The confession, p.31
The Confession, page 31
A grainy screen greeted them. It was an image of the study without anyone present. Sonny pressed a button to fast-forward the tape. They waited. Holt kept expecting him to stop the tape, but he didn’t. Finally, Sonny hit the Play button. It still showed an empty study. They watched it for almost a minute. Nothing changed.
“Are you sure—” Holt asked.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a body lying on the floor almost magically appeared. An unidentified man knelt beside it. The face of the person on the floor was hidden by one of the wing chairs, and the man kneeling on the floor had his back to the camera. There was a whiskey bottle on a small table beside the prone figure. Then the man kneeling on the floor moved slightly to the side. He was positioning a gun in the right hand of the man on the floor. The kneeling man raised his head so his profile came into view.
It was Greg Stevens.
Stevens stood up. There was a handkerchief on the floor beside the gun. Stevens stepped back and looked down at the figure on the floor. It was impossible to read his expression, but his actions were deliberate. He knelt down again, and what he did was hidden from the camera’s eye. He then stood and backed away, as if inspecting his work. The camera captured his face. Stevens glanced at his right hand and rubbed it against the side of his pants.
“There’s blood on his hand,” Holt said.
Neither Sonny nor the bishop responded. Stevens backed out of the frame and disappeared. They continued to stare at the image of the body lying on the floor. Holt couldn’t pick up on any discernible movement.
“Did you see that?” the bishop said.
“What?” Holt asked.
“His hand moved or twitched.”
Holt leaned in closer. Sure enough, the position of the gun in the hand had changed.
“Is that all?” Holt asked.
Sonny shook his head and pointed at the monitor. Stevens came back into the frame and moved the wing chair slightly. The face of the man on the floor came into view. It was Rex Meredith.
Seeing Meredith’s face wasn’t a shock, but it brought the video to a new level of stark reality. Stevens left and returned again. He was wearing a different pair of pants and stood with his arms folded across his chest. The tape ended.
Sonny leaned forward and turned off the machine.
Holt turned to the bishop, who once again had his arm around Sonny’s shoulders. The questions Holt wanted to ask stuck in his throat. The minister needed to do his job first. Sonny began to sob, his back heaving.
Bishop Pennington led Sonny down the hallway and guided him into the kitchen. Holt didn’t follow. Instead, he returned to the study and walked around the room. He stopped at the place on the floor where Rex Meredith died, then knelt where Greg Stevens placed the gun in his father-in-law’s hand and glanced up at the camera.
Several minutes passed before Sonny and Bishop Pennington returned to the study. When they did, Sonny rubbed his eyes and looked at Holt.
“Tape that gone,” he said. “Stevens mister be—”
“Write, Sonny,” the bishop interrupted.
Sonny took out his pad and began to scribble. He flipped over another page and continued. Holt tried to imagine what it would be like when the caretaker took the witness stand. The judge would have to accommodate Sonny’s disability and the need to laboriously write out his answers. It would be at least a full day or two of testimony. A savvy defense lawyer, whom Greg Stevens would doubtlessly hire, might try to wear the caretaker down until he slipped up and wrote something that could be turned against him. Holt’s jaw set. Nothing could erase or confuse the images recorded on the surveillance tape. Sonny tore out the sheets and handed them to Holt, who quickly read them.
“Greg Stevens ran another set of images on a surveillance tape that the police took?” he asked incredulously.
Sonny nodded his head.
“How did you get this tape?”
Sonny left the study. Holt and the bishop followed. The caretaker led them back to the closet that contained the surveillance equipment. He wrote again, then handed the sheet of paper to Holt, who read it and asked, “The tape we watched filmed a minute or two when the system turned on for the evening. When it ran out of tape, the carousel dropped a fresh one into the unit. Right?”
“Be that.” Sonny nodded.
“Where’s that tape?”
Sonny wrote again and handed the sheet to Holt, who handed it to the bishop.
“Greg Stevens destroyed it,” the bishop said.
Holt held up the tape they’d watched. “Why did you think to check this one?” he asked Sonny.
Sonny looked at Bishop Pennington.
“He told me in the kitchen that he couldn’t sleep the night Mr. Meredith died and came in to check the tapes. He knew the system was set to come on at 9:00 p.m. and wondered if it showed anything. He didn’t want to see Mr. Meredith kill himself but couldn’t keep from looking.”
“How do you know Greg Stevens changed the tape?”
Sonny took out his pad and wrote for several moments before handing a sheet to Holt.
“Unless it was turned on manually, the surveillance system automatically started at 9:00 p.m. every evening?” Holt asked.
Sonny nodded and wrote again. This time he handed the sheet to the bishop, who read it out loud: “ ‘Mr. Rex be lying on the floor with the gun in his hand, and Mr. Greg, he coming in like he help him. The sheriff men take that tape.’ ”
Holt looked at the bishop. “There’s no mention of a videotape in either the DA’s file or the information I reviewed at the sheriff’s office.”
Bishop Pennington shook his head sadly.
“Where were you when Mr. Meredith was shot?” Holt asked Sonny.
Sonny turned and led them through the kitchen and outside. He pointed to the small cottage where he lived. He held up his hand like a gun firing, then touched his ear.
“You heard the gunshot and came over?”
“No that be.”
“Why not?”
Sonny began to write.
“You thought it was a truck backfiring?” Holt asked.
Sonny nodded. He wrote again and handed the sheet of paper to Holt, who raised his eyebrows.
“Valerie Stevens came to get you?”
“Yes.”
Sonny made signs of tears running down his cheeks.
“She was crying?”
Sonny, his own eyes sad, nodded. Holt held up the tape.
“Why didn’t you give this tape to the sheriff’s department?”
“She be that,” Sonny replied immediately.
Before Holt could ask another question, Bishop Pennington spoke. “Sonny didn’t want to do anything that would hurt Valerie. He knew if Greg went to prison it would destroy her life, too. He explained that to me when we were in the kitchen. He’s known Valerie since before her mother married Rex. To him she’s the little girl who asked him to peel an apple for her. He knew it was wrong not to speak up, but all he could think about was what it would do to her.”
The forlorn look on Sonny’s face confirmed the truth of the bishop’s words.
“Does Valerie or Greg Stevens know about the tape you showed us?” Holt asked Sonny.
“No be that.”
“Are you willing to tell the truth now in court?”
The caretaker hesitated and looked at the bishop. Holt held his breath.
“Yes be that.”
“We went over that in the kitchen,” the bishop said. “As much as he doesn’t want Valerie to be hurt, he knows he has to tell the truth while there’s still time to do so.”
Holt left the house with the tape and the notes written by Sonny in his hand. As he closed the door, Holt could see the bishop and Sonny sitting together in the kitchen. The old friends had their heads together; their eyes were closed. Holt jogged slowly down the driveway, then picked up the pace when he reached the sidewalk.
Trish was relieved. The pressure of the Meredith matter had been forcibly taken from her by Sheriff Blackstone and Detective Clovis. Beyond tracking down deadbeat dads, she wasn’t cut out for anything more exciting than deciding if it made sense to castle her king in the cyberspace chess world. During her lunch break, she left the sheriff’s office and took her laptop computer with her to a local coffee shop with a Wi-Fi connection. She ordered a fruit smoothie and logged on to the speed chess website. The name of a familiar foe, Six Move Charlie, popped up, and he invited her to play.
“Where have you been?” Charlie typed in the chat box for the game. “Did the Unbeatable Wonder get beaten and have to retool her game?”
“No, just busy at work,” she typed back.
Charlie made the opening move, which Trish immediately countered. After five moves, Trish suspected what her opponent’s strategy might be. Charlie had memorized several opening gambits designed to bring a game to a rapid conclusion. After his next move, Trish was certain what he hoped to do.
“A Stonewall Attack isn’t going to work,” she typed in the chat box.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” Charlie responded.
Trish then typed in his next two moves. Charlie didn’t respond.
“Are you a mind reader?” he asked.
“No, law enforcement.”
“You’re a cop?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Not saying.”
“I’ve always thought you were a woman,” Charlie replied. “Sorry about that.”
Trish smiled. There was no point in correcting Charlie’s mistake.
“Are you saying I play chess like a girl?” she typed.
“No, no. You’re really good. Can you track my location on your computer?”
“Don’t log off for two more minutes, and I’ll have you. Charlie isn’t your real name, is it?”
“I resign,” her opponent immediately replied.
Charlie’s name disappeared from the list of players in the room. Maybe Charlie had more problems than trotting out a well-known opening to a chess game and expecting Trish to fall for it. She took a sip of her smoothie and closed the top of her computer.
“Hey, Trish.”
It was Holt Douglas. He had a large coffee in his hand.
“Am I interrupting anything important?” he asked.
“No, I was playing speed chess, but the game is over.”
“I didn’t know you played chess. I never graduated from checkers.”
“It was something I liked to do with my father,” Trish answered, standing up. “Holt, I’m not interested in having a casual conversation with you. Let’s keep everything professional.”
Holt stepped to the side. “Certainly,” he said. “See you on Thursday.”
Trish felt her face flush. She almost tripped over the leg of her chair as she made her way out of the coffee shop. She didn’t look back as the glass door closed behind her.
Nestled in her cubicle, Trish fumed. It was easier engaging in anonymous chess battles than navigating live human interaction. Holt Douglas had perfected the ability to push the wrong buttons when it came to her. Still on her lunch break, she decided to see if there was any more dirt to dig up on the assistant DA. Typing in his name, she retraced the steps that had led her to newspaper accounts of the car wreck in which his friend died. She couldn’t believe how sorry she’d felt for him the first time she read the story and how wrong she’d been. Now that she knew what really happened, Holt’s lies made her angry. The smug expression on his face would evaporate if people knew the truth about his past.
She reread Kenneth Morgan’s obituary and then checked out his parents. They were still living at the same address listed in the death notice. It would take Trish less than a minute to obtain their home and cell phone numbers. They deserved to know that it wasn’t the alcohol in their son’s blood that killed him.
“Who is Kenneth Morgan?” a male voice behind her asked.
She swiveled in her chair. It was Butch Clovis.
“Nothing. I’m still on my lunch break.”
Clovis leaned in closer. There was a tab opened on the top of Trish’s task bar that read “Holton Douglas.”
“And what is his connection with Holt Douglas?”
42
Butch Clovis held the recorder so close to Trish’s mouth that she would have touched it with her tongue if she licked her lips. Sheriff Blackstone sat to her right in the interrogation room.
“Is there anything else you can add to your statement?” the detective asked.
“That’s all I remember,” Trish said.
Clovis picked up a computer printout of one of the newspaper accounts of Kenneth Morgan’s death.
“Are you sure Holt Douglas is unaware you’ve conducted an independent investigation into his involvement in the death of Kenneth Morgan?”
“I’ve never mentioned it to him. Like I said, I found the articles and read the obituary before Holt told me he was the one driving the car.”
“Did he tell you how much he’d had to drink that night?”
“No.”
Clovis looked at the sheriff. “We could subpoena the hospital records. I’m sure they ran a blood test.”
“Finish the statement,” the sheriff said.
Clovis leaned in close to Trish. His breath made her feel nauseous. All through the interview process, the detective had alternated between invading her personal space and backing off for a few questions.
“Is everything you’ve told us today the truth under penalty of perjury?”
“Yes, sir,” Trish sighed. “If I made a mistake it wasn’t on purpose.”
“What part of what you’ve told us may have been a mistake?”
“Shut it down, Butch,” the sheriff said before Trish could answer. “We can always bring her back in for a supplemental interview.”
When she heard the sheriff’s words, Trish couldn’t hold back the tears. The thought of being subjected again to the humiliation and stress of the interrogation room was more than she could bear. She now understood why defendants confessed to crimes they hadn’t committed just to stop the ordeal.
“Do you want me to resign?” she asked, her voice trembling.
“No,” Sheriff Blackstone said. “I believe you’re telling the truth. Your mistake was not bringing this information to my attention immediately.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stay in here until you calm down,” the sheriff continued.
“What are you going to do about what I’ve told you?”
“What happens to Douglas is not your concern, Deputy Carmichael,” the sheriff said.
“Will I have to testify against him?”
“That will be decided later.”
A fresh wave of tears rolled from Trish’s eyes and down her cheeks. She didn’t like Holt. He was a deceitful hypocrite with blood on his hands. But to have to face him across a courtroom would be agony.
“Stay in here as long as you like,” the sheriff said. “Then clock out early. I doubt we’d get any productive work from you for the rest of your shift.”
The two men left Trish alone. She grabbed another tissue from a box in the center of the table and blew her nose.
Holt walked out of the video lab in Atlanta with five DVD copies of the surveillance tape from the Meredith residence. He wasn’t sure why he’d asked the technician to dub five copies, but it seemed prudent to have extras. He was going to keep one at his house, another in his desk at the office, and maybe give one to Skip for safekeeping. He wasn’t sure what to do with the other two. The original tape would go into an evidence locker at the DA’s office. He would put it in a sealed envelope and ask Belinda to log it in as State v. John Doe, an unidentified defendant.
During the drive from Atlanta to Paxton, Holt mulled over his next steps. At the top of his list would be obtaining a statement from Sonny. After that things became murky. At some point Holt would have to show the video to Ralph, but he didn’t know whether to do it now or after he’d built a better case. The DA would freak out, but what would happen on the other side of that was a guessing game.
There was no use contacting the sheriff’s department. Butch Clovis himself might be subject to criminal charges in covering up Meredith’s murder. Trish Carmichael was no longer an ally. And Sheriff Blackstone had never impressed Holt as a fearless enforcer of the law.
Contacting the local newspaper was a step Holt had never thought he’d consider to promote justice. If he leaked the video, media from all over the region would descend on Paxton in a feeding frenzy. However, once the information became public knowledge, Holt would lose a measure of control. And no newspaper editor had the authority to indict Greg Stevens for murder.
Holt saw a state patrol officer parked on the shoulder of the highway and slowed down a few miles an hour. One person deserved to know what Holt had found. That’s where he’d start. He placed the call.
“Who is this?” Cecil Burkdale said when he answered.
“Holt Douglas. I’m on my way back from Atlanta, and I need to see you.”
“Who’s in the car with you?”
“No one. Why?”
“I heard someone else talking.”
“That’s the radio. I’ll turn it down.” Holt lowered the volume. “Is that better?”
Burkdale was silent for a moment. “Yes. That’s what I was hearing. What do you want to show me?”
“Something I can’t talk about on the phone.”
“Of course, I understand,” Burkdale replied. “Where do you want to meet? It can’t be at your house.”
“Or yours,” Holt answered. “All I need is a laptop to show you what I have. How about the courthouse? We can use the jury room.”
“No way. Let’s meet in the parking lot for the supermarket on Jackson Street. It’s a busy place. We can sit in your car. I’m one hundred percent sure mine has been compromised.”
