The trip back always seems faster. Marta cruises along at more than eighty, eager to get Rusty on his way. After seeing Rusty, Sandy has scotched the idea of publishing his photo. Rusty's appearance is so different that he will have virtual anonymity, assuming we can avoid the press outside his house.
The former prisoner is quiet for some time, watching the landscape whiz past from the passenger's seat and grunting faintly now and then, as if to say, Oh, yes, I forgot open space, what it looks and feels like. He unseals the envelope he was carrying, which contains his belongings. He takes all the cards out of his wallet and looks them over one by one, as if to remind himself what they are for. And he seems inexpressibly delighted to find that his cell phone still works, although it blinks out after a second, in need of a charge.
"Can you explain this to me?" Rusty finally says when we have been on the road some time.
"Explain what?" asks Stern, to whom the question was directed, from the backseat.
"Why Tommy did this."
"I've already told you what he said, Rusty. The computer was not secured the night before it was turned on in court. Game, set, match. They cannot establish a chain."
"But they must know more than that. Don't you think? Why would Tommy admit that at this stage?"
"Because he is supposed to. Tommy is not the old Tommy. Everyone in the Tri-Cities will tell you that. Besides, what else could they know?"
Rusty does not answer, but after a minute he describes a visit that Tommy Molto made to him two days ago in the prison, where Tommy told him that some people in his office believe Rusty pleaded guilty to a crime he did not commit. Even the famously unflappable Sandy Stern cannot keep from jolting visibly.
"Forgive me," Stern says, "I am only the poor lawyer, but it might have been wise to let us know that."
"I'm sorry, Sandy. I realize this sounds ridiculous, but I took it as a private conversation."
"I see," says Stern. Rusty has turned to see Sandy in the rear seat, and behind his back Marta soundlessly mimes banging the heel of her palm against her forehead. In the rear seat between Nat and Sandy, I feel Nat's grip tighten on my hand, as he silently ticks his head back and forth. None of us is ever going to understand.
We are in Nearing a few minutes after four. The neighborhood is quiet. In the driveway, there is another round of hugs. Nat and I transfer the groceries from my car to Rusty's in the garage, and we stand aside to wave him on his way to Skageon. Instead, the ignition on Rusty's Camry gives one polite cough, a little like the sound Sandy keeps making, and goes utterly silent. Dead.
"The best laid plans," says Rusty as he climbs out. I offer my car, but Nat reminds me that I have a dep tomorrow in Greenwood County. For a second, the five of us debate alternatives. Marta is eager to get her father home in order not to deplete him further, but she has a set of jumper cables at her house, which is nearby. Male bulk will be required to move the two seventy-pound bags of fertilizer that are blocking the cabinet. If the car won't start after the jump, then we'll try to figure a way for Rusty to rent or borrow a ride.
I get into my car to drive Nat over, but he comes around to my side and whispers through the open window, "Don't leave him alone, not now."
I stare at him for just a second, then hand over the keys. Nat is already behind the wheel when he leans out to whisper again.
"See if he wants breakfast, maybe? Do you mind?"
Rusty has already gone inside the house alone when I follow through the garage with two bags of groceries. He has plugged in his cell phone and is at the kitchen window, peeking through the curtains.
"Reporters?" I ask.
"No, no. I thought I might have seen a light next door. The Gregoriuses always have a car or two nobody is driving."
The truth is that he seems far better than I would have hoped. During the trial and the months leading up to it, he had become a man as different in a short space of time as anybody I have ever known. Stern seemed less depleted by mortal illness. Rusty was ruined and empty, a sunken ship. Sometimes when we were with him, I watched him greet people he knew on the street. He still remembered what to say. He would stick out his hand at the right moment, but it was almost as if he were afraid to occupy his space on earth. I was never sure Nat noticed any of this. He was so busy trying to come to terms with his father, he did not seem to realize that the guy he'd known had largely fled. But now he's back. And it is not freedom to thank. I know that instantly. It is having been punished, paying a price.
"Nat thought you might want some breakfast," I say.
He takes a step closer to peek into the bags. "Is there any fresh fruit in there? I never thought the first thing I'd long for after prison is a strawberry."
A close observer always of both his parents, Nat had bought blueberries and strawberries, and I start to wash and cut.
As the tap runs, Rusty says behind me, "Barbara always wanted to redo this kitchen. She just hated the idea of having workmen in here all the time."
I look around. He's right. The place is dated and small. The cherry cabinets are still beautiful, but everything else is out of style. Still, the mention of Barbara is odd. As occurs often, the ghostly way Barbara haunted this household moves through me, the intensity of the passion she felt for her son and the persisting depths of her unhappiness. She was one of those people who needed courage to live.
"I didn't kill her," he says. I glance back very briefly to see him seated at the cherry kitchen table, with its old-fashioned scalloped edge, staring to observe my reaction.
"I know," I say. "Were you afraid I doubted that?"
My response is honest, but it ignores the months it took for me to feel comfortable with that conclusion. My problem, much as I have never wanted to judge the proof, is my own preloaded software. I stitch together evidence like some lady who quilts obsessively. It's why I was destined for the legal profession, the canny girl who was looking out for her mother and herself from an early age, searching the world for signs and putting them together. So there was no way for me not to ponder the most uncomfortable things I knew-that Rusty went to consult Prima Dana forty-eight hours after I told him I was going to start seeing Nat or the savage look with which he left the Dulcimer that day, a man smelting in the heat of his own rage. Worst of all, I remembered the read receipts that seemed to indicate that Barbara had gone through my e-mails to Rusty. She had betrayed nothing the night Nat and I had come to Nearing, but I often imagined that there had finally been a shattering scene between Rusty and her after we left.
Yet I could never make myself envision murder. My time with Rusty is far behind me. Yet I saw enough of his essence in those few months to be sure he is not a killer.
"At moments," he answers now.
"Is that why you thought I'd fiddled with your computer? I mean, Tommy's right, isn't he? You pleaded guilty to something you didn't do." I have thought of this before, but the exchange with Stern in the SUV clinched it for me.
"I didn't know what to think, Anna. I knew I didn't do it. I was never completely confident in the so-called experts, but they kept insisting that the computer was fully sealed when it was brought to court, so that ruled out someone in Molto's office-which by the way has got to be the answer. Don't you think? Tommy can say whatever he wants for public consumption. He knows somebody who works for him got around the seals and added the card in order to sucker-punch us."
That point has not been quite as clear in my mind until he says it, but I realize he is right. I have never forgotten Molto fooled around with the evidence decades ago, and I feel a little embarrassed I did not recognize this before. We will never know what turned the PA around now. Probably fear of exposure, for some reason.
"Anyway," he says, "back in June, I thought the only people who could have done it were Nat or you. Or the two of you together. The experts never seemed to focus on that, the possibility the two of you could have worked in concert to put the card on there. The last thing I wanted was for the whole inquiry to go on long enough for that thought to finally dawn on Tommy and Gorvetich.