Now You See Her - Michael Ledwidge [64]
“Didn’t the DA tell you?” Charlie said. “We need to take a look at Tara Foster’s original case file. The evidence envelopes, the whole nine.”
“Why?” Cantele said.
“Because Justin Harris is about to be executed in five days, and we want to make sure it isn’t a mistake,” Charlie said.
“You goddamn defense liars, uh, I mean lawyers, never quit, do you?” Cogle said. “Are you aware that one of Harris’s victims was the wife of Peter Fournier, Key West’s chief of police? She was, like, twenty years old. That doesn’t chill you?”
Peter was the police chief now? I tried not to pass out. That was unbelievable. Not to mention terrifying. As if I didn’t feel paranoid enough coming down here.
“I know Fournier,” Charlie said. “My taxes pay his salary, unfortunately. I saw his dumb ass on the Today show on Thursday spouting all his victims’ rights, fry Justin, Jump Killer crap to Al Roker. I have no doubt his wife was killed by the Jump Killer. The problem is, and I know it’s a hard one for you guys to follow, Justin Harris isn’t the Jump Killer.”
It felt like the wind had been knocked out of me.
Peter had been on the Today show? On Thursday?
I really had seen him in Grand Central Terminal!
Chapter 79
“HARRIS IS THE MISTAKE,” Cogle shot back. “And his murderous ass is going to get corrected come Friday. This is bullshit. You already had all the appeals you’re going to get. Everything is in order.”
“You wouldn’t just be saying that because it’ll be your job if we find something, would you?” Charlie said, taking out his cell. “You’re not actually going to make me call the DA again, are you?”
“Fine,” Cogle said, leaving.
“This is a wild goose chase, isn’t it?” Detective Cantele said, drumming her fingers against the cheap office table as we sat there, waiting. “It’s gotta suck knowing your boy is going down, and you couldn’t stop it, huh, Baylor?”
Why don’t you shut up, bitch, I wanted to say to the cop as Cogle came in with a bulky white evidence box.
Charlie threw open the lid and quickly flipped through the file folders. He lifted out a bag with a faded pair of panties in them and shoved them back into the box.
“Where are the hair samples?” he yelled at Cogle.
“Hair samples?” Cogle said, scratching his tilted head. “What do you mean?”
Charlie pointed at the evidence manifest.
“Right here. Evidence Sample D2. Hair sample found beneath the ligature.”
Cogle hummed as he slowly flipped through the file folders. Finally he stopped and shrugged elaborately.
“What do you know? Must have gotten lost,” he finally said. “Maybe a rat ate them or they evaporated. We are talking seventeen years, right? Was that all, or do you two need to use the restroom before you leave?”
Back out in the baking parking lot, Charlie seemed to have trouble opening our rental car. He suddenly threw the keys as hard as he could across the lot, then sat down on the concrete car stop beside it.
I sat down next to him, stewing in my own depressing thoughts.
Peter knew I was alive.
That was bad. About the worst thing possible. Was he still in New York? I thought about calling Emma and telling her to get out of the apartment, but then I remembered she was at her friend’s in Brooklyn.
I wondered if I should go straight home and grab my daughter. I’d run once before. I could do it again. Throw a dart at a map and just go. Even if Peter was onto me, at least he didn’t know about Emma.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that Peter was chief of police now. He’d always been ambitious. But representing the Jump Killer victims’ advocate group? What a goddamn bullshit artist. He must have been thrilled all those years, thinking I was dead without having to kill me himself.
“The police destroyed that evidence, Nina,” Charlie finally said. “They’re laughing at us. They don’t care that an innocent man is about to die. No one does. That’s it, Nina. That’s all she wrote. We’re done. Justin’s done. It’s over. We have to accept the inevitable.”
I sat there thinking about that.