Probably a mistake. But there it was.
His latest acquisition had been the TV, where now the screen was filled with pictures of Whimstick General Hospital. A handful of Jonas’s fans were still gathered, diehards out on a cold winter morning before dawn. They were shouting and holding signs, and Sheila Keegan in her red jacket and ready smile stood front and center as she interviewed Mia Long, who stood in her faded jean jacket, her pale eyes rimmed with thick mascara, her chin jutted with the same defiance she’d displayed when he’d met her.
“So what do you hope to accomplish?” Sheila asked.
“Justice,” Mia said, her face set as she stared into the camera. “For twenty years Jonas McIntyre was in prison for crimes he didn’t commit, crimes in which he was a victim.”
“But he’s out now.”
“And he’ll never get those years back, will he?” Her eyes flashed. “He gave up half of his life while the real killer has lived a free man or woman and we won’t rest until Jonas McIntyre is absolved of the crimes he was charged with.” She was shouting now and a handful of people standing nearby hooted and raised their signs and began chanting, a weak performance compared to the crowd the day before.
Sheila asked, “Does justice have a price tag? I’ve heard that Jonas McIntyre is going to sue the county for thirty million dollars.”
Mia’s mouth twisted into a cynical smile. “Freedom is priceless.”
“You heard it here, at Whimstick General Hospital, where Jonas McIntyre is recovering from injuries sustained in an automobile accident where he reportedly visited Merritt Margrove at his mountain retreat just hours after Margrove’s death, which authorities are calling a homicide. Margrove, who once claimed a list of celebrities as his clients, drew national attention when he defended Jonas McIntyre twenty years ago in the McIntyre Massacre where most of the family was slaughtered. Mystery still surrounds that tragic event as one of the children, a teenager named Marlie Robinson, disappeared that night, neither she nor her remains ever found.” Sheila gave a quick report on the old murders and trial while pictures of the McIntyre family and the crime scene flashed onto the screen. When the camera returned to her, still outside the hospital, “The investigation into Merritt Margrove’s homicide is ongoing and if you have any information about the crime, please call the local authorities. The number and email address for the department flashed onto the screen as Sheila smiled and said, “Now back to you, Ned.”
Thomas snapped off the television and walked up the two steps to the laundry room that connected his bungalow to the garage.
After stripping down, he tossed his sweats into an overflowing basket, walked through the house naked and once in the single bathroom showered, shaved and dressed for work.
The city was still quiet, traffic thin, a snowplow scraping the streets free of ice and packed snow, Christmas lights reflecting on the piles created.
He was at his desk an hour before the change of shift and Thomas made the most of that quiet time where he was alone with his thoughts before the clamor and din of the day intruded. For nearly an hour telephones, fax machines and printers were almost silent, and the sound of footfalls, boots scraping and bits of passing conversation punctuated by laughter hadn’t yet interrupted his thoughts.
He’d already asked for one of the tech guys to create an enhanced computerized likeness of Marlie Robinson, aged twenty years from the headshot on her driver’s license. The photoshopped picture had come through, and he found himself staring at the image of a beautiful woman with an oval face framed by curly blond hair, her blue eyes large and round over a long, straight nose, a woman who, aside from a slight dimple in her chin, looked a lot like her mother, Zelda McIntyre.
“What happened to you?” he said to the image on the screen even though he believed that the enhancement was most likely an exercise in futility. He believed that Marlie Robinson had died that night, or soon thereafter. Drops of her blood had been found at the scene and matched by DNA to strands of hair recovered from her hair brush. There hadn’t been enough of her blood to think she’d been seriously injured, unless she’d stanched the flow and escaped somehow.
How likely was that?
Absently he picked up a pencil and tapped the eraser end on his desk as he considered the alternatives.
Had Marlie gotten away, escaped after locking Kara in the closet. Had she been chased by the killer, slightly wounded in the house, then slaughtered somewhere else? If so, then Jonas McIntyre, himself injured, probably hadn’t killed his stepsister.