“Fine, as far as I can tell. She wants you to give her a call, though.”
The deputy nodded at Charlie as he strode past. Once he was near his car, Madge moved a little closer.
“I think there’s a problem,” Madge said quietly.
“With what?”
She motioned over her shoulder. “Thurman Jones is waiting for you inside. So is Harvey Wellman.”
Charlie looked at her, knowing there was more.
“They both want to talk to you,” she said.
“And?”
Again she looked around, making sure they were alone. “They’re here together, Charlie. They want to talk to you together.”
Charlie simply stared at her, trying to anticipate what she was going to say, knowing he wouldn’t like it. Prosecutors and defense attorneys got together only under the most dire circumstances.
“It’s about Miles,” she said. “I think he might have done something out there. Something that he shouldn’t have.”
Thurman Jones was fifty-three, of average height and weight, with wavy brown hair that always looked windblown. He wore navy suits, dark knit ties, and black running shoes while in court, which gave him a sort of country bumpkin appearance. When in court, he spoke slowly and clearly and never lost his cool, and that combination, along with his appearance, played extremely well to a jury. Why he represented the likes of Otis Timson and his family was beyond Charlie, but he did and he had for years.
Harvey Wellman, on the other hand, dressed in tailored suits and Cole-Haan shoes and always looked as if he were heading off to a wedding. At thirty, he had begun to go gray at the temples; now, at forty, his hair was nearly silver, giving him a distinguished appearance. In another life, he could have been a news anchor. Or maybe a funeral director.
Neither one of them looked happy as they waited outside Charlie’s office.
“You two wanted to see me?” Charlie asked.
They both stood.
“It’s important, Charlie,” Harvey answered.
Charlie led them into the office and closed the door. He motioned to a couple of seats, but neither of them accepted. Charlie moved behind his desk, putting a little space between him and the visitors.
“So what can I do for you?”
“We’ve got a problem, Charlie,” Harvey said simply. “It concerns the arrest this morning. I tried to talk to you earlier, but you were already out.”
“Sorry about that. I had to take care of some business out of town. What’s this problem you’re referring to?”
Harvey Wellman met Charlie’s gaze directly. “It seems that Miles Ryan went a little too far.”
“Oh?”
“We’ve got witnesses. A lot of witnesses. And they’re all saying the same thing.”
Charlie said nothing, and Harvey cleared his throat before going on. Thurman Jones stood off to the side, his expression blank. Charlie knew he was taking in every word.
“He put his gun to Otis Timson’s head.”
Later, in the living room, Miles was nursing a beer and absently peeling the label as he told Sarah everything that had happened. Like his own feelings, the story came out jumbled at times. He jumped from one point in the story to another, then backtracked, repeating himself more than once. Sarah never interrupted, never looked away, and though there were moments in which he was unclear, she didn’t press him to clarify for the simple reason that she wasn’t sure he could.
Unlike with Charlie, however, Miles went further.
“You know, for the past two years, I’ve wondered what would happen when I came face-to-face with the guy who did it. And when I found out it was Otis...I don’t know.. .” He paused. “I wanted to pull the trigger. I wanted to kill him.”
Sarah shifted, not knowing what to say. It was understandable, at least on some level, but...a little frightening, too.
“But you didn’t,” she finally said.
Miles didn’t notice the tentativeness of her answer. His mind was back there, with Otis.
“So now what happens?” she asked.
His hand went to the back of his neck and he squeezed. Despite how emotionally caught up he was in this, the logical side of him knew they’d need more than they had now. “There’s got to be an investigation—witnesses to interview, places to check out. It’s a lot of work, and it’s harder now that time has passed. I’m gonna be busy for I don’t know how long. Lot of late nights, lot of weekends. It’s back to where it was a couple of years ago.”