“And it also says that there’s not one shred of doubt that your guy, Jefferson Lamar, committed the murder. See?” Quinn had obviously been through the file before he came to Monroe Street. He knew what he was looking for. “Lamar didn’t have an alibi. Not one he could substantiate, anyway. The victim worked for him at the Central State Correctional Facility. She was his secretary.”
“Which doesn’t mean he killed her.”
“Of course not.” He took the file out of my hand and flipped to the second page. “But all this does. Look: it’s a list of the evidence. They had him dead to right. Lamar’s personal weapon was used in the shooting. His fingerprints were on it. His blood was on her blouse.”
None of which Lamar had ever mentioned.
“Still, there was that note in the cemetery file. The one about Lamar being framed.” There were only those two pieces of paper in the file, but I turned them both over, just in case I’d missed something. “There must be more information somewhere. What about crime scene photos? And the gun itself? If Lamar says he was framed-” I offered an apologetic smile. “If that note in his file says he was framed, there must be a reason somebody thinks he was framed. How can I find out more?”
“This isn’t enough? If all you’re looking for is information about the crime so you can make your team look good-”
“I am. I will. But wouldn’t it be even more interesting if it turned out that note in the file was right? What if Lamar really was innocent? If we could prove that, we’d really look good in the competition.”
“If you could prove that…” Quinn snatched the file folder back from me. “That would mean you’d have to prove that someone else killed Vera Blaine. And that would mean-”
“That I might piss someone off. Big time.” I swallowed the sour taste in my mouth that came with the realization. “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t at least look into it.”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
“But, Quinn…” He was about to walk away, which is why I pulled out all the stops and added a playful little purr to my voice. “You know what you got for getting me the basic file. Imagine if you got the real file for me, the whole thing, you know, with the photos and the interviews and-”
“All of that is in some storage room somewhere.”
“Which means I’ll be even more impressed if you can get your hands on it.”
He didn’t have a chance to tell me he would-or wouldn’t-try. Greer’s not-so-soothing voice rang through the section, calling Team Number Two over for the big meet-the-other-team scene. Before I could tell Quinn we’d talk about Lamar’s file again, he was gone, and my teammates and I were being ordered around by Greer.
Walk, talk, smile, stop. Approach Team One. Introduce yourselves. No, that’s not good enough. Start all over again.
Reality TV it was not.
According to Greer, this scene would eat up approximately two minutes of air time. It took two hours to shoot, and by the time it was done, even Team One, in their straw hats and flowing garden dresses, looked a little wilted.
“We’re going to break for lunch.” I took the bull by the horns and made the announcement, and though Greer opened her mouth to object, Team One didn’t give her a chance. Lucinda Wright went over and picked up her picnic basket, and arm in arm with Mae, she led the team out of our section. Greer and the cameraman followed, and my own team shuffled around until I told them to get moving, and I’d meet them in a couple minutes at the closest bar.
I wanted to be alone, see, because I was hoping if I was, Jefferson Lamar would make an appearance.
As soon as everyone was gone, he did. He popped up out of nowhere right next to Absalom’s voodoo altar. “Do you have anything new on the case?”
“I sure do. I saw the file. Looks like you’re as guilty as hell.”
His jaw went rigid.
“Facts are facts,” I told him. “And speaking of facts…” Being careful not to reach into the weeds before I looked to make sure there was nothing in there that was going to surprise me or gross me out, I went for the box.
Only it wasn’t there.
“Somebody stole it!” I said, before I realized Lamar had no idea what I was talking about. I filled him in. “Do you know who buried the box? Do you know who took it?”
His lips thinned. “You are working with the criminal element.”
“Oh, come on. That’s my team. They wouldn’t-” Only I remembered how Reggie and Delmar had fought over the box, and how Sammi had commented that if the coin inside it was valuable, she wanted a share in the profits. I thought about how busy we’d all been in the last couple hours, and how in that time, anyone could have taken the box out of the weeds. It was small enough to hide, and with Greer bossing us around and moving us like chess pieces through the section, nobody would have noticed.
My shoulders sagged. “You didn’t see-”
Lamar shook his head.
“Great.” I dropped onto a low headstone next to Lamar’s. “We had something that made us look good, and now it’s gone. And maybe that box had something to do with your case.” I was hoping this would spark a response from Lamar, but he simply shrugged.
“There was a coin in it.”
“Really?” His eyes lit. “I used to collect coins.”
Now we were getting somewhere. I sat up. “This one was silver, with the head of a lady on it.”
“Sounds like a silver dollar. But as to who would bury it at my grave or why…” Another shrug.
“Well, things aren’t looking good,” I told him. “Maybe that silver dollar was a clue of some sort, but it doesn’t matter now that it’s gone. And as far as that file Quinn got for me… it’s no wonder you were convicted. They had enough evidence to bury you.”
I hadn’t meant it as a pun; even I winced.
Lamar was as stone-faced as ever. “I told you I was framed. Otherwise, the evidence wouldn’t have been that perfect. Not if it wasn’t planted.”
“Then we’re right back where we started.” I threw my hands in the air. “Who did it?”
“A warden makes a lot of enemies.”
“Yeah. Right.” Too restless to sit still, I got up and walked over to his grave. It was the first time I was able to take a closer look. The headstone was gray granite. LAMAR was prominently carved at the top with JEFFERSON in smaller letters below it and to the left, as well as the dates 1933-1985. To the right, it said HELEN, along with the birth date of 1936. There was no death date listed.
“Helen? She’s your wife?”
Lamar nodded.
“And she’s not-”
“No, she hasn’t passed.”
“And does she think you’re guilty?”
He flinched as if he’d been slapped.
“All right then.” My mind made up, I brushed my hands together and headed out for lunch. “A warden makes a lot of enemies, huh? Then we won’t waste our time going down that road. Not yet. We’ll start with the one person who wasn’t your enemy.”
5
My restoration plan (such as it was) called for us to spend the rest of that week documenting who was buried where in our section. Yes, I know that sounds easy, but believe me, this was one plan that looked better on paper than it did in real life.
For one thing, there were massive problems with Monroe Street itself. (I mean, in addition to the fact that it was a cemetery and that in the best of all possible worlds, I wouldn’t have been anywhere near there in the first place.) Headstones were toppled, names were misspelled in the cemetery records, and while the old, hand-drawn maps we’d been given showed graves where none existed, they didn’t show a bunch of the gravesites we found.
And then there was the garbage.
Through it all, I did my best to rally my troops. It didn’t work, and by the time Friday rolled around, all the weeds that had been pulled, chopped, and hacked down had been pulled and chopped and hacked down by little ol’ me. By that time, I was sunburned, and that meant the freckles on my nose and cheeks were more visible than ever. Three of my fingernails were broken, and I hadn’t had the time-much less the energy-to file them. I had blisters on my hands and a couple dozen scratches on my arms and legs. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, thanks to a wallop of summer heat and the humidity that descended like a wet blanket over Cleveland, my hair was frizzy.