into the woods and the proud obelisks erected for forgotten bishops and generals rise into the rays of the dying sun. Taking one of the narrow lanes, I make for Jewish Hill, an earthen promontory that rises twenty feet above the rim of the two-hundred-foot bluff facing the Mississippi River.
Jack is staring past me, into the seemingly limitless reach of space over the river and the delta lands of Louisiana, but his mind is still in Texas, which also lies in that direction. “So did you finally call your old boss?”
“No. On my way home, I called a cop I knew and found out who’d worked the Avila case. Turned out to be a female detective, Eve Washington. I gave her a call, and Washington confirmed my instinct. She believed the Conley kid had done the rape. She didn’t buy his alibi about getting stoned out by the airport. She didn’t believe his friends, either. But she had no way to break their alibi. She’d searched every place she could think of for that Sony Mavica and the picture of Maribel, but it was nowhere on any property owned by Conley, his relatives, or his friends. ‘The forensic findings fucked us,’ she said. That’s what I remember. I asked her to go back over all the evidence and see if they might have missed anything, and especially to keep hunting for that picture. She promised to do it, and to keep quiet about my call—and she probably did, for a few hours. But most detectives at the HPD knew me, and after talking to me, Washington knew that I might be making some waves. If I was going to do anything quietly, I had to move fast.”
“So what did you do?”
“I didn’t have any choice. I went home and took my shift at Sarah’s bed. I spent some time with Annie and my folks. Then I drove over to the motel and updated Sarah’s father, who was pretty close to the edge. Stone drunk and cold sober at the same time, if you can imagine. Like a drunk man facing a firing squad.”
Jack looks out at the passing gravestones. “I can’t even imagine being in his position. Not really. When Frances’s attacks have been their worst, I’ve seen hints of what the end might be like. But to imagine my daughter dying before my eyes . . . no.”
I could not speak of this with anyone other than my father or his brother. “You know what it was like?” I almost whisper. “When Sarah was in that half-drugged state, between sleep and wakefulness, and I looked into her eyes . . . it was like watching someone drift away from you in a boat on the open sea, with nothing you can do to reach them.”
Jack nods slowly, saying nothing.
“That night, as I sat by the bed, holding her clammy hand, everything I’d seen and heard that day went to work on me. And while I sat there, the unalterable reality finally settled into my bones. No matter what I did, Sarah was going to die. But Maribel Avila was different. I couldn’t turn back time and prevent that rape, but I could make sure she didn’t have to worry about that son of a bitch coming back and getting her again—which rapists sometimes do—or raping anybody else. And once I got that thought in my head, I felt a little like my old self. My younger self. Righteous anger, you know? A man on a mission.”
“Oh, hell. Nothing gets you in trouble quicker than self-righteousness.”
“Yeah, I know. At about eleven, after Mom came in to relieve me, I called Vargas’s cell number. ‘I want to see the crime lab,’ I told him. ‘If it’s so bad over there, I want to see it with my own eyes.’
“By that time Felix wanted no part of what he’d started. He was in survival mode. But I shamed him into going.”
A faint smile touches Jack’s mouth.
“He was scared shitless, but he took me up there. Hell, the security guard recognized me from the old days, waved me right in.”
“How bad was it?”
“It was a defense lawyer’s wet dream.” I shake my head at the memory. “In one room alone, the roof leaked so badly that specimens were obviously
Jack is staring past me, into the seemingly limitless reach of space over the river and the delta lands of Louisiana, but his mind is still in Texas, which also lies in that direction. “So did you finally call your old boss?”
“No. On my way home, I called a cop I knew and found out who’d worked the Avila case. Turned out to be a female detective, Eve Washington. I gave her a call, and Washington confirmed my instinct. She believed the Conley kid had done the rape. She didn’t buy his alibi about getting stoned out by the airport. She didn’t believe his friends, either. But she had no way to break their alibi. She’d searched every place she could think of for that Sony Mavica and the picture of Maribel, but it was nowhere on any property owned by Conley, his relatives, or his friends. ‘The forensic findings fucked us,’ she said. That’s what I remember. I asked her to go back over all the evidence and see if they might have missed anything, and especially to keep hunting for that picture. She promised to do it, and to keep quiet about my call—and she probably did, for a few hours. But most detectives at the HPD knew me, and after talking to me, Washington knew that I might be making some waves. If I was going to do anything quietly, I had to move fast.”
“So what did you do?”
“I didn’t have any choice. I went home and took my shift at Sarah’s bed. I spent some time with Annie and my folks. Then I drove over to the motel and updated Sarah’s father, who was pretty close to the edge. Stone drunk and cold sober at the same time, if you can imagine. Like a drunk man facing a firing squad.”
Jack looks out at the passing gravestones. “I can’t even imagine being in his position. Not really. When Frances’s attacks have been their worst, I’ve seen hints of what the end might be like. But to imagine my daughter dying before my eyes . . . no.”
I could not speak of this with anyone other than my father or his brother. “You know what it was like?” I almost whisper. “When Sarah was in that half-drugged state, between sleep and wakefulness, and I looked into her eyes . . . it was like watching someone drift away from you in a boat on the open sea, with nothing you can do to reach them.”
Jack nods slowly, saying nothing.
“That night, as I sat by the bed, holding her clammy hand, everything I’d seen and heard that day went to work on me. And while I sat there, the unalterable reality finally settled into my bones. No matter what I did, Sarah was going to die. But Maribel Avila was different. I couldn’t turn back time and prevent that rape, but I could make sure she didn’t have to worry about that son of a bitch coming back and getting her again—which rapists sometimes do—or raping anybody else. And once I got that thought in my head, I felt a little like my old self. My younger self. Righteous anger, you know? A man on a mission.”
“Oh, hell. Nothing gets you in trouble quicker than self-righteousness.”
“Yeah, I know. At about eleven, after Mom came in to relieve me, I called Vargas’s cell number. ‘I want to see the crime lab,’ I told him. ‘If it’s so bad over there, I want to see it with my own eyes.’
“By that time Felix wanted no part of what he’d started. He was in survival mode. But I shamed him into going.”
A faint smile touches Jack’s mouth.
“He was scared shitless, but he took me up there. Hell, the security guard recognized me from the old days, waved me right in.”
“How bad was it?”
“It was a defense lawyer’s wet dream.” I shake my head at the memory. “In one room alone, the roof leaked so badly that specimens were obviously
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