I wish I could say that life returned to normal after that, but it didn’t. Travis had given me a week off to think about my job before he accepted my resignation, and I planned to use every moment. As soon as I could, I picked up Roger from the animal hospital. He moved slower than before, and he had to wear a cone for a while so he wouldn’t pull out his stitches, but I had my buddy back.
Susanne came over every morning that week for coffee. We’d talk for an hour, and then she’d go home to work in her garden or to clean her house. She was lonely. I hadn’t seen that before, but I did now. Maybe I was lonely, too.
To keep myself busy in the day, I planted a garden. It was nice. I also tried to stay abreast of the investigation into Christopher Hughes and his former associates. We charged Alonzo with the murders of Emily and Megan Young, and Warren Nichols.
To avoid the death penalty, he pled guilty to every charge. He also filled in a lot of gaps in our understanding of what happened. Diana Hughes had nothing to do with most of the murders, but she had killed James Holmes, and she had abducted Julia and me. Even if she had killed Sherlock in self-defense, she couldn’t say the same about a kidnapping. She’d die in prison.
Agents from the Treasury Department arrested Randy Shepard and Neil Wilcox—Christopher Hughes’s only surviving business partners—for money laundering. They’d go to prison but not for long.
Everything came down to money. Sherlock had a scheme to make himself rich, but it blew up in his face and got people killed. Only Mr. Mendoza did well for himself. Diana said she gave him ten million dollars. I suspected we’d never see him again.
Several days after we arrested Diana Hughes, a woman I went to the police academy with, Gwenn Collins, called me out of the blue as I sat on the front porch with Roger. Since Gwenn and I had been the same size and age, she had been my partner during the self-defense portions of our training, making her one of only two people I had ever punched in the face. She didn’t hold that against me.
“Gwenn, hi,” I said. “It’s been a while. How are you?”
“I’m good,” she said, her voice soft. Gwenn had a lilting southern accent that a lot of men found beguiling and the tender heart of a kind woman. From almost the first day I met her, I worried about her, not because she was weak or fragile, but because she was good. Before joining the academy, I had lived with a police officer. I understood how it could drain a person, and I hated the idea of watching the world extinguish Gwenn’s light. “You’re famous now. I don’t know many famous people.”
“I am famous now,” I said, smiling to myself. “Just this morning, I got a call from my high school asking whether I’d give the commencement speech at next year’s graduation.”
“Really?” she asked.
“No,” I said, smiling. “I made that up. You’re the only person in the world who thinks I’m famous, so I wanted to revel in it a little longer. What can I do for you?”
“I work in the crime lab in Clayton, and I’m calling because I’ve got a box with your name on it. It’s evidence from a case twelve years ago.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling my shoulders drop some.
“I’ve read the reports about what you’ve gone through,” she said. “Your case is closed for good now. I thought you might like to see the evidence before it’s destroyed. It might help you get closure. I hope I didn’t overstep.”
“You didn’t,” I said. “Some bad things happened back then.”
“I get it. I’ll box this up and have it sent off. If you’re ever in the area, call me. There’s a great wine bar by my apartment. We should catch up.”
I almost told her that sounded great, but I caught myself before I did.
“I would like to catch up sometime. We’ll do that, but don’t send the box out yet,” I said. “I’m in St. Augustine, but I’d like to see it. This is part of my life. I can’t run from it forever.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding, my voice stronger. “I’ll be up as soon as I can.”
I thanked her and then hung up. Before leaving, I filled the dog’s water bowl, and then I drove. Traffic wasn’t bad, so I made good time to Clayton. Gwenn met me in the county police headquarters’s lobby and escorted me to her office in the basement.
I didn’t know what to feel as I saw the white file box on her desk. Though Julia had kept her own interview notes and paperwork, that box held the physical evidence used to put Christopher Hughes in prison twelve years ago. I pulled the top off to uncover dozens of clear plastic evidence bags, each of which had Julia’s or Travis’s signature on the chain of custody form.
“Do you need a minute?” asked Gwenn.
I looked at her and nodded. “Please.”
She nodded. “I’ll get coffee, then. I’ll be back in a few.”
She stepped out of the office, and I reached into the box for an evidence bag holding a navy blue scrunchy that had belonged to a girl named Sarah. I never knew her, but I was her sister. Christopher had done the same to her that he had done to me. I reached into the box again and pulled out bags holding hair ties, necklaces, and panties. All of them came from young women Christopher had raped.
Then, I pulled out a bag with a young woman’s white cotton underwear. It was my bag. I couldn’t look at it, so I put it away. Near the bottom of the box, I found the ring that had sealed Christopher’s fate. It had belonged to Megan Young.
And my heart jumped because it was all wrong.
I boxed up most of the evidence but took the bag with the ring to the floor’s break room. Gwenn was cleaning out the coffee maker as I entered.
“Can I take this upstairs?” I asked, holding up the evidence bag. “I need to show it to somebody. It won’t leave the building.”
She paused for a moment. “I’m not supposed to let it out of my sight.”
“It’s important,” I said. “I’ll take it up to Captain Julia Green, and then I’ll take it right back. It was her case twelve years ago.”
She blinked and then sighed before nodding. “If it’s not going to leave the building, go ahead.”
“Thanks,” I said, already rushing out of the room. My heart was pounding, and my stomach churned a mile a minute. I didn’t want to wait for the elevator, so I sprinted up the stairs to Julia’s floor. Her office door was open, so I didn’t knock before sticking my head inside. She was on the phone, but when she saw me, she hung up.
“Hey, Joe,” she said. “Something wrong?”
I walked inside and shut the door behind me. As a captain, Julia had a corner office with windows on two sides. It was bright and clean. I crossed the room and put the evidence bag on her desk beside a half-full coffee mug.
“You bagged this twelve years ago,” I said.
Julia looked at it and then looked at me with her eyebrows raised.
“Refresh my memory. I’ve bagged a lot of evidence over the years.”
“This is Megan Young’s ring. Diana Hughes found it in a box in her garage. Christopher supposedly took it from Megan’s body after he killed her.”
“Okay,” said Julia, leaning back and crossing her legs and arms. “I remember now. That box did him in. Before Diana found it, he claimed he was innocent. Afterwards, he confessed to murdering Megan. In retrospect, Diana set her husband up.”
“I want to believe that.”
Julia said nothing at first. Then she laced her fingers together and leaned forward.
“Why don’t you believe that?”
“Megan Young’s case was originally given to two detectives in homicide. When I came forward and claimed Christopher Hughes had assaulted me, your department opened a parallel investigation into those claims. You and Travis handled that investigation.”
“That’s right,” she said, nodding.
“You investigated me. You talked to people I knew at school, you talked to my teachers, and you talked to my old boss at the movie theater. You talked to Megan’s teachers, friends, and sister, too. By the time you finished your investigation, you knew more about me than anyone alive. You knew more about Megan than anyone else knew, too.”
“That was my job.”
“And you did it well,” I said, nodding and sliding the evidence bag toward her. “So when Diana Hughes showed you this box, you recognized this ring as belonging to Megan.”
She took a sip of coffee and then drew in a breath. Her eyes widened and then closed as she realized what I had found.
“I did.”
“You showed it to Christopher Hughes. He included it in his written confession. He said he took it from Megan’s body and then hid it in the box as a souvenir of what he had done, but you knew that was a lie.”
She said nothing for at least twenty seconds, but then she nodded.
“I lived with Megan. I didn’t get along with Emily, but Megan and I talked some. This was a promise ring. Megan’s boyfriend gave it to her and promised to exchange it for an engagement ring one day. She wore that ring for six weeks before her boyfriend broke up with her, and then she never wore it again. She kept it because it was gold and she planned to sell it when she aged out of the foster care system.
“You were a sex crimes detective. You knew everything there was to know about Megan Young’s sex life. You knew she and that boy had broken up, you knew she didn’t wear this ring, and you knew Christopher Hughes didn’t take it from her dead finger. You knew Christopher Hughes’s confession was bullshit, and yet you and Travis let him make it.”
She drew in a slow breath. Her entire body seemed deflated.
“All true,” she said, her voice a whisper. “The moment Diana showed us that box, we knew she was setting her husband up. I persuaded Travis not to say anything. It was my fault. Don’t blame him.”
“Is that why he moved to St. Augustine? He didn’t want to work with you anymore?”
Her eyelids fluttered, but then she shrugged.
“You’d have to ask him.”
“I will,” I said, “but he’ll tell me it was his fault and that you had nothing to do with it.”
“That sounds like him,” she said. She paused and then looked down. “Christopher hurt you and a lot of other girls. He would have hurt a lot more people if we didn’t stop him. We didn’t have the evidence to put him away, so when Diana showed us that box, it felt like an answer to our prayers. Travis and I had to keep quiet about what we knew.”
I nodded. “Did you tell Christopher what to say?”
She shook her head. “We showed him the evidence we had against him, and he wove his own story. In exchange for his confession, the prosecutor dropped the rape charges against him and agreed to a sentence of life without parole.”
“Thank you for the truth.”
Neither of us said anything for another minute, but then Julia cleared her throat.
“So what happens now?”
I bit my lower lip and looked at the table, unable to look her in the eye.
“Almost everyone connected to this case is dead or in prison,” I said, swallowing hard. “Nobody wins if I turn this over to your internal affairs division.”
“You should, though. It’s the right thing to do.”
“Fuck the right thing,” I said. “I’m tired of doing the right thing if it only hurts the people I care about. Christopher Hughes deserved everything he got.”
Julia locked her gaze on mine and then looked down as she reached to her waist. A moment later, she put her gold captain’s badge on the desk and slid it toward me.
“If my decision twelve years ago costs my daughter her integrity today, I’m done. I don’t deserve to wear the same badge she does. Travis doesn’t, either.”
Julia loved being a cop. It was part of her identity. I shook my head.
“Don’t do that,” I said. “You did it to protect me.”
“That doesn’t make it right. I’ve been at this job long enough to know what happens when you stop playing by the rules.”
I looked at the table.
“I’m sorry I put you in this position, Mom.”
She stayed silent long enough that I looked up at her to make sure she was okay. She smiled and reached toward me. I let her hold my hand.
“You’ve never called me Mom before,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“I never called you Mom before because I thought I hated my mom. I thought my mom abandoned me when I needed her most. That lady wasn’t my mom, though. You’ve been my mom since the day I met you. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to figure that out.”
She squeezed my hand.
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I stayed in the office for another few minutes but then stood when Gwenn knocked on the door and poked her head inside.
“Just checking to make sure that thing we talked about is still okay,” she said, looking at me. Then she looked at Julia. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting anything, Captain Green.”
“It’s just Julia now,” she said. “And it’s good you’re here. My daughter needs to get going. I’ve got a letter to write.”
I looked to my mom. “You going to be okay?”
“I’ll be fine,” she said. She looked at Gwenn. “Can you give me one more minute, Officer Collins? I’ll send Joe right down.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Gwenn, stepping outside. Mom looked at me.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” she asked.
I nodded. “I will be.”
“Good,” she said, standing. “The last time I talked to Travis, you had given him a letter of resignation. You still going to quit?”
I shook my head.
“No. They need me. There are two missing kids we’re worried about, and there’s always Spring Fair next year. Without me, they’ll fall apart. I’m the linchpin that holds the entire department together.”
“I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humility over the years.”
I smiled at her and started for the door but stopped when I touched the handle.
“Do you and Dad still make a big lunch on Sunday after church?
“Every week,” she said. “Assuming we can rouse him from bed, your brother will be there. You want us to set you a plate?”
It had been several years since I last sat down with the family on Sunday afternoon. Dad had never stopped asking, but I kept turning him down every time. If these past few weeks had shown me anything, though, it was that I needed my family. Julia and Doug weren’t my birth parents, but they were the mom and dad I’d chosen. What’s more, they had chosen me. It was time I stopped pushing away the people I loved most.
I nodded.
“Yeah. Set me a plate. I’ll see you on Sunday.”