Dead Wood - By Dani Amore Page 0,6
killed. But it wasn’t a robbery. Someone wanted her dead.”
Oh, boy, I thought.
“Is that what the police think?” I said.
He shook his head. “It’s what I know.”
“You want me to find out who killed her?” I said.
“Nope,” he said. “I already know who did it.”
My face was again an open question.
“I just want you to help me prove it.”
Five
“His name is Nevada Hornsby,” Clarence Barre said. He spoke slowly and softly. Enunciating carefully. Not out of respect, but because his emotions were running so strong it took every effort not to insert an expletive.
I had a million questions: did the police know? If not, why wasn’t he talking to them? How did he know Hornsby killed her?
As much as I wanted to ask, I decided to wait Mr. Barre out. He’d just lost his daughter. I thought he deserved a chance to explain himself.
“I told Jesse time and time again not to get involved with him,” he said. “She wouldn’t listen. In fact, she told me to back off. So I did. And look where it got us.”
He paused again.
Just when I was about to start the questions, he said, “The cops don’t think he did it. They say he has an alibi. Well, of course he does! Who the fuck couldn’t come up with an alibi? Only the stupidest of criminals can’t come up with a friggin’ alibi for God’s sake. So they’re believing his bullshit, but see, they don’t know him. I do.”
His voice had grown in intensity. And this was a man who had used his voice to great effect for many years. It didn’t fail him now.
“Okay,” I said.
He fixed his eyes on me, willing me to understand. I leaned in toward him, hoping to give him the nudge he needed to tell me just what the hell he was getting at.
“He’s an ex-con.”
“Okay,” I said. I got out a notepad and pen.
“Do you know what he was in for?” I asked.
“I’m sure it was something bad. Assault. I remember Jesse saying something about a fight. She claimed he hadn’t started it. Christ, he had her hook, line and sinker.”
“Do you have a reason to doubt his alibi?”
“I met him,” he said.
I wrote the word ‘NO’ down on my notepad and underlined it.
“I know all about men like that. They don’t value life. Prison teaches them to look at everything differently. Jesse didn’t realize that. She was overly sympathetic. That’s how I would put it. Wanting to prove that she respected people for who they are, not who they’ve been.”
He ran a hand through the thick white hair. It reminded me of Kenny Roger’s hair. I wrote down ‘Kenny Rogers’ on my notepad. Goofy, I know, but it was amazing sometimes the things that jogged the memory. Who knew, maybe a year from now I’d be looking at my notes on the Barre case, see the Kenny Rogers reference and have some brilliant flash of insight.
I looked at Clarence Barre. Goddamn, I found myself liking him. He had a great face, wide open and honest. I could sense the goodness in him. The pain of losing a loved one.
But I wasn’t going to take a case just because a father was having difficulty dealing with the loss of a child. He probably hated this Hornsby guy and made him into a convenient target for his anger and loss. If the police had checked out the alibi and crossed him off the list, he was probably innocent.
I wasn’t going to take the case. No way. To take Mr. Barre’s money would be another crime.
He must have seen the look on my face because he said, “I know how this must look. A guy just pointing a finger and saying ‘he did it.’”
That’s exactly how it looked to me.
“How long had your daughter and this Hornsby been seeing each other?” I said.
“Way too long.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Years.”
“Had there been any sign of physical abuse? Any problems? Fights?”
“No, but Jesse and I hadn’t seen each other on a regular basis,” he said. And now I could hear even more, deeper pain in his voice. The loss of a loved one you’d fallen out with over petty differences. No getting them back now.
“But as far as you knew…”
“She didn’t say anything and no, I never saw any bruises or anything on her. But Jesse was very private. Believe me, if she’d wanted to hide something, it would stay hidden until she wanted you to find it.”
“Did the police say