My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(65)

“Did he tell you how he could be so certain?”

“He said he’d given Sarah the earrings as a gift when she won the Washington State Shooting Championship the prior year.”

“Did you confront Edmund House with this new evidence?”

“He called it ‘bullshit.’?” Calloway looked past Dan to where House sat. “He leaned across the table and smiled at me. Then he said he hadn’t driven Sarah home. He said he’d driven her into the foothills, raped her, strangled her, and buried her body. He laughed. He said without a body we’d never convict him. He laughed about it like it was one big game.”

The crowd stirred.

“And you have this confession on tape?”

Calloway bit his lower lip. “No.”

“After the first confession, weren’t you better prepared?”

“I guess not.”

“Just one more question, Sheriff.” Dan used a remote control to display a blowup of the topographical map of the area above Cedar Grove on the flat-screen television. “I wonder if you’d note on this map where it was that Sarah’s remains were recently found.”





[page]CHAPTER 42





Later in the afternoon, after Clark’s attempt to rehabilitate Calloway, and with a black X on the topographical map to mark the spot where the hunter’s dog had found Sarah’s remains drawing the attention of the gallery, Calloway stepped down from the witness stand. Dan had told Tracy his intent was to follow Calloway with a series of witnesses whose testimony he anticipated to be brief. He wanted to avoid having the inconsistencies between Calloway’s current testimony and his trial testimony become lost in too many details. Dan wanted Meyers thinking about them overnight.

Dan called Parker House. Parker looked as uncomfortable now as Tracy recalled from the trial. He left his jacket in the pew and took the oath to tell the truth in a wrinkled, short-sleeved white shirt. When he sat, he absentmindedly picked at the hair on his arm, and the heel of his right boot shook to a silent beat.

“You were working the graveyard?” Dan asked.

“That’s right.”

“What time did you get home?”

“Wasn’t till late. I’d say ten that morning.”

“That’s what you testified to during the trial.”

“Then that’s probably right.”

“What time did your shift at the mill end?”

“That would have been right around eight.”

“What did you do between the time your shift ended and the time you arrived home?”

Parker shifted in his chair and glanced at the faces in the gallery, though not at his nephew. “Went out for a few drinks.”

“How many is a few?”

Parker shrugged. “I don’t recall.”

“You testified at trial that you had three beers and a shot of whiskey.”

“Then that’s probably right.”

“Do you recall the name of the bar?”

Parker was starting to look like a man with a bad back trying to get comfortable in the chair. Clark took the opportunity to stand and object. “Your Honor, none of this is relevant, and it is clearly making the witness uncomfortable. If the counsel’s intent is only to embarrass . . .”

“Not at all, Your Honor,” Dan said. “Just trying to establish if the witness was competent to assess what he claims to have seen when he arrived home that morning.”

“I’ll allow it,” Meyers said. “But make it quick.”

“I don’t recall the bar,” Parker said, which was plausible after twenty years. But he had also claimed to not recall the name of the bar during the trial, which, given that there weren’t many in the small towns, seemed less plausible. But Vance Clark had not pressed him on it. Nor had DeAngelo Finn.

“And when you got home, where was Edmund?”

“Sleeping in his room.”

“Did you wake him?”

“Not right then, no.”

“When did you wake him?”

“When the sheriff arrived. I’d say eleven.”

“And did you notice anything different about Edmund’s appearance from when you’d last seen him?”

“You mean the scratches on his face and arms?”

“Did you notice scratches on his face and arms?”

“Had to. They was right there to see.”

“He hadn’t tried to cover them with makeup or anything?”

“Don’t think we had anything like that. It was just him and me. There wasn’t no women.” When the gallery smiled, Parker gave a sheepish grin and, for the first time, considered his nephew. His smile quickly faded.

“Did he tell you and Sheriff Calloway how he got the scratches?”

“He said he was working in the furniture shed and a piece of wood he was stripping got all bound up in the table saw and it splintered and cut him.”

“What did Sheriff Calloway say or do?”

“He took some Polaroids of Edmund’s face and arms and then he asked if he could look around.”

“Did you grant him permission?”

“I said he could.”

“Did you accompany him?”