Until Proven Guilty - J. A. Jance [74]
If Anne Corley did nothing else, she consistently surprised me. She was waiting in the leather chair. A glass of wine was in her hand. A MacNaughton’s and water sat on the coffee table awaiting my arrival. Anne was wearing a gown, a filmy red gown.
“Hello,” she said. “You look surprised to see me.”
“I am,” I admitted. I examined the gown. I was sure I had seen it before, but I couldn’t imagine where. At last it came to me—the hallway dream with Anne disappearing in a maze of corridors. I had dreamed the gown exactly, I realized, as the odd sensation of déjà vu settled around me.
“I’m a very determined lady,” she said softly. “Anybody else would have thrown in the towel after this morning. You didn’t want me to go, did you?”
I sat down on the couch cautiously, tentatively. I tested my drink. “No, I didn’t want you to go.”
She took a sip of her wine. “You asked me this morning if I’d had anything to do with Angel’s death. Does that mean I’m under suspicion?” I nodded. “And I’m being investigated?” I nodded again.
“That first afternoon we were together you said something that made me think Brodie was responsible. Yesterday the newspaper mentioned a man in a black van. Today you seem to think I did it. It reminds me of a game of tag with you standing in the center of a circle and pointing at people, telling them they’re it.”
“I have to prove they’re it,” I interjected. “In a court of law, beyond a shadow of doubt. That’s a little different from pointing a finger.”
“What if you make a mistake?”
“The court decides if they’re guilty or innocent. That’s not up to me. Where’s all this going, Anne?”
She held up a hand to silence me. She was working her way toward something, gradually, circuitously. “How do you feel about those people afterward?”
I laughed, not a laugh so much as a mirthless chuckle. “In the best of all possible worlds, the innocent would go free and the guilty would be punished. In the real world, it doesn’t always work that way.”
“Supposing…” she started. She paused as if weighing her words. For the first time I noticed a tightness around her mouth. Whatever she was working up to, it was costing her. She had been looking out the window as she spoke, uncharacteristically avoiding my eyes. Now, she turned away from the window, settling her gaze on my face. “Supposing someone was guilty of something but the court set them free. How would you feel about that?”
“If the court sets them free, I have no choice but to respect the court’s decision. My feelings have nothing to do with it.”
“That’s not true, they do!” She jumped up quickly and hurried to the kitchen to replenish the drinks. I watched in fascination. Her movements were jerky, as though she changed her mind several times in the course of the smallest gesture. Where was her purposeful manner, her fluid grace? She came back with the drinks.
“Have you ever been around someone who’s retarded?” she asked?
The question was from way out in left field. “No,” I replied, “I never have.”
“Patty was retarded. I loved her and I didn’t mind taking care of her, but she didn’t have any control over her bowels. My father hated her for it.” Anne stopped abruptly and stood by the coffee table, staring at me as though she expected me to say something. I didn’t know what. I reached out and took her hand, drawing her toward the couch.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Her body was like a strung bow. I pulled her down beside me, a question formulating itself as I did so. “Who killed Patty?” I asked. I expected her to rebel, to shy away from my hand.
“My father,” she whispered. “I saw him do it, but no one would believe me. The coroner ruled it an accident. I tried to tell people, but that’s when they started saying I was crazy.”
“Who said that, the people you told?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “My mother, her friends.”
“And that’s when they wouldn’t let you go to the funeral?”
A single tear brimmed over the top of her lower lash and started down her cheek. “Yes,” she answered. “She wouldn’t let me go.”
She turned to me for comfort from an old but open wound, burying