Not in the Heart (21 page)

“Thorry for the inconvenienth, thir,” Toothpick said. “Thomebody mutht have pulled the alarm. We'll have you back inthide in a minute or two.”

I could smell the fresh air outside, but I also felt pressure at my elbow and shoulder as a crocodile bit me. At least that's what it felt like.

“Thir, you were told to leave,” Toothpick said. His breath smelled like rotten fruit at a roadside market, and to be honest, I didn't want to be close enough to smell his breath.

The military guy turned and put a hand on Toothpick's shoulder. “He's with us.”

That was enough for me to break free from his grip and skitter into the night, running toward an oncoming fire engine. I hadn't thought through this part of my plan, but when I was across the street, I turned to see a police car arrive and Toothpick talking in an animated, steroid rage. For a fleeting moment I also spotted Abby at the side door, laughing, one hand on the chest of a bearded guy and the other to her forehead. Every instinct in me told me to get her, but with Toothpick pointing in my direction, the better idea would be to remain a free man.

I hurried to the corner, past a convenience store, and found an alley behind it that looked like it might run back to the street where I'd parked the Sequoia. I pulled out my phone as I hurried along and texted Abby,
U OK?
I had to stop while I texted because I'm not a teenager.

There was a
blip-blip
behind me and I turned to see a police cruiser at the end of the alley with his side light out. Looking back, I shouldn't have done it; I should have stayed right where I was. I have superior communications skills, I wasn't inebriated, I had good cause to be concerned about my daughter, and how many years can they give you for pulling a fire alarm? But some inner sense of injustice kicked in, some feeling that this might be my best chance to save my daughter. I ran to the end of the alley and turned the corner as the cruiser accelerated. I was parked about five cars to my right and across the street, so I hit the door lock on Ellen's key fob and the Sequoia lit like a Christmas tree. I hopped in, closed the door, and leaned over the passenger seat as far as I could, hitting the overhead light and praying the cop hadn't seen me. Yes, I do pray in foxholes.

Blue and red lights strobed past me and I managed to insert the key in the ignition, hands shaking. My phone buzzed and I sat up, looking in the rearview. The police car had slowed, its brake lights mixing with blue and red.

Fire alarm. Headed to Tompkins's place,
the text read.

“No!” I yelled to the phone. I threw the car into drive and sped toward the club with my lights off. The street was blocked by the fire engine and I took a quick look at the parking lot illumined by the blinking lights, but in the blur I couldn't pick out my daughter. I also spotted another cruiser pulling up to the scene.

I took a right without stopping and threw on my lights, ran through a yellow at full gallop and checked behind me. Ten minutes later, I pulled into a mostly empty Dunkin' Donuts parking lot and dialed the same number I'd dialed fifty times only to get a recording of “Hey, it's Abigail; leave a message.”

I called Ellen and asked if she had her laptop handy.

“What's wrong?” she said.

“Abby went off with the guy and I don't know where they're going.” I didn't tell her about the fire alarm.

She typed his name into a website I gave her. “It just gives the salon address,” she said. “Have you tried calling her?”

“I think she turned her phone off.”

“Let me try. I'll call you back.”

I checked my watch, checked the street, then stared at the donut rack and the counter, which had a total of three people hunched over coffee, all in various stages of dishevelment. From the shadows of the street came a man carrying a Bible. Wild-eyed, hair touching his shoulders, he walked in and held the book above his head. All three patrons looked up, then returned to their coffee. The man behind the counter, a Middle Eastern kid with a beard, scratched his neck, then leaned back and folded his arms as if ready for a show he had seen before.

I had no idea what the man was saying, but he seemed convinced. The veins in his neck stood out as he yelled. Finally the guy behind the counter said something to him and pointed toward the door. The confrontation seemed to energize the guy as he paced behind the stools, railing. Dunkin' Donuts was part of his Battle of Armageddon.

My cell phone buzzed as a car pulled in beside me. I glanced right and saw the familiar blue-and-white cruiser of Tallahassee's finest. I flipped my phone open and casually brought it to my ear as my heart puckered. The officer looked at me and climbed out of the cruiser without a blink or nod.

“Hi,” I said as calmly as possible, waiting for the man to pull his revolver and tell me to exit the car with my hands up.

“I just talked with her,” Ellen said. “They moved from the restaurant because some jerk set off the fire alarm.”

“Some people,” I said derisively.

The cop adjusted his belt, put on his hat, and walked to the front of my car.

“She said she's fine,” Ellen said. “No need to worry.”

“Did you get the address?”

Instead of heading inside, the officer moved to my window and pecked at it. I didn't hear what Ellen said next. I was busy getting my heart rate under control.

“You been watching this?” the officer said.

It took me a moment. “Oh, the Bible-thumper? Yeah, he walked in a few minutes ago.”

“You might want to give me some room—maybe park toward the end?”

“Sure thing, Officer.”

I gave a sigh and pulled the car to the end of the lot. Ellen asked what was going on and I told her. “Did you say you have the address?”

“Tru, Abigail is fine. She doesn't understand why you're doing this.”

“I'll admit I've been an absentee, but now I'm here. Just tell me where she is.”

“She's following him. Somewhere in Old Town.”

“And this doesn't bother you? Do you have any idea what type of people she's dealing with? Drugs, exotic dancing, maybe murder?”

She paused. “I'm only going on what she told me and that I trust her judgment.”

Silence. The officer talked with the man outside, the man holding up his Bible and making his case. I put the car in reverse and headed toward Old Town.

“Let me have her call you when she gets there,” Ellen said.

“Good.”

“There's something else, Tru,” she said. “I got a call from Reginald, Townsend's aide.”

“Let me guess. They don't feel that under the current political climate they can follow through on their promise.”

“That probably would have been the call a few hours ago. But all that has changed.”

“How so?”

“Terrelle signed a confession.”

C
HAPTER
33

I let Ellen's words sink in as I drove. What seemed like an impossibility that morning had become the game changer we were looking for.

“Did he read the confession to you?” I said.

“No, he just said the governor had received word. They're ready to proceed. It sounded like it came during the meeting and that things wouldn't have gone well without it. Aiden's getting a new heart after all.”

Something inside didn't feel right. Maybe it was Ellen's voice and how flat it sounded. She should have been jumping up and down and screaming for joy. Instead she was reserved.

“This is what we've been waiting for,” I said. “Why do I feel so hollow?”

“Probably because you feel like you've forced someone to do something that goes against everything he stands for.”

“Maybe that's it. Or have you considered he could be finally telling the truth?”

Another long sigh from the other end. “I'll call Abigail again and have her phone you when she gets to the house.”

I drove into the night, streetlights illuminating my life, with that vacant feeling reverberating in my chest, wondering what Terrelle had said, if it had been a qualified confession, leaving room for doubt, or if he had categorically said he pulled the trigger and dug the grave. It was obviously convincing enough for the governor and his friends from both sides of the aisle. Had Terrelle felt pressured into the confession or did he simply see this for what it was: the last, best chance to have something good come from something terrible?

My cell vibrated and I clicked it open, expecting to hear Abby's voice. “All right, tell me where you are.”

A slight pause. “How could you do that, Mr. Wiley?” It wasn't Abby. I couldn't place the voice or the number on my screen.

“How could I do what? Who is this?”

“How could you convince Terrelle to sign a confession?”

Oleta. The last voice I expected to hear. “Look, I know this must be hard for you—”

“
Hard
for me?” she interrupted. “You think taking the last shred of dignity from my husband is
har
d
? The truth is the only thing he's been able to hang on to. His story has been consistent every second of every hour since he was accused. You took that away from him in one day.”

“Oleta, I'm as surprised as you are. Ellen just told me—”

“You saying you had nothing to do with it?”

“I met with him this morning and discussed what the governor told Ellen and me.”

“Which was what?”

“He said the only way the transplant procedure could go forward was if he had a confession. I tried not to press Terrelle. But I thought he deserved to know the truth.”

“Right. And you probably didn't suggest he sign it today, either.”

“When I left him, he was adamant that this was something he couldn't do and I respected that. But obviously he—”

“And you'll respect the fact that you can forget about writing his story,” Oleta said. She muttered something under her breath, then took another run at me. “How does a person like you live with himself? How do you go to sleep every night knowing the pain and hurt you've caused your own family? And now this?”

When a person wants to talk, it's best to let them. As a reporter I've known this truth and have seen it in action more times than I can count. I stayed quiet and listened, hoping Oleta wouldn't threaten Murrow's life at the end of her tirade.

“I trusted you. We all did. Why didn't you just go in there and cut his throat? That's basically what you did to him.”

Her voice trailed. I put on my most sincere tone. “If it makes any difference, I want you to know I'm having real problems with his guilt. From the start, things haven't matched up, even though the evidence was so against him.”

“Then why would you pressure him to give a confession?”

“Talk with Terrelle about our meeting this morning and what I said. My guess is he knows this is the only way. He cares more about Aiden and helping him than about himself. For that you should be proud.”

Silence on the other end, then the familiar sound of a woman crying, always the first tune on the sound track of my life. Weeping women have dogged me.

“You took something from me today, Mr. Wiley,” she choked.

“What's that, Oleta?” I could see her face, shriveled and contorted with pain and speckled with tears.

“Hope,” she said. “You took hope from me today.” More sobs that led to an openmouthed wail. “I know I told you I didn't have any to begin with. That I was resigned to the fact that he was gonna be carried out of that prison in a hearse. But in the back of my mind there was always this hope that somebody like you could uncover something that would show he's telling the truth.”

“Believe me, I never wanted to cause him this extra pain. And what it's doing to you . . .” My phone buzzed and I saw Abby's number come up.

“You never got to see him in any other context than in a prison jumpsuit. I know you wondered why anyone would hitch their ladder to a guy like that, but you didn't know him.”

“Oleta—”

She kept going with some fond memory of how tender Terrelle was with the kids, and though I didn't want to cut her off, I couldn't miss that call. I hit the button and said, “Abby?”

“Dad, did you pull the fire alarm?”

I ignored the question. “Where are you?”

She reluctantly gave me an address on a street I didn't recognize. She mentioned the cross streets, which I did. About ten minutes away.

“Listen to me. Get out of there. This guy is no good.”

“I can't, Dad. I have to see this through. I found out something about Diana. I have to follow up.”

“Follow up on it at work. Tell him you don't feel well and need to get home. Anything. If he finds out you have different motives than he thinks—”

“I know how to take care of myself. I'll be home later. We'll talk then.”

“Abby—”

Her call went dead and I mashed the accelerator, returning to Oleta midsentence.

“—and all this time I've been able to share those memories with him in letters and visits. His mother called me, Mr. Wiley. His mother called me and asked what it meant. What am I supposed to say to her?”

“You tell her that her son is doing something selfless. He's putting the needs of my son ahead of his own. To me, that's heroic.”

“It doesn't feel very heroic to me. It just feels bad.”

What could I say to that? “Oleta, I wish I could tell you exactly how this is going to end. I'm going to do everything I can to tell people what really happened with Terrelle. And when I get done, you're going to be proud of him.”

“I don't need your help to be proud of him.”

“You're right about that. But I need your help to keep telling his story. And to get to the truth. Don't back out on me now.”

More tears, sniffs, some gasps. “You have no idea the pain of this.”

“You're right. But I know your faith in God has brought you this far. Hang on to that.”

“That sounds funny coming from you, Mr. Wiley.”

“Believe me, it felt funny coming out of my mouth. But I mean it.”

“So are you saying you believe?”

“No. I have to be honest. But I'm seeing something real in you and Terrelle. Something I can't explain. Hang on to that and we'll get through this together.”

“If you're right and this is Terrelle's way of being the hero, you need to promise me something,” she said.

“Anything. Name it.”

“You have to be there with me for the execution.”

Anything but that. I promised myself I would never attend another execution after what happened with the last one.

“Absolutely,” I said. “I wouldn't have it any other way.”