Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,18

worked. A mother should be home with her baby. If I’d been home with Angelina, I could of taken care of her. It’s his fault. He made me go to work.”

“Do you mean George?” Dani asked. She was just trying to make conversation now.

Sallie nodded.

Dani understood her conflict. Doug had pushed her to go back to work when Jonah was 7. “Did George do something to Angelina while you were at work? Did he abuse her?”

Sallie shook her head. At the risk of the guard’s barging into the room and pulling them apart, Dani took Sallie’s hands in hers. Physical contact was frowned on, but this woman seated across from her seemed to be in desperate need of someone to care about her.

“I know how hard it is for you to talk about Angelina, but it’s very important for us to know what happened. Can you tell me? Can you tell us what happened to Angelina?”

“She’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer Dani had hoped to find, the reason she had taken on the case, seemed just as elusive now as it had yesterday in New York. If the dead child found in the Indiana woods was not George and Sallie’s daughter, what had happened to her? “You testified at George’s trial that he beat Angelina, that he killed her and disposed of her body. Is that what happened?”

For the first time, Sallie displayed agitation. “Didn’t I say what I was supposed to say? Didn’t I do it right? Am I going to be hanged, too?” she asked with a plaintive wail.

Dani squeezed Sallie’s hand. “No one’s going to hurt you. Did someone tell you to say those things? It’s okay to talk about it.”

Sallie buried her face in her hands and her body heaved with deep sobs. It took only a few minutes for her cries to subside, but it felt much longer.

When she calmed down, Dani asked again. “Please, Sallie, tell me what happened.”

“George made me do it.”

“Made you do what, Sallie?”

Sallie didn’t answer. She wrapped her arms around her body and began swaying back and forth.

“Did George make you hurt Angelina?”

A nod.

“How, Sallie? How did you hurt her?”

“I didn’t stop him.”

“Stop him from doing what? What did you watch George do?”

Sallie continued swaying. Her lips were clenched shut, as if she were fighting to keep the words locked inside her.

Dani put her hand on Sallie’s arm, a gesture she hoped would comfort Sallie. “Did George kill your daughter?” she asked quietly.

Sallie stopped her swaying and stared into space. Then, as she slowly rose from her chair, she said, “We both killed our daughter. That’s what happened. We killed our daughter.” She turned and walked to the door that led to the prison cells and knocked. One last time she turned to face Dani. Her eyes were dry and her mouth set. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Do you understand? I can’t talk about it. George is in hell, and I’m in hell, and we both belong there.”

With that, the guard opened the door and Sallie, their best hope, walked away.

CHAPTER

6

The Holiday Inn was like every other Holiday Inn Dani had stayed in: clean and simple. No luxury towels or perfumed bath soaps or terry-cloth bathrobe in the closet. Before Jonah had arrived, she and Doug stayed in hotels with all the extra touches. Travel was their reward for hard work fifty weeks of the year. Those days were gone. Now, on the rare occasions when they traveled, they headed to kid-friendly destinations: Disney World, Lake George, in upstate New York, or Montauk Point, at the tip of Long Island. They’d gone camping a few times with Jonah, as well. But no luxury hotels anymore.

Dani took the elevator to the lobby and headed to the hotel bar. She spotted Tommy and Melanie and slid into a seat at their table. They hadn’t discussed the interview with Sallie since leaving the prison. Dani usually preferred to let an interview rumble around in her head and settle into place before discussing it.

“What are you guys drinking?”

“Apple martini,” Melanie said. Tommy just held up his glass. He always drank scotch and water.

“Any good?” she asked Melanie.

“Decent.”

Dani followed her lead and ordered the same. “So, is she crazy or sane?”

“Calhoun’s lawyer never pushed for a psych evaluation of her,” Melanie said.

“And there’s been no need to do one since. I spoke to the assistant warden. She’s a decent prisoner. Keeps to herself most of the time. She does her work,