Lucinda pulled into the driveway of a large two-storey traditional home with a broad front porch flanked by two massive pillars. The grass was a blanket of brilliant green and smelled as if it had just been mowed that morning. She rang the doorbell and heard approaching footsteps.
The door opened halfway and a diminutive woman with envy-inducing skin, smooth, clear and in a light shade of café au lait, asked, ‘May I help you?’
‘Are you Lisa Pedigo?’ Lucinda asked.
The woman’s brow furrowed as her deep brown eyes looked over the detective. ‘Who are you?’
Lucinda pulled out her badge. ‘Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce, ma’am. I’m outside of my jurisdiction so you have no obligation to speak to me, but if you would, I’d like to ask you a few questions about an old case.’
The woman nodded, ‘Yes, I’m Lisa Pedigo. Please come in.’
Lisa led her to a formal sitting area with soft white carpet, white sofas, red chairs and black lacquered tables. Lucinda wasn’t sure how anyone could ever feel comfortable in the room – or how it would be possible to keep that carpet clean and unstained – but Lisa appeared to be in her element and very proud of her home.
‘Ms Pedigo, do you remember the Emily Sherman murder?’
‘I certainly do. I kept waiting for that Lieutenant . . . uh, I forget his name . . .’
‘Boswell?’ Lucinda suggested.
‘Could be. But anyway. I kept waiting for him to contact me again. He was so excited when he left here. He said that I was a huge help to the investigation and that what I knew would make sure that justice and right won out over power and influence. I asked him for his opinion about the murder; he said he couldn’t talk about that just yet.
‘When I didn’t hear back from him, I called and left messages but he never returned my calls. I even called the district attorney but he never telephoned me either. I thought it was odd that they never wanted my testimony at trial.’
‘Did you have any suspicions about that? Did it worry you?’
‘It certainly did. In the end, I suspected they didn’t want me in the courtroom because they knew I would help the defense raise reasonable doubt about Martha’s guilt.’
Lucinda’s heart pounded. ‘You thought she was innocent?’
‘It seemed quite possible. How could Martha have gone anywhere to harm Emily? She didn’t have a car. Martha was stuck at the house.’
‘OK. How did you know Emily had taken the car?’
‘I saw her run out of the house, jump inside of Martha’s car and back out of the driveway before peeling off down the road at far too fast a speed. I remember thinking that she was too young for her driver’s license but then other people’s children do seem to grow up every time you turn your head.’
‘You told the detective about what you saw?’
‘I certainly did. I also told them that less than a minute later, Martha ran out of the house, looked up the street and then slumped onto the garden bench and sobbed.’
‘Did you ever see the car return home?’
‘No, never. It was never in that driveway again.’
‘Could it have been parked in their garage?’
Lisa chuckled. ‘You obviously never saw the inside of the Sherman’s garage. Packed floor to ceiling with boxes and stuff. You couldn’t have found space to park a skateboard in there.’
The memory of the scene at the Sherman home came rushing back to Lucinda. She recalled the methodical dismantling of the garage and the fear that the teenager’s body might be found in the midst of all the clutter. She thought it was odd that Boz entertained that theory, because there was no odor of decomposition present. Now she wondered again: why did they do that? ‘What kind of person was Martha Sherman?’
‘She seemed very nice. But my children were rather small at the time, and you tend to spend more time with women who have children in the same age range as yours. But I do remember that she always seemed to have a smile on her face. Well, not always. It was often missing when Emily was around.’
‘Did she mistreat Emily?’ Lucinda asked.
‘Oh no. I never saw any sign of that. I’d say the opposite was true: Emily was mean to Martha.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, very. Like one time, on a scorching hot afternoon, I was weeding a garden bed when Martha pulled into the driveway. She walked up to the front door carrying two large paper grocery sacks – one in each arm. Emily came running around the side of the house and right up to the porch.
‘Martha smiled at her. I imagine she thought the girl was coming to open the door for her. But instead, Emily shoved Martha, knocked her sprawling into a rose bush, sending groceries flying in every direction. Then, that girl hopped on her bicycle and pedaled down the street. When she passed by me, I realized she was laughing.
‘I ran across the street to help Martha. I pulled her to her feet. The two of us gathered her purchases up from the lawn and the flower bed. Martha kept saying she was OK but I insisted on going inside and putting something on the cuts she got from the thorns. But Martha only shrugged when I asked her about Emily; she wouldn’t say a bad thing about that girl, though, heaven knows, she had plenty of reasons to do so that afternoon.’
‘When did that happen?’
‘Oh, nine months or so before Emily died.’
‘Did you mention that in your interview?’
‘I certainly did.’
‘What else did you tell the detective?’
‘I thought you kept records of those interviews.’ Lisa said.
‘Yes, ma’am, but, we have a little problem with the transcript document. Apparently, someone filed away a redacted media copy instead of the original.’
‘Redacted?’ Lisa asked.
‘That just means that when a document is made public, someone goes through it and, using a permanent marker, blacks out some of the information not appropriate for release. Most often they obscure people’s birth dates, phone numbers, social security numbers – private information. And occasionally, a judge will deem some of the material too inflammatory or prejudicial for public release.’
‘Well, don’t you keep the tapes of those interviews? I know he recorded it.’
‘The tapes were damaged, ma’am.’
‘Ah, well, I suppose with the conviction you no longer thought you had any need of that and someone got careless.’
Lucinda didn’t correct her on that point; she just waited for her to continue.
‘Let’s see,’ Lisa said. ‘It’s been quite a few years, lieutenant. I’m not sure I can completely recall.’
‘If I showed you a transcript of your interview, would that help you remember?’
‘It might.’
Lucinda handed her the thick document and said, ‘What I’d like to know Ms Pedigo, is what you said in the places where the words are blacked out, if you can recall.’
‘It will probably help if I read the whole thing from the beginning.’
‘Take all the time you need,’ Lucinda said.
Lucinda leaned back in the sofa watching the woman as her eyes went down a page, flipped it and started at the top of another. At this moment, she knew it did not look good. If Boz listened to what Lisa said, why didn’t he raise an objection before or during the trial? If he hadn’t been involved in the concealment of Lisa’s statement, why did he allow the omission to stand? She had to find out if the defense had even been aware that Lisa had made a statement to police.
Lisa rose out of the chair and sat next to Lucinda on the sofa. She pointed to the largest section of blackout and said, ‘This is where I told him about Emily driving off in the car that afternoon before she died.’ She flipped a couple of pages. ‘Here is where I told him about the time Emily pushed Martha over – like I was telling you. And right here, is something I’d forgotten.’
‘What was that, Ms Pedigo?’
‘It had slipped my mind but I knew Andrew was having an affair.’
No wonder he placed the blame on Martha; he wanted her out of the way. ‘With whom?’ Lucinda asked.
‘I didn’t know at the time,’ Lisa said, ‘so I didn’t tell the detective back then but I found out her name later when I saw the wedding announcement in the newspaper – she is the current Mrs Sherman. She was Dora Canterbury, the heiress to the Canterbury real estate empire – word is her father is rich enough to buy and sell Donald Trump several times over – and she is an only child.’
Lucinda felt her stomach churn. The obvious injustice and the nefarious motives behind the framing of Martha Sherman would be recognizable to a kindergarten student. And Boz was mixed up in all of this? And he never said a single word about it to her? And she’d never questioned a single thing he’d been doing, throughout the whole investigation. How could she have been so naïve?