My Sister's Grave (Tracy Crosswhite, #1)(84)

Now he’d get that chance, though not immediately. Nobody would be walking the streets of Cedar Grove right now—not tonight, maybe not for a few days. As Dan had said, the storm had made prisoners of them all.

But House was no longer her priority. She didn’t care what might happen at House’s new trial, or if there even was one. Tracy would turn her attention to getting Sarah’s case reopened, which had always been her goal. She doubted that decision would be up to Vance Clark. After Meyers’s reprimand from the bench, Clark would likely resign his post as county prosecutor. Tracy took no pleasure in Clark’s demise. She’d known the man and she’d known his wife. Clark’s daughters had attended Cedar Grove High. Retirement also seemed Roy Calloway’s best option, though Tracy knew the man to be just stubborn enough to refuse. It wouldn’t matter whether or not Tracy was successful in lobbying the Department of Justice to devote its resources to investigating whether or not Clark and Calloway had participated in a conspiracy to convict Edmund House. She wasn’t sure that such an investigation would include DeAngelo Finn, who was too old and too frail, though he might prove to be a valuable witness.

She sipped her beer and found herself thinking again of her conversation with Finn, as she had stood on the back steps to his home.

Be careful. Sometimes our questions are better left unanswered.

There’s no one left to hurt, DeAngelo.

But there is.

Roy Calloway had been equally pensive the evening he’d driven to the veterinary clinic. Your father . . . , he’d started to say, before something had made him stop.

She had wondered if, perhaps, George Bovine’s horrific recounting of his daughter’s suffering had somehow convinced her father and the others that, if they could not find Sarah’s killer, the next-best alternative was to put an animal like Edmund House behind prison walls for the rest of his life. For years, she’d considered this the most plausible theory. Her father had always been a man of such high integrity and morals that it was hard to fathom him doing such a thing, but that man had not existed in the weeks following Sarah’s abduction. The man she’d worked alongside in his office in their frantic search to find Sarah had seemingly been possessed of a different spirit. That man had been angry, bitter, consumed by Sarah’s death. And, Tracy supposed, his own guilt that he had not been in Cedar Grove, had not gone with them to the shooting tournament, had not been there to protect them as he’d always been—as was a father’s duty.

The local news began. Not surprisingly, Judge Meyers’s decision to free Edmund House was the lead story, as the hearing had been the preceding three nights. “Shocking developments today in the post-conviction relief hearing of Edmund House in Cascade County,” the news anchor said. “After twenty years, convicted rapist and murderer Edmund House is a free man. For more on the story we go live to Maria Vanpelt, who is braving a snowstorm and standing outside the Cascade County Jail where Edmund House and his attorney held a news conference earlier this afternoon.”

Vanpelt stood beneath an umbrella in the glow of a spotlight. All around her, the snow swirled, nearly obscuring the Cascade County Jail, her chosen backdrop. Gusts of wind tugged at her umbrella, threatening to turn it inside out, and the fur lining of her hooded parka shimmered like a lion shaking its mane. “Shocking is exactly the word to describe today’s events,” Vanpelt said. She recounted Tracy’s testimony, as well as the testimony of Harrison Scott that had led to Judge Meyers’s decision to release Edmund House. “Calling the trial ‘a travesty of justice,’ Judge Meyers implicated everyone involved, including Cedar Grove’s sheriff, Roy Calloway, and the county prosecutor, Vance Clark,” Vanpelt continued. “Earlier this afternoon, I attended a news conference inside the building behind me. That was just before Edmund House walked out a free man—at least for the time being.”

The camera switched to the earlier news conference. Dan sat beside House, a bouquet of microphones on the table between them. Their disparate sizes had been evident at counsel table but the difference seemed even more pronounced now with House dressed in a denim shirt and winter jacket.

Tracy’s cell phone rang. She retrieved it from the couch and hit the “Pause” button on the television.

“I’m just watching you on the television,” she said. “Where are you?”

“I had a few other interviews with the national media,” Dan said. “I’m on my way, but I thought I better let you know the freeway’s already a mess. There are spinouts everywhere. It’s going to take me some time to get home. There are reports of power outages and downed trees.”

“Everything’s fine here,” she said.

“I have a generator in the garage if you need it. All you need to do is plug it into the socket beside the fuse boxes.”

“Not sure I have the energy.”

“The boys are all right?”

“Lying here on the rug. You might have to carry them outside to go to the bathroom, however.”

“And what about you?”

“I can make it to the bathroom myself, thank you very much,” she said.

“I see someone’s sense of humor has returned.”

“I think I’m punchy. What I see is a hot bath in my future.”

“I like the sound of that.”