Chapter 5
NO SECRETS
At seven, Rory opened the door to his rented ranch. There was Gale in jeans and a ribbed green fitted cotton shirt showing a bit more of her body than he’d thought she’d do.
Her hair was pulled back away from her face, her brown eyes almost sparkling with an enormous smile showing straight white teeth.
In her hand was a bottle of wine she held up. “I’m celebrating,” she said.
He smiled and moved aside. He’d had to play his contact with her just right.
Two days of looking into her, he knew who her family was and needed to decide how much to say, and how much to hold back.
He felt it in his gut he was going to get more answers this time around and the last thing he needed to do was mess up by being stupid.
“Verdict back already?” he asked.
“It is,” she said. “I’d just pulled into the parking lot of my office when I got the message to return.”
“And by the look on your face and that bottle in your hand, your client’s verdict was not guilty.”
“It was,” she said. “I want to say I had no doubt, but that would be arrogant on my end. I try not to be.”
His head went to the side. “I think you’re cocky. Arrogant rubs people the wrong way and something tells me you know what you’re doing at all times.”
“I do,” she said, strutting past him.
She put the bottle on the small table in the kitchen. It was then he noticed it wasn’t wine but looked to be Ridgeway Hard Cider.
He picked it up. “Cranberry Ginger Cider.”
“Got it from my brother over the holidays. A special brew. There are a few bottles left. It’s my favorite and I thought it’d be good to share.”
“I’ve never had it before.”
She was watching him, probably waiting for him to acknowledge that he knew who she was.
“You’re in for a treat then.”
He moved further and she followed. There was a pizza on the counter that he’d picked up. If she was going to help him, the least he could do was feed her.
“Wine glasses or regular glasses for this?”
“Either works,” she said.
He grabbed the wine glasses. Before he could get the bottle to open it, she was taking care of it for him.
He pictured Gale Ridgeway as the type of woman who didn’t let men do much for her in life.
He put the glasses on the counter, she picked one up and poured, so he got plates and opened the pizza box.
“You were good in court,” he said.
“Why, thank you,” she said. “My family would say I was born to argue. I think it was to get out of working around the farm.”
The smirk on her face when she said that told him she was playing with him. She knew damn well he was aware of who she was and she was almost baiting him to say it.
“Did it work?” he asked. “I mean, your brother doesn’t have you making cider now, does he?”
She laughed. “I did early on when he needed help. When he needed extra hands for events in the refurbished barn, I was there too. Thankfully, he’s got more staff doing those things now.”
“No reason to address the elephant that ran out of the room. Once I got your card, I looked into you.”
“I’m easy to find,” she said. “No secrets.” Her eyebrow was lifted as she sipped her brother’s cider.
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
She wiped her hand across her forehead. “I’m so glad you said it. I mean, I’m game for playing a bit more if that is what you want, but I think you’re here for a reason and games and lies will only get in the way.”
“Eat,” he said. “Or sit and eat. Do whatever you want. But yes. Rene was my sister. I was the worthless piece of shit who didn’t watch out for his sister. Guess I didn’t do as good a job as your brothers have.”
The smile flew from her face as if it’d been smacked off. That wasn’t what he wanted.
It was more about speaking the truth.
He’d spent too many years of his life hiding what was going through his mind, how he was feeling, dancing around a subject that his father failed to acknowledge and his mother refused to drop.
“Don’t do that,” she said. “It’s not good for you or anyone else.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t looked at as having killed your sibling.”
Her hand reached over to grasp his. He’d noticed the flicker in her body of wanting to do it in the courtroom, but she’d held back.
It was so soft, smooth and comfortable. Her firm grip wasn’t tight but not loose enough to fall away.
She wanted him to know she had him in that moment and he realized no one had made him feel that since Rene died.
Not once.
Not even his mother who encouraged him to take this trip and find something. Anything.
“The law can suck,” she said. “I know that firsthand. My brother, he’s the sheriff.
But you know that. Rules and laws have to be part of society to bring order to chaos, and sometimes they do.
But often those rules and laws weigh people down more than they lift them up, whether it’s for a single day or a lifetime.
As a former cop yourself, you’d understand that. ”
“I do. Going through it, it felt never ending. It still feels that way. I understand the feeling of being cleared, so I’m happy for your client.”
“Not as happy as he was.” Her hand dropped away and she picked up a slice of pizza and took a bite. He did the same, the silence not bothering him, and he was positive it didn’t her either.
“I’m not sure how much you can help me,” he said. “But I’d like to know anything you remember from that time. Even about the guy who was falsely accused.”
“Cooper. You heard Barb in the courthouse. He was a friend of the family. I didn’t go to school with his daughter. They lived in Lake George, and I grew up in Warrensburg, but not that far from here. A small area and most knew everyone else’s business.”
Probably more so with her family’s apple orchard.
He knew what it was like to live under a microscope.
To have microphones shoved in his face day after day, voices prying with the same relentless questions.
How are you feeling? Any news? Do they know who did it?
Strangers. Friends. It didn’t matter. Their curiosity always sounded the same.
And every time, it scraped the wound raw.
All he wanted to do was shout, “What the fuck?! Leave me alone.”
If he’d had answers back then he sure the hell wouldn’t have shared them publicly.
The wedge his family had shoved in their life only grew wider with his father retreating and his mother jumping into the spotlight.
To her, the more she spoke, the more who listened.
It happened for a while. Then it quieted down.
He refused to let it die though.
“I’m sure you know we were vacationing from Allentown.”
“I do,” she said. “My family might know more than most because it felt as if we were living some of it too. Cooper had to sell his home to get out of debt. They didn’t know where they were going to move just yet, so they lived in a ranch on my parents’ property for a few months and he worked the farm with my father. ”
He hadn’t known that. Why would he?
There was no reason for him to keep tabs on the man who was found not guilty of a crime he didn’t commit.
It hadn’t led to the arrest of his sister’s killer. It only put the case on hold as if no one was even looking because all along they thought they had their man.
Time that could have been spent going over more clues or asking more questions.
“Not to diss anyone, but looking back as an adult and what I’ve seen of the police reports, I felt they rushed finding anyone they could to quiet the community down.”
“There were mixed emotions with Cooper’s arrest.”
“I heard you talking to Barb.”
“That’s right. Those who knew him refused to believe it. Many rallied behind him, even raising money to help with legal fees. And the people who didn’t know Cooper, they were ready to throw him in jail and give him the needle.”
“There is no death penalty in New York,” he said, taking another bite of his pizza.
“But people were calling for it,” she said. “It’s ironic. Monday night I was talking to Ford about my case with Dave. He was giving me a boost that he often does.”
Rory smiled. “I think you just like to know your brothers are there rather than needing them to kick-start your ego.”
She put her finger to her unpainted lips. “Shhhh. That’s my secret. Not a carefully guarded one either, but there you go.”
“That was how Rene and I were.”
“If you’re willing to talk about her, I’d like to listen. I tell my clients—though you’re not a client—to just ramble. I’ll pull out what I need. Sometimes there are hidden gems in our musings that we don’t know are trying to sneak out.”
Damn. He liked her.
A lot.
It was how he operated. Why he documented all his dreams and memories.
Not that he was going to admit that his sister still haunted his dreams and urged him to continue on.
There were days he truly believed it was Rene’s game to have him running the rat race to not want to lock himself away from the world as their father had.
“We might get to that,” he said. “Go on with what you’re saying.”
“When I was talking to Ford, your sister’s case came up.
Seems like fate or irony, whatever word you slap on it.
But I’d told Ford that Dave’s case is why I do what I do.
Cooper’s situation. The law grabbing the wrong person and them needing someone to fight for them.
Do I have clients that are guilty? Sure, I do.
We’ve all broken rules, some intentionally, some not.
And most times, people need someone to help them navigate their consequences. ”
“I’d like to think of life that way, but unfortunately, I’ve witnessed way too much evil. Not just with what happened to my family but also in my job.”
“Is that why you left the force?” she asked.
“Part of it. The other was I couldn’t put my mother through losing another child by having a job that put me at risk like that.
I thought if I studied and went for criminal justice that I could learn more, I could be my strongest, my sharpest, and I could find Rene’s killer.
But all it did was flood my brain with other people’s evil around me.
I couldn’t focus on her because I had to stay on top of it for me. It was hindering more than helping.”
“So now you put yourself in the mind of a killer and hope that helps solve the case?” she asked.
His mouth opened and then closed. He was processing what she’d said and wondered why it had never occurred to him before.
He didn’t start writing for that reason.
He wrote because he had crime in his head for fifteen years. What he’d seen that he didn’t agree with on the job. The information he gathered on his sister’s case.
All of them were stories building. He wanted closure for people and thought the only way to get it was to put it on paper the way he wanted it to end. Or wished it had.
The way it would help others, even fictional characters.
Yet somehow, Gale just put it all in perspective.
It was time to look at his sister’s case and see if he could live in her killer’s mind to find out who the hell the bastard even was.