Chapter 32 #2
“Well, so does my dad. I have paperwork if you need it. He signed some forms for me at the clinic. Everything is timestamped. There should be a hotel bill on his credit card. Have I been wrong about this? If they all have alibis, then the only one who doesn’t is Katy.
Did she do this? Is Addison Quick right?
Could she have just maybe not known or remembered what happened because of all the drugs she mixed? ”
I had an answer. It wasn’t one either of us liked. But I’d insisted on the truth from her. I would give her the same.
“I don’t know. I truly don’t.”
“But you’re starting to believe it,” she said.
“Maybe,” I answered. “Now you need to let me go talk to your dad.”
Joe was waiting for me when I got to his house. Standing on his front porch, he had the posture of a gunslinger as if he were waiting for my quick draw in an old Western movie. If he had neighbors close by, they would have likely started boarding up their windows like saloon owners.
“Don’t start,” he began. “I just got off the phone with Emma.”
As I approached him, my words came out with the speed and retort of machine gun fire. “Oh, I’m starting. I am soooo starting. I don’t … I don’t even know where to start.”
“Cass …”
That he could think this was something he could just explain away. That he had any valid arguments to make. That there could be any other side but mine.
I think he saw something in my expression. Or he knew me so well he realized there was nothing to do but back up and get out of my way.
I barreled forward. Joe put his hands up in a gesture of surrender, then backed through his own doorway into the living room. I kept advancing. Once I got inside myself, I slammed the door shut behind me with enough force to shake the framed pictures on his walls.
Fitting. They were family photos. One of his favorites was a picture of the two of us when we were maybe nine and ten years old.
I held up a large mouth bass I’d just caught.
Joe stood next to me with wire cutters, waiting to dislodge the hook my fish had swallowed.
I envisioned grabbing that picture and hurling it at him.
“Do you realize how dumb you are?” I shouted. “How unbelievably stupid.”
The surprise in his eyes settled into anger. “If you …”
I jabbed a finger into his chest. “No. You don’t get to talk. Not yet. Sit down.”
Though his body went rigid, his eyes hard, my brother took my advice and sat down at his kitchen table. I couldn’t. I felt like I might explode if I stopped moving. My rage was all kinetic energy and it needed somewhere to go.
“You came to me,” I said. “You begged me. You used my own nature against me. Because you knew when it came down to it, I’d do anything for you. Believe anything you told me. And you didn’t care what it cost me.”
“That’s a lot of you in that speech,” he said, his tone flat.
“Yep! There is. Because you made everything my problem. Then you tied my hands behind my back and took me out at the knees. How did you think this would play out?”
“I thought you’d do your job,” he said. “You’d take a weak case and destroy it.”
“A weak case. See, that’s the thing. I had nothing. Nothing except a gut feeling and your guilt trip. I’ve never been more angry with you in my life, Joe. You traded on my love for you and talked me into doing something I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it. But I did it anyway, for you.”
“Katy is innocent. And so am I. That’s the only thing that should have mattered to you.”
“Right,” I said. “So why do this?”
“Because I will do anything to protect my kid, Cass.”
“Emma didn’t need protection from you! That’s what’s so stupid about all of this. You walked into this. You marched into Sharon DePaul’s office and told a ridiculous lie you never had to tell.”
“Yes, I did!” he shouted. “Yes, I damn well did. You didn’t see her.
Emma was broken, Cass. This thing was the hardest decision she’s ever had to make.
It killed part of her. But it was the right choice for her and I was going to help her see it through.
Sharon DePaul is a ghoul. Do you know what she called Emma?
What she accused her of? It was ugly and there was a part of Emma that believed it.
I was not going to let that woman near her. ”
“You should have come to me! I don’t question your motive to protect Emma.
Had I known what was going on, I would have ripped Sharon DePaul’s face off myself.
But you never gave me the chance. You say you wanted me to do my job.
Then you refused to let me. I could have handled Sharon.
You chose to go and talk to her all by yourself.
I told you not to. For crying out loud, Joe, Learys learn not to talk to the cops without a lawyer present before we learn how to eat solid food! So why?”
He dropped his chin to his chest. Some of the anger seemed to go out of him. “I don’t know.” He said it so quietly that I didn’t process it at first.
“I don’t know,” he said louder. “I panicked. Okay? All I knew was that somebody killed Tom. I didn’t know they were going to pin it on Katy.
I didn’t know they’d already arrested her.
I didn’t know she had anything to do with it!
How could I? Sharon was about to show up at my house.
Emma was on the couch in the living room, puking into a bowl.
The woman who called her all that crap was about to march right up the porch.
No. No way. Emma was a mess, Cass. I was worried she wasn’t gonna get over it.
I was not gonna turn around and let Sharon at her.
No way. I didn’t think for a second any of it would matter.
So yeah. On the spot, I told a stupid lie.
It just, I don’t know, came out! Then everything fell apart.
I found out what they had on Katy. It was too late to undo it by then.
Sharon seemed satisfied. She didn’t come back to question me. It was just about Katy then.”
“You had about a dozen chances between the day you first talked to Sharon and the day you took the stand to undo this mess, Joe.”
“I promised her, okay? I promised Emma she had nothing to worry about.”
“I could have figured out a way to keep both of you out of it. It would have been easy! You took your kid to a doctor’s appointment.
That’s all anybody ever would have needed to know.
This was so unnecessary. It was dumb. Now, it’s a grenade with the pin pulled out.
It made you look guilty. It makes me look incompetent at the least, and complicit at the worst. And Tallon Shipley has it half figured out already. ”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“She confronted me. She knows you’re the only reason I would have withdrawn from Katy’s trial.
She thinks I’m covering for you because you were more involved in Tom’s murder than everyone thinks.
She isn’t going to let it go. It wasn’t much of a trick for me to figure out your stupid alibi was a lie. She will too. Maybe she already has.”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. Okay? I really am. It just … it all got away from me. It just blew up. Emma didn’t want anyone else to know. I didn’t think they’d have to. I was trying to protect my kid. That’s all.”
“Joe,” I said, my voice softening. “I could have protected her. I would have. I love that girl like she’s my own daughter.”
Slowly he lifted his eyes to mine. “But that’s just it, Cass.
She’s not your daughter. I’m sorry. You’re not a mother.
It’s not the same. You say those things, but you can’t know.
You will never know what it’s like when it’s your own child.
And all this talk about you blindly doing something because I asked you.
I may have lied to you, but you’re lying to yourself. ”
“What are you talking about?”
“You gonna stand there and tell me you haven’t thought that maybe I killed Tom?
I asked you to trust me. Begged you to. But you never did.
You made as much of a mess out of this as anyone.
You withdrew from Katy’s case because deep down, you started thinking I killed Tom.
You wanted me to trust you. But you’ve never trusted me. ”
His words hit me like a dart through the heart. “That’s not fair,” I said.
He shrugged. “It is what it is. And Emma’s my kid. Not yours. And now, I think you should leave. I don’t know what else there is to say. I won’t apologize for doing what I thought was right for Emma.”
“Even if it means you could be charged with perjury?”
“Especially if it means that.”
“You realize this didn’t have to be a story. Sure, I get it. Having the DePauls know about what Emma did isn’t ideal. But it was a private matter. By your actions, you’ve almost guaranteed it’ll be a tabloid matter. How do you not get that?”
“I’m sorry it’s caused so much collateral damage,” he said. “But I’m not sorry about trying to keep Emma safe.”
“Even if it means Katy is that much more likely to be found guilty?”
“She isn’t. I know it.”
“Do you?” I asked. “Because right now there’s nobody else. You weren’t there. Every other lead I’ve tried to track down was a dead end. There was nobody else in that house that morning but Katy, Joe.”
“Which means you still don’t trust me or my judgment. You still think you know better than everyone else. I’m telling you she couldn’t have done this. Now, I think you better leave.”
The air grew thick around us. My heart shattered. Joe and I had our differences. We were brother and sister. We fought. We reconciled. We had each other’s backs. Until today.
As I left Joe’s house, I knew things might never be the same between us again.