I headed back to Tehachapi first thing the next morning. And after the long ride out there, I was impatient. So when Joe sat down, looking paler than I’d remembered, I got right to the point.
“What’s your blood type?”
“AB positive,” he answered, knowing exactly what I was asking him. “Same as Jean’s.”
The same as Jean’s. Of course. The police had just assumed the blood on Joe’s sleeve was his wife’s. And that he had gotten it on his shirt when he killed her. But he hadn’t killed her, I knew that now—I believed it absolutely. It was his blood on that shirt. I don’t know how it got there, but it was his blood nonetheless. But why bother with the facts? They were inconvenient. They clogged the works. The husband was going to take the fall, the truth be damned.
Sometimes things come to you in dreams, things that elude you by day. It makes getting up a hell of a bummer. But if you trick yourself a little, ease into consciousness, you can keep hold of what’s been revealed to you. You can grab on to the truth while letting your dreams slip away.
The night before, I had seen it. Like a jigsaw puzzle with a thousand pieces you despair of ever finishing, and anyway, you’ve lost so many of the pieces it doesn’t matter, but you keep going, you keep trying, and you finish, only to realize you had the pieces all along, not a single one was missing. In my dreams, it made sense, just like that. I couldn’t put it into words yet, but it was only a matter of time. Too bad time was what I didn’t have.
“So where is that shirt now?” I asked, my thoughts racing. “We have to get the DNA analyzed.”
“It’s in an evidence locker somewhere, but even if we could prove the blood on it was mine, it wouldn’t change things.”
“It would change everything. It would destroy the case against you.”
“No, it wouldn’t, Ms. Caruso.”
“Why, because you still don’t have an alibi?” I snapped.
He didn’t answer me.
“You have an alibi, Mr. Albacco. We both know you do. I’m through pretending.”
He called for the guard. He was through, too. “Get out of here,” he said coldly. “I’m hanging up the phone.”
“What’s wrong with you?” I shouted. “You’re a fool! Do you realize you’ve wasted your life for nothing? She wasn’t worth it.”
“Shut up,” he said in a voice that frightened me. “You don’t know anything.”
“Yes, I do. I’ve seen her. I’ve seen Meredith Allan.”
Everything stopped. The clock stopped ticking. The molecules in the air stopped circulating.
“Do I have your attention now?”
He didn’t answer, but I needn’t have asked.
“I went to her house. I met her son. She told me things about Jean.”
He was breathing hard now. He wanted to leave the room, to go back to his cell, back under the covers, back in time. But he wasn’t strong enough. He never had been. That was why he kept choosing the wrong woman.
His blue eyes were red. I owed him something, so I didn’t look. I stared at the wallpaper instead. It looked dirty and wrinkled, like used paper towels.
He cleared his throat. “Ms. Caruso?”
I turned to him.
“Did she ask about me?”
I wanted to lie but couldn’t.
He swallowed hard, accustomed to disappointment. I had misread him so badly the first time we met I had to laugh.
“Is something funny?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of this. I’m just nervous.”
“My father killed himself when I was just a kid,” he said, apropos of nothing.
“I didn’t know that.”
“It was horrible for my mother. He betrayed her, left us with nothing. So what did I do? I was no better than my old man. I betrayed my wife. I cheated on her. She trusted me and built a life for me and I betrayed her. I couldn’t do it again. Not twice. Not to Meredith. I can’t even now. Don’t you understand?”
“No, I don’t.”
“It doesn’t matter. So what did Meredith say about Jean? That she knew about us.” It was more of a statement than a question.
“No. That she blackmailed people.”
He was stunned, and I mean like he’d been hit in the gut. He accused me of lying to him, he accused me of everything in the book, but I couldn’t back down, not now.
“Your wife socked away a lot of money, ruining people’s lives. Meredith’s life, for example.”
“Meredith’s life?” He looked more puzzled than ever.
“Tell me something. Why would your wife have blackmailed your mistress?”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“I don’t think I am. Maybe Jean did know about your affair. Maybe she knew and didn’t care. You never considered that, did you? But someone else might have cared. Meredith’s father, maybe? Maybe he didn’t want his daughter wasting her life on someone like you. Or a boyfriend? Did Meredith have a boyfriend, someone who couldn’t find out she was sleeping with a married man?”
He wouldn’t look at me. That was fine. I didn’t need him to.
“Maybe Jean knew something else about Meredith. That she went a little crazy sometimes? Like that night, maybe? Did she hurt you that night, Joe? Is that why your shirt was covered with your blood?”
Still no answer.
“Or maybe it was something else entirely. Did your wife know something about Meredith’s father’s business dealings, something that wasn’t right, that could ruin him? Like about some tidelands holdings? Does that sound familiar? Meredith would’ve paid Jean to keep something like that silent. She would have, wouldn’t she?”
“I don’t know anything about Morgan Allan. This is ridiculous.”
“How long could Meredith keep it going? Forever, I suppose, a rich girl like her. But it must’ve stung, having to keep her lover’s wife quiet with her father’s money.”
“What are you asking me?” he demanded.
“I’m not asking you anything. I’m telling you something. I’m telling you Meredith got sick of paying off your wife, so she killed her.”
“That’s impossible, and you know it.”
“So now you admit it. You were with her.”
“I’m not admitting anything.”
“She still could’ve done it, Mr. Albacco. Don’t you get it? She has that black magic. If anybody could, that woman could have been two places at once.”
“Why don’t you stop this?”
“And the thing is, that wasn’t the end of it, oh, no. She killed Jean’s sister, too.”
“Theresa?” he asked weakly. “What happened to her?”
“She was killed on Saturday.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I’m sorry, but it is. And I think that the person who killed your wife killed her, too.”
“It wasn’t Meredith, I’m telling you. She could never do anything like that. Not to Jean, not to Theresa, not to anyone. I know that. She’s a good person. Beautiful and good. And I loved her.”
He was a wounded animal who needed to be put out of his misery. But I wasn’t the one who could do it.
“Has she had a good life, Ms. Caruso?” He was pleading with me now. “Has it been a good life?”
It was my turn not to answer. I just left, feeling sick at heart.