put Otis away? And why, in all this time here when you were complaining that Otis set you up, did you never mention that he’d killed Missy Ryan?”
Earl sniffed again and glanced toward the wall.
“No one would have believed me,” he finally answered.
I wonder why.
In the car, Charlie ran through the information again.
Sims was telling the truth about hearing what he’d heard. But Sims was a known alcoholic and was boozing that night.
He’d heard the words, but had he heard the tone?
Was Otis joking? Or serious?
Or lying?
And what had the Timsons talked about with Earl for the next thirty minutes?
Earl hadn’t really cleared any of that up. It was obvious he didn’t even remember the conversation until Charlie brought it up, and his account pretty much fell apart after that. He’d believed they would kill him, but he’d stayed for a few beers afterward. He’d been terrified for months, but not enough to scrounge up the money he owed, even though he stole cars and could have gotten the money. He’d said nothing when he’d been arrested. He blamed Otis for setting him up and blabbed to people in the prison about it, but he didn’t mention the fact that Otis had confessed to killing someone. He’d lost an eye and still had said nothing. The reward had meant nothing to him.
A boozing alcoholic, providing information to get off free. A convict with a grudge, suddenly remembering critical information, but with serious holes and flaws in the story.
Any defense lawyer worth his salt would have a field day with both Sims Addison and Earl Getlin. And Thurman Jones was good. Real good.
Charlie hadn’t stopped frowning since he’d been in the car.
He didn’t like it.
Not at all.
But the fact was that Otis had indeed said “the same thing is gonna happen to you that happened to Missy Ryan.” Two people had heard him, and that counted for something. Enough to hold him, maybe. At least for the time being.
But was it enough for a case?
And, most important, did any of it actually prove that Otis did it?
Chapter 23
I couldn’t escape that image of Missy Ryan, her eyes focused on nothing, and because of that, I became someone I’d never known before.
Six weeks after her death, I parked the car about half a mile away from my final destination, in the parking lot of a gas station. I made the rest of the way on foot.
It was late, a little past nine, and it was a Thursday. The September sun had set only half an hour earlier, and I knew enough to keep out of sight. I was wearing black and kept to the side of the road, going so far as to cower behind some bushes when I saw headlights closing in on me.
Despite my belt, I had to keep grabbing for my trousers, which kept slipping over my hips. I had begun doing that so frequently, I had stopped noticing, but on that evening, with branches and twigs pulling at them, I realized how much weight I had lost. Since the accident, I’d lost my appetite; even the idea of eating seemed to repulse me.
My hair, too, had begun to fall out. Not in clumps, but in strands, as if decaying slowly but steadily, like termites ravaging a home. There would be strands on my pillow when I woke, and when I brushed my hair, I would have to use my fingers to clear the bristles before I finished or the brush would slide without catching. I would flush the hair down the toilet, watching it swirl downward, and once it was gone, I would flush again for no other reason than to postpone the reality of my life.
That night, as I was climbing through a hole in the fence, I cut my palm on a jagged nail. It hurt and it bled, but instead of turning around, I simply squeezed my hand into a fist and felt the blood seeping between my fingers, thick and sticky. I did not care about the pain that night, just as I do not care about the scar today.
I had to go. In the last week, I had gone to the site of Missy’s accident and had also visited Missy’s grave. At the grave, I remember, the headstone had been placed and there were still remnants of fresh earth, where the grass had yet to grow, almost like a small hole. It bothered me for a reason I couldn’t quite explain, and that