CHAPTER 49
Gus was sitting in the bedside chair, more put together tonight than he had been when he lay in his bed this morning. Sidney took a quick glance at the prosthetic leg that hung from his right hip and bent at the knee to reach the floor.
She knocked from the doorway. “Sorry. Is it too late?”
Gus waved her in. “I didn’t expect you back today.”
“I promised I’d show you what I had on Julian Crist. And with the day I’ve had,” Sidney said, “I could use another set of eyes.”
Sid pulled a thick file folder from her purse.
It was the same information on Julian Crist that she had given to Livia Cutty weeks ago when the doctor agreed to help with the documentary.
The file felt more sinister now than it had then, when Sidney hoped to find enough evidence hidden in the pages to free Grace Sebold. She placed it on his bedside table.
“That’ll be my middle-of-the-night reading,” Gus said. “Here,” he held out his hand. “I’ve been sitting too long. I’ve gotta walk. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” Sidney said, hurrying to his side and helping him stand.
“Got the cancer bug,” Gus said. “It was me or my leg. For some reason, I chose me. I’m still getting used to this goddamn thing, but you should have seen me a month ago.”
With Sidney holding his hand, Gus took three impressive steps to his walker.
“I know it’s hard to imagine,” he said. “But what you just witnessed is as close to a miracle as I’ve ever seen on this earth. Mind if we take a stroll?”
“No. That’s fine.”
Sidney kept pace next to him as he shuffled down the hallways with the aid of his walker.
“I do better with a single crutch, but I need to learn to rely on this peg leg. And my armpit is so damn sore, I can’t stand the thought of crutches.”
“It looks like you’re doing just fine,” Sidney said.
“I’m out of here in two more weeks. That’s my goal.” Gus lowered his voice. “I can’t take it any longer with these old people in here. And the nurses have had enough of me. It’s time I suck it up and get back to my life.”
They made it to the end of the hallway and turned to conquer the next stretch of linoleum.
“So let’s hear it. You’re back so soon not just to give me the kid’s information. What did you find?”
Sidney shook her head. “I’m starting to worry that I’m going to owe you that shot of whiskey.”
* * *
They made a full loop around the unit. His first, Gus told her, while Sidney explained what she’d learned from Betty Anderson and Livia Cutty. She helped him into bed and watched as he removed his prosthesis.
“It’s starting to feel better with the damn thing on than off,” Gus said. “I feel naked.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Sidney said.
“I suppose so. Pull the table over, I want to take a look at what you brought me.”
Sidney wheeled the table close so that it rested above his bed.
Gus went to work, paging through the file.
In just a few minutes, he was lost in the details.
Sidney let him work, taking a seat in the bedside chair and checking her voice mail.
It was filled with urgent messages from Leslie and Graham.
Then Graham’s final message was disturbingly calm as he explained the deadline for Friday’s episode had been missed and the network was taking steps to announce the eighth installment of The Girl of Sugar Beach would not air as scheduled.
* * *
An hour later, Gus finally spoke.
“Take a look at this,” he said, pointing at a page from the file.
Sidney killed her phone and slipped it into the back pocket of her jeans. She leaned over the bed to see what Gus was pointing at.
“These are photos of the Crist boy’s clothes, taken by the M.E. in St. Lucia.”
Depicted in the photo was Julian’s shirt. It had been stretched out on a staging table for photography. The collar was stained red.
“The blood?” Sidney asked.
“No,” Gus said, pointing to the bottom of the shirt.
Sidney squinted. On the back of the shirt was a dirt mark in a horseshoe pattern. The smudge was faint and cut off by the bottom of the shirt.
“It says the body was in the ocean all night. I bet this stain was diluted by the salt water.”
Sidney remembered her trip to Sugar Beach when she climbed to Soufriere Bluff and stared down at Pitons Bay, where Julian’s body had been discovered by two kayakers on their anniversary.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d made that initial trip to St. Lucia.
So much had happened to her career since she asked the island to tell her its story.
Part of her wished she’d never listened.
“Here.” Gus removed his reading glasses and hovered them over the photo to act as a magnifying glass.
Sidney peered through them at the enlarged image that captured the mark on the back of Julian’s shirt.
“I don’t know,” she said. “What is it? A shoeprint?”
“Half a shoeprint,” Gus said.
He paged through the file until he found the photo of Julian’s shorts.
They were also drawn out across the staging table.
He pointed to an area on the back of the shorts.
The blemish on the seat of the shorts was even fainter than the one on the shirt.
Gus folded the pictures so the bottom of the shirt aligned with the shorts.
The two smudges came together to form a nearly invisible, full shoeprint.
“I’ll be damned,” Sidney said.
“I’d love to know whose foot produced this.”
Sidney leaned closer to get a better look.
“Me too.”
* * *
It was past 10:00 p.m. when Sidney and Gus packed up the Julian Crist file, which they had spread across the table and around the bed.
Gus still had some contacts inside the New York Police Department, and offered to have them take a look at the print on Julian Crist’s shirt and shorts.
His guys, Gus promised, could confirm that it was indeed a shoeprint, and also run an analysis on the make of the shoe if they were able to get details from the tread.
“I don’t want to put you out,” Sidney said.
“Are you kidding me?” Gus said. “I haven’t felt this alive in years. The last couple of hours were the first time I actually forgot that they took my leg. Please,” he said, “let me help.”
Sidney nodded her head. “Thanks. Let me know what you find.”
“I’ll make some calls first thing tomorrow.” Gus packed the last of the Crist file. “What’s this?” he asked, holding up an envelope.
“Oh,” Sidney said, taking her father’s letter from him. Inside were the fingernail clippings he had sent months ago for DNA analysis. Sidney had nearly forgotten about them. “It has to do with another case.”
“Anything interesting?”
Sidney smiled. “It’s a long story.”
“I barely sleep at night,” Gus said. “I could use a good story to pass the hours.”
“Maybe another time. This is a story best told over a couple of proper drinks.”
“Now you’re just teasing me. I haven’t had a drop in months, and this far removed I’m not sure I can go back to the hard stuff. How about we compromise with coffee? I’ll buy.”
Sidney got the feeling he didn’t want to be alone. The hallways had darkened, and the floor was quiet. “I saw a coffee machine down the hall.”
“Now you’re talking,” Gus said.
She returned a few minutes later with two steaming cups, and sat back down in the bedside chair.
“You really want to hear this story?” Sidney asked, holding up her father’s letter.
“No doubt,” Gus said.
“Stop me when it gets too bizarre.”
“I was a Homicide detective for twenty years. You won’t be able to shock me.”
As the rehab facility shut down for the night, Sidney sat next to a stranger and for the first time in her life told the story of her father’s conviction.