A Bend in the Road

Bingo.

So Sims was telling the truth. Interesting.

Charlie's face, though, showed nothing.

Either way, he knew that was the easy part. Getting him to talk about it wasn't what he was worried about anyway. He knew the hard part was still coming.

"When was this?"

Earl thought about it. "January, I guess. It was cold out."

"So you're there, sitting across from him, and he says this to you. How did you react when he said it?"

"I didn't know what to think. I know I didn't say anything."

"Did you believe him?"

"Of course." Big nod, as if emphasizing his point.

Too big?

Charlie glanced toward his hand, examining his nails. "Why?"

Earl leaned forward, the chain clinking against the table. "Why else would he say something like that? Besides, you know what kind of guy he is. He'd do something like that in a heartbeat."

Maybe. Maybe not.

"Again, why do you think that?"

"You're the sheriff--you tell me."

"What I think isn't important. It's what you think that matters."

"I told you what I thought."

"You believed him."

"Yes," he said.

"And you thought he'd do the same to you?"

"He said it, didn't he?"

"So you were frightened, right?"

"Yes," he snapped.

Getting impatient?

"When did you get arrested? For stealing the car, I mean."

The change of subject threw Earl for a moment.

"End of June."

Charlie nodded as if this made sense, as if he'd checked it out beforehand. "What do you like to drink? When you're not in prison, I mean."

"What does that matter?"

"Beer, wine, liquor. I'm just curious."

"Beer mainly."

"Were you drinking that night?"

"Just a couple. Not enough to be drunk."

"Before you got there? Maybe you were a little buzzed. . . ."

Earl shook his head. "No, I had them while I was there."

"How long did you stay at the table with the Timsons?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's an easy question. Were you there for five minutes? Ten? Half an hour?"

"I can't remember."

"But long enough for a couple beers."

"Yeah."

"Even though you were afraid."

He finally saw what Charlie was getting at. Charlie waited patiently, his expression bland.

"Yeah," Earl said. "They're not the type of people you just walk away from."

"Oh," Charlie said. He seemed to accept that, and he brought his fingers to his chin. "Okay ... so let me make sure I understand. Otis told you--no, suggested--that they killed Missy, and you thought they'd do the same to you because you owed them a bunch of money. So far, so good?"

Earl nodded warily. Charlie reminded him of that damn prosecutor who'd put him away.

"And you knew what they were talking about, right? With Missy, I mean. You knew she'd died, right?"

"Everyone knew."

"Did you read about it in the papers?"

"Yeah."

Charlie opened his palms. "So, why didn't you tell the police about it?"

"Yeah, right," he sneered. "Like you guys would have believed me."

"But we should believe you now."

"He said it. I was there. He said he killed Missy."

"Will you testify to that?"

"Depends on the deal I get."

Charlie cleared his throat. "Okay, let's change gears for a second. You got caught stealing a car, right?"

Earl nodded again.

"And Otis was responsible--you say--for you getting caught."

"Yeah. They were supposed to meet me out by the old Falls Mill, but they never showed. I ended up taking the fall."

Charlie nodded. He remembered that from the trial.

"Did you still owe him money?"

"Yeah."

"How much?"

Earl shifted in his seat. "A couple thousand."

"Isn't that what you owed before?"

"About the same."

"Were you still afraid they'd kill you? Even after six months?"

"It was all I could think about."

"And you wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, right?"

"I told you that already."

Charlie leaned forward. "Then why," he asked, "didn't you try to use this information to lighten your sentence? Or put Otis away? And why, in all this time here when you were complaining that Otis set you up, did you never mention that he'd killed Missy Ryan?"

Earl sniffed again and glanced toward the wall.

"No one would have believed me," he finally answered.

I wonder why.

In the car, Charlie ran through the information again.

Sims was telling the truth about hearing

what he'd heard. But Sims was a known alcoholic and was boozing that night.

He'd heard the words, but had he heard the tone?

Was Otis joking? Or serious?

Or lying?

And what had the Timsons talked about with Earl for the next thirty minutes?

Earl hadn't really cleared any of that up. It was obvious he didn't even remember the conversation until Charlie brought it up, and his account pretty much fell apart after that. He'd believed they would kill him, but he'd stayed for a few beers afterward. He'd been terrified for months, but not enough to scrounge up the money he owed, even though he stole cars and could have gotten the money. He'd said nothing when he'd been arrested. He blamed Otis for setting him up and blabbed to people in the prison about it, but he didn't mention the fact that Otis had confessed to killing someone. He'd lost an eye and still had said nothing. The reward had meant nothing to him.

A boozing alcoholic, providing information to get off free. A convict with a grudge, suddenly remembering critical information, but with serious holes and flaws in the story.

Any defense lawyer worth his salt would have a field day with both Sims Addison and Earl Getlin. And Thurman Jones was good. Real good.

Charlie hadn't stopped frowning since he'd been in the car.

He didn't like it.

Not at all.

But the fact was that Otis had indeed said "the same thing is gonna happen to you that happened to Missy Ryan." Two people had heard him, and that counted for something. Enough to hold him, maybe. At least for the time being.

But was it enough for a case?

And, most important, did any of it actually prove that Otis did it?

Chapter 23

I couldn't escape that image of Missy Ryan, her eyes focused on nothing, and because of that, I became someone I'd never known before.

Six weeks after her death, I parked the car about half a mile away from my final destination, in the parking lot of a gas station. I made the rest of the way on foot.

It was late, a little past nine, and it was a Thursday. The September sun had set only half an hour earlier, and I knew enough to keep out of sight. I was wearing black and kept to the side of the road, going so far as to cower behind some bushes when I saw headlights closing in on me.

Despite my belt, I had to keep grabbing for my trousers, which kept slipping over my hips. I had begun doing that so frequently, I had stopped noticing, but on that evening, with branches and twigs pulling at them, I realized how much weight I had lost. Since the accident, I'd lost my appetite; even the idea of eating seemed to repulse me.