Trace of Innocence (8 page)

I rejoined the party. David was, at that moment, talking to Lewis and laughing. Everyone was in the soft glow of Christmas lights. A fire was in the fireplace. Christmas music was playing on the stereo. I felt peaceful.

We had really done it. The Justice Foundation had freed an innocent man.

But then I wondered if the ghost of Cammie Whitaker would let us rest without finishing the job. Without finding the real killer.

M
y father and Lewis changed the locks on my apartment, and two weeks later, we were having yet another Quinn homecoming party, this one for my brother, Mikey. I hoped we could manage the evening without a bar fight.

I invited Joe, C.C., Lewis and David to the party at Quinn’s Pub. My uncle was a little shorthanded, so I was actually working the bar when the four of them came in together.

In the short time since his release, David had moved in with his father until he got on his feet. He had bought a new wardrobe, cut his
hair and spent long days hiking in the woods. His father’s homecoming gift to him was a puppy. It seemed such a little boy thing, but I know it was the best medicine—not a replacement for the dog that died while he was in prison, but a new start. He named the dog Bo, and took him out in the snow. Took him nearly everywhere.

All that fresh air meant David had lost his prison pallor and looked healthy. He was also entertaining a book offer. We were encouraging him to take it—not only would the money help him start a new life, but we also felt it would bring valuable attention to the plight of the wrongfully convicted. Contrary to my father’s wishes, I decided to continue my association with the Justice Foundation. So did Lewis—though
his
reasons were hopelessly transparent.

“Hey, guys!” I waved as the four of them walked into the bar.

Joe grinned. “Billie Quinn tending bar. This I gotta see.”

Lewis said, “Don’t let that lab geek act fool you. She’s awfully comfortable back there. She’ll pour you a beer with the perfect foamy head on it, mix you a margarita, or make the driest and most devilish martini. Name your poison.”

“Scotch on the rocks for me,” Joe said. “Single malt.”

I grinned. By now I had gotten used to Joe’s refined tastes.

C.C. wanted a glass of chardonnay, and Lewis had a bourbon on the rocks.

“I’ll take a bourbon, too,” David said.

As I put the last of their drink orders on the bar, I said, “They’re playing pool in the back. And in the party room there’s a game of high stakes poker.”

Joe raised an eyebrow. “I could be persuaded to play.”

“Which?” asked Lewis.

“Either.”

“You any good at pool?”

“I was the best pool player on the Saints in my time.”

Lewis wrapped an arm around Joe’s wide shoulders—which, despite Lewis’s height, required stretching a little. “Can I persuade you to be my partner and shoot a game of pool against Frank Quinn? Billie’s father has been a thorn in my side for long enough. I could use a little help.”

“Sure thing.”

“Be careful, Joe,” I warned him. “My father’s a hustler at the table.”

“I think I can handle it.”

“All right. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“Smell the air,” Lewis commanded. “What do you smell?”

“Beer?” C.C. guessed.

“No. I smell victory. Come on, Joe. To the tables.”

C.C. shook her head but followed the two of them to their certain doom at the felt billiards table. That left David sitting at the bar across from me.

“You look great, David. Well rested.”

“Thanks.” He grinned and patted his stomach. “Have to say that freedom agrees with me. My father and my aunt and uncle have been cooking for me, breakfast, lunch and dinner. I’ve packed on ten pounds.”

“It agrees with you.”

“You look beautiful, Billie.”

“I look sweaty and I smell like beer, but if that’s your kind of gal…”

“You’re my kind of girl.”

I blushed and moved down to another reveler—one of my brother’s pals. It was shaping up to be another Quinn family classic. The place was packed, and we were going through beer as if it were water, and cases of Jameson whiskey. But every couple of minutes, I’d glance down at David. He had told C.C. and me that he was still learning to accept his freedom. He
was often in a state of hyperalertness, getting used to not having to watch his back and fear prison violence. Getting used to the noises on the outside. Better yet, getting used to being alone. He no longer needed to travel inward to find solitude; he could take long, contemplative walks.

About forty-five minutes later, the regular bartender, Shelley, came in. She was a third cousin of mine. She took over, and I joined David on the other side of the bar. We sat next to each other on stools and ate peanuts and drank bourbon. At some point, he took his index finger and stroked the top of my hand. I felt my breath catch, then he took my hand and clasped it, resting both our hands on his thigh.

“Want to go watch Joe and Lewis lose?” I asked.

“Wouldn’t miss it,” he replied.

We went, hand in hand, back into the poolroom, and sure enough, ten minutes later, my dad and brother won, and Lewis and Joe each handed over twenty bucks.

“Man,” Joe said, opening his wallet. “I’m going to practice and come back and kick some ass.”

“That’s how they rope you in, sucker.” I laughed.

Marybeth Murphy sneaked behind my brother and squeezed his waist. He whirled around and kissed her. He had loved Marybeth since high school, and one of these days, I expected them to make it legal. Which, given my brother’s long rap sheet, would likely be about the only thing legal in his world.

The night wore on with more laughter and a lot of gambling, drinking and old-fashioned Quinn fun. A craps game started in the back. I blew on the dice for my brother, and he ended up winning a few hundred dollars. We closed the place around three—with no surprise visit from the Murphy brothers. All in all, a good night.

My dad came over to me and kissed me goodbye. He was very busy with football season—a bookie’s busiest time of the year. Lewis, Joe, C.C., David and I helped put up the tables, stacking chairs on top of tables so that in the morning the cleaning crew could come and mop. My uncle was counting up the night’s receipts in the office. My guess is he’d report a very small fraction of the business we did.

The television was on and my brother shouted at Shelley to change to CNN so he could see the hockey scores.

Suddenly, C.C. screamed and literally grabbed on to a table to steady herself.

I looked up at the television to catch the anchor’s report.

J
oe called a friend of his in the police department—a cop who moonlighted for him doing security from time to time. The guy was helpful. The murder had taken place, according to the M.E.’s preliminary, that evening. David had an alibi. He couldn’t have murdered a woman over an hour and a half away, driven to Joe’s and spent all night at my brother’s homecoming party in the timeline they had.

Joe hung up. “That’s at least a shred of good news.” He sat down on a bar stool. “Let me have a scotch, will ya?”

I went behind the bar and poured him one and slid it across the counter to him.

“But they railroaded me before. They can do it again.” I heard the panic in David’s voice. “They’ll pick me up for questioning. They’ll want me for this.”

“Look, this time you have real counsel,” Joe said. “These fuckers are not going to do anything to you.”

“If I may make a suggestion,” Lewis said, “I think you should go to Billie’s place, or Joe’s. Call your father. Tell him not to answer the phone or door for the media. While you’re lying low, Joe can negotiate a time and place for questioning. I’d invite you to stay with me, but I think my choice of artwork might make the cops wonder.”

Joe nodded. “Good thinking. This is a temporary setback, man. But we got your back.”

David looked at me. I nodded and smiled, trying to convey a confidence I didn’t have. “It’s temporary. You can crash on my couch until morning, which—” I looked at my watch “—is soon.”

I grabbed his hand. “Come on…try to let Joe worry about it right now. He’s a great lawyer.”

David reluctantly nodded, and we left Quinn’s Pub. In my car, I realized I’d never been alone with him. In prison, we had sat op
posite a Plexiglas wall and talked on the phone. We had sat opposite each other once or twice across a table, but there were always people around—or guards. Since his release, Lewis, C.C. and Joe were always there when I saw him. This was different.

“I didn’t do it,” he said as I shut the door and started the car.

“It never entered my mind that you had.”

I popped a CD in the stereo—my uncle had a tricked-out stereo with killer speakers in the Cadillac. I didn’t want to hear what the news breaks were saying.

“Who’s this group?” he asked.

“Coldplay.”

“Never heard of them. Never heard their music before. I like this song a lot.”

I had a moment, an instant, in which I wanted to say,
You’re kidding? You never heard of them?
But I realized the band became famous in the vortex of time he had spent in prison. And while I was sure boom boxes blared out in the yard as men lifted weights, I knew it was more likely rap or hip-hop than an English band with lyrical sensibilities.

Movies were the same. The touchstones of culture that I took for granted when I talked with Lewis were gone when David was around.
Lewis and I had this weird habit of being able to recite memorized lines from every gorefest movie ever made. From Tarantino to old
Friday the 13th
movies, to
Dawn of the Dead,
we’d seen them all. Yet another reason Lewis never went on second dates. But with David, those references were useless.

I drove through the empty streets. The lights were synchronized, and we would go through ten greens before hitting a red. I tried to keep the conversation trivial, but my mind was spinning. I couldn’t imagine how he was feeling. We arrived at my apartment and got out. I led the way and unlocked my door.

“It’s not much, but it’s home,” I murmured.

“It’s nice, Billie. Really nice.” He walked over to the dining room table. “Is this where you work?”

“A lot of the time.”

He wandered over to all my photos and immediately focused on my favorite. “Is this your mom?”

“Yeah.”

“She was beautiful…. You look like her a little.”

“I like to think so.”

“When I was in prison, I used to think it would be easier on my parents if I had just died.
But then I thought about it. We had letters and visits. We had something, you know?”

“I have memories, but they’re awfully faded. Mikey remembers more, but he doesn’t like to talk about her. We go once a year to the cemetery, on Mother’s Day. We bring flowers and we talk to her. But aside from that, we don’t bring her up. It’s a guy thing, I think. He bottles it up.”

I went into the bedroom and brought out a pillow and a soft chenille blanket. “I’m sorry that my couch can be a little lumpy.”

“Trust me. This place is a palace.” He smiled at me. “I like picturing you now…you know, I’ll be able to envision where you are when I e-mail you, or talk to you on the phone.”

“Want a drink of water or anything? I’ll crack the seal on a bottle of bourbon if you want and we can drink our way to sun-up. It’s been a crazy night.”

“I’m fine, really.” He took a step toward me. “Billie…I really want to go on with my life. I want to live a life.”

“I know.”

He took another step toward me.

“Billie…can I kiss you?” he asked. “You can say no if you want. But I really want to kiss you.”

I nodded.

“No pressure or anything—” he winked at
me, a little awkwardly “—but I haven’t kissed a woman in ten years.”

“I’d better make this good,” I said huskily.

We reached each other in less than a second, I think, fiercely kissing. He held the nape of my neck, pulling me to him, into him, hungry for me. Our kissing had an urgency, and I just wanted to give in to it, to him, to whatever was this attraction between us.

I pulled off my top, and he pulled off his shirt. We didn’t even move to the bedroom, just inched over to the couch, pulling the blanket around us, undressing and kissing.

“Billie,” he whispered, as I straddled him. “Are you afraid of me?”

I stopped and held his face in my hands. “What?”

“Is there any part of you that’s afraid of me?”

“No.”

He now moved his hands to my face and kissed me, his hands very strong, his fingers stroking my cheeks. “Thank you. I just need this to be right.”

We made love, right there in my living room. Afterward, I led him to my bedroom and we fell asleep as the sun was coming up. I knew that a media frenzy was building, but for a short while, shades drawn, blankets on top of us, the world was far away.

Joe called at oh-God-early the next morning: he had negotiated an agreement to have the police interview with David at Joe’s home. A good plan, but when Joe came to pick him up around eleven that morning, I felt as though I was sending David to the executioner.

“Joe,” I said, pulling my jacket tighter around me as we stood in the street. The January air was bitter and took my breath away. “He’s going to be okay, right?”

“That’s a relative thing.”

David was waiting in the car with the heat on.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s no way they can arrest him—he’s got an airtight alibi. We were all with him, he was seen in a public place. But any chance that guy had of getting a job, or moving on, just disappeared. Until we figure out what’s going on, until the real killer is caught, his life is ruined as much as it was before.”

I nodded.

“I guess I thought by freeing people, I’d be on the side of justice and that was enough. But it’s not as simple as that,” Joe said. He shrugged, helpless, and walked over to get into the car.

They pulled away, and I waved forlornly. Joe had just confirmed what I knew in my gut. I pulled out my cell phone and called Lewis.

“We need to catch the real killer,” I said into the phone.

“I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

“It’s just like my mom’s case. The police aren’t going to solve it. They’re looking to nail him, not find the truth. We have to do it.”

“I know.”

I’d expected more of an argument. But then he added, “C.C. already roped me into it.”

“All right then, want to meet at my place at three?”

“See you then,” he said wearily, and hung up.

I spent the next few hours researching. I decided the key to solving the case wasn’t simply having DNA evidence exonerate David, although that was part of it. We would have to discover who was
behind
the crimes. The fragment of semen we’d found had been put into the database, but we wouldn’t know about a match for a little while—if ever. What I had explained to C.C. after we first met remained true. If the real killer wasn’t in the system, then it wouldn’t matter that we had his DNA until the time came to prosecute an actual suspect. So I combed the Internet and waited for C.C. and Lewis.

When they arrived, I had a pot of coffee waiting, along with the roughest of theories. They seemed hesitant, awkward with each other, but I pretended not to notice.

“All right…let’s shoot straight. Lewis, you’re my best friend. C.C., you and Joe have become good friends. We’ve bonded over this case—and several bottles of wine, as well as margaritas—but before we throw our energies into what could be a dangerous investigation—and one that’s completely renegade on our parts—we might as well lay our cards on the table. Does either of you have a fraction of doubt that he’s completely innocent?”

I expected that Lewis might have—but he shook his head.

“You know him better than I do, Billie. But on science alone, I can believe him. Add your belief in him and C.C.’s faith in his innocence to the equation and any shadow of doubt is completely erased.”

C.C. fiddled with the cross around her neck. “No doubt in my mind.”

“Okay then. We have multiple ways of viewing this. When it became clear David was going to be freed, the Whitakers were all over CNN,
Larry King Live,
the
Today Show
, saying they still believe he’s guilty no matter what
the DNA shows. Harry Whitaker threatened me with a gun. It could be that Harry is behind discrediting David Falco.”

C.C. nodded. “That’s one theory.”

“Displaced anger is a powerful emotion,” Lewis offered.

“Problem with that theory is it required Harry to now kill an innocent woman. I don’t think he’s got it in him. This isn’t a gun murder, either. It’s a brutal killing. I don’t see it, but we can’t shut our minds to the possibility.”

C.C. burst out, “Oh, God!” She abruptly stood up and ran from the table to the bathroom. Lewis and I could hear her muffled crying.

“Lewis?” I looked at him quizzically.

“She’s really distraught over this, Billie. And I’m not helping any.”

“What’s going on between you two? Out with it.”

“Nothing. I think we both recognize we…care about each other. Maybe even love each other. But there’s nothing we can do about it. We haven’t acted on it, so get that thought from your mind. But…we have muddled each other’s lives up, that’s for sure. She’s ruined me for other women.”

“Well, given your eccentricities, I don’t think there were many realistic candidates.”

He looked right at me. “I love her, Billie. As much as I love my tarantula, Quentin Tarantino movies and the New Orleans Saints. And jambalaya.”

“Christ, it’s serious.” I patted his arm. “Go talk to her.” I jerked my head toward the bathroom.

He nodded, but the door to the bathroom opened and C.C. emerged, clutching a tissue.

“Sorry, both of you. It’s just that David was the gentlest prisoner I’ve ever met. This whole case is like Job. It feels Biblical to me, enormous. Overwhelming. I’ll hold it together. Go on, Billie.” She sat back down and Lewis clasped her hand and squeezed it.

“Okay. Theory number two points to a serial killer, even though we only have two victims to date. Now that David is out, perhaps the killer is angry. Perhaps the media attention reawakened this side of him in his mind. Maybe he’s been dormant as the suicide king, but now he wants attention again. Who knows?”

“Serial killers don’t ‘retire,’ Billie. So what has he been doing for the last few years?” Lewis asked.

“Killing.”

“But…no calling card.”

“No. A different calling card. Look, they put the supposed suicide king killer away. Threw
away the key. So the real suicide king invents a different persona. Kills in a different way. Different calling card. Maybe he moves away and kills. Then Falco goes free. It pisses him off—so he decides to play mind games with the cops, with Falco, with the media. He’s taunting us.”

“I like that theory,” C.C. said.

“You don’t want to like that theory,” I warned her.

“Why?”

Lewis looked over at her. “Because it will be like finding a needle in a haystack to catch him. If he’s not in the system, the best profilers in the country would be hard-pressed to catch him. Serial killers are elusive until they make a stupid mistake and get caught, or, like BTK, they seemingly want to get caught.”

“Oh.” C.C.’s shoulders slumped.

“I have one final theory, if you two want to hear it.”

“Shoot,” said Lewis.

“We go back into Cammie’s past. I keep going back to something David told me in the first interview I did with him in prison. He was trying to
help
her. She was screwed up in some way he didn’t know or can’t articulate. But she had something dark in her background. If we
find out what that was, maybe we can figure out who killed her. Maybe whoever killed this woman in Atlantic City intended to frame David—so we can’t discount that. But I think we should start with her. And also the card.”

“The card?” C.C. asked.

“The suicide king
has
to mean something. It has to. Otherwise why leave it? I spent a few hours researching the history of playing cards. I didn’t really turn up anything except some references to the French Revolution when it went from king high in the deck to aces high in deference to the antiroyalty sentiment.”

“That seems like a dead end.” Lewis looked upward at the ceiling, as if trying to connect imaginary dots in his mind.

“I thought so, too. So I kept digging…. It’s a long shot, but there’s a strip club named Stud’s two towns down from where Cammie worked and David lived. It’s a ten-minute ride. And guess what its logo is?”

Lewis stopped staring at the ceiling and looked at me. “The suicide king?”