Vindicate (Recovered Innocence #1)(7)
“You’ve done a lot of the work for us,” Mr. Nash says. “Tell me about this witness that was never interviewed by the police.”
I catch Leo watching me. He has this look on his face like he’s impressed. And I realize that he hasn’t so much as glanced at my tits since I took my notebook out and started turning its pages. Maybe he’s not the total-loser * I thought he was.
“She was Cassandra’s downstairs neighbor at the time of the murder. She’s an elderly lady confined to a hospital bed for the past ten years.” I open my folder containing the photos I took of Cassandra’s apartment building and point to a lower window. “Anyone taking the stairs to Cassandra’s apartment would have to walk past her bedroom window. At the very least she can verify that my brother wasn’t there. A few years ago she moved and I haven’t been able to find her.”
“She could be dead. I wonder why the police never questioned her.”
“If she is there’s no record of a death certificate on file. There’s a note in one of the reports that the detectives made a couple of efforts to contact her, but were unsuccessful. She’s confined to a bed,” I scoff. “Where’s she going to go?”
Mr. Nash nods. “Could be lazy police work. After all, they had your brother’s DNA and an eyewitness who saw him leaving Cassandra’s apartment. Why go out of their way to find another witness? Or there could’ve been a cover-up.”
I lean over and flip through the pages of my notebook until I find the one I created for the eyewitness. “Damien LeFeaux. He’s got several arrests for possession and three for dealing. He’s a big, fat meth head. He testified in my brother’s case and somehow escaped California’s three-strikes law. Of course, he’s such a freakin’ idiot that he got arrested again for possession and is serving twenty years in Donovan. I guess he didn’t witness any new crimes to get out of that one.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” Leo says.
“That might be a job better suited for me,” Mr. Nash cuts in. “I have a connection at Donovan. We’re going to have to tread very lightly with Mr. LeFeaux.” He turns a few more pages. “I’m not joking here, Cora. This is some of the finest, most thorough investigative work I’ve ever seen. You’re organized and resourceful. If you’re ever interested in a career in private investigation, I’d hire you in a minute.”
I lower my head and nod. My cheeks are on fire, my heart is thumping hard, and I don’t know where to look. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Where do we start?” Leo asks.
“We start at the beginning.” Mr. Nash flips back to the first page of my notebook. Cassandra’s page. I used a photo Beau had taken of her. She’s smiling at him and you can see how much she loved him.
“We start with the victim, Cassandra Bethany Williams.”
Chapter 4
Leo
My dad isn’t easily impressed. He’s certainly never been as enthralled with anything I’ve ever done as he is with Cora and the work she did on her brother’s behalf. I should be jealous or ashamed, but I’m not. Cora is damn impressive. When I think about her—which has been pretty much every waking moment since I laid eyes on her—I imagine what life has been like for her since her brother went to prison. I try to picture myself putting my life on hold to help one of my sisters, but I can’t. That realization does shame me. I wouldn’t have done what she has. Not many people would.
Glancing over the papers strewn across the table after she unloaded her box, I realize I’m totally f*cked. Luckily my dad helped us map out a plan and now it’s up to me to captain this investigation. I’m in way over my head. Cora is looking at me like she expects me to either come up with something brilliant or fall on my ass. I will not fail her. I won’t. This isn’t at all the way I pictured my summer, but now, looking into her take-no-bullshit stare, I can’t remember any of the plans I made. I’ve fallen headfirst into her life, inserting myself into it like I had a right to be there. She challenges me on that every time I dare to meet her gaze.
“Tell me about Cassandra,” I say.
She pulls her binder toward her. It’s meticulous. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. It’s a work of art. She took the tiniest pieces she could find and fashioned them into something that is organized, informative, and flat-out f*cking brilliant. I can see the case the way she sees it. She laid it all out for anyone who would care to look. But I don’t need her to tell me what’s in it. I need her to tell me what’s not in it. I need to know what can’t be put down on paper—her impressions, her feelings, her, I don’t know…intuition.
She opens the binder to the first page—Cassandra’s page. For a split second I can see the grief on her face and then in the next blink it’s gone and her usual don’t-f*ck-with-me expression is back.
“What do you want to know?”
“Tell me how she and Beau met. What was their relationship like? What did you think of her?”
“They were both juniors in high school when Beau asked her to prom. It was their first date. They were inseparable after that. She was his first serious girlfriend. I don’t know if he was her first or not. She came over to our house a lot, so I got to know her pretty well. Some of his friends were real *s to me, but she wasn’t. She treated me like a sister. Even let me borrow her clothes sometimes.”