Five

“What experience do you have?” Regan balanced the phone on her shoulder while she poured her third cup of coffee of the morning. “I’m looking for someone who is extremely organized…”

It was Monday morning, and Regan had to force herself to keep her mind on the task at hand. She paced back and forth while the caller—a retired woman who’d seen her ad in the Windsor Hights Herald—enumerated her years of office experience. When she’d finished, Regan admitted that she had outstanding credentials. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t be able to start until August, which, as far as Regan was concerned, was two months too late. She needed an assistant now, so that she could turn her full attention to the case that had consumed her even more since she and Mitch had landed in Texas on Saturday.

She had been thinking a lot about Lester Ray Barnes and his impending death sentence, Tamara Evans and the cop who’d bullied her, and she was itching to dig even further into the story. In two days, she’d be in Florida, for her one-on-one with Patrick Lederer, and a few hours later she’d be meeting with Roland Booth, and she hoped to get in to see Barnes himself before Thursday’s hearing. Once he was a free man, every journalist in the country would be after him. If she was going to do this, she had to nail it down now. And that meant wrapping up this bit of business here so that she could get on with her work.

“I’m sorry, I need someone who can start as soon as possible,” Regan told the woman. She thanked her for her time, then hung up the phone and checked the time. She’d scheduled an interview for ten A.M., which gave her twenty minutes to return the other calls that were left on her answering machine over the weekend. The calls had consumed her time and attention since she’d returned from Florida on Sunday afternoon.

By the time the doorbell rang promptly at ten, she’d spoken with eight more candidates, only two of whom sounded even vaguely qualified. Discouraged, she returned the phone to the base and answered the door on the third ring.

The young woman who stood on the brick porch immediately brought the word waif to Regan’s mind. She was no more than twenty-five if that, small and thin, with straight light brown hair and large brown eyes. Her blue shirt was tucked neatly into the waistband of her matching cotton skirt, which hit right around mid-calf, and her flat shoes had more than a few miles on them.

“Miss Landry?” She tilted her head slightly to one side. “I’m Bliss McKinley. We spoke last night on the phone?”

“You’re right on time. Please come in.” Regan stood back to permit the woman to enter.

“Your house is beautiful.” She looked over her shoulder as she stepped inside. “The house, the grounds, the fields…”

“Thank you. Actually, the farm belonged to my father.” Regan gestured for Bliss to follow her down the hall and into Josh’s study. She held the door aside while Bliss entered. “Please sit anywhere.”

Regan sat on the leather sofa and waited until Bliss appeared comfortable.

“You have your résumé with you?” Regan asked.

“Yes. Right here.” The young woman removed several typed pages from a folder that stuck out the top of her cloth handbag.

Regan spent several minutes looking over the pages.

“I think you told me on the phone that your husband is a student at the seminary in Princeton. Is that right?” Regan asked.

“Yes. This is his first year.” Bliss smiled.

“And you’re pursuing a master’s in…” Regan’s eyes scanned the résumé.

“Anthropology. I’d planned to continue in the fall, but then I found out I was pregnant, so I thought I’d be better off working for a while, to put some money away for when the baby comes. When I saw your ad, I thought it might be a good fit, since you only want someone for three to five months.”

“Well, that will depend on you,” Regan told her. “On how fast you work, on how many hours you can work each week.”

“I can work whatever hours you need, four days or five. I can start early, I can stay late.” Bliss nodded eagerly. “You said you needed someone who is very organized, and that’s me. I worked all through college as a research assistant for professors, some of whom were notoriously careless and messy. I’d be happy to give you references.”

Bliss paused for a minute, then reddened. “Not to imply that your father was careless or messy…”

“Oh, but he was. I think I mentioned that on the phone.” Regan laughed. “Let me explain to you what we have here.”

She waved a hand in the direction of the boxes that lined the floor and stood in uneven stacks around the room.

“My father was a writer. I am too. I need to organize his files, once and for all.” Regan stood, unable to hide her frustration. “He left piles of newspaper clippings, police reports, interviews, letters…”

“What kind of books do you write, Miss Landry?” Bliss asked.

“True crime. I research crimes and then write about them. About the victims and about the perpetrators. I should warn you, some of the material is very…graphic.”

“Oh.” Bliss appeared to consider this.

“Will that bother you?”

Bliss went to the box nearest her chair and opened it. She took out several files and flipped through them. Regan noticed she sped past the packet of photographs without looking.

“I guess I won’t be expected to look at all the pictures?” she asked.

“No. Unless it’s necessary to identify some that might be unmarked.” Regan thought about that, then added, “Though in a case of loose or unmarked photos, you’d put those aside for me.”

Bliss nodded, then knelt on one knee and thumbed through the contents of another box. “The files are not in any particular order?”

“No order whatsoever.”

“And all the boxes are like these?”

“Exactly like that.” Regan nodded. “The ones in here, in the basement, the attic, the small barn…”

“And some material from the barn boxes might go with some of the files in the attic…something from the filing cabinets in here might match up with something else in the barn?”

“You catch on very quickly.”

“So it’s like a big puzzle…”

“What a unique way of looking at it.” Regan sat on the edge of the desk, and made a quick decision. How likely was it she’d find anyone better qualified for the job than this young woman? Besides, she liked Bliss. There was something about her that made Regan want to smile. “Think you’d like to take it on?”

“Sure.” Bliss dropped her bag on the floor. “When would you like me to start?”

“Could you start tomorrow?” Regan was only half joking.

“I’m already here.” The young woman shrugged. “Why not today?”

“Great.” A smiling Regan stood. “That would give us a little time to get acquainted and for me to give you a tour of the house, and to show you what I’ve already done as far as the files are concerned. Let’s start in the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee—decaf for you?—and I’ll give you the rundown on where things are. I’m going out of town tomorrow afternoon and I’ll be gone the rest of the week, so after this, I’m afraid, you’ll be on your own for a while…”

 

Regan looked out the window and squinted as the bright sun reflected off the wing of the plane that had just landed in Jacksonville. She rummaged in her handbag for her sunglasses and slipped them on top of her head, pulled her carry-on bag from under her seat, and joined the queue that was making its way slowly to the door. Having no luggage to collect once off the plane, she headed straight for the exit and searched for a cab. She was just about to raise her arm to get the attention of an approaching driver when she heard someone calling her name.

“Regan Landry?” A tall woman with long red hair stepped out of the crowd and touched her arm.

“Yes?” Regan turned.

“Dorsey Collins. FBI.” The redhead pointed to the quilted bag slung over Regan’s shoulder. “That’s it? That’s all you have?”

“I’m not planning on staying long,” Regan told her.

“I’m parked right down here.” Dorsey pointed to a black Mustang that sat by itself in front of a NO PARKING sign. She gestured for Regan to follow.

When they approached the car, Dorsey waved to the uniformed police officer who stood nearby, as if on guard.

“Thank you, Officer,” Dorsey called to him.

“Any time, Agent Collins.” He smiled. “Any time…”

“So you know Mitch,” Regan said as she tossed her bag into the backseat of the Mustang.

“Sure.”

“Nice of you to pick me up.”

“Nothing would do but an official welcome for Mitch’s lady friend.” Dorsey smiled and slid behind the wheel.

“Mitch asked you to pick me up?” Regan frowned. He’d not mentioned it.

“No, he did not. But District Attorney Patrick Lederer did.” Dorsey eased the car into the line of traffic. “He thought better of having you come to his office. The media’s been all over him since that clown Roland Booth went on TV last week and ran off at the mouth about Lester Ray Barnes. Since the DA has turned down every request for an interview from every reporter on the planet, he realized it wouldn’t look good to have you seen coming and going from his office, especially since…well, apparently there’s more in the wind. Anyway, he called Mitch back this morning, but your flight was already in the air. When Mitch couldn’t get you on your cell, he called me, I called the DA and arranged to pick you up, take you to meet Lederer, and then I can take you wherever you want to go next.”

“I’m surprised Lederer went to all that trouble.”

“He owes Mitch a favor.”

“How do you know that?” Regan turned to study Dorsey.

“Because I know what Mitch did for the DA.” Dorsey grinned. “And if you want the skinny on that, you’re going to have to ask Mitch yourself.”

“I just might have to do that,” Regan told her.

Dorsey laughed. “Mitch is a good guy, a great agent. He has a lot of friends who are cops. Not just here, but other places as well. We keep telling him there’s something unnatural about an FBI agent being so well liked by the locals, but there it is.”

“He is a pretty nice guy,” Regan agreed.

“We’re all wondering how you managed to snag him.” Dorsey put on her turn signal.

“Excuse me?” Regan tilted her head.

“Just curious, that’s all.” Dorsey smiled. “He’s always been such a loner. All business all the time, but cute in a slightly geeky way. We were just wondering how you got him to sit up and take notice.”

“I have no idea. We just clicked right off the bat,” Regan told her honestly, then laughed. “But you see the geek factor in him?”

“Oh, yeah. You should have seen him before he got his contacts. Definitely geek-hot. Tough to get his attention, though. And God knows we all tried.”

“I hadn’t realized he was such an elusive soul.”

“Well, now, that’s a nice way to describe him. An elusive soul. I’m going to have to remember that the next time I try to get someone’s attention and can’t.”

Regan seriously doubted that Dorsey Collins would fail to get anyone’s attention, but she let it go.

“So where will I be meeting Lederer?” Regan changed the subject.

“Diner a few towns over from Fremont, a place where he’s not likely to be bothered by anyone.”

“Speaking of elusive souls,” Regan commented.

“He has a right to be. This whole thing with the lab is blowing up in everyone’s face. Mine included.”

“You worked with the cops on the Barnes case?”

“No, another case. Erwin Capshaw. Bastard. He’s already out.” Dorsey’s face hardened. “No way should that slime be out of prison. He’s going to hurt someone, and you can quote me on that.”

“He was on death row?”

“No, he had a life sentence. As far as I’m concerned he should have gotten the death penalty.” She shook her head.

Dorsey turned off the highway and headed out a long stretch of country road.

“Capshaw’s lawyer was the first to find out what was going on at Potts’s lab. He got the story from the girl who caught Potts doctoring up a file the night before he was supposed to testify at someone’s trial. The lawyer was dating the lab tech’s sister, that’s how he got a jump on this thing before anyone else knew what was happening. Filed his brief contesting the conviction, went in and had a heart-to-heart talk with the judge, had Potts subpoenaed…”

“And the ball started rolling from there?”

“Hasn’t stopped yet.”

“How do you know Capshaw wasn’t innocent?”

Dorsey flashed an indignant look.

“Look, I’m not questioning your expertise, or your judgment,” Regan told her. “I’m simply asking how you know. I’m not familiar with the case, I don’t know what he was arrested for or anything else about him. You brought him up, I’m just asking for the details. I’ve never heard of him.”

“Ah, and that’s something his lawyer, Bob Shotwell, will never forgive Roland Booth for. Booth got the media all hyped up over Barnes before Shotwell could make his big announcement. By the time Booth started holding press conferences, Capshaw—and therefore, Shotwell—was already old news. Shotwell’s client was out of prison, safe and sound. But Barnes was still in, still vulnerable, his execution less than two months away. Lots of drama there, you know, but the guy who’s already slipped out quietly, hey, who cares.”

“Stole Shotwell’s thunder?”

“Right out from under him.” Dorsey grinned. “I heard there was a big to-do over it in the courthouse the other day. Booth on his way up the main stairwell, Shotwell on his way down. I heard it wasn’t pretty.”

“You could pretend to be horrified.”

“Hey, why bother? I loved it. They’re both weasels, as far as I’m concerned, and both their clients are scum. If they want to pound on each other, I’m going to watch and cheer them both on.”

“So tell me about Capshaw.”

“Erwin Anderson Capshaw. Age forty-three. Has a sheet from the Keys straight up through to Virginia. Started out his long and illustrious career as a peeper—at age nine. Juvie record is sealed, but I’ve been told on good authority that if we could get a peek, we’d see reports of sexual assault that go back as far as junior high. Accused of rape at age sixteen—he beat that, the victim changed her mind about testifying—and it all went downhill from there.”

“What earned him the life sentence? What was he convicted of?”

“Kidnapping, rape, and torture of a woman in Tallahassee.”

“Why no murder charge?”

“She didn’t die. She’s been institutionalized since the attack.”

“So she couldn’t testify against him?”

“Doesn’t even know her own name.”

“What did the DA have to get the conviction?”

“DNA. His semen, her leg.”

“Don’t tell me. The lab lost his sample.”

“Better than that. Potts lost both samples. Hers and his. It was as if they never even had it.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Tell me about it.” Dorsey shook her head in disgust.

“So Potts spilled to his tech, she tells her sister, who tells her boyfriend…”

“Who just happens to be Capshaw’s lawyer. Yup, yup, and yup.” Dorsey made a right onto a side road. “Seems the tech came back to the lab one night to pick up something she’d left, and found Potts sitting in the lab, files all over the floor, crying. At first he didn’t want to tell her what was wrong, but he finally broke down and told her he’d been fudging reports, fudging results, for the past five or six weeks.”

“Holy shit.”

“Exactly. Imagine his surprise when he’s subpoenaed to testify. He breaks down on the stand, and it’s all over. Shotwell files his motion contesting Capshaw’s conviction, now there’s not even evidence for a retrial. The DA has nothing. Capshaw walks.” Dorsey’s grin was evil. “And right on his heels comes Booth and his poor, pitiful condemned client to garner the most sensational attention from the press. But since Capshaw wasn’t on death row, both he and his lawyer miss an opportunity to appear on TV and get their picture on the cover of Time. Too bad.”

Dorsey pulled into the parking lot of a small white diner identified by a large purple sign bearing the single word PANSY’S. She turned to Regan.

“Hope you have your shit together, because he’s only going to give you about twenty minutes. Make ’em count.” Dorsey got out of the car and waited for Regan to come around to her side. “And be forewarned, he isn’t in a happy frame of mind right now.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

Regan followed the agent into the diner, where a woman in her seventies nodded to them as they entered. Dorsey headed for the only booth that was occupied. As the women approached, two of the three men in the booth rose. They greeted Dorsey curtly, then looked Regan up and down before taking seats at the counter nearby.

“District Attorney Patrick Lederer, meet Regan Landry.” Dorsey made the introductions, then joined the two men at the counter.

Lederer motioned for Regan to have a seat.

“I really appreciate your taking the time to speak with me,” Regan said as she sat across from the DA. He was a large man with pale blond hair just this side of gray, and piercing blue eyes that held no welcome.

“I knew your father. I have fond memories of him,” Lederer told her. “I understand you’re continuing his work.”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“You have big shoes to fill.”

“There’s no argument there.”

“So you’re going to write a book about Lester Ray Barnes.” Lederer all but spit out the names.

“I’m considering it, yes. Right now, I’m just trying to gather enough information to determine if it’s a story I want to write.”

“Does it need to be told? Should it be told?” Lederer looked disgusted at the very thought. “Personally, I wouldn’t give that little rat bastard two cents’ worth of ink. Ever since the story broke about the Fremont lab, the press is making him out to be some poor oppressed little man who was screwed by the system. Let me tell you about that poor little man, and what he did to Carolyn Preston…”

“For the jury to have imposed the death penalty, it must have been atrocious…” She paused.

“But…?” He motioned for her to finish her sentence.

“But if Eugene Potts lied on the witness stand when he testified that Barnes’s DNA matched the DNA found on the victim…” She swallowed hard, knowing he knew this, that he’d heard it a hundred times in the past week and he wasn’t going to want to hear it from her now. It was on the tip of her tongue to bring up Tamara Evans’s name, but she decided against it. Her instincts told her now was not the time. “In the absence of any other conclusive evidence, how can the courts fail to release him?”

He waved a hand in her direction, as if to wave away the facts.

“I know this bastard. I know he’s guilty. It’s killing me to know that before this week is over, he’ll be back on the streets. And I’m telling you this, Ms. Landry.” He leaned across the table and lowered his voice to a growl. “He’ll do it again. I give him a month. If he lasts that long. He might make nice for a time, while the spotlight’s still on him, but you mark my words. The minute he’s off on his own, he’s going to kill again. Then I’m going to be asking you and everyone else who thought to make a buck from the story to sit down with the family of his victims and tell them why it was a good idea to let him out of prison.”

“If Lester Ray Barnes is going to go free, it isn’t going to be because I did—or didn’t—write about him. It’s going to be because Eugene Potts screwed up, and lied about it. I’d think you’d be having this conversation with him.”

“I already have.” Lederer ran a hand through his hair. “He’ll be an old man before he gets out, probably die behind bars. Like Barnes should have.”

Lederer blew out a long breath. “And then, of course, there’s the elephant in the room.”

She glanced over at him and he smiled wanly.

“I appreciate your restraint in not bringing up Tamara Evans. Or Ted Keaton. Or Felicity Runyon.”

“I figured we’d get to Evans sooner or later. I thought I’d follow your lead on that.”

“Appreciate that.”

“But who are Keaton and Runyon?”

“Keaton is the cop who got Tamara Evans to twist her testimony,” he told her. “Runyon is the former ADA who knew about it and chose to pretend she didn’t.”

“Any chance I can speak with Keaton?” she asked.

“Not a snowball’s chance.” Lederer shook his head firmly.

“But if I’m going to write the whole story…” Regan frowned.

“You’re going to have to do it without speaking with Keaton. First off, his lawyer would never permit it.” He lowered his voice again, fire in his eyes. “But don’t feel bad. He won’t speak with me, either.”

“You haven’t discussed this with him?”

“He isn’t talking to anyone.”

“ADA Runyon?” she asked hopefully.

“Former ADA Runyon,” he corrected her coolly. “Not a chance.”

“Let me just ask you this. Has she corroborated Tamara Evans’s story? Has she admitted that she knew about Keaton’s strong-arming the witness?”

“In another forty-eight hours, it isn’t going to be a secret.” He shrugged. “Yes. Runyon admitted that Evans contacted her but says she didn’t follow up because Keaton never returned her phone calls.”

Regan raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Lederer nodded. “That was pretty much my reaction, too.”

“I’m assuming Keaton will be prosecuted,” she said, “but what about Runyon?”

“Stupidity is not a criminal offense,” he said dryly. “What she did was stupid and it was negligent, but criminal? I’ll never be able to prove it was a deliberate attempt on her part to bury the information. She says now it was an oversight, that yes, she should have kept after Keaton or brought it to someone else’s attention—such as mine—for follow-up, but the case was so complicated, there was so much going on, she just forgot to follow up.”

“How do you forget an allegation like the one Tamara Evans made?” Regan persisted.

“Well, obviously.” Lederer’s temper was starting to get the best of him. “On the other hand, how do you prove she made a conscious decision to discount it? Look, had Evans’s statement been the only piece of evidence that the jury had to convict Barnes, I might feel a little differently. But it was Potts’s testimony that convinced the jury. We polled every one of them after the verdict was announced, and every single one of them said it was the DNA. I’m not going to waste my time prosecuting Runyon for her stupidity, but I can tell you this, she’ll never practice law again.”

“Okay, Runyon’s off my list, Keaton likewise.” Regan sighed. “What are the chances I can get a copy of the police file?”

“You’re really pushing your luck today, aren’t you?” he asked without humor. “I agreed to speak with you out of a courtesy to Agent Peyton and out of affection for your father. But I have to tell you, I’m a little sick of journalists who glorify the likes of Lester Ray Barnes. Who revel in putting all the gory details out there, and…”

“Sir, with all due respect,” she interrupted him. “I’m not here to argue with you or put you on the defensive. I don’t even know if I’m going to write about Barnes. I wanted to hear about the case from you. There’s no attempt to glorify what he did—if in fact he did it. I know you have strong feelings on that issue, and you may very well be right. My job isn’t to make assumptions either way, guilt or innocence. My job is to tell the true story.”

She watched his face. It told her nothing.

“Look, I know I can get my hands on the file, and if I decide to go ahead with this project, I will. I’m going to want to see what the cops saw, that’s standard procedure for me. I thought I’d ask you for it, but we both know I can get it if I want it.” It was time to turn the conversation to another direction, so she softened her tone. “But there are things you know that won’t be reflected in the file, and I wanted to get a sense of Barnes from you. You prosecuted him. You got the conviction. What was there about him, right from the start, that told you he was guilty?”

Lederer sighed heavily.

“The man has no conscience. There is nothing in his eyes. I watched that man’s face when he was looking at the photos of the crime scene, and I’m telling you, the man has no soul. He was totally impassive.” He paused, then asked, “You know what he did to her, right?”

Regan shook her head.

“He raped her, left her stretched out flat on the floor just as if she was in a coffin. Arms crossed over her chest, a plastic flower in her hands. He’d slit her throat, then taken her blood and smeared it around her mouth, like lipstick, like a big happy grin.” Lederer shook his head. “Grotesque. But Lester Ray, he flipped through the stack of photos from the crime scene like nobody’s business. Never blinked.”

“But there was no blood on him? No bloody clothes, no bloody footprints?”

“Not a damned thing. He knew what he was doing, knew how to clean himself up, how to dispose of the evidence. We never found anything.” Lederer tapped on the tabletop. “Of course, he’d had practice.”

“What do you mean?”

“Over the years, he’d been accused of rape twice, had several charges of assault—including beating a fifteen-year-old girl—but the charges always ended up getting dropped. Victims always disappeared or failed to appear or refused to testify against him.”

“And there was no DNA to test from the previous cases?”

“None were in our jurisdiction; several took place before DNA typing was utilized as widely as it is now. But of course in the end, it wouldn’t have mattered much, since the evidence was lost anyway.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine how frustrating this must be for you.”

“No, you really can’t.” Lederer nodded to one of the men that he was ready, and started out of the booth. “So, are you going to try to get in to see Barnes?”

“I’m going to meet with Roland Booth first thing in the morning. I’d like to get in to speak with Barnes in the afternoon. His hearing is the day after tomorrow. If he’s released, he could take off. There’s nothing to hold him here.”

“Nothing but the thought of how much money’s going to fall into his lap once he’s exonerated and sues the state, the lab. Oh, and of course me.” The DA stood. “Not to mention the book you’re thinking about writing.”

“Money hasn’t been discussed.”

“Oh, it will be, Ms. Landry.” Lederer shook her hand, then nodded his good-bye to Dorsey. “Trust me on this. It will be.”