“Marlie?” Thomas said, feeling a jolt of adrenaline, a sensation that this, at least in part, was the truth.
“And Chad just left her?” Johnson frowned, not completely buying it. ‘When Jonas was ‘out of his mind’ or ‘possessed by the devil,’ and they’d had this elaborate plan to elope and—”
“Not elope. I didn’t say elope,” Brittlynn insisted.
So that was a sticking point with her.
“It wasn’t like he was leaving her,” Brittlynn said, but didn’t sound convinced. “He told me that he’d parked about a mile away from the house, you know, on the other side of a couple of cabins to kind of hide the car. It was Christmas Eve and people in some of the places were still up, so he had to slow down and be careful. He didn’t want to be seen.”
Johnson said, “But he wasn’t waiting for his girlfriend.”
“I don’t know! The point is that he was avoiding people and dogs and whoever was up, so he had to slow down, had to wait so that he wouldn’t be seen, and because of it, he lost time, a lot of time, he said.”
“How much time.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask,” she said. “But the thing is, he saw Marlie, he saw her being chased.”
“Wait,” Johnson cut in. “You mean Kara, the eight-year-old.”
“No, that’s just it, he saw Marlie.”
Thomas said, “And he didn’t try to interfere?”
“He was scared out of his mind.”
Johnson held up a hand, “So you’re saying that Chad saw Marlie being chased by Edmund Tate?”
“No! He couldn’t see who it was, he was all dressed in black and had like a mask on, I guess. Cuz I asked. Chad said he knew it wasn’t Edmund Tate, the cop, because Chad saw him on his porch. Someone else was chasing Marlie.”
“Who?” Thomas asked.
“I told you he couldn’t see. Too many trees, but he saw the guy on the porch smoking, because there was light from the inside of the Tates’ cabin and his cigarette tip was red.”
Was this right? Thomas glanced at Johnson.
“He was sure of that?” Johnson said.
“Look, you’ll have to ask him all about it, but that’s what he told me.”
Was she lying? Thomas asked himself. Or had Chad lied to her? Was there even a whisper of a chance that Marlie Robinson had survived? “Running in which direction?” he asked. “To the lake? Or away from it?”
“I don’t know!” she said, exploding. “I’m telling you he said he saw Marlie being chased, but I don’t know for sure. Again, I wasn’t there, but you’d think he would know because he’d dated Marlie for years. They . . . they had a thing. He knew what she looked like, right? And Kara, the sister, she was a lot younger. Even in the dark, he would’ve seen that she was just a kid.”
Thomas leaned forward, “Did Edmund Tate see Marlie being chased?”
“Jesus! I don’t know,” she bit out. “I’m only telling you what Chad said that night. He could have been mixed up; he was really, really upset. Out of it, kind of. You know, scared out of his mind. I’ve never seen him like that before or after. He could’ve been wrong. Like I said, you’ll have to ask him.”
‘We will,” Johnson said.
“What about the parents? Sam and Zelda McIntyre?” Thomas asked, backing up a bit, trying to piece the scene together and not get ahead of himself. This was their chance to find out what really happened all those years ago. If they could locate Chad, press him further, and Brittlynn wasn’t lying, who knew what they’d uncover? “When ‘all hell broke loose,’” he said, “were the parents there? Awake?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Chad never said a word about them. Nothing. Just that when he finally reached his car, I mean his truck, he drove like a bat to my house. He snuck in through my bedroom window and he was still shaking, his eyes like saucers. He swore he didn’t do anything more than steal from the old man.”
“And witness a murder.”
“Yeah.” She chewed her gum more slowly, paused, glanced at her attorney.
Cooke nodded grimly, encouraging her.
Brittlynn’s voice was becoming a whisper. “So, Chad and I, we struck a deal.”
“What kind of deal?” Johnson asked.
“I said I’d tell the cops that he was with me all night. So he wouldn’t get caught for the robbery, so maybe then Jonas wouldn’t come after him, you know?”