the office. “Did Bruce fill you in on the Calhoun case?” she asked as Tommy settled his large frame into a chair.
“Nope. Just said you had something for me.”
Dani told Tommy what she knew about the case. “We’re going to have to move fast on this one. Probably early next week we’ll fly out to meet him and then stay on to do interviews. In the meantime, I’d like you to start pulling old news reports about the case. Do you have any buddies that landed in Indiana?”
As a former FBI agent, Tommy knew other retired Fibbies all over the country. After leaving the government, many took private jobs that kept them in contact with local authorities, and they were a valuable source of information. “I can’t think of anyone offhand, but I’ll check around.”
After he left, Dani turned back to the information on her screen. One of the callers in response to the television show told police that the four-year-old daughter of her neighbors, George and Sallie Calhoun, had mysteriously disappeared two years earlier. Sylvia Grant had occasionally baby-sat Angelina Calhoun. Although George worked days at a local garage and Sallie nights at a diner, whenever an extra shift became available, Sallie took it. On those days, Sylvia watched their little girl. One day, after Sylvia had stopped seeing Angelina play in front of her small bungalow-style house, she asked Sallie where she was.
“She’s gone,” Sallie had said.
“Gone where?” Sylvia asked.
“Just gone.”
Sallie never explained what had happened. When Sylvia asked if Angelina had died, Sallie turned and walked away. Sylvia never saw the little girl again. “It just seemed strange to me,” she’d told the program director. “And you know, it was about the same time as that little girl’s body was found. I suppose it’s nothing, but I thought you should know about it.”
All the leads were passed on to the FBI. The body had been found in Indiana and the caller lived in Sharpsburg, Pennsylvania, just outside Pittsburgh, so her tip didn’t receive priority treatment. Several months later, they got around to questioning her. Sylvia pointed out the bungalow where George and Sallie still lived, and the feds went next door to question them. They’d arrived at eleven o’clock in the morning; George was at work and Sallie was home alone. The two men told Sallie they were investigating the murder of the young girl found in Indiana two years earlier. When they asked her about her daughter, she looked blankly at them at first and then answered, “That was my baby you found in Indiana. We killed her.”
Those words sent George Calhoun to death row and committed Sallie to life in prison. She pled guilty, but George insisted his wife was crazy and he went to trial. The prosecution offered no forensic evidence to establish that the burned corpse was Angelina Calhoun. After all, there had been no reason to conduct any test to establish parentage: they had a confession from a woman who offered no other explanation for her daughter’s absence. George testified at his trial and denied killing his daughter but refused to answer questions about her whereabouts. He simply stared silently at the floor.
Dani looked away from the computer. Of course the jurors found George guilty. How could they have done otherwise? Yet so many years later, he still insisted the dead child hadn’t been his daughter. If so, what had happened to Angelina? How could a four-year-old child simply vanish? With lethal injection only a few weeks away, Dani wondered if George Calhoun was finally ready to provide the answer.
After delivery of the afternoon mail, a new stack of folders was placed in Dani’s in-box. More letters from inmates were inside, waiting for an attorney’s review. Yes or no. Hope or despair. A chance at freedom or continued incarceration. Their answers lay in her hands. Dani hated this part of the job most, sitting in judgment of a person’s plea for help. She tried to perform the job objectively, devoid of emotion but focused on the facts, only the facts. The facts of Calhoun’s case told her to pass. His wife identified the child as their daughter. Her inquiry should stop right there. Yet it hadn’t. His story had triggered an emotional response and she wanted to learn more.
A knock at Dani’s door broke her concentration. “Am I interrupting?”
Melanie Quinn stood in the doorway. “Nope. C’mon in.”
“Bruce said you have something for me.” Melanie sat down and Dani filled her in on