Now You See Her - Michael Ledwidge [75]
I stepped back and let Fabiana in.
Chapter 94
“THANK YOU SO MUCH for coming, Fabiana,” I said. “I promise that when you testify that—”
“I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not testifying. I came to give you this,” she said, taking a sheet of newspaper out of her pocket.
I unfolded it. It was a yellowed page of classified ads from the Miami Herald. I held my breath after I spotted the date in the corner. It was from June 19, 1993. From reading and rereading the case and trial transcripts, I knew that was the day after Tara Foster had been abducted.
“What is this, Fabiana?” I said, quickly scanning the classifieds.
Fabiana took it out of my hand and turned it over. My eyes fell immediately to the photograph at the bottom. A group of people were sitting in some stands by a pool with a woman in a wet suit and some dolphins.
“Floridians beat yesterday’s heat at the Miami Seaquarium,” said the caption.
“Justin and I are in the picture,” Fabiana said. “Right there in the front row. You were right. I lied.”
I peered at the photograph more closely. It was true. You could just make out Justin and Fabiana sitting in the front row.
“Charlie!” I yelled, handing him the page. “You’re not going to believe this. Look!”
He took the newspaper page out of my hands, looked at the picture, looked at the date.
“Yes!” he said with a triumphant grin. “Finally, a break!”
“All you need to do is show this to the authorities, and my lie will be exposed,” Fabiana said. “Then they can set Justin free, yes?”
“Actually, well, no, Fabiana,” Charlie said. “It’s not that simple. This is extremely helpful, but you need to come to Tallahassee with us and bring this forward yourself. You’ll have to give your testimony as well.”
“I’m absolutely not willing to do that,” Fabiana said coldly.
“Why not?” Charlie said.
“Nina?” Fabiana said, looking at me. “Can I speak to you alone?”
I eyeballed Charlie to get going.
“Fine. I’ll be out in the hall, I guess.”
“Don’t judge me,” Fabiana said after Charlie left.
I shook my head. “Of course not, Fabiana.”
“Seventeen years ago, Justin made me pregnant. He told me that he couldn’t afford a baby and a wife, but that if I… got rid of the baby, he would eventually marry me. He even bought me a ring. So I agreed. I didn’t want to kill my baby, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to lose Justin more. It was three months later that I found out through a friend that he was cheating on me. Not with just one woman, but with several.”
Ouch, I thought. Justin really had scorned the living crap out of her.
“When the detective told me years later that Justin had admitted to having sex with Tara Foster in the prison, it brought back all that horror and hatred and pain. So I lied. I wanted to hurt Justin as much as he had hurt me. The last thing I want to do now, after all these years, is tell my dirty little story to the whole wide world. You can understand that, can’t you? I’ll probably be in some trouble myself for lying.”
“That’s true, Fabiana. But there’s no other way. You don’t have to get into specifics about why you lied. All you need to do is explain that you did lie and that Justin was with you the whole day.”
“Can’t you do it for me?” Fabiana said, closing her eyes.
“It doesn’t work that way, Fabiana. I know it’ll be painful to testify, but how do you think you’ll feel if you don’t come forward and Justin is executed? Seventeen years is a long time to hold on to your pain. It’s time to let yours go.”
Fabiana let out a breath. “You’ll be there?”
“Of course,” I said.
“OK,” she said. “I guess I don’t have a choice. I’ll do it.”
Chapter 95
JUST BEFORE DINNER, on the second-to-last day of his life, Justin Harris lay on his cot with a book open in his large hands. It was a cheesy old paperback about a brilliant and bulky detective named Nero Wolfe.
“News flash, fatso,” Justin mumbled as he tossed the book under his bunk. “In the real world, the killer gets away with it.”
He sat up immediately as boots squeaked and metal clicked out in front of his death-watch cell adjacent to the execution