Unintended Consequences - By Marti Green Page 0,28
to Tommy. “Did you speak to the police in LaGrange?”
“Yeah. I got one of the detectives originally on the case, back in ’90.”
“And?”
“And nothing. The evidence kit was pretty bare. There wasn’t anything in it that contained DNA.”
That surprised Dani. Despite the relative newness of DNA as an evidentiary tool at the time, she thought something would have been retained—a strand of hair, fingernail scrapings, a blood sample. “How’d it go with Cannon?”
“With my usual charm, I convinced Cannon to take me on a visit to the parents,” Tommy said. “I hoped they might have kept something of their daughter’s. You know, like maybe they still had her hairbrush. No luck. They cleaned everything out and turned her room into an office.”
“Did you get to talk to the parents?”
Tommy nodded and took a bite of his bagel. “The dad insisted it wasn’t Stacy. Maybe too insistent. Or maybe I’m just reading something from nothing.”
With anyone else, it would be easy to dismiss Tommy’s musing. But years of working undercover for the FBI had honed his already-sharp instincts to razor-blade precision. If Tommy had questions about Mickey Conklin, Dani took it seriously. Whether they pursued that strand would depend on the outcome of their meeting with George.
As an appellate attorney, Dani had appeared in courthouses throughout the country but rarely ventured inside a maximum-security prison. Indiana State Prison, built during the Civil War to sequester prisoners of war, was considered one of the most dangerous prisons in the country. It had the appearance of a massive fortress, with imposing walls and multiple checkpoints. At the first checkpoint, Dani, Melanie and Tommy were frisked and their bags hand-checked before they were allowed to move to the next gate. One gate closed behind them before the next opened, and they passed through five gates before they were led to a small interview room. After a short wait, a guard brought in George Calhoun, his hands shackled behind him.
He looked different from what Dani had expected. She imagined George would resemble his wife: slightly built, with brown mousy hair and deeply recessed eyes. Instead, he was short but burly, with a muscled chest and forearms. His hair, a sandy brown color, had probably been blond as a child. Unlike his wife with her receding posture, George seemed like a bull waiting to be released into the arena.
Dani didn’t need to proceed slowly with him. She could see he wanted to tell his story. As soon as introductions were finished, Dani began with the question that had been unanswered for nineteen years. “George, tell me what happened to Angelina.”
He tapped his foot on the floor. He didn’t speak for a long time, and when he did he asked Dani, “Do you have any children?”
“I do. I have a son.”
“Is there anything you wouldn’t do for him?”
“I wouldn’t kill for him,” she answered quickly.
George nodded his head slowly. “That’s fair.” He leaned forward on the table. All motion had stopped. “There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for Angelina.” The words spit off his tongue like an accusation seeking its target.
Dani asked again. “What happened to your daughter?”
George sat up straight, his shoulders pulled back. “We did what we had to do. To help our little girl. So she’d have a chance.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I expect most people wouldn’t.”
For a moment, Dani feared that they’d leave the prison as confused as Sallie had left them. If that happened, her decision would be clear: HIPP would decline to take his case. “George, please, I want to understand. I want to try and help you. The only way I can is if you tell me about Angelina.”
George slumped in his chair, the belligerence sucked out of him like the air from a punctured tire. When he started to speak, in a voice soft but with firm resolve, he said, “We wanted a baby so bad. We tried and tried for so long.”
“And then Angelina was born?”
“Yes, ma’am. But not before we’d been married a real long time. Sallie and me, we were just out of high school when we married. It wasn’t like we had to, like some of our friends. We were just madly in love with each other. College wasn’t something we’d planned on, so it just seemed to make sense to tie the knot. I mean, why wait? I’d been working on cars since I could hold a wrench in my hands. Every garage in town offered me a job. Sallie never was much of a student.