Chapter 26
CHAPTER 26
“I JUST GOT A CALL FROM M ARCUS M ARSHALL, ” Everett said when Hanna answered the phone.
“Sorry, Everett, I didn’t tell him.”
“It was only a matter of time before he dug it up. You do know that more inquires will come from this? What have you decided?”
“I’m going to say yes. Mandy wants the chance to talk to Joe, and well, I don’t think I could live with myself if I said no. I have a meeting with parole on Wednesday.”
The line went quiet.
“Are you still there?” Hanna asked.
“I am. I hope you know what you’re doing. I remember vividly the turmoil this town went through over three decades ago. The stress of that time probably killed my father.”
Hanna didn’t remember exactly when Big Al passed away. She did remember her mother being sad about it.
I hope I know what I’m doing as well. “He’s a sick, dying old man.”
“Yeah. Do you have an arrival date?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know as soon as I do.” She paused briefly and then took advantage of the fact that he was still on the line. “Everett, we still need to talk to Chase about Scott.”
Everett said nothing, but she could hear him breathing.
“You can’t think he had anything to do with that.” It was a clipped, staccato sentence. He almost punctuated every word with a pause.
“It doesn’t matter what I think, Everett. We need a formal statement.”
“You searched my house and his room, took Scott’s laptop and phone, and interviewed me. I doubt Chase can add anything else. I’m tired of all the intrusions.”
“The sooner he talks to us, the sooner we’ll be out of your hair.”
“I’ll talk to him and get back to you.” The line went dead.
It was the first time Hanna could ever remember Everett being angry. In general, he was easygoing, pleasant. He was not a hard-charging type A personality. Scott was, but not Everett. Hanna chalked it up to grief and loss.
She tried to rub away the tension in her neck. Right now, the advice to keep your world small was perfect. Hanna concentrated on Joe and what it would look like to have him in her home.
Tuesday rolled by in a cloud of administrative duties. Hanna found it hard to concentrate on anything. By Wednesday morning, anticipation for the visit from parole had her imagination running in overdrive. Though she’d made her decision, worst-case scenarios flooded her thoughts. What if Joe was a disgusting old con, vicious and mean? What if he was unrepentant? What could she expect from a man nearing his sixties who’d spent more of his life in jail than he had free?
On top of everything, she was getting attached to Gizmo as well. Something about the dog calmed her, gave her peace. They walked in the warm, dry morning, just before the sun rose. Then she’d feed him, and he’d curl up somewhere. When she was on the couch, he’d curl up in her lap. There was something so settling in petting a sleeping dog. Hanna would have to find a way to make it work because there was no way she could give the dog to Mandy.
Nathan offered to try and take time off to be with her when parole got here, but she wanted to handle it on her own, and she didn’t want to take him away from Edda’s investigation. Besides that, she wasn’t certain Nathan really understood the situation with Joe. At least not the way Jared or Mandy would.
She walked into her guest room with Gizmo on her heels. So far, the only people who had used it were a visiting missionary couple. The people Hanna bought the house from had been older, and the husband was confined to a wheelchair. The guest room had an en suite bath with a shower made to accommodate a wheelchair. With everything that had been happening in her life, Hanna hadn’t really thought about the nuts and bolts of everything, but that was probably a perfect situation for Joe.
She leaned against the doorframe, considering the bedroom, and became more convinced that she was doing the right thing. God had provided her this house long before she ever knew she’d be hosting an invalid.
There was a knock on the front door. Parole was early.
Hanna went to the door only to discover that it wasn’t parole; it was Marcus Marshall with a film crew.
“What do you want, Marcus?” Hanna asked, keeping the screen door closed.
“I want an interview. I want you to justify why you’re bringing a monster back to our town.”
“I don’t have to justify anything to you. I’m agreeing to a request made by the California Department of Corrections. They’ve assured me that Joe is no longer a threat.”
“He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. This flies in the face of that sentence.”
“It’s a compassionate release, Marcus. And I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve nothing more to say. I’ll have to ask you all to leave.”
“You’re the chief; we elected you. I’ll remind you that you got my vote. You owe us an explanation.”
“Having Joe come here has nothing to do with my official duties. Technically, you all are trespassing. I’m asking nicely that you leave.”
Hanna looked over Marcus’s shoulder as two more cars pulled up in front of her house. One was a state vehicle; the other was a plain sedan. She tensed. Was Marcus going to make this a circus? She recognized Tom Nelson and PO Giles as they got out of the state vehicle.
“Is this the parole officer?” Marcus turned to follow her gaze. He didn’t wait for an answer but strode away from Hanna’s porch toward PO Giles. While he fielded their questions, Nelson dodged around the crowd and stepped up to her door.
“Hello, Hanna.”
She thought about Tom’s story. Before her time as an officer, Tom had been a problem for police. A member of a local motorcycle gang, Tom was tatted up and used to like to get drunk and start fights. One day he started a fight in a bar. Other bikers joined in the brawl, and a man was stabbed to death. Tom was not charged with the killing, but according to his testimony, it changed his life.
Feeling responsible, he went to the man’s family and begged for forgiveness. He expected to be beat up, spit at, anything, but he was completely forgiven. The family was professing Christians, and they took Tom to their church. He came to faith and completely turned his life around.
Today he was the local prison chaplain. He lived in Sonora and went to a different church than Hanna did, but she’d met him in various places and even listened to a couple of messages he gave about ministering to those behind bars. He believed anyone could change. God could redeem any soul, no matter how heinous the crime. Hanna believed that as well. At least she thought she did—until it came to Joe.
“Hi, Tom. You’re going to help Joe settle in?”
“Yes. I’ve often chatted with your father. I—”
“I don’t consider him my father. You can call him Joe. You talk to him? How is this the first I’ve heard of it?”
“My conversations and my relationships with inmates are private and guarded. I only mention it now because I’ve asked him if it was okay to tell you and he said yes.”
Hanna considered this. “You’ve been thinking about his release for a long time now.”
“I have. People change. Joe made mistakes and he admits to them. He is not a bad man, not now. I think he deserves some grace.”
“Hmmm.” Hanna’s attention shifted back to Marshall and Giles because Marshall’s voice had risen. “Should I try to stop that?” she asked Tom.
He shook his head. “Giles can take care of himself.”
He was correct. In another minute, Giles and the woman with him were headed their way and the TV crew was leaving.
“Hello again, Chief Keyes.” Giles approached.
“Hello. You can call me Hanna.”
“Call me Gordon.” They shook hands. He nodded to the woman. “This is Grace, part of the hospice team.”
Hanna shook Grace’s hand. “Why don’t you all come inside?”
Even as she stood aside so they could enter, turmoil gripped her. She arrested people like her father, glad to get them off the streets. Was Marcus right? Was she making a bad decision?
She cast one last glance at Marshall and the TV crew and then led the three people inside.