My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(33)

[page]CHAPTER 23





Dan flipped through his notes. “I’m having a hard time believing that, seven weeks after the fact, Hagen made note of a red truck he passed briefly on a dark road in heavy rain. Finn never really explored it in cross-examination?”

Tracy shook her head. “He also never questioned Hagen about the news station Hagen claimed to be watching, or sent subpoenas to get copies of any of the newscasts during that period.”

“What would he have found if he had?”

“I have every tape of every newscast. I didn’t find any newscast even remotely like the one Hagen described during the time period he claims to have seen it. Sarah’s disappearance was old news by then. You know how it is. The press, police, everyone in town was absorbed with it initially, but as the weeks passed, so did their interest. I don’t blame them. After seven weeks, Sarah’s disappearance was a footnote unless something significant happened to draw attention back to it. Nothing had.”

“What about the reward?”

“That also never came up at trial.”

Dan squinted as if fighting a headache. “Given that Hagen’s testimony provided Calloway and Clark what they needed to convince Judge Sullivan to issue the search warrants, Finn should have jumped all over Hagen about every detail, especially because Hagen also laid the groundwork for Calloway’s testimony the next day.”



Roy Calloway sat in the witness chair as if he was seated in his living room and everyone else in the courtroom was an invited guest. The rain ticked off the second-story wood-sash windows, sounding like birds pecking against the glass. Tracy looked out at the trees in the courthouse square, their soaked limbs sagging. Smoke curled from the chimneys of houses in the near distance, but the bucolic image only seemed to magnify the illusion that Edmund House had exposed. Small towns were not immune to violent crimes.

Far from it.

Clark stepped to the railing of the jury box. “When did you next return to Parker House’s property, Sheriff Calloway?”

“About two months later.”

“Can you explain the circumstances?”

“We got a witness tip.”

“And can you tell the jury where that tip led?”

“To Ryan Hagen.”

“You interviewed Mr. Hagen?”

“I did,” Calloway said, and over the next five minutes he confirmed what Hagen had testified the prior day.

“And what was the significance of the red Chevy pickup?”

“I knew Parker owned a red Chevy and I remembered seeing it in his yard the morning Sarah was reported missing.”

“Did you confront the defendant with this new evidence?”

“I told him we had a witness. I asked if he had anything to add.”

“And what did the defendant say?”

“At first he didn’t say much, except that I was harassing him. Then he said, ‘Okay, yeah, I was driving that night.’?”

“Did he say anything else?”

“He said he’d been drinking at a bar in Silver Spurs and was driving home on the county road because he was afraid of being pulled over on the interstate. He said he passed a blue Ford truck on the shoulder and a little farther down saw a woman walking in the rain. He said he gave her a ride to an address in Cedar Grove, dropped her off there, and that was the end of it. He said he never saw her again.”

“Did he identify the woman?”

“I showed him a photograph and he positively identified Sarah Crosswhite.”

“Did he provide the address where he claimed to have driven her?”

“Not the address, but he described Sarah’s home.”

“Did Mr. House say why he didn’t tell you this when you first questioned him?”

“He said he’d heard in town that a woman was missing, saw one of the fliers, and recognized the photograph on the flier as the woman he gave a ride to. He said he was afraid nobody would believe him.”

“Did he say why?”

Finn objected and Lawrence sustained it.

“What did you do next, Sheriff Calloway?”

“I brought the information to your attention and asked that you secure search warrants for Parker House’s property and truck.”

“Did you take part in those search warrants?”

“I executed them, but we brought down crime scene investigators from the Washington State Patrol Crime Lab to do the forensic work. Based on the evidence located that day, we arrested Edmund House.”

“Did you talk with him again?”

“In custody.”

“And what did Mr. House tell you?”

Calloway turned his focus from Clark to Edmund House, who sat with his hands in his lap, face impassive. “He smiled. Then he said we would never convict him, not without a body. He said if the prosecutor cut him a deal, he’d tell me where to find Sarah’s body. Otherwise, he said, I could go to hell.”





[page]CHAPTER 24





Dan paced near the flat-screen television. They’d moved to the family room. Tracy sat on the couch listening as Dan alternately asked questions and thought out loud.

“The obvious question is, if Calloway was telling the truth, why would Edmund House change his story? He’d already spent six years in prison, which means he’d likely received a pretty good legal education. One has to assume he would have known that changing his alibi would be enough for Calloway to get the search warrants. And if he was going to change his alibi, why would he tell Calloway he’d been drinking at a bar in Silver Spurs, something Calloway could so easily refute, though he apparently never did?”