“Why?”
“I think once the governor sees the evidence, he’ll realize that you were framed.”
“I mean, why are you helping me?”
“I think you’re innocent.”
Tom stared at the kid. This stranger believed Tom hadn’t killed his wife and Chase Taverton. He was helping him for only one reason: It was the right thing to do. He was a young idealist. Tom hadn’t met one of those in a long, long time.
“Do you know, in your gut, that I am innocent?”
Oliver’s expression bespoke sincerity. “There was an article in a law-review magazine about your trial, your appeals, everything. There were several irregularities in the investigation, and when I reviewed the case files I thought for certain that the Western Innocence Project would get behind it. But my advisor felt there wasn’t enough to get a stay from the governor or a new trial.” Oliver shook his head. “The Project wants wins. DNA evidence, a new witness, lack of due process, something solid.”
“Not the word of a man convicted by a jury of his peers.” And his daughter, Tom thought.
“If Lydia O’Brien was the target, then your guilt would make more sense. She was your wife and she was having an affair. On the surface, it seems logical. Do you know how many men kill their wives in any given year? There were-”
“I know.” He didn’t need to hear it again. “The husband, the boyfriend, the ex-boyfriend always top the suspect list.”
“Right. Well, have you ever considered that maybe Chase Taverton was the target?”
Tom shrugged. “For years I tried to make it about Taverton, but it didn’t make sense to me. No one knew I was coming home that day. I was on lunch break when Claire called me. How could someone plan it so that I would be in the vicinity at the time they were killed? It was an unknown, as far as the killer was concerned.”
“What happened when you took a lunch break?”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“I mean, did you call it in? Tell anyone you were off the clock?”
“Of course. I called dispatch.”
“And did you do this the same time every day?”
“Roughly. Depended what calls I’d been on, what I was doing.”
“Who knew when you were on lunch?”
“I guess everyone on the clock. I reported my unit number and where I was. I had to keep the radio on in case I was called to a scene, but it was just background noise.”
“What about your partner? Where was he?”
“I was on day shift, I didn’t ride with a partner. I often had rookies with me-I was a training officer-but I was studying to make detective, and I hadn’t had a rookie in weeks.”
“So you were alone, and everyone on duty or with a police-band frequency would know that you were signed out for lunch.”
“You think that someone in my department-no. I can’t believe that anyone I knew then had anything to do with Lydia’s murder.”
But the seed was planted. Who hated him so much that they’d frame him for murder?
“Maybe, or maybe it was just someone who knew a lot about Chase Taverton and enough about police procedures and codes to monitor police frequencies. You were on break and everyone knew it. The killer could have been waiting to kill Taverton and your wife while you were unavailable.”
“But if Claire hadn’t called me, I would have been at lunch and-” He stopped.
“Right. You were eating alone and everyone knew, or could have known. No big secret.”
“You’re making a lot of leaps, Maddox. You’re making the leap that someone knew about Lydia’s affair, and my studying over lunch, and they knew that Lydia would be home with her lover during the same time as my lunch break? A jury didn’t buy my defense, which was along the same lines-that I just happened to come home within minutes of my unfaithful wife being murdered by someone else. I’m surprised you do.”
“You testified that you saw your personal firearm on the wrong nightstand in the bedroom when you walked in and saw the bodies.”
“Yes.”
“My dad was a cop. He put his gun in the same place every night. He checked it religiously. He kept his in a holster attached to the side of the bed. He would never have put it in the wrong place. Ever.”
“I could have been in a rush,” Tom said, using the prosecution’s argument. “I was in a rage. Not thinking. Heard Claire come in. Or, as in the closing statement, was trying to cast doubt that I was the killer.”
“Cops and their guns. . no, you wouldn’t have been so stupid as to leave it there. You would have either disposed of it or put it back where it belonged. But even more likely, you wouldn’t have used your own gun.”
“They call them crimes of passion for a reason,” Tom said. “The killer usually isn’t thinking.”
“Even a crime of passion-I just couldn’t picture you being so stupid. Your daughter calls you, you go home and kill two people? It doesn’t make sense to me, but yeah, on the surface, it was an easy prosecution. One of their own was killed and they jumped all over the most likely suspect.”
Oliver stared him in the eye, leaned forward and whispered, “I think it’s all about Chase Taverton. I think he was the target, and I’m going to prove it. I have a lead. I just wanted to meet you, see if you were who I thought you were.”
“And?”
“You pass.”
Oliver hadn’t visited him again, but they set up a weekly phone call so Oliver could ask questions and tell Tom what he’d uncovered. On that last call, two weeks before the earthquake, Oliver was excited.
“I think I have it, Tom,” he said. “I don’t want to say much over the phone. But I have Taverton’s personal journal. Everything is in here-everything he was working on. Details. Some of it is in Taverton’s own cryptic notes, but I’m working on it. There’s a guy, a criminal informant, Taverton was working a plea deal with the week he was killed. Frank Lowe. Know him?”
“No,” Tom had said.
“He’s the key. I feel it. I think this is a conspiracy, Tom. Based on his notes, I think that Taverton was using Lowe as a witness against someone very, very big.”
“Who?”
“I have ideas, but I don’t want to say right now. Not until I find Lowe and do some more research into this. If I’m wrong, it’ll be even worse for you. But if I’m right. . let’s meet again. I’d rather tell you in person.”
They arranged to meet on Monday, January 21. But Oliver never showed, and the day after, Tom was moved to Section B.
Tom couldn’t retrace Oliver’s steps, and even knowing now that Oliver had lied to him about his position with the Western Innocence Project, Tom had hope that there was truth in what Oliver had uncovered. That Taverton had been the target and Tom had been deliberately framed.
If Claire believed him, she could bring in the power and resources of Rogan-Caruso. The security company was the best in the business. With them behind him, Tom might finally learn the truth. More important, Claire would.
He folded the letter and put it in his pocket. He glanced at Nelia, still sleeping. He’d told her the truth-he didn’t deserve her or her trust. But without it, he would be lost, or dead.