“Why are you here, Liz?”
“Are you okay, Adrian? Look at me.” She gave him time, and he took it. She noticed small twitches in the muscles of his shoulders, the single shudder that led to a cough. “Did something happen after they brought you in? I know it was rough, but were you mistreated? Threatened? You seem…” She trailed off because she didn’t want to finish the thought, that he seemed less.
“Darkness. Walls.” He offered a difficult smile. “I don’t do well in small spaces.”
“Claustrophobia?”
“Something like that.”
He tried to smile, but it turned into another round of coughing, another twenty seconds of the shakes. Her eyes moved down his chest, and across his stomach.
“Jesus, Adrian.”
He saw her looking at the scars and turned away. His back, though, was as bad as his chest. How many pale, white lines were there? Twenty-five? Forty?
“Adrian…”
“It’s nothing.”
“What did they do to you?”
He picked up the shirt and shrugged it on. “I said it’s nothing.”
She looked more closely at his face and saw for the first time how bones did not line up as she remembered. Shadows filled the hollow place beside his left eye. The nose was not quite the same. She threw a glance down the hall. She had minutes. No more. “Have they questioned you about the church?”
Adrian put his palms flat against the door and kept his head down. “I thought you were suspended.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Francis told me.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“To stay away from you. To keep my mouth shut and not drag you into my problems.” Adrian looked up, and for an instant the years faded. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t kill her.”
He was talking about the church, the new victim.
“Did you kill Julia Strange?”
It was the first time Elizabeth had ever questioned his innocence, and the moment stretched as muscles tightened in his jaw and old wounds pulled apart. “I did the time, didn’t I?”
His gaze, then, was clear and angry. Same Adrian. None of the weakness.
“You should have taken the stand,” she said. “You should have answered the question.”
“The question.”
“Yes.”
“Shall I answer it, now?”
The words were flat, but the stare was so intent a throb began at the base of Elizabeth’s skull. He knew what she wanted. Of course, he knew. She’d waited every day of his trial for the question to be answered. There would be an explanation, she’d thought. Everything would make sense.
But he never took the stand.
The question was never answered.
“It’s what it comes down to, isn’t it?” He watched her. “The scratches on my neck. The skin under her nails.”
“An innocent man would have explained it.”
“Things were complicated, then.”
“So, explain it now.”
“Will you help me if I do?”
There it was, she thought. The convict Beckett had warned her about. The user. The player.
“Why your skin was under Julia Strange’s nails?” He looked away, jawline clenched. “Tell me or I walk.”
“Is that a threat?”
“A requirement.”
Adrian sighed and shook his head. When he spoke, he knew how it would sound. “I was sleeping with her.”
A pause. A slow blink. “You were having an affair with Julia Strange?”
“Catherine and I were in a bad place…”
“Catherine was pregnant.”
“I didn’t know she was pregnant. That came after.”
“Jesus…”
“I’m not trying to justify it, Liz. I just want you to understand. The marriage wasn’t working. I didn’t love Catherine, and she didn’t much love me, either. The baby was a last, desperate try, I think. I didn’t even know she was pregnant until she lost it.”
Elizabeth took a step away; came back. The pieces were ugly. She didn’t want them to fit. “Why didn’t you testify about the affair? The DNA evidence convicted you. If there was an explanation, you should have given it.”
“I couldn’t do it to Catherine.”
“Bullshit.”
“Hurt her. Humiliate her.” He shook his head again. “Not after what I’d done to her.”
“You should have testified.”
“It’s easy to say that now, but to what purpose? Think about it.” He looked every inch a broken man, the face scarred, the eyes a dark stain. “No one knew the truth but Julia, and she was dead. Who would believe me if I claimed adultery as my defense? You’ve seen the trials same as me, the desperate men willing to lie and squirm and barter their souls for the barest chance of a decent verdict. My testimony would look like a string of self-serving, calculated lies. And what could I possibly get from it? Not sympathy or dignity or reasonable doubt. I’d open myself to cross-examination and look even guiltier by the end of it. No, I stared down that road more than once, thinking about it. I’d humiliate Catherine and get nothing for it. Julia was dead. Bringing up the relationship could only hurt me.”
“No one saw you together?”
“Not in that way. No.”
“No letters? Voice mails?”
“We were very careful. I couldn’t prove the affair if I wanted to.”
Elizabeth plucked at the edges. “It’s all very convenient.”
“There’s more,” he said. “You won’t like it.”
“Tell me.”
“Someone planted evidence.”
“For God’s sake, Adrian…”
“My prints in her house, the DNA-that all makes sense. I get it. I was there all the time. We were intimate. But the can at the church doesn’t fit. I was never near the church. I never drank a beer there.”
“And who do you think planted it?”
“Whoever wanted me in prison.”
“I’m sorry, Adrian…”
“Don’t say that.”
“Say what? That you sound like every convict I’ve ever met. ‘I didn’t do it. Someone set me up.’”
Elizabeth stepped back, and it was hard to hide the disbelief. Adrian saw it; hated it. “I can’t go back to prison, Liz. You don’t understand what it’s like for me, there. You can’t. Please. I’m asking for your help.”
She studied the grimy skin and dark eyes, unsure if she would help. She’d changed her life because of him, yet he was just a man, and seriously, perhaps fatally, flawed. What did that mean for her? Her choices?
“I’ll think about it,” she said and left without another word.
It took two minutes to exit the building. Randolph stayed at her side, moving her quickly down one hall and then another. At the same low door on the same side street, he walked her onto the sidewalk and let the door clank shut behind him. The sky burned red in the west. A hot wind licked the concrete as Randolph shook out two cigarettes and offered one to Elizabeth.
“Thanks.”
She took it. He lit them both, and they smoked in silence for half a minute.
“So, what is it?” She flicked ash. “The real reason?”
“For what?”
“Helping me.”
He shrugged, a misshapen grin on his face. “Maybe I dislike authority.”
“I know you dislike authority.”
“You also know why I helped you. Same reason I’d have helped you bury the Monroe brothers in the darkest woods in the deepest part of the county.”
“Because you have daughters.”
“Because fuck them for doing what they did to that girl. I’d have shot them, too, and I don’t think you should go down for it. You’ve been a cop for what? Thirteen years? Fifteen? Shit.” He sucked hard; blew smoke. “Defense lawyers would have put that girl through hell all over again, and some knee-jerk judge might let them go on a goddamn technicality. We both know it happens.” He cracked his neck, unapologetic. “Sometimes justice matters more than the law.”
“That’s a dangerous way for a cop to look at things.”