Gifts, p.5
Crime Files, The: I Heard That Song Before, Daddy's Little Girl, Where Are You Now?, page 5
He still lived in Oldham. I decided that at some point I would call him.
The news conference was over, and people began to drift out of the room. The desk clerk, a studious-looking young man who looked as if he was fresh out of college, came over to me. “Is everything okay with your room, Miss Cavanaugh?”
The waitress was passing the sofa where I was sitting. She turned and looked at me sharply, and I knew she wanted to ask if I was any relation to the young girl who was murdered in the Westerfield case.
It was the first indication that I would have to give up the personal anonymity I craved if I stayed in Oldham.
So be it, I thought. This is something I have to do.
13
Mrs. Hilmer still lived in the same house down the street from ours. There were four other houses now separating it from the home we had lived in for those few years. It was obvious that the people who now owned ours had fulfilled Mother’s dream for it. It had been expanded on both sides and in the back. It had always been a good-sized farmhouse, but now it was a truly lovely dwelling, substantial yet graceful, with gleaming white clapboard and dark green shutters.
I slowed the car as I drove past, and then, because on this quiet Sunday morning I didn’t think anyone would notice, I stopped.
The trees had grown of course. It had been a warm autumn in the Northeast this year, and even though it was now downright chilly, there was still an abundance of gold and crimson leaves shimmering on the branches.
The living room of our house had obviously been expanded. What about the dining room? I wondered. For an instant I was standing there, holding in my arms the box of silver—or was it silverplate—as Andrea carefully arranged the place settings. “Today Lord Malcolm Bigbottom will be our guest.”
Mrs. Hilmer had been watching for me. The minute I got out of the car, the front door opened. A moment later I felt her fierce hug. She had always been a small woman, cozily plump with a motherly face and vivacious brown eyes. Now her medium-brown hair was completely silver, and there were lines around her eyes and mouth. But basically she was as I remembered her. For years she sent Mother a Christmas card with a long note, and Mother, who never sent cards, would write back, putting a good face on our newest move and saying how well I was doing in school.
I had written to let her know when Mother died and received a warm and comforting note. I did not send her word when I moved to Atlanta, so I imagine any holiday cards or notes she might have sent were returned. The post office doesn’t forward mail for too long these days.
“Ellie, you’re so tall,” she said now with something between a smile and a laugh. “You were such a little bit of a thing.”
“It happened somewhere between my junior and senior years in high school,” I told her.
There was coffee perking on the stove and blueberry muffins fresh from the oven. At my insistence we stayed in the kitchen and sat at the banquette. For a few minutes she told me about her family. I had hardly known her son and daughter. Both had been married when we moved to Oldham. “Eight grandchildren,” she said proudly. “Unfortunately, none of them live around here, but I still get to see a lot of them.” I knew she’d been widowed for many years. “The kids tell me this place is too big for me, but it’s home and I love it. When I can’t get around anymore, I’ll sell it, I guess, but not now.”
Briefly I told her a little about my job, and then we began to talk about the reason I was back in Oldham. “Ellie, since the day Rob was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs and shackles, the Westerfields have been insisting that he’s innocent and have been fighting to get him released. They’ve got a lot of people convinced of it, too.” Her expression became troubled. “Ellie, having said that, I’ve got to admit something. I’m beginning to wonder myself if Rob Westerfield wasn’t convicted partly because of his reputation as a troublemaker. Everybody thought of him as a bad kid and was only too ready to believe the worst about him.”
She had seen the press conference. “There’s one thing I believe in that speech Will Nebels made,” she said flatly, “and that’s that he’d go into old Mrs. Westerfield’s house to look for money to steal. Was he there that night? It is possible. On one hand, I wonder what they’re giving him to tell that story, and on the other, I think how Paulie went to pieces in class when they announced that Andrea was dead. I watched that teacher testify in court. You never saw a more reluctant witness. You could tell how protective she was of Paulie, but she had to admit that she thought when he ran out of the classroom that he had said, ‘I didn’t think she was dead.’ ”
“How is Paulie Stroebel now?” I asked.
“Actually, he’s been doing very well. For ten or twelve years after the trial he was terribly reticent. He knew that some people believed he had killed Andrea, and that just about destroyed him. He started working in the deli with his mother and father, and from what I understand stayed very much to himself. But since his father died and he’s had to take on more and more responsibility, he’s really kind of blossomed. I hope this story of Will Nebels’s doesn’t unravel him now.”
“If Rob Westerfield gets a new trial and is acquitted, it will be as though Paulie has been found guilty,” I said.
“Would they arrest him, put him on trial?”
“I’m not a lawyer, but I doubt it. Will Nebels’s new testimony might be enough to get Rob Westerfield a new trial and an acquittal, but he’d never be considered credible enough to convict Paulie Stroebel. But the damage will be done, and Paulie will be another Westerfield victim.”
“Maybe, maybe not. That’s what makes it so hard.” Mrs. Hilmer hesitated, then went on. “Ellie, that fellow who’s writing a book about the case came to see me. Somebody had told him I was close to your family.”
I sensed a warning in her words. “What’s he like?”
“Polite. Asked a lot of questions. I was careful of every word that passed my lips. But I’m telling you right now that Bern has a point of view, and he’s going to make the facts fit it. He asked if the reason your father was so strict with Andrea was that she would sneak off to meet a lot of different boys.”
“That’s not true.”
“He’s going to make it seem as if it was true.”
“Yes, she had a crush on Rob Westerfield, but at the end she was afraid of him, too.” It was something I hadn’t expected to say, but when I did, I realized it was true. “And I was afraid for her,” I whispered. “He was so angry at her because of Paulie.”
“Ellie, I was in your house. I was there when you testified in court. You never said that you or Andrea were afraid of Rob Westerfield.”
Was she implying that I might be creating a dishonest memory to justify my childhood testimony? But then she added, “Ellie, be careful. That writer suggested to me that you were an emotionally unstable child. It’s something he’s going to imply in his book.”
So that’s the tack he’s going to take, I thought: Andrea was a tramp, I was emotionally unstable, and Paulie Stroebel is a killer. If I hadn’t been sure of it before, I knew now that I had my job cut out for me.
“Rob Westerfield may get out of prison, Mrs. Hilmer,” I said, and then I added firmly, “but by the time I finish investigating and writing about every dirty detail of his rotten life, no one will want to walk down the block with him, day or night. And if he gets a second trial, no jury will acquit him.”
14
On Monday morning at ten o’clock I had my meeting in Albany with Martin Brand, who was on the staff of the parole board. He was a tired-looking man of about sixty, with pouches under his eyes and a thick head of gray hair that was overdue for attention from his barber. He had opened the top button of his shirt and pulled the knot of his tie down a few inches. His florid complexion suggested a problem with high blood pressure.
There was no doubt that he had heard many versions of my protest a thousand times over the years.
“Ms. Cavanaugh, Westerfield has been turned down for parole twice. This time it’s my guess the decision will be to let him out.”
“He’s a recidivist.”
“You can’t be sure of that.”
“You can’t be sure that he’s not.”
“He was offered parole two years ago if he’d admit to killing your sister, accept responsibility for the crime, and express remorse. He didn’t take the offer.”
“Oh, come on, Mr. Brand. He had too much to lose by being truthful. He knew you couldn’t hold him much longer.”
He shrugged. “I forgot that you’re an investigative reporter.”
“I’m also the sister of the fifteen-year-old girl who didn’t get a chance to have a sweet-sixteen party.”
The world-weary expression left his eyes for a moment. “Ms. Cavanaugh, I have little doubt that Rob Westerfield is guilty, but I think you have to resign yourself to the fact that he’s served his time and that, after a couple of incidents during the first years, he’s behaved himself.”
I would love to have known what those couple of incidents were, but I was sure Martin Brand was not going to share them with me.
“Something else,” he went on. “Even if he is guilty, it was a crime of passion directed at your sister, and the odds of him repeating this kind of crime are almost nil. We have the statistics. Incidents of recidivism decline after age thirty and almost vanish after age forty.”
“And there are people who are born without a conscience and once they are uncaged become walking time bombs.”
I pushed the chair back and got up. Brand stood up, too. “Ms. Cavanaugh, here’s a piece of unwelcome advice. I get the feeling you’ve lived with the memory of your sister’s brutal murder all your life. But you can’t bring her back, and you can’t keep Rob Westerfield in prison any longer. And if he goes for a new trial and is acquitted, that’s the way it is. You’re a young woman. Go home to Atlanta and try to put this tragedy behind you.”
“That’s good advice, Mr. Brand, and I’ll probably take it someday,” I said. “But not now.”
15
Three years ago, after I’d written a series of articles about Jason Lambert, a serial killer in Atlanta, I received a call from Maggie Reynolds, a New York book editor I’d met on a crime panel. She offered me a contract to convert the articles into a book.
Lambert was a Ted Bundy–type killer. He’d hang around campuses, passing himself off as a student, and then trick young women into getting into his car. Like Bundy’s victims, those girls simply disappeared. Fortunately, he hadn’t had time to dispose of his last victim when he was captured. He’s in prison in Georgia now with 149 years left to serve on his sentence and no chance of parole.
The book did surprisingly well, even clinging for a few weeks to the bottom of The New York Times bestseller list. I called Maggie after I left Brand’s office. After describing the case and the investigative track I intended to pursue, she readily agreed to give me a contract for a book about Andrea’s murder, a book that I promised her would conclusively prove Rob Westerfield’s guilt.
“There’s a lot of hype about the one Jake Bern is writing,” Maggie told me. “I’d like to go toe-to-toe on it with a book from you. Bern broke his contract with us after we spent a fortune on publicity on his last book, trying to build him up.”
I figured the project would take about three months of intensive research and writing, and then if Rob Westerfield succeeded in getting a new trial, several months beyond that. The Inn would be too confining and too expensive to stay in over the long haul, so I asked Mrs. Hilmer if she knew of any rental apartments in the area. She waved my suggestion away, insisting that I stay in the guest apartment over her garage.
“I put it in a few years ago in case I ever felt I needed someone around all the time,” she explained. “Ellie, it’s comfortable, it’s quiet, and I’ll be a good neighbor, not a nuisance who runs in and out.”
“You were always a good neighbor.” It was a great solution, and perhaps the only drawback was that it meant driving past our old house on a regular basis. I assumed that eventually repetition would dull the instant flash of pain that hit me now as I passed that acre of property.
“God’s Little Acre.” Mother had laughingly called it that. She was thrilled to have so much property and was determined to cultivate a garden that would be one of the highlights on the Oldham Garden Club spring tour.
I checked out of the Inn, moved into Mrs. Hilmer’s guest apartment, and on Wednesday flew back to Atlanta, arriving in the office at quarter of six in the evening. I knew there was no chance that Pete would have gone home. He was married to the job.
He looked up, saw me, grinned briefly, and said, “Let’s talk over a plate of spaghetti.”
“What about those ten pounds you’re trying to lose?”
“I’ve decided not to think about them for the next couple of hours.”
Pete has an intensity about him that sends electric jolts into the people around him. He went with the News, a privately owned daily, right out of graduate school, and within two years he was managing editor. By the time he was twenty-eight he was wearing two hats, editor in chief and publisher, and the “dying Daily,” as it had been labeled, suddenly had a new lease on life.
Hiring an investigative crime reporter was one of his ideas to rev up circulation, and getting the job six years ago was a stroke of luck for me. I had just been taken on as a cub reporter. When the guy Pete wanted for the position backed out at the last minute, I was told to fill in, but only until a permanent replacement was found. Then one day, without comment, Pete stopped looking for that replacement. I had the job.
Napoli’s is truly the kind of neighborhood restaurant you find all over Italy. Pete ordered a bottle of Chianti and grabbed a chunk of the warm bread that had been deposited on our table. My thoughts went back to the semester I had spent in Rome during my college years. It was one of the few genuinely happy periods of my adult life.
My mother was trying to get on the wagon and was doing reasonably well. She visited me there during my spring break, and we had a wonderful time together. We explored Rome and spent a week in Florence and the hill towns of Tuscany. We capped that off with a visit to Venice. Mother was such a pretty woman, and on that trip, when she was smiling, she looked like her old self. By unspoken agreement the names of Andrea and my father never crossed our lips.
I’m glad I have that memory of her.
The wine came, was approved by Pete, and uncorked. I took a sip of it and plunged into what I had to say. “I’ve been doing a lot of homework. The whitewash job on Westerfield has every possibility of succeeding. Jake Bern is a good writer. He’s already done an article on the case that will be coming out next month in Vanity Fair.”
Pete reached for another piece of warm bread. “What can you do about it?”
“I am writing a book that will come out in the spring, the same week Bern’s is published.” I told him about my call to Maggie Reynolds. Pete had met her at the book party she threw for me in Atlanta. “Maggie is doing it, and she’ll put me on the fast track for publication. But in the meantime I’ve got to counteract Bern’s articles and the Westerfield family’s press releases.”
Pete waited. That was another thing about him—he didn’t rush to reassure. And he didn’t fill in dead spots in the conversation.
“Pete, I’m fully aware that a series of articles about a crime committed twenty-two years ago in Westchester County, New York, might not be of great interest to a readership in Georgia, and anyhow, I don’t think it’s the right place to publish them. The Westerfield family is identified with New York.”
“Agreed. So what do you propose to do?”
“Take a leave of absence if you can give it to me. Or if that isn’t feasible, quit, write the book, and take my chances after it’s finished.”
The waiter came to the table. We both ordered cannelloni and a green salad. Pete hemmed and hawed for a minute, but then decided on Gorgonzola dressing.
“Ellie, I’ll hold your job open for you as long as it’s in my power to do it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I may not be around much longer myself. I’ve had a couple of interesting offers that I’m considering.”
I was shocked. “But the News is your baby.”
“We’re getting too big for the competition. There’s real talk of our being bought out for big bucks. The family is interested. This generation doesn’t give a damn about the paper; it’s only about the revenue.”
“Where are you thinking of going?”
“The L. A. Times is probably going to make an offer. The other possibility is Houston.”
“Which would you prefer?”
“Until there’s an offer on the plate, I’m not wasting my time making choices that may not exist.”
Pete didn’t wait for me to comment before he went on.
“Ellie, I’ve been doing a little research of my own on your case. The Westerfields are getting good at criminal defense strategy. They have an impressive team of lawyers just waiting to get a chance to earn a fortune. They have that Nebels guy, and, weasel that he is, some people are going to believe his story. Do what you have to, but please, if Westerfield goes to trial and gets acquitted, swear to yourself that you’ll walk away from it.”
He looked directly at me. “Ellie, I can tell that you’re thinking, ‘Not a chance.’ I wish I could make you understand that no matter what books you and Bern write, some people are going to go to their graves believing that Westerfield got a bum deal, while others will still be convinced that he’s guilty.”
Pete meant his advice kindly, but that night as I packed the things I needed for an extended stay in Oldham, I realized that even he had the feeling that, guilty or innocent, Rob Westerfield had served his time, that people would think whatever they wanted about the merits of the case, and that it was time for me to drop it.
