The vigil had looked great on paper but now as she looked out over her paltry collection of followers hovered around a table she’d stocked with donuts and coffee, she had serious doubts. Had any of these people come for justice or was it all about the food? At this point, she hoped the food lasted until the television crews arrived.
If the media took up her cause, as she hoped, they would videotape the crowd so that the event looked well attended. If they didn’t sympathize with her point of view, they’d angle the cameras so that the group looked even sparser.
No telling with the media. They could be your best friend or your worst enemy.
“Are they coming?” Her law partner, Colleen Spencer, arranged white candles in a wicker basket, which she’d soon distribute to the crowd. Colleen was petite standing barely an inch over five feet. Her small stature belied a tenacity that was earning her a reputation as a successful criminal defense attorney. A royal blue Chanel suit amplified long auburn hair that framed an oval face sprinkled with freckles.
“Yes. Channel Five is sending a reporter and a camera. They should be here in about five minutes.”
Rachel ran her fingers through her short dark hair. She shrugged tense shoulders under the pinstripe jacket, paired with a white blouse, dark pencil skirt, and heels she’d borrowed from Colleen. Successful lawyers, Colleen had often said, dressed the part, but dressing the part smacked of rules and Rachel hated rules. Rachel had conceded to the attire and to Colleen’s pearls “to soften you up a bit.”
“The sooner, the better.” Colleen surveyed the collection of people who wouldn’t linger long. “I think we’ve scrounged up every friend and friend of a friend we know. And thank God for the donuts.” Colleen raised her hand to a group of guys she’d met at her local gym. “Here’s hoping the candles catch more attention and more people gather.”
Rachel skimmed her prepared statement, which she’d restricted to key talking points. No one wanted a long rambling speech. They wanted impassioned words easily caught and carried away. “Maybe one of the tour buses will drop off nearby. I’d take hungry tourists now.”
Diamond studs winked from Colleen’s ears. “One can hope.”
“Go ahead and start handing out the candles. The sun will be setting soon and you can light the candles. It will look good for the media as well.”
“Will do.”
Rachel’s hands trembled slightly when she shuffled through her papers wondering again if she’d made the right decision. This night had a greater potential for disaster than success.
Colleen nudged Rachel’s arm with her elbow. “Relax. This is going to go well.”
Being right didn’t guarantee success. “Let’s hope.”
“Keep it simple. You are a good speaker, you have passion and your supporters will respond.”
“My supporters.” A survey of the crowd stoked her worry. “You mean the rag-tag bunch we’ve strong-armed or bribed?”
Colleen laughed. “That’s right. They will make up for their numbers with passion.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“No. But we can pretend.” Colleen moved toward her friend, a smile on her face.
Rachel dropped her gaze to her talking points. Stick to the facts. Add emotion. Eye contact.
The facts were: thirty years ago a young mother, Annie Rivers Dawson, had been brutally murdered. Annie’s younger sister had arrived for a visit and discovered the house covered in blood and Annie’s newborn wailing in her crib. Police had been summoned. No body had been found but police concluded Annie could not have survived such blood loss. The case had gone unsolved for three months.
The public had been in a panic knowing a young woman and new mother from a good neighborhood had been brutally murdered. The press had put tremendous pressure on the cops. There’d been extensive searches for the body until finally a tip led cops to the remains of a woman wearing Annie’s clothes and jewelry. The outcry for justice grew louder. Even the governor had weighed in on the case.
Rachel’s client, Jeb Jones, had been a handyman in Nashville at the time of Annie’s death. He’d had an eighth grade education, was considered a good, if not, an inconsistent worker who drank heavily at times, and had been married with a nine-year-old son. He’d never made much money but he got by. And then one night cops, acting on a tip from a paid informant, had searched the trunk of Jeb’s ’71 Cutlass sedan and found a bloody tire iron. Jeb had been arrested. Under interrogation, he’d confessed, though within twenty-four hours he had recanted. The blood testing available at the time, crude by today’s standards, had indicated the two blood samples on the tire iron matched both Annie’s and Jeb’s types.
Further investigation revealed that Jeb had known the victim. He’d worked in her apartment building and witnesses had later said he had been caught staring at Annie once or twice.
His trial was set a month after his arrest and it lasted five days. Dozens testified that Jeb had a drinking problem and had cheated on his wife. Though Jeb had never denied he was a bad father and husband, he swore that he’d not killed Annie. He didn’t know how the tire iron ended up in his car.
Rachel wouldn’t discuss science tonight but would stick with her emotional plea to the public: we need to pressure the cops for a DNA test.
Christ, Rachel, these people couldn’t care less.
Her brother’s voice all but hissed as she stared at the uninspired crowd and her stomach knotted another twist. She might not muster passion in this group, but the right television airtime could turn up the heat on the cops.
The news van arrived and Rachel now coveted Colleen’s smoothness. Rachel had no soft edges. Life had sharpened those edges into razors.
As the news crew unloaded a camera and the reporter checked her lipstick and hair, Rachel scanned the crowd one last time hoping for a flicker of excitement. Off to the left she spotted a man she’d missed the first time. He stood apart from the crowd, partly concealed by a shadow cast by the building protecting his back. Given his dark suit, white shirt, red tie, and black western boots she’d have cast him as a banker or another lawyer. His short dark hair and square jaw fit the possible scenarios. However, the hard angles of his face, frown lines that cut deep, and a battle-ready stance dashed her theories.
For a moment she wondered why a man like him would be here and then the pieces fell into place. He was Detective Deke Morgan.
She’d done some checking on the twice-divorced detective and knew about his undercover work before homicide. A decade of monitoring every spoken word, anticipating conditions to go sideways, and burying his true-self deep were habits not easily broken.