SLEEP DID NOT come easily that night. I would doze and then wake up, knowing that each tick of the clock was bringing Rob Westerfield closer to the moment when he would be released from prison.
I could not take my mind off him or off the event that had kept him behind bars for twenty-two years. In fact, the closer he came to freedom, the more alive Andrea and Mother were to me. If only . . . if only . . . if only . . .
Give it up, part of me screamed. Walk away from it. Put it in the past. I know what I’m doing to my life, and it’s not something I want to happen. Somewhere around two o’clock I got up and made a cup of cocoa. I sat by the window as I drank it. The woods that separated our house from old Mrs. Westerfield’s estate extend past the Hilmer property and are still there, her privacy buffer. I could slip through them as Andrea did that night, and on the other side make my way to the garage-hideout.
Now there is a tall fence defining the several acres around the Westerfield house. I’m sure there is now a security system that would signal an interloper, or a fifteen-year-old kid. At ninety-two, people don’t usually require much sleep. I wondered if Mrs. Westerfield was awake right now, glad to see her flesh and blood released from prison but cringing at the publicity that would accompany it. Her need to clear the family name was as powerful as mine was to see that Paulie Stroebel was not destroyed and that Andrea’s name was not dragged in the dirt.
She was an innocent, young kid whose head was turned; then her crush on Rob Westerfield became fear, which was why she went to the hideout that night. She was afraid not to meet him when he ordered her to show up.
Sitting in the predawn hours, my subconscious feeling that she was afraid of him, and that I was afraid of him for her, crystallized in my mind. I could vividly see Andrea as she had been that night, clasping the locket around her neck, choking back tears. She didn’t want to meet him, but she was caught between a rock and a hard place. And so I added another “if only” to the list. If only she had gone to my parents and confessed to them that she had been meeting Rob.
In that moment we reversed roles, and I became her big sister. I went back to bed and slept fitfully until seven o’clock. I was in front of the television when the media covered Rob Westerfield’s exit from Sing Sing prison in a limousine that met him at the gate. The on-the-spot reporter of the channel I watched emphasized that Rob Westerfield had always sworn he was innocent of the crime.
At noon I was back in front of the set for the unveiling of Rob Westerfield to the world.
The interview took place in the library of the family home in Oldham. The sofa on which he sat was placed in front of a wall of leatherbound books, inferring, I assume, his scholarly mind.
Rob was wearing a tan cashmere jacket, an open-necked sport shirt, dark trousers, and loafers. He was always handsome but had become much more so in his maturity. He had his father’s patrician features and had learned to conceal the condescending sneer that appeared in all of his early pictures. There was the faintest touch of gray in the roots of his dark hair. His hands were clasped in front of him, and he was leaning slightly forward in a relaxed but attentive pose.
“Good setting,” I said aloud. “The only thing missing is a dog at his feet.” At the sight of him I could feel the bile rising in my throat.
His interviewer was Corinne Sommers, host of The Real Story, the popular syndicated Friday night program. She did a brief intro: “Just released after twenty-two years in prison . . . always protested his innocence . . . will now fight to have his name cleared . . .”
Get on with it, I thought.
“Rob Westerfield, it’s an obvious question, but how does it feel to be a free man?”
His smile was warm. His dark eyes under wellshaped eyebrows seemed almost amused. “Unbelievable, wonderful. I’m too big to cry, but that’s what I feel like doing. I just go around the house, and it’s so wonderful to be able to do normal things, like going into the kitchen and getting a second cup of coffee.”
“Then you’ll be staying here for a while?”
“Absolutely. My father has furnished a wonderful apartment for me near this house, and I want to work with our lawyers to get a speedy retrial.” Now he looked earnestly into the camera. “Corinne, I could have gotten parole two years ago if I’d been willing to say I killed Andrea Cavanaugh and that I regretted that terrible deed.”
“Weren’t you tempted to do that?”
“Not for a minute,” he said promptly. “I have always maintained my innocence, and now, thanks to Will Nebels coming forward, I may at last have a chance to prove it.”
You couldn’t admit it, you had too much to lose, I thought. Your grandmother would have disowned you.
“You went to the movies the night Andrea Cavanaugh was murdered.”
“Yes, I did. And I stayed until the movie was over at nine thirty. My car was parked at the service station for over two hours. It’s only a twelve-minute drive to my grandmother’s place from the center of town. Paulie Stroebel had access to the car, and he had been following Andrea around. Even her sister admitted that on the stand.”
“The ticket taker at the theater remembers you buying the ticket.”
“That’s right. And I had the stub to prove it.”
“But no one saw you leave the theater at the end of the film?”
“No one remembers seeing me,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
For just an instant I saw a flash of temper under the amiable smile, and I sat up.
The rest of the interview, however, might have been with a newly returned hostage. “Besides clearing your name, what are you looking forward to doing?”
“Going to New York. Dining in the restaurants that probably didn’t exist twenty-two years ago. Traveling, eventually. Getting a job.” Now a warm smile from him. “Meeting a special someone. Getting married. Having kids.”
Getting married. Having kids. All the things Andrea would never do.
“What are you having for dinner tonight, and who is going to be with you?”
“Just the four of us—my mother, my father, and my grandmother. We just want to be reunited as a family. I asked for a pretty basic dinner: shrimp cocktail, prime rib, baked potato, broccoli, a salad.”
How about apple pie? I wondered.
“And apple pie,” he concluded.
“And champagne, I imagine.”
“Definitely.”
“It seems as though you have pretty definite plans for the future, Rob Westerfield. We wish you luck and hope that in a second trial you can prove your innocence.”
This is a journalist? I snapped the remote button and went to the table in the dining area where I had my laptop ready and waiting. I got online to my Website and began to write.
“Robson Westerfield, the convicted murderer of fifteen-year-old Andrea Cavanaugh, has just been released from prison and is looking forward to roast beef and apple pie. The sanctification of this killer has just begun, and it will be made at the expense of his young victim and of Paulie Stroebel, a quiet, hardworking man who has had to overcome many difficulties.
“He shouldn’t have to overcome this one.”
Not bad for a beginning, I thought.