Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green

Chapter

33





Two Days


Once again, Dani flew to Indianapolis, this time with no airport delays. She arrived early enough to get her rental car and drive to Michigan City the same day. Being away from home so often had been hard for her, but handling a case from the beginning had given her a connection to the client that she’d missed when only handling the appeals. That was both good and bad. Her connection to George Calhoun was so strong that the thought of losing her battle for his freedom devastated her. She pulled up to the Holiday Inn and found a parking spot right in front. With her overnight bag in hand, she approached the front desk.

“Ms. Trumball, nice to see you back here,” said the young lady behind the counter.

“Thank you, Angie,” she said, reading her name from the tag pinned to her shirt.

“I have Room 229 for you. That’ll be two nights, right?”

“Yes.”

“If there’s anything we can do for you while you’re here, just call down to the front desk.”

Dani thanked her and went up to her room. She unpacked her toiletries and placed them on the bathroom vanity. She turned on the TV and watched CNN for a few minutes before turning it off. It was too early to eat dinner, and she was too nervous to relax. She picked up the phone and called Tommy.

“We’re missing something,” she said to him when he answered.

“What do you mean?”

“There has to be something else we can do to find this woman. I just keep thinking there’s something we should have done and it’s right there in front of me and I’m missing it.”

“Look, I know what you’re going through. I’ve been second-guessing myself all weekend. But we’ve done everything we can. The courts have failed us, that’s what’s happened. And it’s not because you weren’t brilliant. Your arguments were strong, you presented them well. The system just got it wrong this time.”

“What about the funeral home, the one that buried Trudy Harrington? They must have an address for Sunshine.”

“Already checked and came up empty. Nancy was their contact person.”

“The woman who lived across the street, the one whose daughter was friends with Sunshine—maybe her daughter kept in touch and knows where she is now.”

“Checked and checked. Nada.”

“Social media sites?”

“I didn’t expect to find anything without her married name, but I tried anyway. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. A bunch of smaller ones, too. Nothing.”

Dani knew she was grasping at straws. She’d asked to have Tommy on her team because he was the most thorough investigator in the office. Top drawer all the way. Of course he had followed up on any possible strand.

They were both silent for a moment. “Tommy?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think it’s strange that Nancy died in an accident? I mean, she was the only person who could lead us to Sunshine, and before she returns home she goes out on her own and just happens to fall over a canyon ledge? I’m not usually a conspiracy nut, but still.”

“It’s been bothering me, too. I keep thinking that Mickey Conklin is somehow involved in this. It had to be him that left the threatening note on my car. He’s been trying to stop us, and Nancy’s death sure as hell slammed the brakes on finding Sunshine. I can’t figure out how he’d know about Nancy, though. And if somehow he did know she held the key, how would he know where to find her?”

“He followed you once. Maybe he followed you back to Byron, learned about Nancy the same way you did.”

“I’ve thought about that. But that would mean he followed me back to New York, kept tabs on me until I went back to the Mayo Clinic, then followed me out there. He’d have to be awfully good to do that without me catching on.”

“He didn’t need to. Cannon could have told him where you were going.”

“Shit. Of course. I practically gave Cannon a blueprint of my plans.”

“The answer’s out there, Tommy. I just know it.”

“Dani, don’t get your hopes up.”

“I won’t. But Tommy …”

“Yes?”

“It’s just—we had our differences on this case. I know you thought I was crazy for believing George. But I want you to know that I couldn’t have done this with anyone but you. Thank you.”

“Get some rest, Dani. You need to be strong tomorrow.”

After she hung up, Dani decided to go for a walk. She’d been sitting all day, from the airport terminal to the plane to the car. Daylight would last at least two more hours, and she used that time to wander the streets of Michigan City. The stores were closed, but she stopped now and then to look at the merchandise in the windows. It was mindless walking, and that was what she needed.

As it approached seven o’clock, she realized she was hungry. She began walking back in the direction of the hotel, looking for a restaurant that seemed welcoming. She hadn’t paid attention as she walked and was surprised when she heard someone call her name. She looked up and saw Warden Coates.

“You look lost,” he said.

She smiled. “Deliberately lost. I needed to clear my mind, and just drifting along seemed to do the trick.”

“No hope left for tomorrow?”

Dani tried to look stalwart. “I’m afraid not.”

“Mr. Calhoun seems prepared for what’s coming. I find that’s often the case when the day draws near. The inmate accepts the inevitable.”

“Maybe I would sleep better if I saw his execution as inevitable. Nothing about this injustice seems inevitable to me.”

Coates looked at Dani kindly. “Do you remember our first conversation? I told you I was glad Mr. Calhoun had contacted you. That death-row inmates who insisted they were innocent should have every chance to prove their case. He’s had that now. You’ve advocated for him in every possible way. Now it’s time to accept that, with every case, there comes a time for argument to end.”

“I do remember our conversation. You also said you sleep better knowing something wasn’t missed. Something has been missed here: the true identity of the girl buried in that grave. It wasn’t Angelina Calhoun. I’m certain of that.”

“Then we’ll both have a sleepless night tonight,” he said, a look of sadness on his face.

They parted ways and Dani continued her search for a restaurant. Finally, one looked promising and she went in. It was a homey southern Italian restaurant with only ten tables, each covered with red-checkered tablecloths. She ordered linguine with white clam sauce and a glass of Chianti. Dani loathed dining by herself. She found it impossible to avoid staring at the other patrons, whether they were couples enjoying an intimate evening, families struggling to keep the younger children quiet or a group of friends getting together. She didn’t want to, but staring into space didn’t work either. So she pulled out a book to read while she sipped her wine and waited for dinner to arrive. When it did, the food tasted as if it had come from the freezer section of a supermarket. She downed it quickly and returned to the hotel.

By the time she got to her room, it was almost nine o’clock, time for her call home. Doug reported that Jonah’s stomach had returned to normal. Once more, they seemed to have escaped a greater medical issue.

“By the way, Jonah’s camp package came in the mail today. It tells what he should bring for the summer,” Doug said. “Jonah’s been poring over it and making a list of all the new things he’ll need.”

Dani’s heart stopped. The mailman. The person who filled the mailbox standing next to their driveway with reams of catalogs, tons of bills, occasional greeting cards and once in a rare while a letter from a faraway friend who still cherished the written document. Their mailman’s name was Joe. Every Christmas they gave him a card with a cash gift thanking him for his dedicated service. If Dani were home when he delivered a package or a letter needing her signature, he’d greet her by name and ask how Jonah was doing. She suspected he knew more about their family than the neighbors next door just from sorting the mail sent to their house.

Was it possible? Trudy’s neighbor, Laura, said Sunshine had grown up in the house on Aspen Street. Could the same mailman who had known her as a child still be delivering mail to that block? Could he know where Sunshine was living? Dani quickly got off the phone with Doug and dialed Tommy.

“The mailman,” she practically shouted when he picked up. “We never tried the mailman.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Sunshine grew up on that street. If she sent her mother cards, you know, for her birthday or Christmas and put her return address on it, the mailman might know where she is.”

“Uh, Dani, you’re the lawyer, but aren’t there privacy laws about that? I mean, are mail deliverers allowed to look at the letters they deliver?”

“They’re people. And they have to look at what’s written on the envelope to deliver the mail. Isn’t it possible that he might have noticed where Sunshine’s mail came from? Or even her married name?”

“Do you realize how many homes are on each route? How many pieces of mail they deliver every day?”

Dani was too agitated to sit. The cord on the hotel phone wouldn’t let her walk far, but she paced as far as she could. “I know it’s a long shot. We have nothing else. Can you call the Bryon post office first thing in the morning?”

“Nobody’s going to talk to me on the phone. Even in person it’ll be a tough sell.”

Dani looked at her watch—9:20. There was no chance of Tommy’s getting a flight out tonight. Even if he could get on an early-morning flight, he’d arrive in Byron after the mailmen had left the post office. Waiting for the right one to return at the end of the day would make it impossible to follow up in time on any information they might get. “Try anyway, Tommy. Please.”

She heard a long sigh. “I’ll see what I can do. Just don’t get your hopes up.”

“You’re wrong, Tommy. I have to get my hopes up. It’s the only way I’ll get through the night.”


As soon as he got off the phone, Tommy turned to his wife. “This is so goddamn frustrating. We believe she’s out there but have no idea where.”

“Tell me what you’ve tried.”

Tommy ran through the list of avenues he’d searched. When he finished, Patty turned away from him and went into the kitchen.

“Hey, where’re you going?

“Be right back.” A minute later, she returned to the living room with a small book in her hand. “I couldn’t get by without my address book,” she said, a big smile on her face. “Everybody I’ve ever known is written down, with their phone number and address. I even keep a record of birthdays in here. I know the young people now all have their Blackberrys and such, but our generation? We like the old paper-and-pencil record.”

“Shit! I can’t believe I hadn’t thought about that. I’m losing my goddamn touch.”

“You have to go out there and check the house.”

“It’s all locked up, you know.”

“Tommy Noorland, I’ve heard enough of your stories from the FBI days to know that a locked door never stopped you.”

Tommy chuckled. Patty was right. He could be on the first flight out in the morning. Breaking into someone’s house in broad daylight wasn’t ideal, but he still remembered his skill with a pick. And if some neighbor called the cops, he’d already be inside and have had a chance to look for an address book. Besides, his credentials as former FBI and the reason for the break-in were bound to get him some professional courtesy, if it came to that.

He rushed to the computer and booked a 6:20 a.m. flight to Rochester. As he got ready for bed, his first flicker of optimism was tempered with the realization that someone did not want HIPP to find Sunshine and may have already killed to make sure of it.


He got to Trudy’s home at 10:15. The street was empty of people, but Tommy went around to the back door anyway. He slipped a pick out of his pocket, slid it into the small hole in the doorknob and, with three turns, heard a click. He turned the knob and entered the kitchen of Trudy Harrington. It was bright enough outside, even with the windows covered in curtains, that he didn’t need to turn on any lights. Patty kept her address book in a kitchen drawer, and that’s where he began his search. “Try the drawer closest to the telephone,” she had told him. He scanned the room and saw an old-fashioned phone on the wall under a kitchen cabinet. The nearest drawer was filled with loose papers, a stapler, restaurant menus and a plastic bag filled with business cards. He opened the next drawer. Sitting on top of an Olmsted County phone directory was a blue address book with a photo of a dog on the cover. Tommy grabbed it and, after saying a quick prayer under his breath, opened it. He turned to the “H” page, hoping Trudy had just crossed out Sunshine’s maiden name and wrote over it with her married name. No luck. He started at the beginning. As he turned the page from the A’s to the B’s, he caught his breath. Right at the top was Sunny Bergman. He stared at the page,

He couldn’t believe it. Sunny Bergman lived in Manhattan. Not only Manhattan but just a few blocks from the HIPP office. Quickly, he took out his phone and called Melanie. “I found her,” he said as soon as she answered the phone.

“Who?”

“Angelina. Or at least Sunshine Harrington.”

“How? Where?”

“I’ll explain the how later, but she’s in Manhattan, on East 16th Street. You’ve got to get over to her apartment right away.”

“Oh my god! This means—”

“That’s right. This means we might be able to save him.”