The Shadow's Edge (10 page)

             
                                                                                   
17

              I had just finished another less than satisfying meal at the diner and was on my way back to the hotel with Bix when my cell phone rang. “She called again,” Anne Girard said without preamble.

             
“Any idea from where?”

             
“My guess is she’s nearby. When I tried to convince her to come to my place she said she’d think about it, then something about needing to get cleaned up before she decided. I definitely got the impression she was close.”

             
“Okay, Anne. I’m going to drive into Lewiston right now. Call me again if you hear from her. I’m going to scout out the area around your place. Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

             
“I surely hope you do. She sounds extremely depressed. I’m worried what she might do if we don’t find her soon.”

             
I loaded Bix into the pickup and took off. I called Miles to let him know what I was doing. “Good luck, Jack,” he said. “Lord knows we could use some.”
              “Amen to that,” I said.

             
When I got to Lewiston it was mid-afternoon on a dark, overcast day. The sky was pewter colored and there was a smell of rain in the air. I drove the streets surrounding Anne’s home in a systematic manner, gradually expanding outward. As I drove around it started to shower lightly and then to rain with intensity. Few people ventured out and my hope of coming across Callie under these conditions seemed remote in the extreme. But I had nothing to consider as an alternative and so I doggedly continued my search.   Eventually, I spotted a small group of people gathered outside a modest building, smoking and talking while taking shelter under an awning. There was a sign above the awning that identified the place as Hope Haven Gospel Mission.  A homeless shelter. On a whim I pulled the pickup to a stop across the street from the mission and ran to the entryway. One of the guys in the group near the door said, “Supper ain’t for another twenty minutes.”

             
“Thanks,” I said. “Is it okay to go in now?”

             
“Yeah, not a problem,” he said.

             
I entered the building to find a bunch of tables filling the room. There were a few people at most of the tables, chatting and waiting for the soup kitchen to open. At one of the tables on my left two women sat opposite one another. The one facing my way wore a man’s tattered overcoat and was mumbling incoherently to the woman whose back was to me. There was something vaguely familiar about the latter woman. Although she was wearing cheap clothing and what appeared to be a poor quality blond wig, I dared to hope it was Callie. I walked slowly along the aisle toward her. On the way my mind went back and forth several times, one moment convinced it was Callie and the next, just as certain it wasn’t. I ambled slowly past the table, avoiding a direct look at the woman, conscious of the possibility of creating a problem if my greatest wish turned out to be a false alarm. Once at the front of the room I turned and began the trek back. The focus of my attention was temporarily obscured from my vision by others standing near a neighboring table. As I got closer, and her face came into my line of vision, I realized with some horror that this woman was, indeed, my wife. Her face was gaunt, she was hunched over giving the impression she was in considerable pain, and looked near death. I very slowly took a seat in the chair next to her. The woman across from her now directed her mutterings at me. I ignored her. “Callie,” I said gently.

             
At first she didn’t respond. Then, almost in slow motion, she lifted her head and turned to me. She didn’t speak but only looked into my eyes. Then she began to cry. Tears cascaded down her cheeks. I put my arm carefully around her shoulders. “Come on, honey,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

             
“Oh, Jack,” she whispered. “Jack. You’re here.”

             
“Yes, honey, I’m here. Everything’s going to be okay now. I promise.”

             
“I’ve done a terrible thing, Jack.”

             
“Shhh,” I said, putting my finger to her lips. “Let’s go.”

             
We stood together and made our way outside. I put my arm firmly around her shoulders and we hurried through the rain to the pickup.

              Although there was a great deal to talk about I knew this was not the time. I needed to get Callie somewhere she would feel safe, somewhere she could rest and put her mind at ease. I found a decent looking motel and arranged a room. Once inside I ran a bath and helped Callie as she wordlessly removed her clothing and wig and slipped beneath the water. I could hardly believe how thin she was. “Are you okay on your own for a few minutes?” I asked.

             
She nodded.

             
“I’m going to go get us some food. Anything special you’d like?”

             
“An apple,” she said shyly.

             
I smiled. “You got it. But how about something to go with the apple?”

             
“I’m not very hungry.”

             
She looked like she hadn’t eaten in a month. “I’m going to pick up some stuff anyway. I won’t be long.”

             
Luckily the motel was only a few steps away from a mall with a food court and several ladies clothing stores. With the assistance of a helpful sales clerk I picked up a jacket, jeans, sneakers, blouse, and underwear for Callie. Then some Chinese food to go. The apple would have to wait.

             
When I got back to the room Callie was curled up on the couch wearing the motel’s courtesy bathrobe with her hair wrapped up in a towel. I put her new wardrobe on the bed and spread the food out on the coffee table beside her. Once she started to eat her appetite seemed to have no bounds. I started to worry she would make herself sick if she didn’t ease up.

             
When at last she sat back, holding her stomach, I asked if she would like me to make her a cup of tea. She nodded.

             
A few minutes later, when I brought the tea to her, she was sound asleep.

             
I peeled back the covers on the king size bed and carried her to it. I turned off the lights and for several hours sat in the darkness watching her dim silhouette as she slept.

             
Around midnight I quietly slid into the bed beside her. She was curled into a little ball on her side, turned away from me. I laid awake for another hour, marveling at the simple joy of sharing a bed with my wife after an absence of seven long years.

             
Sometime during the night I woke to find her snuggled into me with her arm across my chest and her head on my shoulder.

             
                                                                                   
18

              Over breakfast at a family restaurant the next morning I broached the subject of the future. “You ready to talk yet?”

             
She took a big breath and looked away from me. “Do I have to?”

             
“I’m afraid so, Callie. I need you to tell me exactly what happened with Croop. I know it’ll be hard for you but you have to trust me. Before you say anything there’s something you should know. Maybe it’ll make it easier for you to tell me what you have to say.”

             
“Okay,” she said.

             
“Croop was stalking you. The police found pictures in his house of you. A lot of them. Pictures he had taken of you while you obviously weren’t aware of it.”

             
She looked at me with a slightly confused expression. Like she didn’t quite grasp the meaning of my words. “Pictures?”

             
“Yeah. And there was more. The police found other pictures, too. Of another woman named Charlene Lamont. Do you know her?”

             
“No, but I know there was some talk about her in town.”

             
“Right. Charlene Lamont has been missing for several months. The pictures that Croop had of this woman showed her tied up and tortured. The police believe Croop probably murdered her.”

             
“That’s awful.”

             
“Yes it is. The thing is, Callie, by killing Croop you probably saved your own life. He was a bad man, honey.”

             
“But … ”

             
It wasn’t hard to tell Callie was trying with some difficulty to process the information I had given her, how it impacted her actions. I reached across the table and took her hand in mine. “Did Croop threaten you? Is that why you killed him?”

             
She shook her head and looked down. “Not like you think,” she said.

             
“What do you mean, honey?”

             
For a long moment Callie struggled with her thoughts. “Croop did threaten me,” she said at last. “But not like that.”

             
“How then?”

             
“He said he’d tell you … what … we did.”

             
“What he and you did?”

             
She started to cry again and nodded her head. “I let him … make love to me. Just once. I was confused and I thought at first he was a good person. Right away I knew what I was doing was all wrong, that I had made a huge mistake. But after that he kept calling me. When I said I didn’t want him to bother me anymore he said he’d stop if I would be with him one more time. I knew he was lying. I knew he would never leave me alone. That he’d just keep on making me do stuff and, if I didn’t, he’d tell you and---”

             
“Oh, Callie, honey. I’m so sorry.”

             
“Do you hate me now, Jack?”

             
“No, Callie. Of course not. I just feel bad that you had to go through all that.”

             
“I’m so confused about everything, Jack. I can’t get my mind to work right anymore.”

             
“Callie, I want you to think hard before you answer my next question, okay?”

             
“All right.”

             
“Did you plan to kill Croop when you met him out on Thornhill Road? Is that why you went there?”
              “No … It wasn’t till after, when he tried to kiss me and put his hands on me that I kind of went crazy and grabbed his gun. When he tried to grab it back, that’s when I shot him.”

             
“He died immediately?”

             
She nodded.

             
“What happened after you shot him?”

             
“I put him in his car. I was going to hide the car in some trees on Mitch Fuller’s property but Mitch saw me before I could get there and he followed me. When Mitch saw Croop’s body I panicked. For a second I thought about killing Mitch, too. But then I realized I couldn’t do that. So I  drove him a long way out in the woods and let him go. I just wanted to give myself some time to get away.”

             
Callie sat back, exhausted at the effort of reliving her nightmare. “Oh, Jack. What’s going to happen?”

             
While Callie had been talking I had been asking myself the same question. What would happen if Callie gave the police the same story she had just told me? She had killed Croop for no other reason than he had threatened to divulge an adulterous affair. That did not, under any circumstance, constitute an acceptable reason for her actions. Never mind that he would eventually be suspected of other serious crimes – none of which had yet been absolutely proven I reminded myself.

             
It was very clear that the story Callie gave the police was going to have to differ substantially from the one she had just given me.

             
And so I began the process of constructing a different version of events. One that placed Callie in the position of having to defend herself against the threat of rape and possibly death.

             
One that would see her walk away a free woman.

             
                                                                                   
19

              The end justifies the means. A debatable point I suppose. One could argue that the morality of an act can only be determined at the point in time it is committed. If one kills a murderer, unaware he is a murderer, is the action morally justified?

             
I could argue the point in my head until I was much older and even greyer but the facts weren’t going to change. I had to do what I had to do.

             
I had asked myself if I was prepared to risk my wife’s freedom on a question of ethics. The answer I had come to? Not a chance. I was convinced that Croop was guilty of despicable acts against women – at least two that we knew of and who knew how many others? - and I was damned if I would let Callie spend one more minute of her life suffering guilt over the act of ending the scumbag’s life. If we had to manufacture a few details to ensure her freedom then so be it.

             
We spent a fair bit of time going over the story she would give the police. In the end most elements of her rendition of events would be true. The fewer lies that were told the fewer chances there were that she would get crossed up on questioning. The story we came up with didn’t make her look like a saint but, I hoped, a woman who had good reason to fear for her life - a woman pushed to the limit by a man who would stop at nothing to take advantage of her. In the amended version of events she had been raped by Croop on one occasion and had been forced to shoot him to prevent it from happening again.

             
Once rehearsed to the point of reasonable confidence, we contacted a legal firm in Lewiston I had heard good things about. After a few minutes talking to an underling we were directed to a criminal defense attorney named Christine Darrow. She knew of Callie’s case from the news and invited us to come right over to her office on Lisbon Street. When we got there we were escorted into an interview room by an assistant. Darrow arrived shortly after. She was a somewhat stern looking woman, nearly as tall as me, with pale blond hair pulled back and tied in a knot at the back of her head. She would have been pretty if not for the lines of her mouth that gave the strong impression of impatience. “Christine Darrow,” she said, shaking hands with us both. “And before you ask, no relation to Clarence.” Clarence Darrow, of course, having been one of the most prominent attorneys in America at one time.

             
“Sharing the name probably doesn’t hurt, though, huh?” I asked.

             
She smiled at that and it did wonders to ease her sharp features. “Not a bit,” she said, then directed her full attention to Callie. “So, Mrs. Parmenter, you’ve been the focus of considerable attention in the news lately. Before we get started I’m going to ask you to sign this document.” She reached into a desk drawer and withdrew a single sheet of paper that she placed in front of Callie with a pen. “It appoints me as your temporary legal counsel. This will allow you to discuss your case with me on a preliminary basis. Anything said will, of course, remain confidential. If you should decide not to engage my services after we’ve spoken – or if I decide not to represent you - no problem. Any questions?”

             
“No,” Callie answered. She signed the document.

             
“Okay, then. Start from the beginning and tell me your story.”

             
Callie glanced briefly at me and cleared her throat. “I met John Croop by accident at the grocery store about a month ago,” she began. She then recounted her story sticking to the facts until she got to the part where they were at the place near Fairmont. “I felt uncomfortable as soon as we got there. I told him I wasn’t feeling well and wanted to go home. He refused to take me back. When I got mad we fought and he forced me onto the sofa and … raped me.”

             
When Callie didn’t continue Darrow asked, “Where exactly is this place he took you to?

             
“It’s on Beaver Lake Road.”

             
“Do you remember the exact address?”

             
“Yes, 1600 Beaver Lake Road. I remember seeing the address on the fence at the road and thinking it was the same as the White House.”             

             
“And how did you get home?”

             
“Croop drove me back after I cleaned myself up.”

             
“And then what happened?”
              “I was going to go to the police and report the rape but Croop warned me he would tell a completely different story if I did and that he would make me look very bad. I knew Jack would be coming to see me and I was worried about what he would think, so I didn’t go to the police.”

             
“And how did you eventually end up meeting Croop again?”

             
“He had called me on the phone quite a few times trying to get me to see him again. I refused but he started to threaten that he would tell Jack that he and I had had an affair if I didn’t do what he wanted. I was so afraid of how I would look if that happened. When he called the last time I was desperate. I asked him to meet me so that I could beg him to leave me alone.”

             
“You asked Croop to meet you? Not the other way around?”

             
“Yes. We met at the same place on Thornhill Road. I got there first and when he arrived I tried to reason with him but he wouldn’t listen to my pleas. He tried to kiss me and put his hands on me, then tried to force me into his car. We struggled and I managed to grab his gun – he was wearing his police uniform at the time. I warned him not to come near me but he ignored me and made a grab for the gun. He was very angry and I was afraid he would kill me if I didn’t stop him. I shot him … two times. He fell to the ground. I could see he was dead.”

             
“Go on,” Darrow said.

             
“I panicked. I thought maybe I could hide Croop’s body and give myself time to get away so no one would know it was me that had shot him. So I pulled him into his car and drove it to a remote spot on Mitch Fuller’s farm. But Mitch saw me before I got there and followed me. I grabbed the shotgun he was carrying and tied him up, then drove him out in the wilderness and let him go. Then I drove to Lewiston and went to see an old friend who tried to convince me to give myself up. But I was afraid to do that. I lived in Mitch’s truck for awhile. Then I became afraid the police would spot the pickup so I left it at a mall and bought a blond wig to disguise myself. I ran out of money and stayed at a homeless shelter. Then Jack found me and … that’s about it.”

             
Darrow sat back, tapping her forehead with a pencil in a thoughtful pose. “Is what you’ve told me absolutely true in every regard, Mrs. Parmenter?”

             
“Yes.”

             
“You’ve left nothing out?”

             
“No, I swear.”

             
“I’m having a little trouble with some aspects of your story,” Darrow said. “Specifically, I find it somewhat difficult to imagine that you would ask a man who had raped you to meet you again so that you could beg him to leave you alone. It simply doesn’t have the ring of truth.”

             
Callie shrugged. “But it
is
the truth.”

             
“When did you learn of the allegations about Croop abducting and torturing Charlene Lamont?”

             
“Jack told me when he found me.”
              “You didn’t know anything about these allegations before? Hadn’t seen anything on t.v. or in the newspaper?”

             
“No.”

             
Darrow sat quietly for several moments letting things gel in her mind. Once or twice she looked at me and then back to Callie. Finally she made a decision. “Okay, if you want me to represent you I’ll take your case. I’ll warn you right up front, however, that, regardless of the allegations against Croop, the District Attorney will almost certainly bring murder charges against you and try very hard to punch holes in the story you’ve just told me.  Then, of course, there is the separate issue of Mitch Fuller’s abduction. I hope you’re up to a rigorous defense, Mrs. Parmenter.”

             
“Do you think I’ll be found guilty?” Callie asked in a tremulous voice.

             
“I don’t lose many cases,” Darrow responded. “When I do it’s usually because the client hasn’t told me the truth. So I’ll ask you once more. Are the events you’ve described to me here today absolutely true, in every detail?”

             
“Yes,” Callie said with only the slightest hesitation.

             
“Anything to add, Mr. Parmenter?” Darrow said, looking at me.

             
“No, ma’am,” I said. “Nothing to add.”

             
“Mrs. Parmenter,” Darrow said, reaching for her phone, “I’m going to call the State Police. We’ll volunteer to surrender you with a request that the press are not notified of our pending arrival.”

             
A lawyer who isn’t looking to put herself in front of the t.v. cameras
, I thought to myself.
Maybe we’ve found ourselves a good one.