Peter confessed that he and Christopher had been selling stolen art in Europe and Asia for the past decade while everyone thought Christopher was dead. Greed knows no boundaries. He also admitted that he and Christopher had planned the museum break-in and that he was the one who attacked Haile Patchett at the memorial that night to create a diversion to get the fake police inside. Of course he blamed everything on Christopher and said he was forced into it. I won’t even honor that by asking how you can force someone into committing such heinous acts. He also said that I’d come aboard his boat and threatened him with a gun, which he thought would get me in trouble. It did-for a minute-but it also helped establish that he’d told me where Christopher was staying and that I’d gone after him.
Peter’s trial has been delayed now for more than a year. His lawyer is arguing that the evidence against his client was gotten by force-by me, an ex-cop with a grudge. I’m sure to be called as a witness, and I won’t deny what I did, but I sure as hell hope the DA is tough enough to make Peter’s words stick to him.
Hank Zacharius got himself a new story.
INNOCENT WOMAN EXECUTED
That headline appeared in newspapers across the country and with Rosemary’s public, exoneration, the state of California was not only shamed but also forced to pay the Thomas children undisclosed millions in damages. It was exoneration for Hank, too, and from what I hear, he’s got a seven-figure book deal to write the whole story, but when he called to interview me, I turned him down. He understood.
Stan Ballard was disbarred and is awaiting trial, and he and Sarah separated.
Sarah.
She told the police how she’d been attacked in a department store dressing room and how she’d realized, too late, that her attacker had to have been Christopher Thomas. I was furious she’d never told me.
Eventually the cops let me go. They didn’t have much to hold me on other than reckless driving and swinging my gun around like a cowboy, and Christopher Thomas’s fatal splash into the bay was finally ruled an accident.
Maybe it’s poetic justice that he died painfully. Maybe not. Maybe it would have been better if he had to grow old in prison and live with what he’d done, although he’d need a conscience for that and clearly didn’t have one. Still, a part of me feels robbed that I lived with pain for more than a decade and Christopher Thomas got off so easily. Again, my fault. I might have saved him if I was thinking straight at the time. But I don’t regret it. You could say the old Jon Nunn died that night too and I’m the guy who took his place. I was wrong-the phoenix does rise from ashes.
After everything settled down, I left San Francisco and bought a little ranch in Wyoming that was in foreclosure, nothing special, a dozen acres, a couple of old horses. The house was a mess, rotten floors and broken windows, but I’ve been fixing it up slowly and it doesn’t look half bad. Tony Olsen and I speak from time to time and he always asks me to come to San Francisco. But I’m not going back. I’ve tried too hard to get away from it all and forget. But then, you never forget, you just build a layer of scar tissue over the wounds and keep going.
Just the other day I got a little painting in the mail, an ocean scene, from Belle McGuire. No note, just the picture. I stared at it a long time and it brought everything back to me-the case, the trial, the ten years of sorrow and frustration, and the reckoning that finally arrived. I hung the painting in the living room as a reminder of all that had happened, but especially of Rosemary.
Afterward, I called Sarah.
She was surprised by my call. I told her I was more surprised. She laughed and it cut right through me. She asked how I was doing, and I turned the question around, and she said she was okay, but I think she was lying. I told her to come out to Wyoming for a visit sometime and she said maybe, so who knows…
Nowadays, I pay the bills doing some consulting for a security firm, and I’ve been lecturing on criminology at a community college, more to keep myself busy than anything else. But today I’m home. Next to the painting Belle sent me is a window, and in the distance I can make out the pointy, jagged tops of Cathedral Ridge, part of the Rocky Mountain range that I pretend belongs to me alone. Above it, the sky is bright blue with choppy, white clouds and looks to me like a landscape by van Gogh-vibrant, childlike, unbroken.
Appendix: Additional Police Reports Kathy Reichs
I. THE FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGY REPORT
FORENSIC ENTOMOLOGY SERVICES
C/O DR. PETER M. GERBER
OSTENDERSTRASSE 129-162
13353 BERLIN
030 532 77 43
FESB # 0236 31 AUGUST 1998
NMB 03-79
CONTACT: DR. GERBER
Subject: Specimens were submitted hand to hand, from the Institute of Legal Medicine, arriving at Forensic Entomology Services of Berlin on 27 August 1998 at 1330 hours. Samples were in three specimen jars, no preservatives. One jar contained multiple puparial casings. A second jar contained multiple dead specimens. Label indicated specimens collected on 26 August 1998. The third jar contained preserved maggots preserved in 70% ETOH. A fourth jar contained a single dead specimen. 70% ETOH added to jar containing multiple dead specimens at 1400 hours, 27 August 1998.
EVIDENCE SUBMITTED
1. Specimen jar containing multiple puparial casings. No data on outside or inside of jar.
2. Specimen jar containing multiple dead insects. Labeled NMBa 03-73; collect: 26-8-98.
3. Specimen jar containing preserved maggots. Labeled NMB 03-73b; collect 26-8-98
4. Specimen jar containing a single dead insect. No data on outside or inside of jar.
IDENTIFICATIONS
1. Diptera: Calliphoridae: Chrysomya rufifacies-23 empty pupae
2. Diptera: Calliphoridae: Chrysomya rufifacies-23 adults
3. Diptera: Piophilidae: Piophila casei-3rd instar larvae
4. Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Dihammus szechuanus
ESTIMATED MINIMUM PERIOD OF INSECT ACTIVITY
18 to 30 days prior to collection on 26 August 1998. This estimate is based on the presence of late third instar larvae of Piphilia casei. These maggots arrive typically around day 15 in decomposition and complete their development by day 36. The maggots in the collections here are consistent with development of approximately 30 days. The empty puparial cases of C. rufifacies, while not definitive, are consistent with this time frame. During decomposition studies conducted at 26°C, empty puparial cases of C. rufifacies were first reported on day 14. The presence of C. rufifacies suggests exposure of the body outside or near a window prior to or during shipping. Depending on available food materials, degree of exposure, and temperature ranges, the estimate of 18 to 30 days must be considered a minimum and a longer postmortem interval is possible.
II. THE RADIOLOGY REPORT
Document Identifier: C1998073042
Name: Unknown (presumed, Thomas, Christopher, DOB 19 09 52)
Analysis: Radiologic observation, skull, torso, upper and lower limbs
Request By: Dr. Bruno Muntz, ILM
Received From: Hand to hand, Mette Brinkman
Date of Exam: 20/07/1998
Time of Exam: 1100 hours
Place of Exam: Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin