Fourteen

After Grace and Zack left the Justice Center, Mary Crow drove back to her office. Though it had not been her first time to accompany a suspect for DNA testing, it was the first time she’d delivered an autistic adult. That Zack Collier had bloodied Buck Whaley’s nose and avoided jail was remarkable. Whaley prided himself on being the heavy hand of justice—he would have tased and thrown anyone else into jail on an assault charge. But Zack Collier had gone home with his mother. Maybe Cochran really had talked to Whaley. Or maybe Whaley had thought better of bullying a compromised suspect in front of so many witnesses.

Still, she thought as she pulled into her parking space, Zack Collier is a real wild card. Huge, yet childish. Smart, according to Grace, but totally unable to cope with the frustrations of real life. He’d shoved her and Whaley as if they were ragdolls, yet he’d been gentle as a puppy with his friend Adam.

“Jeez,” she whispered. She couldn’t imagine living through forty minutes of that kind of behavior, much less forty years. However pouty and hateful Lily Walkingstick had been, things had never gotten that bad.

She parked her car and walked toward Main Street. She should go back to the office and work on the squabbling Burtons, but the morning had left her feeling off-balance. So instead of turning into Ravenel & Crow, she walked down three more storefronts to HairTwister’s Style Salon. As she neared the little salon, she stopped, stunned. Her campaign signs—the incredible ones Grace had designed—plastered the front window. She couldn’t believe it. Quickly, she opened the door. Ross and Meilani, the younger operators, were working on two old ladies. Juanita Wolfe, the owner, looked up from sweeping hair cuttings into a dustpan.

“Mary!” called Juanita. “How do you like the front window?”

“It’s amazing! When did you put these up?”

“Some woman came around this morning, asking if I’d take one. I told her I’d take ten. This town needs a Tsalagi woman in office.”

“Wahdoe,” Mary thanked her in Cherokee. Juanita was one of the few tribe members who ran businesses in Hartsville. “I really appreciate it, Juanita. I’m the underdog in this fight.”

Juanita laughed. “So when weren’t we Cherokees underdogs?”

“Good point,” said Mary. “Hey, do you have time to work me in?”

“Come sit down,” said Juanita. “My next appointment’s not till noon.”

Mary settled into Juanita’s station. As she clipped a warm towel around her neck, she asked, “So what does the next DA want? A bright pink Mohawk?”

“Just a trim.” Mary looked in the mirror. Her straight, black hair had just begun to touch her shoulders. “No more than an inch.”

Juanita fluffed up Mary’s hair. “Whoa,” she said, fingering a spot on the top of her scalp. “Girl, you’ve got a goose egg.”

“Collided with a shelf this morning,” she said, unwilling to admit that her head had connected with Buck Whaley’s nose.

“That’s what they all say.” Ross winked at her from the next station. “You’ve just been out having too much fun.”

Mary laughed. “Can’t slip anything by you, Ross.”

Juanita turned the chair around and began washing Mary’s hair. The warm, sudsy water felt wonderful, and Juanita expertly avoided the tender spot on her skull. Mary could have happily sat there for the rest of the day, but Juanita quickly had her upright and looking into the mirror again.

“So how’ve you been?” Juanita asked, starting to shape the wedge Mary had worn for years.

“Busy,” said Mary. “Speeches, lunches, the whole campaign thing.”

“Are you still lawyering, or did you put your day job on hold?”

“No, I’m still taking cases.”

“Hey, Miss DA—what’s your take on Teresa Ewing?” asked Ross.

“Who?” Mary played dumb, wondering what the street talk was about Teresa Ewing.

“The little girl who got killed so long ago. Haven’t you read today’s paper?”

Juanita handed Mary the paper they’d all apparently been reading. The headline blared in massive type: New Evidence in Teresa Ewing Case. She scanned it quickly. Jerry Cochran had downplayed the story, warning everyone that it was a slim lead at best, but the paper had run with the news, giving new readers a brief history of the case, then listing the “Salola Street Gang” and Two Toes McCoy as the last surviving suspects. She returned the paper to Juanita and sighed. Grace’s worst nightmare really was coming true.

“Well?” said Ross. “Who do you think did it?”

“I don’t know,” replied Mary. “I was in the fourth grade at the time.”

“Ooooh,” said Ross. “Just like Teresa. Did you know her?”

“No. I went to public school. She went to Hartsville Academy.”

“I was teaching English at Hartsville High when that child was murdered,” said the old lady in Ross’s chair. “I never saw anything like it. Everybody was combing the bushes for that child—all the clubs at school, the football boys. A psychic said she was at the bottom of Santeetlah Lake. And then they found her under that tree, which had been searched fifty times, at least. It just didn’t make any sense!”

“That’s because that big retarded boy killed her and hid her,” chimed in the old woman in Meilani’s chair.

“He had a funny name—Zeb, I think,” said the first woman.

“Zachary,” corrected her friend. “Zachary Collier. He raped and killed that child, then he carried her to his house. His mother put the little girl’s body in their freezer and kept her there for a month. She didn’t want her boy going to prison for the rest of his life.”

“I heard something else,” said Ross, rolling his client’s cottony hair. “That the mother slept with Logan to keep him from arresting the boy.”

Meilani’s client went on, speaking with great authority. “I don’t know about that. But I do know that my late husband’s cousin Steve worked for Simpson’s appliance company. That Collier woman ordered a new freezer right after they found that little girl. Steve delivered it and picked up the old one. He said that old freezer was horrible—full of bloodstains and it smelled like rotting meat.”

Ross shuddered. “Did he call the police?”

“No. He said he was afraid to get involved. And then the boy’s father just up and goes to Canada!”

“He couldn’t take it anymore,” said Meilani’s client. “Didn’t seem to bother the mother too much. She’s still living here with that maniac, though I heard she keeps him locked up behind a fence.”

“There you go, Mary,” said Juanita, her scissors snipping around Mary’s right ear. “Your first case as DA will be to convict that Collier kid.”

“I guess so.” Though Mary tried to smile, the alacrity with which these people had convicted Zack of murder and Grace of a cover-up sickened her. “Just remember—everyone’s innocent until proven guilty.”

“Oh Lord.” Meilani’s client glared at Mary with disgust. “You must be a liberal.”

“I’m just an attorney, ma’am,” Mary replied. “Sworn to uphold the Constitution. It guarantees due process, even for autistic people.”

The talk then veered to autism, about one autistic man who could do calculus in his head but could barely talk; somebody else had heard of an autistic teenager who was good as gold until the day he woke up and killed his mother with a butcher knife. By the time Juanita finished, Mary had an inch less hair and a whole new appreciation for the powers of rumor and innuendo.

“I’m sorry if they jumped on you,” whispered Juanita as Mary paid for her haircut. “People still have strong feelings about Teresa Ewing. They really want to hang whoever killed her.”

“I do, too, Juanita,” said Mary. “But I want to hang the right person.”

Mary nodded at Meilani and Ross as she left, but was glad to step out into the bright sunlight. Though HairTwister’s abounded in lights and mirrors, today it felt dark inside. She knew gossip always swirled around a murder case, but those old women at HairTwister’s had made Grace Collier sound as conniving as a spider.

“Well, hello there, Mary,” a voice called from behind her. “We were just talking about you.”

She turned. George Turpin stood there, Harvey Pugh beside him. The Tweedledum and Tweedledee of the courthouse crowd, today in seersucker suits and striped ties—the summer uniform of certain Southern gentlemen.

“Those are terrific signs,” said Turpin. “Really a fresh take on the usual red, white, and blue stuff.”

“Thanks,” Mary replied. “Grace Collier did them.”

Turpin’s mouth curled in a smug grin. “That’s what we heard. She’s such a talented gal. Too bad about her son.”

“What about her son?” Mary wondered what Turpin was implying.

“Oh you know. All that Teresa Ewing business, right now with the election coming up.” Turpin rocked back slightly on his heels.

“It’s a shame,” said Mary. “Takes everyone’s attention from the larger issues.”

“So it does. Well, I’m glad I got a chance to compliment you on your signage.”

Again, Turpin smiled.

“See you at the Republican Luncheon.”

Mary watched as the two men continued on toward the courthouse, feeling a thrum of nervousness inside. That Turpin would try to make political hay over the Teresa Ewing case, she had no doubt. Probably he would paint all those boys-grown-to-men with a broad brush of suspicion, paint himself as the keeper of law and order, and paint her as a defender of child killers, working to help guilty people weasel out of the punishments they deserved.

Suddenly the absurdity of it all struck her. She was running for DA while representing a man everyone suspected of being a murderer. Probably, she should quit the case right now and pass Zack off to some other attorney. But Grace had worked on her campaign, believed in her message, was becoming her friend. Could she now turn Zack over to someone else?

“No,” she decided, staring at her own campaign signs. “He hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s given his DNA. He’s entitled to counsel as much as the next person.”

And though that was true, she knew it wouldn’t be enough. With Teresa Ewing, people didn’t care about due process. People just wanted justice, with a huge dollop of vengeance thrown in.

Once more turning away from Ravenel and Crow, she walked to the offices of the Hartsville Herald. Though she hated to go to the paper since Ginger had left, she needed facts about Teresa Ewing’s murder. If Turpin did make Zack Collier a campaign issue, she would need more reliable information than beauty shop gossip. Opening the door to the Herald, Mary put on her friendliest smile.

The prune-faced Ruby Potts looked up from the reception desk, no doubt aware that Mary would ask for something that would require some actual work on her part. “Well, Ms. Crow. Haven’t seen you in a while. What can I help you with today?”

“I need something from the morgue.”

“The morgue’s online now. Everything from January 1, 2002.”

“I need something from February 1989.”

“Oh.” Wearily, Ruby Simmons got out a pencil and note pad. “What items are you interested in?”

“Everything you’ve got on the Teresa Ewing murder.”

The woman gave a weak, mewing laugh. “You going to solve that one now?”

Mary nodded. “I’m sure going to try.”