‘A presence?’ Carl asked, raising his eyebrows skeptically.
‘Yes,’ McDowell said. ‘Someone behind her. Following her.’
‘Good!’ Alyce said on the telephone that evening. ‘This only makes him more despicable!’
‘You think he was the one following her?’ Katie asked.
‘Either him or his bimbo, who cares? Here’s a woman trying to get pregnant and her darling husband’s fooling around. Just let the defense try to show her as a troubled woman — I dare them. The trouble was her husband. Gets into a car stoned out of his mind and causes the death of an innocent wife who’s faithfully attempting to create a family while he’s running around with another woman. Seven years? The jury will want to hang him!’
Katie hoped she was right.
‘Let’s nail it down,’ Alyce said. ‘I want a minute by minute timetable, Katie. I want to know who saw the training car leaving the school parking lot at exactly what time. Who served Andrew Newell that Coke at exactly what time. Who saw Mary Beth Newell step out of that church and start walking toward her rendezvous with death at exactly what time...’
Sounding like she was already presenting her closing argument to the jury...
‘... who saw the car approaching the crossing of Third and Grove at exactly what time. Who saw the car striking that poor woman at exactly what time. It takes fifteen to thirty minutes for Seconal to start working. OK, let’s prove to a jury that he had to’ve swallowed the drug on the way to Grove and Third and was incapable of preventing his own wife’s death! Lets prove the cheating bastard killed her!’
Amen, Katie thought.
The accident had taken place on Wednesday at approximately three twenty in the afternoon. This was now eleven a.m. on Saturday morning, the nineteenth day of October, and the drive-in at this hour was virtually deserted, the breakfast crowd having already departed, the lunch crowd not yet here.
Katie and Carl asked to see the manager and were told by a sixteen-year-old kid wearing a red and yellow uniform that the manager was conducting a training session just now and wouldn’t be free for ten, fifteen minutes. Carl told her to inform the manager that the police were here. They ordered coffee and donuts at the counter, and carried them to one of the booths. The manager came out some three minutes later.
She was nineteen or twenty, Katie guessed, a pert little black woman with a black plastic name tag that told them she was JENNIE DEWES, MGR. She slid in the booth alongside Carl, looked across at Katie, and said, ‘What’s the trouble?’
‘No trouble,’ Katie said. ‘We’re trying to pinpoint the exact time a Coca Cola would have been purchased here on Wednesday afternoon.’
Jennie Dewes, Mgr looked at her.
‘You’re kidding, right?’ she said.
‘No, we’re serious, miss,’ Carl said.
‘You know how many Cokes we serve here every day?’
‘This would’ve been a Coke you served sometime around three o’clock this past Wednesday,’ Katie said.
‘You mind if I see your badges, please?’ Jennie said.
Katie opened her handbag, fished out her shield in its leather fob. Carl had already flipped open his wallet.
‘Okay,’ Jennie said, and nodded. ‘This would’ve been drive-in or counter?’
‘Drive-in,’ Katie said.
‘Three o’clock would’ve been Henry on the window. Let me get him.’
She left the booth, and returned some five minutes later with a lanky young blond boy who looked frightened.
‘Sit down, son,’ Carl said.
The boy sat. Sixteen, seventeen years old, Katie guessed, narrow acne-ridden face, blue eyes wide in fear. Jennie sat, too. Four of them in the booth now. Jennie sitting beside Carl, Henry on Katie’s left.
‘We’re talking about three days ago,’ Carl said. ‘Blue Ford Escort with a student driver plate on it, would you remember?’
‘No, sir, I’m sorry, I sure don’t,’ Henry said.
‘Don’t be scared, Henry,’ Katie said. ‘You’re not in any trouble here.’
‘I’m not scared, ma’am,’ he said.
‘Blue Ford Escort. Yellow and black student driver plates on the front and rear bumper.’
‘Young blonde girl would’ve been driving.’
‘Pulled in around three, ordered a Coke.’
‘Not at the window,’ Jennie said suddenly.
They all looked at her.
‘If this is the right girl, I saw her inside here. Pretty white girl, blonde, sixteen, seventeen years old.’
‘Sixteen, yes. Brown eyes.’
‘Didn’t notice her eyes.’
‘Man with her would’ve been older.’
‘Thirty-two.’
‘Wasn’t any man with her when I saw her.’
‘What time was this?’ Katie asked.
‘Around three, like you say. She was coming out of the ladies’ room. Went to the counter to pick up her order.’
‘Picked up a Coke at the counter?’
‘Two of them was what she picked up. Two medium Cokes.’
They found her at a little past noon in the River Close Public Library, poring over a massive volume of full-color Picasso prints. The table at which she sat was huge and oaken, with green-shaded lamps casting pools of light all along its length. There was a hush to the room. Head bent, blonde hair cascading over the open book, Rebecca did not sense their approach until they were almost upon her. She reacted with a startled gasp, and then recovered immediately.
‘Hey, hi,’ she said.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ Katie said.
Carl merely nodded.
The two detectives sat opposite her at the table. A circle of light bathed the riotous Picasso print, touched Rebecca’s pale hands on the open book, and Carl’s darker hands flat on the table top.
‘Rebecca,’ Katie said, ‘what happened to the second Coke container?
‘What?’ Rebecca said, and blinked.
‘You bought two Cokes,’ Carl said. ‘The techs found only one empty container in the car. What happened to the other one?’
‘I guess I threw it out,’ Rebecca said.
‘Then there were two containers, right?’
‘I guess so. Yes, there probably were.’
‘Why’d you throw it out?’ Katie asked.
‘Well... because I’d finished with it.’
‘Rebecca... the container you threw out wasn’t yours, was it?’
‘Yes, it was. I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re...’
‘It was Mr Newell’s, wasn’t it?’
‘No, I distinctly remember...’
‘The one he was drinking from, isn’t that true?’
‘No, that was in the holder. The cup holder. On the center console. I’m sorry, but I’m not following you. If you can tell me what you’re looking for, maybe I can help you. But if you...’
‘Where’d you toss the container?’ Carl asked.
‘Somewhere on the... the street, I guess. I really don’t remember.’
‘Where on the street?’
‘I don’t remember the exact location. I just opened the window and threw it out.’
‘Was it somewhere between the drive-in and the spot where you ran down Mrs Newell?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘We’ll look for it,’ Carl said.
‘We’ll find it,’ Katie said.
‘So find it,’ Rebecca said. ‘What’s so important about a stupid Coke container, anyway?’
‘The residue,’ Katie said.
And suddenly Rebecca was weeping.
The way she tells it...
This was after she’d been informed of her rights, and after her attorney and her father had both warned her, begged her not to answer any questions.