“So, explain it now.”
“Will you help me if I do?”
There it was, she thought. The convict Beckett had warned her about. The user. The player.
“Why your skin was under Julia Strange’s nails?” He looked away, jawline clenched. “Tell me or I walk.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A requirement.”
Adrian sighed and shook his head. When he spoke, he knew how it would sound. “I was sleeping with her.”
A pause. A slow blink. “You were having an affair with Julia Strange?”
“Catherine and I were in a bad place.…”
“Catherine was pregnant.”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant. That came after.”
“Jesus…”
“I’m not trying to justify it, Liz. I just want you to understand. The marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t love Catherine, and she didn’t much love me, either. The baby was a last, desperate try, I think. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until she lost it.”
Elizabeth took a step away; came back. The pieces were ugly. She didn’t want them to fit. “Why didn’t you testify about the affair? The DNA evidence convicted you. If there was an explanation, you should have given it.”
“I couldn’t do it to Catherine.”
“Bullshit.”
“Hurt her. Humiliate her.” He shook his head again. “Not after what I’d done to her.”
“You should have testified.”
“It’s easy to say that now, but to what purpose? Think about it.” He looked every inch a broken man, the face scarred, the eyes a dark stain. “No one knew the truth but Julia, and she was dead. Who would believe me if I claimed adultery as my defense? You’ve seen the trials same as me, the desperate men willing to lie and squirm and barter their souls for the barest chance of a decent verdict. My testimony would look like a string of self-serving, calculated lies. And what could I possibly get from it? Not sympathy or dignity or reasonable doubt. I’d open myself to cross-examination and look even guiltier by the end of it. No, I stared down that road more than once, thinking about it. I’d humiliate Catherine and get nothing for it. Julia was dead. Bringing up the relationship could only hurt me.”
“No one saw you together?”
“Not in that way. No.”
“No letters? Voice mails?”
“We were very careful. I couldn’t prove the affair if I wanted to.”
Elizabeth plucked at the edges. “It’s all very convenient.”
“There’s more,” he said. “You won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
“Someone planted evidence.”
“For God’s sake, Adrian…”
“My prints in her house, the DNA—that all makes sense. I get it. I was there all the time. We were intimate. But the can at the church doesn’t fit. I was never near the church. I never drank a beer there.”
“And who do you think planted it?”
“Whoever wanted me in prison.”
“I’m sorry, Adrian.…”
“Don’t say that.”
“Say what? That you sound like every convict I’ve ever met. ‘I didn’t do it. Someone set me up.’”
Elizabeth stepped back, and it was hard to hide the disbelief. Adrian saw it; hated it. “I can’t go back to prison, Liz. You don’t understand what it’s like for me, there. You can’t. Please. I’m asking for your help.”
She studied the grimy skin and dark eyes, unsure if she would help. She’d changed her life because of him, yet he was just a man, and seriously, perhaps fatally, flawed. What did that mean for her? Her choices?
“I’ll think about it,” she said and left without another word.
*
It took two minutes to exit the building. Randolph stayed at her side, moving her quickly down one hall and then another. At the same low door on the same side street, he walked her onto the sidewalk and let the door clank shut behind him. The sky burned red in the west. A hot wind licked the concrete as Randolph shook out two cigarettes and offered one to Elizabeth.
“Thanks.”
She took it. He lit them both, and they smoked in silence for half a minute.
“So, what is it?” She flicked ash. “The real reason?”
“For what?”
“Helping me.”
He shrugged, a misshapen grin on his face. “Maybe I dislike authority.”
“I know you dislike authority.”
“You also know why I helped you. Same reason I’d have helped you bury the Monroe brothers in the darkest woods in the deepest part of the county.”
“Because you have daughters.”
“Because fuck them for doing what they did to that girl. I’d have shot them, too, and I don’t think you should go down for it. You’ve been a cop for what? Thirteen years? Fifteen? Shit.” He sucked hard; blew smoke. “Defense lawyers would have put that girl through hell all over again, and some knee-jerk judge might let them go on a goddamn technicality. We both know it happens.” He cracked his neck, unapologetic. “Sometimes justice matters more than the law.”
“That’s a dangerous way for a cop to look at things.”