My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(61)

Ten minutes before nine, the bailiff unlocked the courtroom doors and pushed them open. The crowd steadily streamed in, filling the pews as if at a movie theater, taking the best seats and discarding coats, hats, and gloves to save seats for others.

“No saving seats, folks,” the bailiff said. “It’s first come, first served, around here. Please put your coats and gloves under the pew so we can make room for the people still standing in the cold.”

If the gallery filled, as anticipated, it would hold more than 250 people. Based on the length of the line that had snaked down the courthouse steps and along the sidewalk, Tracy suspected some of them would be turned away at the door or forced to sit in the courtroom next door and watch the news feed instead.

Vanpelt entered with a press credential dangling from a string around her neck and sat near the front, behind Parker House. Tracy counted a dozen other men and women wearing press credentials. She recognized many of the people, the same faces who had attended Sarah’s internment, but this time none of them approached Tracy, though a few acknowledged her with a nod or a wistful smile that quickly faded.

With the gallery full, the doors to the courtroom again opened. Edmund House entered flanked by two correctional officers. The gallery fell silent. Those who had attended the first trial alternately looked on disbelievingly at the dramatic change in House’s physical appearance or whispered their disbelief to those around them. Unlike his trial, no one had attempted to clean House up to make a favorable impression on a jury. There would be no jury this time. He shuffled forward in his prison uniform—khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt that revealed his tattooed arms. His long, braided ponytail reached the center of his broad back, and the chains connecting the manacles around his ankles and leading up his legs to the belly belt rattled and clinked as the guards led him to counsel table.

At his trial, House had seemed indifferent to the stares of the spectators, but now he looked bemused by their attention. It made her think of his comment when she and Dan had first visited him in prison, about what it would be like to see the faces of Cedar Grove’s citizens when he walked the streets as a free man again. Hopefully, that would not be for a while. She surveyed the courtroom, noting two additional officers had entered and were standing near the courtroom exit, and that a fifth had taken up a position beside the elevated bench.

House turned, facing the gallery as the correctional officers removed the restraints from his wrists and ankles. Dan placed a hand on House’s shoulder and whispered in his ear, but House kept his gaze on his uncle, though Parker did not look up. Parker kept his head down, looking like a penitent praying in church.

Judge Meyers’s clerk, who had left when House had entered, returned through the door to the left of the bench and called the proceedings to order. Meyers followed quickly on his clerk’s heels, took the stairs to his bench, and in rapid succession dispensed with preliminary matters, including expected courtroom decorum. Then, without fanfare or preface, Meyers turned to Dan.

“Mr. O’Leary, as the burden rests with the defendant at this hearing, you may proceed.”

Twenty years later, they were underway.





[page]CHAPTER 41





Edmund House’s spine stiffened when Dan stood and said, “The defense calls Sheriff Roy Calloway.”

House watched Calloway intently from the moment the Cedar Grove Sheriff entered the courtroom. Calloway stepped through the swinging gate and paused to return House’s glare, long enough that one of the guards moved toward the table, but Calloway gave House a final, smug smile and crossed the well to the witness chair.

Cedar Grove’s sheriff looked even more imposing when he stepped up onto the elevated platform to take his oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Calloway dwarfed the witness chair when he sat. Dan led him through the preliminaries. Meyers quickly facilitated this. “I’m familiar with the witness’s background and it is noted in the record. Let’s move to the substance of the matter.” His wife’s trail ride was calling.

O’Leary complied. “On August 22, 1993, do you recall receiving a call from one of your deputies about a blue Ford truck seemingly abandoned along the side of the county road?”

“Not seemingly abandoned. Abandoned.”

“Will you tell the court what you did as a result of that call?”

“My deputy at the time had already run the plates and said they came back registered to James Crosswhite. I knew Tracy Crosswhite, his daughter, drove that vehicle.”

“You were friends with James Crosswhite?”

“Everyone was friends with James Crosswhite.”

The low murmur and subtle nods caused Meyers to raise his head, though not his gavel.

“What happened next?”

“I drove out to the vehicle.”

“Did the car appear in any way disabled?”

“No.”

“Did you attempt to get inside?”

“The doors were locked. There was no one inside the truck cab. The camper shell windows were tinted but I banged on the side and got no response.” Calloway’s tone fluctuated between disdain and boredom.

“What did you do next?”

“I drove to the Crosswhite home and knocked on the door but again got no answer. So I thought I better call James.”