She sat back down.
“Okay. Look. Teddy’s dad was scary, al right? He was real y violent, and things were getting worse. Teddy was afraid, so he went to his uncle Jerome and he asked for help. And a few weeks later Teddy’s dad died in a car accident. The cops said he was drunk and drove his car into a tree. It happened late at night, no one else was around. His car went up in flames and he died. Sheriff Pierce dealt with the investigation and it was ruled an accidental death. But then, at the funeral, Sheriff Pierce came up to Teddy and made it very clear that Teddy owed him a very big favor.”
“Jesus,” Hannah said. “Pierce kil ed him?”
Sam nodded. He was very pale, very tired looking in the moonlight. “We were actual y okay with it, you know? We were only kids. Teddy was just relieved that his father wasn’t going to beat his mom up anymore. Or hurt his sisters.” Sam’s expression had darkened. “But then, a few weeks later, Teddy found out that Sheriff Pierce had taken out a life insurance policy on Teddy’s father, in his mom’s name. I guess he used a dodgy broker, or leaned on someone to get the paperwork filed because Teddy’s mother didn’t know a thing about the policy until after Teddy’s dad died and the insurance company got in touch with her. Again, we thought it was a good thing, you know? Sheriff Pierce, looking out for Teddy’s mom.
But it turned out he wanted the money for himself. Told Teddy’s mom it was payback for al the years he’d been helping her out. He forced her to hand the money over to him. There wasn’t a thing she could do about it. You give him what Sheriff Pierce wants and you don’t ever get in his way. If you get in his way he comes after you.”
“What do you mean, he comes after you?”
Sam’s face was screwed up in his efforts to explain. “It took me and Teddy a long time to real y get it. I mean, taking the insurance money was the first crack in the halo, obviously. But you have to understand. We were boys. We real y loved him. So we made excuses, pretended not to see the smal things we saw. It was only as we got older that we started to hear the rumors and we could see for ourselves how it real y works. Sheriff Pierce runs this town and everyone in it. You talk back to him, and your daughter gets pul ed over, maybe there’s a little bit of pot in her car. Or your house is suddenly broken into three times in a row and the cops can’t do anything for you. He leans on people, you see? And he’s got something on everyone. He keeps a filing cabinet in his workshop.
It’s where he keeps al his blackmail material. I’m pretty sure he’s even got something on the prosecutor, Jackson Engle. Or maybe Engle just likes the way Pierce does things. Doesn’t real y matter.
Either way, they’re a team.”
“How do you know?” Hannah said.
“What, about Engle?”
“About the filing cabinet? About the blackmail.”
Sam shrugged again. “Teddy figured it out. He spent a lot of time in that house. Sheriff Pierce likes to drink. He likes to brag. Teddy hates him now, you know? He got out of Yorktown as soon as he could, got a scholarship and went to col ege in New York. Columbia.
I don’t think he’s ever coming back.” Sam looked sad, and lost, and despite everything Hannah felt a pul of sympathy for him.
“What about you, Sam? What are you going to do?”
“I . . . do you want me to talk to someone? Do you want me to talk to your boss? About the photo ID, I mean. About Michael Dandridge?” he asked.
Hannah shook her head and pressed the palms of her hands to her forehead. She closed her eyes and listened to her own breathing. What should she do? Here was clear evidence that Dandridge had been set up for the Fitzhugh murder. Could she honestly say that she stil believed with absolute, unshaken certainty that Michael Dandridge had kil ed her father? And if she couldn’t say that, if she didn’t believe that, what did that mean? She had the horrible, sickening feeling that she’d been on the wrong side. Should she bring this information to Robert Parekh? But if she was jumping to conclusions, if the scar on Michael Dandridge’s hand was some crazy coincidence, she would have betrayed her mother, betrayed her dead father, for nothing.
“Hannah?”
“No,” she said. Sam looked uncertain.
“I think you should leave it with me. Give me a little bit of time. I want to make sure . . . let’s make sure than Dandridge real y is innocent. If he is, then you come forward. If he isn’t, then you say nothing at al . Does that sound okay to you?”
He nodded, wilting with relief. She understood his feelings. He didn’t real y want to speak up, didn’t want to be exposed as a liar in the newspapers or invite trouble with his grandparents or the police.
“My grandparents are taking me and my little sister Rosie away,”
he said. “They have a cabin, up in the woods. My grandfather is afraid that you’l keep coming, or that there’l be too many journalists sniffing around, with the preliminary hearing next week. We’re going to the cabin and we’re going to stay there until things blow over.”
“The DA doesn’t want you in town next week? For the hearing, I mean?”
“Wel , yeah. That’s what they’re saying. But the plan is that my grandfather is going to come with me back to town for just long enough for me to give evidence. Then we’l go back to the cabin.
And now . . . I can’t . . . I don’t know what to do.”
“Right,” Hannah said. “Wel , I’l phone you. As soon as I can. I just need a day or two.”
“No phones,” he said. “There’s no service. Do you have a pen, and some paper?”
“I . . . I can get some.”
“The address won’t do you much good. But I can draw you a map. If you need me, in the end, you can come get me.”
Hannah went back into the house. There was a notepad and some pencils sitting on one of the side tables. The notepaper had a little printed drawing of the inn as its header. She took the pad and a pencil outside. Sam quickly wrote out instructions, drew a little map, then ripped the sheet off and handed it to her along with the notebook and pen.
“There,” he said. “If you need me.”
“And you won’t change your mind?” Hannah said.
He shook his head solemnly. She could see the fear in his eyes, but she thought that he meant it. His nerves made him rattle on.
“I wish I’d said something before now. Because if Dandridge didn’t kil my mother, then someone else did. What if he rapes or kil s some other woman? What if he already has?”