CHAPTER 56
SIDNEY RODE THE ELEVATOR IN WINDSOR TOWER AND EXITED ON ELLIE Reiser’s floor. She knocked on the apartment door and waited until Marshall answered.
“She’s not here,” he said when he opened the door in his wheelchair.
“I know,” Sidney said. “I came to talk with you.”
Marshall backed his wheelchair up, turned around, and headed into the living room. Sidney walked into the apartment and closed the door. She followed Marshall into the main room, where she saw his chess set arranged on the table. He rolled his chair up to it and looked at her.
“You beat me pretty easily the other night,” Sidney said. “I don’t think I’m much of a challenge for you.”
“That game wasn’t about winning or losing,” Marshall said as he wheeled himself to the chessboard.
“I need to ask you some questions, Marshall. About what you told me the other night.”
Sidney wanted to speak with Marshall without Grace being present.
Derrick had taken care of Grace; and Sidney knew that to get Marshall in the right frame of mind, she’d have to do it over a game of chess.
She sat across the coffee table from him.
The metamorphosis took shape again as Sidney watched his wrists unfurl and his sclerotic posture loosen when Marshall took hold of the chess pieces and arranged them across the board.
As she sat down, Sidney noticed one of the pinewood cases and recognized it immediately. She saw the edge of the second pinewood case inside the white cloth bag that rested next to the chessboard. “This is your old chess set,” she said.
Marshall nodded as he continued to arrange the cheap, wooden pieces on the board in front of him. “I brought it with me when we came here. It was before I knew Grace had bought me this new set.”
“Why is it out? I thought you said it brought back bad memories for Grace.”
“Grace isn’t here,” Marshall said. “I might use it today.”
Once the board was complete, Marshall opened by advancing a pawn. Sidney did the same.
“I wanted to talk with you, Marshall, about what you told me the other night.”
“Okay,” he said, moving another pawn.
“And about what happened at Sugar Beach.”
“I figured you would,” he said. “You probably also want to know more about Henry Anderson.” He regarded the board in front of him. “It’s probably why you’re here and Grace is somewhere else, thinking she’s going to meet you. Ellie’s at work, as I’m sure you know.”
The openness of the discussion paused her arm as she reached for a chess piece.
“I’m trying to make sense of it all,” Sidney said.
“And yes, I wanted to speak with you alone. You told me that you’re used to people underestimating you.
I’m not like most people. I know you can help me.
And I think that if you help me, you’ll help your sister, too. ”
“Probably.” He pointed at the board. “Your move.”
Sidney advanced a pawn.
Marshall picked up his own pawn. “In the tiny world of chess, have you ever wondered how crappy it is to be a pawn?”
Sidney’s lips came together and her forehead wrinkled. “No, I can’t say I’ve ever considered that line of thought.”
“Their only role is sacrifice and diversion.”
Marshall placed the pawn back onto the board, advanced it forward.
“Your move.”
Sidney allowed the dodge to pass in silence. Marshall was growing nervous, and Sidney knew she’d have to push him.
Sidney picked up her knight. “Will you help me, Marshall? Tell me what you know? Because I think you know a great deal about Grace and her friends.”
He stayed silent and stared at the board.
“I think you know the truth, Marshall. And I think it’s finally time for you to share it.”
“I know that if you think Grace killed them, you’d be wrong.
And if you make a big deal about Henry in the documentary, the public will convict her, like they did last time.
She can’t handle it again, and I won’t sit quietly this time while she is tried for Henry and retried for Julian. I did that once before.”
“I don’t think Grace killed them. I came here today to find out if I’m correct about who did.” Sidney put her knight down. “Marshall, help me. Tell me what you know, and I promise we’ll do the right thing. You and Grace and me. Together, we’ll make this right.”
Marshall pointed to the credenza, which stood in front of the window. “It’s in there. She actually showed it to Grace last night.”
Sidney slowly turned her gaze toward the credenza and spotted a thick, hard-covered book. She walked over and looked down at it, a high-school yearbook from 1999.
“This?” Sidney asked.
“Bring it here. I’ll show you.”
She carried the yearbook over and handed it to Marshall, who flipped through the pages with only slight difficulty.
He placed it down when he reached his desired location.
Sidney looked at the page covered by photos of girls in chemistry lab, safety goggles on their faces and short white lab coats.
She recognized Grace and Ellie in a photo on the bottom left of the page.
A message in dark Sharpie marker was scrawled across the photo: Ellie & Grace, nothing will separate us!
“She searched for the love lock last night,” Marshall said. “I could only laugh at her stupidity.”
“Was Ellie responsible for Henry and Julian?” Sidney asked. “Did she have something to do with their deaths, Marshall?”
The yearbook lay open on the coffee table next to the chessboard. Marshall reached for a chess piece, but Sidney put her hand softly on his. He looked up at her.
“Tell me what you know, Marshall,” Sidney said. “Tell me about Ellie. Don’t keep your secret any longer.”
An awkward moment of silence followed while Marshall stared at her.
“You have to give me Grace’s lock back. She’d be upset if she knew I gave it to you. She’ll be upset no matter what, but I don’t see what else I can do now.”
Sidney slowly nodded. She reached into her purse and removed Grace’s love lock, placing it, and the satchel that held it, on the open yearbook.
“She’s always had a strange affection for Grace. She took the blame for my accident in order to protect Grace, and she carried that burden all this time. She told Julian about Grace and Daniel’s past hoping it would keep Grace and Julian apart. When that didn’t work . . .”
Marshall pointed at the items on the coffee table. Sidney looked at the love lock, the open yearbook. She saw again Marshall’s old chess set just as her phone rang.
Marshall moved his gaze back to the game and scrutinized the board while Sidney dug her phone from her purse.
“Hello?” Sidney said, holding the phone to her ear.
“Hey, it’s me.”
“Gus?”
“Yeah. My guy just called with an ID on that print.”
Sidney waited.
“I think I got it wrong,” Gus said. “The lab guys took a look. It was hard to ID because the print was so faint and the kid’s shirt was folded.
Half the print was on the shirt, with the other half on the shorts, and the picture isn’t great.
Anyway, it came back as a man’s size thirteen.
So, unless our girl has some monster feet, I think I’ll be buying you that shot. ”
“Size thirteen?” Sidney said.
“Yeah. Definitely not a woman’s shoe,” Gus said. “I know you were talking about the Sebold girl’s other friend. The Greaves kid. Daniel? You’ll have to see if it matches. Was he on the list you found?”
“Yes,” Sidney said, remembering Daniel’s name marked on the list from the St. Lucian Police Department’s file. Sidney looked at the open yearbook. The picture of Grace and Ellie stared back at her. “That’s not the news I was expecting.”
“My guy mentioned something else,” Gus said.
“The print came from a Pro-Line orthotic shoe. Pro-Line makes this type of specialty shoe for people with gait problems. My guy’s still working on the specs, but he thinks he narrowed it down to a specialty shoe for someone with neuropathy in their feet, or some other neurological problem that causes a degradation in gross motor skills and makes walking difficult. That make any sense to you?”