Judge Morrison’s ruling was an obvious victory for our side, but not necessarily a permanent one. The phrase “without prejudice” means that the charges against Jeremy could be brought again at some future time, should the facts change. Because the trial against Jeremy had not actually started, jeopardy did not attach, so double jeopardy cannot come into play.
I start to move toward the exit doors when I see that Laurie has made her way over to me. “Will you stay until tomorrow? Maybe we can have dinner tonight?”
“Sure,” I say. “I’d like that.”
“Congratulations on the ruling.”
“Thanks.”
Laurie leaves to attend to her business, and I head back to the house with Kevin. Marcus comes over to confirm that I’ll no longer be needing his services.
“Unhh,” he says. Saying good-bye to Marcus is always a poignant event; right now I don’t think there’s a dry eye in the room.
Marcus starts walking toward the door but stops and turns to me. “Kid didn’t hang himself.”
I nod. “I know. I think this time both the good guys and the bad guys go free.”
“Unhh,” says Marcus, and leaves.
I sit down on the couch, apparently looking unhappy, because Kevin says, “You down about the case or leaving Laurie?”
“I’m not down. I’m one happy camper,” I say.
“Yeah… right.” He tells me that he’s on an evening flight back home and that this has been a positive experience for him. Even more positive is that Carol has left a message on his answering machine at home, saying that she wants to “talk.” It’s nothing definite, but I think that Kevin harbors the hope that before long he can get back on WebMD and start planning that honeymoon.
Kevin goes off to pack, and I get a phone call from Richard Davidson, once again thanking me for saving his son and asking me to send him a bill for my services. I tell him I’ll get around to it, but not to mortgage the farm.
I have a genetic resistance to packing until moments before I am about to leave for somewhere, so instead I use my monthly ten-minute allowance for introspection to think about why I’m down. It’s not about the case; I’m delighted that Jeremy is free, and although I believe the real murderer is still out there, that can’t be my concern. Guilty people get away with things all the time; my job is to make sure that innocent people don’t get put away in their stead.
I’m also not about to miss Findlay. It hasn’t been an unpleasant stay, and it really is a nice town, but I can take just so much fresh air and wholesomeness. I feel more at home in a place where crime and grime are far more prevalent.
That leaves Laurie, and leaving Laurie is without doubt the reason I’m depressed. She put it very well at lunch the other day, and her words apply to me as well as her. We love each other, but there is no way we can live in the same place.
Laurie comes over at five o’clock with three bags full of groceries. She vows to make me a dinner I will never forget, but she knows better. Food has never been that important to me; give me a burger and fries and I’m happy.
Laurie makes some fantastic fried chicken and mashed potatoes, and we spend a quiet evening together, capped off by a far-from-quiet time in the bedroom. But as wonderful as this all could be under different circumstances, it suffers from a general sadness that we both feel. We are splitting up again, and this time likely for good. It would be unrealistic to expect Findlay to have more brutal murders resulting in wrongly charged defendants to lure me back.
When Laurie left last time, I at least had anger to fall back on; now I don’t even have that. All I feel is the impending loss, and there’s no conflicting emotion to deflect the pain. She warned me this could happen, and she let me call the shots, but here I am.
We wake up in the morning, and Laurie asks if I’ll come down to her office with her. Now that Jeremy has been freed, it is incumbent on her to restart a full investigation into the deaths of Liz and Sheryl. It’s likely that the investigation will be forced to conclude that Eddie was the killer, but she has to go through the process anyway. As the person who discovered Eddie’s body, I’m a witness who has to be interviewed.
“Can’t you interview me here?” I ask. “Or do you have to put me under hot lights and sweat it out of me?”
She smiles. “I wouldn’t have to pressure you… you’d cave quickly enough. But I do need to record it.”
I agree to meet her there at ten-thirty, giving me plenty of time to take Tara for one last walk around Findlay. I run a little late, so I bring Tara with me to the police station. The sergeant at the desk doesn’t look terribly kindly at that.
“You can tie her up outside while you meet with Chief Collins,” he says.
“Are you familiar with the phrase ‘no way, no how’?” I ask. “Please call Chief Collins and tell her that Andy Carpenter and his trusted companion are here to see her.”
The sergeant does that, though he substitutes the word “dog” for “trusted companion.” Laurie comes out and smiles when she sees Tara, telling the sergeant that they can bend the “no canines” rule just this one time.
Laurie brings us into the interview room, and I sit down. She closes the door behind her.
“You’re going to do this alone?” I ask.
She smiles. “I believe I can handle the likes of you on my own.”
She starts the recorder, gives the time and date, and then asks me to identify myself. Once I do so, she launches right into questions surrounding my involvement with Eddie and my presence in his motel room on the day he died.
I take her through my actions, leading up to the day he ran away from me at the Parker Motel. I don’t include everything, since some insignificant details are subject to lawyer-client privilege, but I so inform her when I leave something out.
“So when you arrived at the Parker, what did you do?” she asks.
“Kevin and I went into the office and convinced the clerk to give us his room number. Then we went outside, up to the second floor, and around to his room. The door was open, and he was nowhere to be found. Some of his possessions were still there, as if he had left in a hurry.”
“When did you hear from him next?” she asks.
“The next day. He called me and…” My mouth is searching for the words to finish the sentence, but my brain has intercepted them on the way and is in a state of shock.
Laurie prompts me. “He called you and…”
“Turn off the recorder,” I say.
“What? Andy…”
“Turn it off, please.”
She does so, probably because my tone of voice has changed so much. “What is it?” she asks.
“Laurie, when Eddie called me that day, he told me that he had run away from the Parker because he thought it might be Drummond that was chasing him. He said he hadn’t known it was me.”
“So?”
“So how did he find out it was me? I didn’t leave a card in his room… I didn’t give my name to the clerk. It wasn’t on television or in the newspaper. Yet by the next day he had found out that it was me at the Parker. Someone had to have told him.”
“Who did you tell?” she asks.
“You,” I say.
“No one else?”
“No. Kevin knew, of course, because he was there, but that’s it.”
I can see her mind racing to answer the next question even before I ask it. “Who did you tell?” I ask.
“Some of my officers,” she says, “but I’d vouch for them completely.” She pauses as the realization hits her. “Damn.”
“What is it?”
“I told Liz Barlow’s mother. You said I should confront her with it.”
“Was Drummond or anyone else there?”