Sisters

EIGHT




The next morning Alex sat at her computer with a cup of coffee after a sleepless night, feeling as if her heart was made of lead. There was no denying the impression that the Colsons’ visit had made on her. If they did not believe in Dory, why was she trying to see the good in her? The Colsons didn’t seem like cruel or crazy people. Maybe they were right. After all, everyone in prison claimed to be innocent – even those who had committed the most heinous crimes.

She had bookmarked some of the most thorough articles about Dory’s case. She read over them again, this time with a feeling of despair. The motive had been jealousy, ostensibly over this boyfriend, a doctor named Rick Howland, but Dory’s parents seemed to feel that this was just an excuse. That Dory would have murdered Lauren sooner or later, no matter what. Alex Googled Rick Howland under physicians in Boston and found that there was a podiatrist of that name practicing on Huntington Avenue. She hesitated for a moment then dialed the number on her screen. She asked the receptionist for an appointment as soon as possible.

‘Is it an emergency?’ the receptionist asked.

Alex wondered what might constitute an emergency in podiatry. ‘I’m in a lot of pain,’ she said, realizing that this was, in fact, the truth.

The receptionist offered her an appointment at noon. Alex thanked her and hung up. Just then the doorbell rang and Alex picked up her coffee cup and went to answer it. This time it actually was Seth Paige on the front step. Her heart barely registered the fact that he was there. In the light of day he looked different. Normal. She felt like an alien encountering a human. ‘Hi,’ she said dully.

‘I came to look at your dad’s books,’ he said. ‘Is this a good time?’

‘Good as any,’ Alex continued in a dull voice.

He followed her into the house.

‘They’re in here,’ she said.

Seth walked into the office and gave a cursory glance at the shelves of books. ‘Wow,’ he said. ‘What a great collection. I’d like to have all of them.’

‘Take ’em,’ said Alex.

Seth frowned and turned to look at her. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked.

Alex shook her head. ‘Long story.’

Seth sat down on the edge of her father’s desk. ‘Go ahead. I’m in no hurry. I’ve played about all the games of cribbage with my dad that I can stand for one lifetime. I wanted to see the books but, honestly, coming over here was my excuse for getting out of the house.’

Alex smiled wanly. ‘I can’t talk about it,’ she said. ‘It’s too much.’

‘Well, let me see if I can help boil it down. I know about the sister in prison. I know you went to see her.’

‘How did you know that?’ Alex asked, taken aback.

Seth shook his head. ‘How long have you lived in this neighborhood? Your Uncle Brian told Laney Thompson. He’s been keeping tabs on you through the Thompsons.’

‘I don’t believe this,’ Alex protested.

‘Be glad they care,’ said Seth. ‘So, what happened?’

Alex sighed. ‘Well, I went to see her.’

‘How was that?’ he asked.

Alex hesitated. ‘Difficult. Upsetting.’

‘No shit.’

‘Then her parents came by here last night. They basically said that Dory was bad to the bone, and that I should stay as far away from her as possible.’

‘But you don’t feel that way?’ he asked.

Alex shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I feel. They know her better than I do. I spent half an hour with her. Maybe they’re right,’ she cried. Then she exhaled. ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Then look farther,’ he said.

Alex looked at him in surprise. ‘You’re not going to tell me to stay away from her?’

‘Why would I do that?’ he said. ‘You’re an intelligent woman. Make up your own mind.’ He looked over his shoulder. ‘Have you got a plan for those cartons over there?’ he asked, pointing to a pile of boxes from the liquor store.

She shook her head.

‘Look, Alex, I’m not trying to be flippant,’ he said. ‘I just think you have to trust yourself. Do you know what you’re going to do?’

Alex shrugged. ‘I located her old boyfriend. I thought I might go and talk to him. Maybe he can shed some light on what happened.’

‘You may as well,’ he said. ‘I would if I were you.’ He walked over to the bookshelf and reverently pulled down a volume.

‘You would?’ she said.

He turned a few pages in the book, and then looked up at her. ‘If I wanted to know more, yes, I would. Obviously you are not satisfied with what you know now.’

‘No, I’m not.’

‘So go,’ he said.

Alex hesitated. ‘You’re right. I’m gonna do it. But you can stay and look at the books.’

‘I’ll come back another time,’ Seth said, setting down the volume on the desk and following her out of the office. Alex opened the front door for him.

‘Anytime,’ she said, and then blushed at the eagerness in her voice.

Seth did not seem to notice. ‘There’s no hurry,’ he said.

Too impatient to wait for the train, Alex drove into town and parked in a lot near Copley Square. She walked to the podiatrist’s office, located in a relatively new high-rise block along the wide boulevard that was Huntington Avenue.

She gave her name to the receptionist.

‘Can you fill out these forms for me?’ asked the receptionist, handing over a clipboard. ‘Do you have insurance?’

Alex handed over her card.

‘Your co-pay is thirty dollars,’ said the receptionist.

Cheap enough for a chance to talk with the man for whom Dory had murdered her own sister. Alex gave the receptionist cash and sat down to fill out the forms. The man in the seat nearest to her was wearing one normal shoe, and one with the sides cut out so that his socks were exposed. Alex tried not to look too closely. She handed the clipboard back and thumbed through a magazine until a patient limped out of the doctor’s office and began to discuss her bill with the receptionist.

‘Ms Woods,’ the woman said, pointing to the office door.

Alex went inside and sat down in a metal chair in the examining room. The walls were decorated with charts showing the musculature of the foot, interspersed with photos of a tall, shaggy-looking dog with what appeared to be eyebrows over soulful brown eyes and a handlebar mustache. In a few minutes, the white-coated doctor entered, a chart held protectively across his chest. He was on the short side, with thinning dark brown hair and a pleasant, unremarkable face.

‘Thanks for seeing me, Dr Howland,’ she said.

‘Miss Woods. What seems to be the problem?’ he asked. ‘You left it blank on your chart.’

‘The problem is . . .’ Alex thought about how to say it. ‘I have recently learned that I am Dory Colson’s half-sister.’

The doctor recoiled and stared at her.

‘I only met Dory the other day for the first time. You can imagine that this is all very disturbing – to find out that the sister you never knew you had is in prison for murder.’

‘So you’re not here as a patient,’ he said.

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I just wanted a chance to talk to you. I was afraid you might avoid me if I called looking for information.’

‘You know you could have handled this better. You didn’t need to take up valuable time in my practice.’

‘I gave your receptionist my co-pay,’ Alex said with a slight smile.

He did not seem to be amused. ‘What do you want from me?’ he asked coldly.

‘I guess I want you to . . . fill in some blanks for me. If you would.’

He did not agree, but he did not tell her to get out. Alex pressed on. ‘You and Dory were dating at the time of Lauren’s murder?’

He leaned back against the examining table. ‘Yes. That’s right,’ he said.

‘How did you meet?’

‘I was one of her clients. She took care of Iago for me during the day.’ He looked at the photos on the wall and his eyes softened. ‘My dog is very highly strung. He needs to get out during the day. I answered Dory’s ad in the free paper. She had great references. It turned out that she was . . . excellent with dogs. And she was a great-looking woman. I got to know her over time. One thing led to another.’

‘So you and Dory were involved?’ Alex asked.

‘Well, why not?’ he asked defensively. ‘We were both single people. We both liked animals.’

‘I’m not criticizing,’ said Alex wearily. ‘I’m just trying to understand. Her parents don’t seem to have a shadow of a doubt that she is guilty. They are completely convinced that she killed her sister. And that you were the cause.’

‘That is just not true,’ he scoffed. ‘I spoke to her sister a few times, just because she was there when I came by to pick up Dory. And she had had surgery on her foot at Boston General. I knew her surgeon. He’s a colleague of mine. Anyway, she asked me a few questions. I answered her. It was nothing at all. It was common courtesy. It wasn’t even a flirtation.’

‘But Dory believed that it was,’ said Alex.

The doctor shook his head. ‘Nothing I could say would convince her otherwise. She and her sister – it was a bad relationship. In fact, once the sister came home for her surgery, my relationship with Dory started to go downhill.’

‘Why?’ asked Alex.

Rick Howland shrugged. ‘That was all she could talk about. Lauren this and Lauren that. She was obsessed with that sister. I told the cops this. She could hardly think about anything else. We went from being two people having a pretty good time together to an endless monologue from Dory about all the ways that she detested and distrusted Lauren. It was terrible.’

Alex frowned at him. ‘And you’re sure you didn’t contribute to this?’

He leaned forward and looked Alex in the eye. ‘There was nothing going on between me and Dory’s sister, Lauren. It was all in Dory’s mind.’

Alex hesitated. ‘Do you ever see Dory anymore?’

‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘Never. She’s crazy. I don’t want to see her.’

‘So you think she did it. You think she killed Lauren.’

Rick Howland shrugged. ‘She said she did.’

‘Were you surprised by that?’

Rick considered the question. ‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Actually, I was. She wasn’t really warm and fuzzy, but she loved those animals so much. I couldn’t imagine her ever hurting an animal. I guess I assumed that she would never hurt another person. But when it came to her sister all bets were off.’

‘So you didn’t want to see her anymore?’

‘In prison?’ he asked. ‘I’m not a masochist.’

‘But if you cared for her . . .’

‘Not that much. There are other fish in the sea,’ he said brusquely.

‘The Justice Initiative is trying to get her a new trial,’ said Alex.

‘Good luck,’ said the doctor.

‘So even if she were exonerated, you still wouldn’t want anything to do with her?’

The doctor looked at her, his eyes wide. ‘No,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m seeing someone else now. I don’t want anything to do with Dory Colson. If you’re smart, you might want to avoid her as well. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have actual patients waiting.’

Alex thanked him and left the office. Out on the sidewalk she felt like a balloon whose air had all leaked out. She was not sure what she had hoped to hear from Rick Howland, but she knew that she felt worse for having talked to him. While he wasn’t exactly against Dory, he certainly wasn’t in her corner. Alex felt her phone vibrating in her pocket. She pulled it out and glanced down at the screen. There was a text message from Marisol Torres. Dory says I can talk to you. Let me know when you want to meet.

Alex hesitated, then texted her back. I’m in town. Meet at your office?

The Justice Initiative was located in a brownstone building which formed part of the New England University Law School. Alex spoke to the receptionist on the first floor. She was directed up three flights of steps to Marisol Torres’ small, narrow office. On each floor the building seemed to buzz with activity.

The door was open, but Alex tapped on the door frame. Marisol looked up and greeted her with a smile. She moved some boxes and folders so Alex could sit down. ‘Sorry about this mess,’ she said. ‘I think this room was somebody’s storage closet when the building was a private home. No windows and you can barely fit a desk in here.’

‘It’s cosy,’ said Alex, sitting down on a swivel chair on casters, which was wedged firmly in place by cardboard boxes filled with papers. On Marisol’s desk was a photo of a bright-eyed little girl in a striped T-shirt with ribbons in her hair.

‘Is that your daughter?’ Alex asked.

Marisol sighed and looked fondly at the picture. ‘That’s my Iris. Everything I do, I do for her.’

‘She’s adorable,’ said Alex.

‘Thanks,’ said Marisol, settling into her own chair. ‘So, I spoke to Dory, and told her you were curious about her case, and she said that I could tell you anything you wanted to know about it.’

‘I have a lot of questions,’ said Alex.

‘I’ll try to help.’

‘I guess my first question is a legal one,’ said Alex. ‘How can you win an appeal for someone who’s already pleaded guilty to the crime?’

‘Basically we will be pleading that Dory was denied her right to counsel because she was advised by her attorney to plead guilty. He said that she could never win at trial.’

‘And she could have?’

‘No one can answer that. But Dory told the police that the day Lauren died, she and her sister argued – the prosecution had a witness to corroborate that – a dry cleaner who came to the family’s apartment in the South End to make a delivery. Then Dory claims that she went out for a walk. When she returned, she found her sister’s body.’

‘What actually . . . happened? I mean, the crime,’ Alex asked, grimacing.

‘Well, Lauren’s body was found in the kitchen at the back of the house at the garden level. The door to the garden was unlocked when the police got there. Lauren was found on the floor, stabbed several times. The murder weapon was a knife from the block on the kitchen counter. Dory was covered with blood when the police arrived. But that was easily explained. She said she was trying to revive Lauren.’

‘I read in the newspaper accounts that Dory and Lauren argued about this guy, Rick Howland,’ said Alex. She did not mention that she had just come from Dr Howland’s office.

Marisol nodded. ‘Oh, yes. The foot doctor with the Spinone.’

‘Spinone?’ Alex asked.

‘That’s his dog. He and Dory had only recently started seeing one another. Socially, so to speak. Dory seemed to see Rick as quite a prize catch, and she was sure Lauren was trying to steal him away from her. In fact, she was always very jealous of Lauren. There’s no disputing that. But there’s no evidence of any entanglement between Doctor Howland and Lauren. No emails. No calls. Nothing. Lauren lived in Branson, Missouri, and rarely visited Boston.’

‘So, it’s possible that Dory was being . . .’

‘Paranoid. Yes. I’m afraid so.’

Alex frowned. ‘Everybody agrees that she had a motive. And an opportunity, obviously. What makes you think she could have won at a trial?’

‘Ah,’ said Marisol, raising her index finger. ‘This is where the attorney’s negligence comes in. Dory said she took a walk after their argument to clear her head. In his effort to convince Dory to take a plea, her attorney, the public defender in question, told her that there was not a single witness to back up her story. He claimed to have canvassed the neighborhood and that nobody remembered seeing her. He said there was no one to support her alibi.’

‘How is that helpful?’ Alex asked.

‘It turns out,’ said Marisol, pausing for effect, ‘the neighbors were never asked. That much they do remember. No one ever came around from the public defender’s office to even ask if they remembered seeing her. Dory claimed that she walked up to Copley Square and that she bought a bottle of water in the Back Bay station. No one ever questioned the clerk who was on duty that day, or showed the clerk her picture. The attorney just didn’t bother to try to corroborate her story.’

‘Were there cameras in the store? Security cameras?’

‘Yes – not that the attorney checked on that.’

‘Did they show Dory?’

‘Well, I’ve looked at the footage,’ Marisol said. ‘It was a cheap camera, so the film is grainy. And sadly, the owner was using it to spy on his clerks. So the only visible face was the clerk’s. Everybody else was shot from behind. And it was a cold day so they were all wearing scarves and hats and collars up.’

‘What about a receipt?’ Alex asked.

‘Dory threw it away,’ said Marisol. ‘The attorney told her that without alibi witnesses there was no hope for an acquittal, and she needed to take a plea or go down for life.’

‘And she took it,’ said Alex.

‘Yes. And she never should have. This was a murder case,’ Marisol said. ‘The brief will show that her defense lawyer made no effort to confirm her alibi. That alone should demonstrate that she was not defended adequately, and the judge should grant her a new trial, especially with what they already know about this public defender.’

Alex tried to sound positive. ‘You seem pretty hopeful about this.’

‘I am,’ said Marisol. ‘The brief is being reviewed right now by one of the attorneys who help us. Harold Gathman. He’s already applied for a court date for the judicial review.’

‘Good,’ said Alex. ‘But if she does get a new trial, there’s still no way to prove her alibi. Especially after all this time.’

‘We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,’ Marisol said.

Alex nodded.

Marisol sat back in her seat. ‘So, we can count on your support.’

‘Yes,’ said Alex doubtfully.

Marisol frowned at her. ‘Dory said she thought you might be willing to help with some funds.’

‘Funds?’ said Alex, knowing she had never made any such offer.

‘The law school could really use any financial contribution you might want to make. Everything costs money,’ Marisol said.

Alex stood up. She was a little bit put off by the fact that Dory had offered her financial assistance without even asking. She couldn’t help remembering her attorney, Mr Killebrew’s warning. Prisoners were known to take advantage of people from the outside. People who cared about them. But there was no doubt that this was a good cause, she reminded herself. The Justice Initiative. It was worth supporting. ‘Of course, I will. This is important work that you’re doing.’

‘I like to think so,’ Marisol said.