trail along the smooth bird’s eye maple of the desk before dropping her hand back in her lap.

“When Susan left, his file came over to me.”

She fixed her gaze on Cade’s face. “He didn’t do it.”

“He told you that?”

“He thought I did it.”

Cade didn’t express the surprise she’d been expecting. “Even though he confessed, I had trouble thinking of your dad as the violent type.”

“He wasn’t. He’s not. I—we—need to get him out of prison.”

“It’s not so easy, Mer—Iris.”

“Can’t you file an appeal or get them to re-open the case or something?”

“Not without new evidence.”

“But he said—”

Cade was shaking his head. “Retracting his confession at this stage isn’t going to make a difference.” He depressed a button on his phone.
“Lib, bring me the Asher file, please.” Leaning back in his chair, he tapped a pencil on the desk. Iris well remembered his inability to be still; he was always pacing, or fiddling with something. “Where have you been?” he asked, his gaze settling on her.

“Around. Early on, I moved a lot. I finally put together a life, my Iris life, soon after I turned twenty. In Portland mostly. I design and make jewelry. I’ve been in Oregon the last couple of years, but I’ve been thinking that it’s time to try someplace new again.” Iris wished the paralegal would show up with the file, and end the awkwardness.

“All that moving around must be hard on your family.” Cade’s dark eyes never left hers and she knew what he was asking.

“No family. Well, except Jane and Edgar. Her cat.”

“Sounds lonely.”

She slanted a self-mocking smile. “Not so much. I don’t have any trouble finding companionship when I want it.” Before he could respond, she added, “You’ve got kids.”

He fingered the photos and smiled. “Stephen and Elena. We—”

A brief knock heralded the entrance of a middle-aged woman. “Here’s the Asher file, Cade,” she said, shooting a curious look at Iris. Handing over a two-inch-thick expandable folder, she left reluctantly when Cade thanked her.

“I can sum this up for you in twenty-five words or less,” Cade said, slapping a hand on the file. “The vic’s daughter called 911 to say Matthew Brozek was injured and needed an ambulance. The police arrived before the EMTs and found Neil standing over Brozek in a cottage on the property, covered in Brozek’s blood. They snapped the cuffs on him. He originally said he walked in and found Brozek injured and tried to help him, which is how he got the blood on himself. Hours later, though, he confessed to beating Brozek, but wouldn’t say why. There were plenty of folks in Lone Pine, however, quick to tell the police about your accusations and what happened to you. The cops figured that added up to motive and labeled the case ‘closed’ before the week was out.”

Iris wrinkled her brow, trying to piece together the order of events. “What about Mrs. Brozek?”

“The cops found her a bit later, in the kitchen. The 911 call only mentioned Brozek and the beating, so they didn’t go looking for a second vic. Your father didn’t know she was there, either. She was dead when they found her.”

Iris shivered, picturing Mrs. Brozek, who had been an inoffensive woman, lying in pain on the kitchen floor, maybe hearing the commotion, but unable to call out. Iris hated to think that if she’d been found a few minutes earlier, the EMTs might have saved her. Then she could have named her husband’s attacker, presumably, and Iris’s father wouldn’t have spent twenty-three years in prison. What a difference those ten or twenty minutes might have made for so many people: her father, obviously; her mother; Esther and Zach, who had essentially been orphaned …

Cade interrupted her thoughts. “The perp used something like a tire iron or fireplace poker to beat Brozek. The weapon was never found. Your dad refused to say what he did with it when he confessed.”

“It doesn’t make sense that he would beat Pastor Matt, go somewhere to dispose of the weapon, and then come back,” Iris said heatedly.

Cade shrugged. “The prosecutor suggested he’d had an attack of conscience and returned to render aid. At any rate, they found plenty of fingerprints in the house and cottage. Half the Community apparently hung out at the Brozeks’.
There were the prints you’d expect—the family’s—plus your mom’s and dad’s, Jolene Farraday’s, a dozen others from the Community, another half-dozen unidentified”—he paused—“and yours.”

Iris nodded, unperturbed by the searching look he gave her. “I was there. That night.”

“You were?” He leaned forward, his eyes fixed on hers.

Was she imagining it, or did he look slightly wary? She faced him, deliberately expressionless as she remembered the short walk from her house to the Brozeks’ home in the darkness, cold weighing down the air, the spooky hoot of an owl launching for a hunt. “I went there to confront Pastor Matt. I’d been crying pretty much non-stop since the ritual the night before. I’d already made up my mind to go. But I needed to see him, to tell him that he was evil, that even if the Community didn’t see it, I did. God did. And I was never, ever going to forgive him. That would show him.” She smiled bitterly at her fifteen-year-old self’s naïveté.

Cade came around the desk and laid a hand on Iris’s shoulder. The warmth seeped into her skin, into her muscles. She resisted the urge to lean her cheek against his forearm. “What did he say?”

She shook her head, shrugging his hand away. He stepped back, hitching one buttock up on the desk and crossing his arms. Uncomfortable with him standing over her, Iris stood and crossed to the plateglass window. “Nothing,” she said, watching a woman on the sidewalk below try to fold a stroller into the back of her car. “I chickened out.” The shame of it bowed her head, even now. “I got to the house, put my hand on the doorknob, and even knocked. Before anyone could answer, I lost my nerve. I imagined Esther or Mrs. Brozek opening the door, looking at me like I was dog dirt on their shoes, believing, like everyone, that I’d falsely accused him. Or him standing there, pretending I was a troubled soul he was saintly enough to forgive, yet with that look in the back of his eyes that said he remembered what the crook of my neck smelled like, how the old couch squeaked—”

“God, Iris.”

She turned to face him, leaning back against the window, letting its rigidity and coolness strengthen her. The sun streamed around her, casting her face in shadow. “I took off. Scrammed. Vamoosed. Ran like a frightened bunny.”

“Of course you did. You were fifteen! You can’t blame yourself for not facing him down. Damn!” Cade pounded a fist on his desk and a stapler shivered off the edge, spewing staples when it hit the floor. “I wish
I’d
beaten him to a pulp.”

They stood for a moment in silence, neither making a move to retrieve the stapler. Finally, Cade spoke softly. “Is that why you came back? To confront him?”

Iris nodded. “Silly, huh? After twenty-three years—”

“Not silly at all.”

Cade’s phone buzzed and he punched a button with an apologetic look at Iris. His paralegal’s voice came over the intercom; she’d been with him for some time if the note of reproof in her voice was any indication. “Stephen called. He said he’s waiting at soccer practice?”

“On my way. Thanks, Libby.” Facing Iris, he said, “I’ve got to pick up my son. Look, we need to talk more. Tomorrow’s Saturday—I can make some time to work on this.” Pulling some documents from the folder, he passed them to Iris. “This is the police report and some interviews our PI did—nothing privileged. Read through it tonight—maybe it’ll spark something. We can discuss the options first thing tomorrow.”

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Tell me what it would take to get him out.”

He looked at his watch and spoke quickly. “Significant new evidence, emphasis on
significant
, that would give the parole board cause to parole him, or the DA reason to enter a motion to vacate the judgment of conviction. An eyewitness coming forward to say he saw someone else beating Brozek—unlikely. An unimpeachable source giving Neil an alibi—not gonna happen since Neil was on the scene. The murder weapon, depending. The parole board’s meeting later this month, by the way—we don’t have much time. I’ve got to go—we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Iris preceded him out the door and toward the elevator, aware of the secretary’s gaze following them. Saying he was taking the stairs, Cade left her at the elevator door with a swift kiss on the cheek. “Damn, it’s good to see you again, Mercy.”