I had my sticker pass stuck to my shirt, and I’d gone through the metal detector. Had my shoes checked by the correctional officer, making me glad I’d worn my black Mary Janes. Now I sat under the florescent lighting, in chairs bolted to the floor, waiting with a half dozen others for our names to be called.
I’d never visited anyone in jail before, and I had no idea what to expect. Around the room, a little girl skipped up and down the back wall with a tiny doll. She appeared quite comfortable in the environment, and it grieved me. To have to visit your family member in this place as a small child must have some negative effect on her development. Not that she was showing evidence of it at present.
Another older woman with white hair and a pink sweater sat in the chair opposite me. She was knitting, or maybe it was crocheting, some sort of baby blanket. Perhaps for her daughter or granddaughter. She hummed a tune I’d heard before but simply couldn’t place.
An older bald man sat in the corner of the room on his own. He had his head in his hands. When he raised his head, he involuntarily met my gaze with his bloodshot eyes. The pain he clearly felt was palpable.
Names were being called, and I directed my attention toward the uniformed officer with a clipboard. Everyone began to line up, and I followed suit when my name was announced. I couldn’t imagine doing this on a regular basis. Going through the same song and dance every week while attempting to maintain normalcy would be maddening. Although, as I took in those in the line, to some this must be their normal. The doors opened, and we were hustled into a small room with the same tile floors and several booth-type areas separated by small partitions. There were two cameras recording where the walls met the ceiling on opposite ends of the room. I went to my designated booth and sat down on the red enameled chair and waited behind the piece of glass.
Last night I’d continued listening to the audio recordings of Carol’s sessions with my father. I almost felt as if I were invading her privacy, but persevered. She definitely sounded paranoid. Her fear of dying and her body deteriorating slowly over years came across in graphic detail. I could see how the police, her husband, and those close to her would believe she suffered from some sort of psychosis.
I jumped as the doors opened on the other side of the glass, and in filed inmates wearing orange jumpsuits. They weren’t shackled or cuffed, as I had expected them to be. When I spotted Kevin, my breath caught in my throat. He had a black eye, and his right cheek was swollen. He seemed relieved to see me. I’d been surprised when he called me from jail, on my way home from Val’s, and begged me to come see him.
He picked up the black phone connected to the wall on his side, and I picked up mine. “Thanks for coming.”
“What happened to your face?”
He slanted his eyes to the left and then back to me. “Some guy in here. I’ve got to learn to keep my head down until I get out on bail. I did some time in juvie when I was a teen for petty stuff, but this—well, nothing prepares you for this.”
I hadn’t known anything about his prior juvenile record, but there was no reason I would’ve.
He gave his head a small shake. “I didn’t do this. And that stupid Quinn loved slamming me into the wall. He’s always hated me because of you.”
Quinn certainly wasn’t a fan of his. But there was a niggling worry in the back of my mind because this had more to do with what I’d overheard. “Why do they think you did it? What evidence do they have?” I didn’t want to show my hand. I needed to see if he would be honest with me.
Kevin rested his elbows on the table attached to the glass. “My lawyer says it’s all circumstantial stuff mostly. We fought over the inheritance. I told you about that. Her husband is pissed because he wants what’s mine. He’s actually planning on fighting me in court. Now I’m in here. Coincidence? I think not.”
“You think you were framed?”
“It’s crazy, Lyla. Like something straight up out of the movies. They can plant things, you know. I watch the news. I know how things like this go down. Especially if the cops have it in for you.”
“That seems a little paranoid. They must have something solid. They can’t arrest you without cause.” My mind went back to the photographs. He’d looked like a raving lunatic. It wasn’t a stretch to make the leap to murder or accidental death based on those.
Kevin rested his head on his arm and held the black receiver against his shoulder for a moment. “I told you, Carol and I got into it a few times. It got ugly.” He met my gaze, and his eyes flared. “It isn’t what you think! I didn’t hurt her.”
“Tell me what it was like.” I kept my mind open and my eyes watchful. If he came across as defensive and edgy, I’d worry more. Although, one could argue, that could be attributed to his situation.
“If I do, will you help me?”
“If you tell me everything without leaving anything out, I’ll talk to the judge.” I held up my finger. “Everything, Kevin.”
He nodded. “Carol called me a few weeks back to discuss the inheritance. We met a few times privately at that motel off the interstate. She’d just come back from looking at some old crime scene on I-85 each time, and she acted freaked out.”
My pulse sped up. I leaned forward. “Freaked out by?”
“I asked, but she wasn’t making sense. She went on and on about some wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing nonsense. Carol was petrified. She would reference ‘the person,’ but never gave me a name, claiming it would be safer for me if I didn’t know.” Kevin rubbed his discolored cheek. “I thought she was losing it. Carol was seeing your dad. He was treating her for paranoia.”
When I didn’t react, he nodded. “You already knew that. Okay. Well, we’d come to an agreement. She planned on splitting the inheritance with me. So, you see! There isn’t a motive to hurt my stepsister. Even if she hadn’t agreed, I wouldn’t have hurt her. You know me.”
“It was you I saw with her that day in the car?”
His eyes blazed again. “That wasn’t me! I swear to God! I did see her the day before, though. She was hysterical. She said she planned on running away with someone, a killer, she said. To keep those of us safe from him. She wasn’t making sense. I asked her why she would run away with a known killer. She just kept saying, ‘before there are none’ over and over again. And like I said, I didn’t really believe her.” He was leaning so close to the glass it fogged up in a round circle at his mouth. His eyes were glossy. “I should’ve, and I didn’t.”
“Did she give you any clue as to who the person was?”
“I honestly don’t know. I think he was her escape plan. She was crying and carrying on about being conflicted. She loved the guy, the killer. And she couldn’t believe they were capable of such a horrible act and how she believed it was a dream.”
Chills ran up my spine. “That’s all she said?”
He stared me straight in the face. “Yes. I swear. And I didn’t do that to her! I’m being railroaded.” He lowered his tone. “You know me. I’m not capable of that. Stuffing her in a suitcase. That would entail a lot of shit I don’t even want to consider. Plus, I didn’t even know she’d been in a suitcase or that you found her that way until they showed me those pictures. Lyla, I swear to God, I would never do that to her or you.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you been texting me?”
He shook his head.
“Did you kill a possum and smear blood in my car?”
His face held shock. “What? No. Somebody did that to you?”
I nodded my head.
“Well, it wasn’t me! I didn’t do this! I mean it!” He let out a shuddering breath.
“Did she say anything else? Think, Kevin, think.”
He turned his head side to side. “She said a lot of shit. Oh.” He lifted his head. “I think she said something about leaving the evidence somewhere for safekeeping. I told the police that too. They think I’m making all this up. I’m not even sure my lawyer believes I’m telling the truth.”
I felt my eyes widen. “What evidence?”
The corners of his mouth turned down, and I could tell the motion caused him pain. “I don’t know. Something about pictures she took or found or something.”
“Think, Kevin!”
“I don’t know, Lyla!” He thumped the glass with his fist, and the guard gave him a stern warning. “Sorry. Won’t happen again,” Kevin said compliantly.
When his eyes focused back on me, I blurted, “I found the cap.”
“What?” He shifted in his chair; hope visibly began to fade from his eyes.
“In the trash. I found it,” I said tersely.
His eyes were wide with panic. “I was afraid! After she died, I heard from Ellen that you told the police you saw a man wearing a camo cap like mine in the car with Carol. I was afraid that after the disagreements I had with Carol over the inheritance, they would use it to try and pin this on me.” He motioned to himself. “Case in point.”
Ellen? How did she know about my statement?
“Throwing it away made you look suspicious. Why else throw it away unless you were identified as the person wearing it with Carol before her death?”
The correctional officer announced a five-minute warning.
“It was stupid! Yeah, I get it. I did not do this. Please, Lyla! Please. You have to help me. If you find out who’s behind this, they’ll have to let me go. I was a jerk to you. I should never have let Ellen talk me into moving by you. We could’ve chosen another unit a few streets over, or she could’ve moved into my place instead of me renting it out.”
Their move had been vindictive. “Listen, Kevin. I don’t care about that anymore. If you want to be with Ellen, fine. I don’t hold a grudge against you.”
Time was called, and Kevin started to rise, his eyes shifting to his left, where one of his fellow inmates was sneering his direction, and then to the guard.
“I’ll do what I can. For Carol. And if you’re innocent, for you.”
“I am. I swear I am.”
I placed the receiver back on the hook, and as I watched him file out with the other inmates, a look of desperation on his face, I wondered if I could believe him.