community that had been living in terror for half a year in jeopardy again? Would you accuse a member of law enforcement of tampering with the evidence under these circumstances? Or would you just let it go—put Felton away and become a hero?
“You know the prosecutor just puts on a case. Of course, she’s supposed to do it ethically, but it’s up to the defense to challenge the evidence. The public defender was probably clueless—just going through the motions.”
“I still can’t believe this.”
“Let’s look at it the only other way you can look at it. There had been eight murders before these last two, and the police never found a trace of evidence. That excludes, of course, the evidence they obtained from Stacey, the girl who temporarily got away. Then all of a sudden this mastermind killer drops a bowie knife with his fingerprints on it outside the scene of a double homicide where he used another type of weapon to do his killing. Does that make any sense whatsoever to you?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
Jack, who was already standing and walking around the living room as if it were a courtroom and he was pleading his case, went to the kitchen and pulled two beers out of the refrigerator, opened them, handed one to Henry, and waited. He could tell Henry was going over all of it in his head again, challenging every premise, filtering it through the mind of a criminal, until he arrived at the place Jack expected him to get to.
“So I assume you have a person in mind who did all this?” Henry asked.
“I do.”
“And who might that be?”
“Sam Jeffries.”
“The chief of police?”
“That’s the one.”
“I can’t wait to hear your rationale for this one, Jack.”
“It’s very simple. Sam Jeffries was the head of the task force back then. His wife had been murdered by the serial killer two weeks before this double murder. The man could not have been in his right mind. He knew about the bowie knife. He knew Felton was a suspect: Danni had tried to get a search warrant for Felton’s apartment. And let me show you something.”
Jack went in his bedroom and returned with a tape and popped it in the VCR. He and Henry watched a recording of Tom Felton’s arrest. It started out fine with Sam reading Felton his rights. Then it got ugly: Felton nodded, telling Sam he understood his rights, and Sam told him he had to respond verbally. Then came the part Jack wanted Henry to see.
“I understand what you said to me but I’m innocent,” Felton replied to Sam’s prompting. “I didn’t kill anybody. You’ve got the wrong man.”
“We’ll see about that, dickhead,” Sam answered. “You’re going down. And don’t be fooled: that cocktail they give you up in Raiford—it may be quick but it’s awful painful. They just paralyze you so nobody can tell.”
“Wow!” Henry said when Jack turned off the VCR. “I see what you mean. That was one angry man there. So what are you gonna do with all of this, Jack? Most of it is supposition.”
“I don’t think I have to do anything but prove that the weapon found with Felton’s fingerprints on it was not the murder weapon. At that point the court is going to have to set Felton free.”
“So what was all that other stuff about?”
“I had to convince myself that this is how it went down.”
“Why did you go over it with me?”
“Because if there were holes in my theory, you would see them.”
“Let me say this: I don’t know if your theory is totally accurate but you have convinced me that the bowie knife was a plant, and it certainly wasn’t the murder weapon. So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. After all this, I still don’t know that Felton is innocent. I know that he was framed. I just don’t know that he’s innocent.”
“What happened when you went to see him?”
“He proclaimed his innocence. He seemed honest and straightforward. He looked me right in the eye. I didn’t detect any fidgeting, eye blinking, nothing. Of course, psychopaths don’t display the symptoms that normal liars do.”
“Well, if you don’t represent him, nobody is going to. And all this stuff that you just brought to my attention is going to die with him.”
“I know, Henry. I don’t think I can let that happen.”
“There’s something else that you need to at least consider. Actually, it’s someone else.”