CHAPTER 25
A week after she’d buried Sarah’s remains, Tracy slid onto a bench seat attached to a table in the visitor’s area of Walla Walla State Penitentiary. “Let me do the talking,” she said.
“I will,” Dan said, taking a seat beside her.
“Don’t promise him anything.”
“I won’t.”
“He’ll try to cut a deal.”
Dan reached over and gripped her hand. “You told me that too. Calm down. I’ve been in prisons before, though admittedly the ones I’ve been in looked more like country clubs. This looks like an austere high school cafeteria.”
Tracy looked to the door but did not see Edmund House. He was imprisoned in the D Unit of the penitentiary’s West Complex, the prison’s second-highest security unit. His placement reflected the severity of his crime, murder in the first degree, not his behavior during his time served. Tracy’s phone calls over the years had revealed House to be a model inmate who kept mostly to himself, reading in his cell or working in the library on one of the many appeals he had filed during his years of incarceration.
Having forensic evidence from the grave to support her ten-year theory that House had been framed and Sarah’s killer remained at large would do her no good unless she could get the evidence before a judge and get the witnesses back on the witness stand, under oath, and subject to thorough cross-examination. The only way to do all of that was to get Edmund House a post-conviction relief hearing, the precursor to a new trial. They could not do that without House’s cooperation. She hated the thought that she needed House or that her fate was tied to him in any way. During her previous two trips to visit him, House had toyed with her and her fragile emotions. She hadn’t realized it at the time, but she realized it now in hindsight. House had seemingly held all the cards. That was no longer the case. If House wanted a new trial and a chance to get out of prison, he had to cooperate.
The voices of the inmates and visitors seated at the surrounding tables echoed loudly. Tracy checked her watch and looked again to the door. She noticed an inmate lingering at the entrance, eyes scanning the tables. His gray braid hung well past muscled shoulders. She started to dismiss him. He looked nothing like Edmund House, but his gaze found hers and his mouth inched into a “look what the cat dragged in” grin.
“That can’t be him, can it?” Dan said, also looking to the door.
At his trial, the newspapers had likened Edmund House’s thick hair and burning good looks to James Dean. The face of the man walking toward them had broadened with age and weight, but the changes in House’s facial features and the length of his hair was not the most striking change in his appearance. Not by a long shot. The muscles of his neck and chest pressed taut the fabric of his prison-issued T-shirt and pants, as if the seams might burst. Filing appeals was not the only thing House had done to pass his time in prison.
House stopped at the edge of the table and took a moment to appraise them. “Tracy Crosswhite,” he said, as if savoring the name. “I thought you’d given up. What’s it been, fifteen years?”
“I haven’t kept track.”
“I have. Little else to do in here.”
“You could file another appeal.” The prison information network, like the drug and illegal steroid network, was intricate and extensive. She needed to know if House already knew they’d found Sarah’s grave.
“I plan on it.”
“Yeah? What are the grounds this time?”
“Ineffective assistance of counsel.”
“Sounds like you’re reaching.”
“Am I?”
She estimated House to be two hundred fifty pounds of thick muscle. Prison had washed dull the once-sparkling blue eyes, but not the piercing quality of his gaze.
A correctional officer approached. “Take a seat, please.”
He sat. They were separated by just the width of the table. The closeness made her skin crawl, as it had whenever House had looked her up and down in the courtroom. “You’ve changed,” she said.
“Yeah, I got my GED and I’m working toward my AA. How about that? Maybe I’ll become a teacher when I get out of here.” House looked to Dan.
“This is Dan,” Tracy said.
“Hello, Dan.” House extended his hand. Dark-blue letters, prison tats made with the ink of ballpoint pens, ran vertically along the inside of his forearm as thick as a mooring line.
“Isaiah,” House said, catching Dan’s focus on the tattoo. He kept his grip on Dan’s hand and rotated his forearm so the words could be read.
To open the blind eyes,
to bring out the prisoners from the prison,
and them that sit in darkness
out of the prison house.
“Proper English would have been ‘those that sit in darkness,’ but I don’t question the writer,” House said. “Dan have a last name?”
The correctional officer stepped forward again. “No prolonged contact.”
House released Dan’s hand.
“O’Leary,” Tracy said.
“Dan have a tongue?”
“O’Leary,” Dan said.
“So what brings you here, Tracy and friend Dan, after all these years?”
“They found Sarah,” she said.
House arched his eyebrows. “Alive?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t help me. Though I am curious, where did they find her?”
“Not relevant at this moment,” Tracy said.
House tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “When did you become a cop?”
“What makes you think I’m a cop?”
“Oh, I don’t know, your whole demeanor, your posture, the tone of your voice, your reluctance to introduce friend Dan or provide information. I’ve had a few years to make some observations. You’ve changed too, haven’t you, Tracy?”
“I’m a detective,” she said.
House grinned. “Still hunting for your sister’s killer; any new leads you’d like to share?” He turned to Dan. “What do you think about my chances on my latest appeal, Counselor?”
At Tracy’s instruction, Dan had dressed down in blue jeans and a Boston College sweatshirt. “I’d have to review your file,” he said.
“Two for two,” House said. “Watch me go three for three. You already have, and you agree. That’s why you’re sitting here with Detective Tracy.” He looked at her. “They found your sister’s remains and something about the crime scene confirms what you and I discussed all those years ago. Someone planted evidence to frame me.”
Tracy regretted those previous visits. With the experience and training she’d received at the academy and as a patrol officer before becoming a detective, she knew she’d told House too much.
House shifted his gaze between her and Dan. “Am I getting warm?”
“Dan would like to ask you a few questions.”
“I’ll tell you what, when you’re ready to stop playing games and start talking like a normal human being instead of talking in cop speak, come back and see me.” House slid from the table.
Tracy said, “We leave and we don’t come back.”
“I leave and I don’t come back. You’re wasting my time. I have studying to do. I have finals coming up.”
Tracy stood. “Let’s go, Dan. You heard the man. He has studying to do.” She started from the table. “Maybe you can teach in here. By the time you’re done, you’d have tenure.” She got half a dozen steps before House spoke.
“Fine.”
She turned back. “Fine what?”
House bit at his lower lip. “Fine, I’ll answer attorney Dan’s questions.” He shrugged and smiled, but it looked forced. “Why not, right? Like I said, not a lot to do in here.” House sat and Tracy and Dan rejoined him at the table. “At least give me the courtesy of telling me why you came.”
“Dan has reviewed your file. Incompetence of legal counsel might be a basis for a new trial. I’m not interested in that.”
“You want to know who killed your sister,” House said. “So do I.”
“You told me once that you thought Calloway, or someone executing the search warrant, planted the earrings at your uncle’s property. Tell Dan.”
House shrugged. “How else did they get there?”
“The jury concluded you put them there,” Dan said.
“Do I look that stupid? I’d been in prison six years; why would I keep evidence that would put me back in here?”
“Why would Calloway or anyone else frame you?” Dan asked.
“Because they couldn’t find her killer, and I was the monster living in the mountains above the quaint little village, and I made people uncomfortable. They wanted to get rid of me.”
“You have any evidence to support that?”
Tracy relaxed a bit. Now that he was in his element, Dan seemed more assured, confident, and less intimidated by House or their surroundings.
“I don’t know,” House said, looking between them. “Do I?”
“They ran a DNA test on the strands of blonde hair they found in your truck,” Tracy lied. “They confirmed they belonged to Sarah. A billion-to-one odds.”
“The odds are irrelevant if someone else put them there.”
“You told Calloway you’d been out drinking and picked Sarah up and gave her a ride,” Dan said.
“I didn’t tell him anything of the sort. I wasn’t even out that night. I was asleep. I would have been pretty stupid to make up a story so easy to refute.”
“The witness says he saw your truck on the county road,” Dan said.
“Ryan Hagen,” House said with sarcasm. “The traveling auto-parts salesman. Convenient he would come forward after so much time had passed.”
“You think he lied too. Why?” Dan asked.
“Calloway needed to put my alibi into question so he could obtain the search warrants. Before Hagen, Calloway’s investigation was going nowhere.”
“But why would Hagen lie and risk criminal prosecution?”
“I don’t know, maybe to collect the ten-thousand-dollar reward being offered.”
“No evidence of that,” Dan said. Tracy had never found any proof of payment from her father to Ryan Hagen, and Hagen had denied receiving the reward at trial.
“Who was going to call him on it?” House let his question linger as he considered them both. “Who was a jury going to believe, a convicted rapist or Joe Q. Citizen? Putting me on the stand to refute it was the stupidest thing Finn could have done. It allowed them to ask me questions about my prior rape conviction.”
“What about the blood they found in your truck?” Tracy asked.
House shifted his attention to Dan. “Mine. I didn’t lie about it. I told Calloway I cut myself in the shop. I went to the truck for my smokes before I went inside.” He looked to Tracy. “And don’t insult me anymore about DNA. If they’d run a DNA test on the blood and proven it was your sister’s, you wouldn’t be sitting here. Why are you here?”
“If we were to get involved,” Tracy said, “you’d need to cooperate fully. If at any time I think you’re not telling the truth, we walk.”
“I’m the only one who told the truth about that night.” House sat back from the table. “Get involved how?”
Tracy nodded to Dan. He said, “I believe there could be new evidence, unavailable at your trial, which now raises a reasonable doubt about your guilt.”
“Such as?”
“Before I discuss specifics, I need to first know if you want my assistance.”
House studied him. “Do I want to retain you as my attorney, which would protect our conversations as privileged, and in which case Detective Tracy here would need to leave the table?”
“That’s right,” Dan said.
“First, you tell me what your intent is.”
“I’d file a motion for post-conviction relief based on the new evidence and ask for a hearing in order to present it.”
“Old Judge Lawrence still on the bench?”
“Retired,” Tracy said.
Dan said, “The papers are filed with the Court of Appeals. If they grant a hearing, I’d ask that it be presided over by a judge brought in from outside Cascade County. It would pretty much force their hand.”
“It wasn’t the judge who convicted me; a Cascade County jury did that.”
“There wouldn’t be a jury this time. We’d present the evidence directly to the judge.”
House considered the tabletop before lifting his gaze. “Would you get to put on witnesses?”
“I’d cross-examine the witnesses who testified at your first trial.”
“Yeah? Would that include that big shot Calloway? Or is he retired too?”
“He testified the first time,” Dan said.
“What’s it going to be?” Tracy said.
House closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Dan looked like he wanted to say more to convince House, but Tracy shook her head to indicate he shouldn’t oversell it. When House opened his eyes, he looked at her and grinned. “Looks like it’s you and me again, Detective Tracy.”
“It was never you and me, and it never will be.”
“No? I’ve been filing appeals for nearly twenty years.” He pointed to her left hand. “No wedding ring. No tan line from a ring you removed before coming here. Narrow hips. Flat stomach. Never married. No kids. What’ve you been doing with your time, Detective Tracy?”
“You’ve got ten seconds to make up your mind before we walk.”
House again gave her that sick, beguiling grin. “Oh, I’ve made up my mind. In fact, I can already see it.”
“See what?”
“The looks on the faces of all those people when they see me walking the streets of Cedar Grove again.”