15 Seconds (24 page)

Chapter Sixty-Three

I
pulled off the highway near Columbia and spent the night in the parking lot of a Fairfield Inn, a couple of miles from the University of South Carolina.

I was glued to the car's radio, and caught several updates on the incident in Mount Holly, but nothing about a car being heisted at a gas station in Charlotte, so hopefully no one had put that together. I desperately wanted to call Carrie, to let her know how I'd gotten away and find out what she'd told the police, but I didn't know if she even had her phone and I didn't want to put her, or myself, at further risk. I didn't know if the police were still chasing me or still believed I was guilty. I only knew I had to find Hofer—
and Hallie
—before the police found me. Before Hofer followed through on his threat!

And as I sat there, huddled in a car in South Carolina, not knowing what my next move would be, not knowing if every cop in the state was looking for my car, I did think of someone who might know where Hofer was.

His daughter. Amanda.

I did the old McDonald's drive-through thing again for breakfast burrito and located the nearest library, and I was at the small stone building when it opened at 10
A.M
.

The woman at the information desk pointed me to two computers in a kind of reading room, a bunch of magazines and newspapers arranged neatly on a round table. The old, large-monitor Dell warmed up creakily, taking me to the state library homepage. I clicked over to Google and typed in “Amanda Hofer
.
”

Dozens of items came up. The first, from the
Lancaster County Crier,
which I assumed was the hometown paper.

“L
OCAL TEEN, 19,
K
ILLS
M
OTHER AND
B
ABY
”

Then below it: “Said to be on Painkiller at Time of Accident. OxyContin and Xanax Linked to Auto Double Homicide.”

Farther down, “Local D.A. Seeks Murder Conviction in Tragic Double Homicide
.
”

I scanned the details, about how elevated traces of OxyContin and Xanax had been found in Amanda's blood as she drove to her cosmetology class that morning. How she had been seen driving erratically through traffic. How she had driven right off the road and onto the victim's lawn, bouncing off a tree and right up to the house, where she mowed down Deborah Jean Jenkins and her two-month-old son, Brett. How the child's father was in the army serving in Afghanistan and had never even seen his newborn son in person.

As I read the actual details, my heart filled with compassion for this man, and for a moment I had to stop and take a couple of breaths, my thoughts finding their way to Hallie, who was around the same age as Amanda Hofer.

Then I scrolled farther down and found what I was looking for in the
Atlanta Constitution:

“T
EEN
A
UTO
K
ILLER
P
LEADS TO
T
WO
C
OUNTS OF
A
GGRAVATED
V
EHICULAR
H
OMICIDE.
R
ECEIVES 20
Y
EARS
”

It showed Amanda, drawn and pale-looking, as she was led from the courthouse.

To begin her sentence at the medium security Pulaski Women's Prison in Hawkinsville, Georgia.

That was exactly what I wanted!

I switched to the website for the Georgia State Prison System, clicked on “Women's Institutions,” and immediately found Pulaski. It wasn't far from I-75. A two- or three-hour drive from where I was.

Visiting hours were from 11
A.M.
to 4
P.M
. All visitors had to present a valid photo ID.

I reached into my pocket and pulled out Carrie's husband's license that I had taken.

And his business card.
Attorney-at-Law.

I knew it was a long shot, but that's all I had right now.

I looked again at Rick's face. Okay, hardly a perfect match—I had blue eyes; his were green. His hair a bit lighter.

Still, it could work. I mean, we weren't exactly talking the Supermax at Florence, Colorado, here . . . This was a medium-security women's prison in backwoods Georgia. Probably a work-farm facility.

And it had to be the last place on earth anyone would be looking for me.

Chapter Sixty-Four

V
ance Hofer stood above the circular saw in the remote woodshed. He eased a two-by-four along the line, splitting it seamlessly down the grain line. He liked how it felt, like he was back at the mill before everything fell apart. He used to come out here back then, and his wife, Joyce, would make something cool to drink and Amanda would bring it out, asking, “What are you making out here, Daddy?” and he would just go, “Nothing. Just thinking.” The bright sparks and whine of the serrated blade were like a hymn in church to him, making his thoughts clear.

He raised his goggles and wiped a thick mixture of sweat and sawdust off the back of his neck.

Vance accepted that his time had come, but he had one final act to see through.
They may build but I will tear asunder,
the Good Book read.
They may repent, but all judgment is still mine.
He knew he had done things to warrant judgment. Some had seemed to rise up from someplace deep inside him, like steam from somewhere deep in the earth. And some just felt justified. But this last thing . . .

He had decided that Henry Steadman was the root of all that had gone bad in his ruined life. The man had no true sense of what he had done, no deep contrition. Only selfish regret at having lost his easy life. And so he had to pay, like the rest had paid. And Vance had devised something good, something that would make him beg and cry before he died. That was a vow, Vance reflected as he eased another plank through the blade. One he'd take to the grave.

He gathered the remnants into a pile, the smell of raw, split pine like incense to him. He brought them over to the chipper. Not a big, fine machine, like what they had had at the plant, which could reduce a full-grown tree to pulp as fast as you could feed it. But it would do what he asked of it. Vance felt there was a beautiful magic to the job it did—the way it transformed something palpable and real one minute into the smallest of inalterable parts the next. It hummed as it chewed up the disparate pieces, raising a foul-smelling dust like vapor.

Purification in its truest, most elemental form.

A shout came from the locker in the back room. He almost didn't hear it over the chipper's noise.
“Please . . . Please . . .”
the girl called out. “Let me talk to my father!”

“Keep quiet, child, if you know what's good for you,” he called back, feeding the split pieces of wood into the chipper's mouth. “You hear I'm busy.”

His own daughter was no better than a whore and deserved all that fate had levied on her. Still, life didn't degrade its victims in a vacuum, Vance thought. Evil had to be drawn out of you, by an agent, a snake. And then let loose in the world. And then the only way to remedy it was for it to be purified. As well as all who had touched it. That was the only way to make it go away . . .

He fed the split wood into the machine, rendering it into its natural, purified state.

Pulp.

He had never fully appreciated the wonderful magic of it until now.

From the shed, the girl cried out again, only a muffled noise above the chipper's grating whir. Truth was, he could hear it all night and it wouldn't sway him now.

“Let me out. I'm begging you. Please. Let me call my father. He'll give you whatever you want. Can't you hear me in here?
Please!
”

Go at it all you want,
Vance said to himself.
That's about all you have left in this world. And don't worry, you'll see him soon enough. That I promise.

She yelled and yelled again as he continued feeding the wood, returning it to its natural state. Eventually her voice became like daggers in his ears. Reminding him of things he didn't want to hear. Things he had put away forever.

He paused the chipper with the foot pedal, got up, and went over to the locked shed door, and slammed on it with all his might.

“Shut the hell on up, Amanda!” he yelled.

Chapter Sixty-Five

P
ulaski was a three-hour drive.

I'd called and left my name with the visitors' center, identifying myself as Rick Holmes, an attorney from Jacksonville, and saying that I wanted to meet with Amanda Hofer. I stopped at a men's haberdashery store and picked out a sport jacket straight off the rack along with a white dress shirt. I wore them out of the shop.

The prison came up out of nowhere, about twenty minutes south of Macon, a town I recalled from my Allman Brothers stage, and was ringed by a barbed-wire fence and a handful of guard towers. The only times I'd ever even been inside one was during med school, at Vandy, where I did some procedures on inmates, but not like this.

Of course, this wasn't exactly San Quentin and we were in the middle of nowhere, and Amanda Hofer wasn't exactly the Unabomber—not to mention that I was relying on the fact that no one ever assumes someone is trying to break into prison.

At just before 1
P.M.
I left the car and headed toward the main entrance. Inside, on the left, was a sign marked
VISITORS
. My heart started to pound. At the counter, I waited behind an African-American family; the mother, in jeans and a tight halter top, seemed to know her way around, and her two talkative boys in NFL jerseys. I told myself to calm down. When they were done, I stepped up to the heavyset woman in a khaki guard's uniform behind the counter.

“Richard Holmes. I'm here to see Amanda Hofer.”

The guard checked over the log. “Are you carrying any firearms or any other weapons? If so, you'll have to check them here.”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Any food, paraphernalia, or materials you're planning to leave with the inmate?”

Again, I shook my head. “No. None.”

She began to fill out a visitor's form. “May I see your ID?”

I pulled Carrie's husband's license from my wallet and passed it across the counter, along with his card, identifying me as an attorney, and waited, sure that the guard was able to hear the bass drum that was booming in my chest. If there'd been some kind of meter measuring heart rate or agitation aimed at me, the needle would be off the chart!

Instead, she just looked them over, glancing at me once, and slid them back. No request to see anything else. No alarms sounding—or guards rushing out with their guns drawn.

Just: “Up from Florida, huh? Warm down there as it is up here?”

“You got off easy,” I said with a grin, sure it was a trick question, and realizing I hadn't checked the weather back there in days.

The guard laughed. “Wait till July and you won't be sayin' that . . .” Then she got on a mike. “Can you bring up 334596 to Booth Three?” she asked, then pushed across an admittance form for me to sign.

I was in!

“Go through the door on the right and down to Booth Three,” she instructed. “Remove anything metal from your pockets inside. Enjoy your visit.” She looked beyond me. “Next in line . . .”

I went through the door and then through a security station, with a metal detector and a long metal table, like I'd seen in courthouses. I emptied my pockets: just my three cell phones and my wallet. Another guard checked my paperwork and then pointed me through. “Down the hall. Booth Three is on the left.”

I took my things and proceeded down the hallway. I came upon a row of ten or twelve visiting booths—four-foot-wide compartments with microphones and a Plexiglas wall separating the inmate from the visitor.

I went over for about the tenth time how I was going to play it, hoping it would work. I had absolutely no idea how Amanda would react. But I was here. I'd gotten this far. And Hallie's life depended on it.

A door on the back wall opened and a pale-looking girl in a purple jumpsuit stepped in. She looked across the glass and clearly didn't know who I was or why I was here. For a split second I thought she might turn around.

But she didn't. Two khaki-clad guards stood against the wall. Amanda Hofer shuffled over and sat across from me. She wasn't bound, and her face was kind of gaunt and pale. Her light brown hair was straggly and held in place by a band. Her eyes were kind of dull gray and like a deer's, fearful and mistrusting. She didn't look a day older than Hallie and my first thought was that I couldn't help but look at her as any father might, thinking,
Jesus, twenty years . . .

“I know you?” she asked blankly.

“No.” I passed her Rick's business card.
Come on, Henry, pull this off!
“I'm a lawyer. From down in Jacksonville.” She looked it over, more like an uncomprehending kid than a drug-hardened felon.

“I never been to Jacksonville.” She shrugged, looking back at me, and said in a deep drawl, “So why you here?”

I had practiced over and over on the long drive down how I would handle this, even though I knew from the outset that it had a slim chance of success.

“I'm a claims attorney,” I explained. “There's been a settlement in a court case from years back. Involving your father.” I knew about the situation down there with the police. “Vance Hofer, correct?”

“That's him,” Amanda said, kind of indifferently. “What'd he do, win the lottery or something . . . ?” She curled an amused smile.

“No, nothing fancy like that. But there might be some kind of restitution for him pending. I just need a sign-off on some paperwork. Problem is, we've been trying to locate him, with no success. Three ninety-four Partridge Row? In Acropolis?”

“That's where we live. Where we used to live anyway,” Amanda corrected herself. “Just a trailer. We lost our home a few years back. After my mom died.”

“Sorry.” I tried to find a way to win her over. “I was hoping you might help me out. We've called; sent a registered letter. He hasn't responded. It's pretty important actually. We've been down every other path.”

“Truth is, I don't have a clue in hell where my father is, Mr. . . . Holmes. Nor would I give a damn even if I did. I'm afraid you've wasted your time coming all the way up here.”

I frowned. At least one thing was clear—she surely wasn't covering for him. “Do you mind if I ask when the last time you saw your father was, Ms. Hofer?”

“
Saw
him
. . .
?” She bunched up her lips. “Months. Not since my trial. Bastard hasn't shown up here once. S
poke
to him . . . ?” She shrugged. “Maybe a month or so ago. He called. He sounded pretty strange. Like he had made up his mind on something. Haven't heard from him since. The sonovabitch could be dead for all I know or care. Sorry—but we're not exactly a Disney World commercial, he and I . . . You know what I'm sayin'? Hope you got a million bucks lined up for him, Mr. Holmes. Would serve him right if you did and he was dead. And me . . . Well I sure as hell won't be spending any of it anytime soon. Sorry . . .”

She put her hands on the counter, about to get up.

“You must have some idea. Did he say where he might go? Or do you know where he could have headed? This is a matter that has to be taken care of now.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could help you, Mr. Holmes, but—”

“Please. . . .”
Our eyes met and I knew she heard the desperation in my tone. “Please, just sit down . . .”

Haltingly, Amanda let herself back down in the chair, looking at me even more curiously. “You're not exactly sounding very legal-like there, Mr. Holmes, if you know what I mean . . .”

“No.” I nodded, swallowing. “Truth is, I'm not.” I took a breath. “And my name's not Holmes. I only used his card and ID as a way to get in here. I needed to talk with you, Ms. Hofer . . .
Amanda,
if that's okay . . . Because someone's life depends on it. Someone very close to me. Just hear me out. Then you can go.
Please . . .”

She didn't respond one way or the other, but she continued to sit there, curling her hair with a finger, her dull, dishwater-colored eyes growing slightly more alive and interested. “All right.”

I lowered my voice. “Whatever you may think, please don't react or get up. Just let me tell you why I came. My name is Steadman, Amanda
. Doctor
Henry Steadman. Does that name mean anything to you?”

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise, and she looked at me closely, offering me a thin, dubious smile. “This is a joke, right?”

“No. It's no joke, Amanda. I wish to hell it was.” I kept my eyes on her. “So you know what I'm accused of.”

“I watch the news.”

“Then you know that the police are looking for me. And then you know I'm putting everything I have on the line to sneak my way in here and talk with you . . . 'Cause right now all I have is my freedom. You can turn me in anytime you like. You'll probably get a reward or something. But someone's life is on the line. My daughter's life, Amanda. She's just a year younger than you. Her name is Hallie. Will you hear me out?”

She pushed back a strand of hair, shaking her head. “Mr. Holmes or Steadman, or whatever your name is, you must be totally crazy . . .” But she nodded.

“Thank you.” I pressed my lips into a tight smile. “I don't know exactly where to begin, and I don't have a lot of time. Amanda, I'm going to tell you some things you may not want to hear. But they're the truth. The gospel truth, so help me God. And the first thing is: I didn't do any of the things I've been accused of.”

She curled a grin. “I heard that before. Everybody says that in here . . .”

“I know.” I smiled again. “I figured. But I swear it's the truth. And I don't mean to shock you by what I'm about to say next, but it's your father who's done them, Amanda. Not me. Your father had a policeman drag me out of my car in Jacksonville and then he killed him. He also killed a friend of mine in town. To make it look like it was me. He even bought a gun, in North Carolina, at a gun show, and used my name and address . . .”

She drew her eyes wide.
“Why?”

“I know how this must sound. And I wish I could explain it all to you right now . . . But let it be enough to say that I spoke with him just yesterday, and he's admitted it all—every last detail—at least to me. Somehow he blames me for what happened to you. Because I own a series of pain clinics down in South Florida and he's become convinced that the pills you were on at the time of your accident, the Oxy, came from me. My clinic . . .”

By that point I expected Amanda to shout out for a guard. But instead, her eyes grew wide and a little angry. Not in denial, or at least that wasn't what I was detecting. But in agreement. Corroboration. She shook her head. “That time I spoke with him, he said some things that didn't make sense to me. About how people had to be made accountable. For all they'd done. I said, ‘What kinds of things, Daddy? What're you talking about?' He sounded like he was drunk. He just said he was going to be taking care of some things . . . Almost like he was sayin' good-bye.”

“Amanda”—I leaned closer—“I know how this sounds, and how hard it must be to hear . . .”

“How it sounds?”
She grunted a laugh. “How it sounds is like you're talking about my ol' man. That's all it sounds. I asked about Wayne, my old boyfriend, and he said, ‘Don't you worry about him none . . .' He went on about it being him feeding me all those pills. And it wasn't. It kind of scared me. And what's really scared me is I haven't heard a word from Wayne since . . . Not here or even written—”

“Amanda, your father told me that there were others who he did things to. Who he said he made pay. He described what he was going to do to my daughter . . .”

She sniffed and shook her head. “That crazy-ass sonovabitch . . . He's got a host of hate in him.”

“Amanda, that's not all.” I hushed my voice and leaned in closer. “I can already prove everything I just told you. And I wouldn't even
be
here if it wasn't that . . .” I drew in a breath. “That it's not just about me. When he called the other day . . . it wasn't just to gloat or ask how it feels that he's ruined my life. He has my daughter, Amanda! He put her on the phone. He has her captive. I don't know where. He wouldn't say. He said he'd let me know when the time was right. But she must be terrified. You can imagine. And he said if I got caught, or if I gave up his name in any way—that he'd kill her. Just like he's killed the others, Amanda. That cop. My friend Mike. Probably Wayne as well . . .”

She sat there staring blankly.

“Amanda, I need to know where he might have her. That's why I'm here. I'm sorry I lied, but I had to get to see you somehow. And I didn't know if you would hear me out or trust me. So you see I'm desperate, Amanda. I'm dying. You must have some idea where he would be.
Look . . .”

I reached for my wallet and took out a photo. Of Hallie. In a UVA T-shirt, with her favorite jumper, Sadie. Her pretty face all lit up. I think it was the week she got accepted. Every time I looked at it, I could still see all the hope and excitement in her eyes . . .

“She rides. She's expert at it. They want her to compete in college.”

Amanda stared at it. Something pleasing and pure in the way she looked at Hallie, almost as if Hallie were some idealized version of who she might've become. If things were different.

Then she pushed it back under the glass. “He'll do it,” she said. “He's just crazy enough to do what he says. I could hear it when he called. It was like he was tellin' me good-bye . . .”

“If he has Hallie, it has to be somewhere remote,” I said. “He has to be able to keep her concealed and make sure no one is around to hear—'cause I know my little girl would fight. To the bone. It has to be someplace he'd be familiar with and feel secure. He only saw a photo of her in my office a few weeks back, so I don't think he's planned it out for months. So it has to be somewhere he would know. Can you think of any place? You're my only hope.”