“No. He’s…resigned to his fate.” I’m afraid to tell them that Beau’s given up. No, I’m terrified to admit it, because his defeatist attitude could be seen as an admission of guilt.
Mr. Nash flips through my notebook to Cassandra’s page. He studies the profile I created on her. It’s not as complete as I’d like it to be. None of her friends or relatives were eager to talk to the sister of her accused murderer. I don’t blame them, but it’s made my work harder and I can’t help the tiny seed of resentment I have against them. Even with those omissions, my profile on Cassandra is pretty good. I had to think outside the box since I’d made the mistake of approaching her friends and family as myself instead of pretending I was a journalist or a kid doing a report for school or something. Learning that lesson early helped me create more rounded profiles for the other people connected to the case.
Leo picks up the copy of the coroner’s report. It’s gruesome. The photos…the description of Cassandra’s wounds and what was done to her…horrific. I looked at it only once. Halfway through the photos I bolted to the bathroom to vomit. I got to know Cassandra pretty well during the time she and Beau dated. I liked her. I liked her a lot. Seeing her like that…I still have nightmares. She comes to me in dreams sometimes and she begs me to help her, begs me to make “him” stop hurting her. I wake up screaming, coated in sweat.
“How did you get this?” Leo asks.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” I joke.
That report was not easy to get. The San Diego coroner’s office has a brilliant firewall. But not as brilliant as my friend Jamie. I had to promise to do her hair for a whole year in order to get that file. She loves the way I cut her hair even though I’ve never taken a class and don’t have a license to do hair. Someday, when my brother’s free, I’ll go to beauty school. Until then, my little side haircuts and colors help to finance a lot of the work I do on Beau’s case.
Leo’s eyebrows jump up on his forehead. “You’re a hacker?”
“Not me,” I hedge. “I’ve managed to find ways in and around the system to get a lot of this.” I make a sweeping gesture, indicating all of the papers spread across the table. “I learned quite a bit about investigating in the last five years.”
“Impressive,” Mr. Nash finally says.
Up until now he’s been quiet, listening and jotting down notes. His compliment makes my cheeks burn and I stare at my hands in my lap. I don’t get many compliments. Not because I’m unworthy of them, but because the people who would give them—like my parents or Beau—are too caught up in their own grief and suffering to notice if I’ve done anything at all.
“How long have you been working on this?” Mr. Nash asks.
“Pretty much since the day my brother was convicted.”
“You believe that strongly in his innocence?”
“Yes,” I say, my gaze rising to meet his. “He’s as innocent as I am. As innocent as you and your son. Beau loved Cassandra. They were getting back together when she was killed. That’s why his DNA was found on her body. He didn’t do this and I won’t give up until he’s freed.”
“Okay,” he says with a nod, and some of the tension runs out of me. I finally have the help I need. I want to jump up and down and go to my brother and shake him into believing in himself again. Beau now has a champion in this middle-aged man with tired eyes, graying hair, and a jelly doughnut stain on his tie.
“You’ve done a lot of the work for us,” Mr. Nash says. “Tell me about this witness that was never interviewed by the police.”
I catch Leo watching me. He has this look on his face like he’s impressed. And I realize that he hasn’t so much as glanced at my tits since I took my notebook out and started turning its pages. Maybe he’s not the total-loser asshole I thought he was.
“She was Cassandra’s downstairs neighbor at the time of the murder. She’s an elderly lady confined to a hospital bed for the past ten years.” I open my folder containing the photos I took of Cassandra’s apartment building and point to a lower window. “Anyone taking the stairs to Cassandra’s apartment would have to walk past her bedroom window. At the very least she can verify that my brother wasn’t there. A few years ago she moved and I haven’t been able to find her.”
“She could be dead. I wonder why the police never questioned her.”
“If she is there’s no record of a death certificate on file. There’s a note in one of the reports that the detectives made a couple of efforts to contact her, but were unsuccessful. She’s confined to a bed,” I scoff. “Where’s she going to go?”
Mr. Nash nods. “Could be lazy police work. After all, they had your brother’s DNA and an eyewitness who saw him leaving Cassandra’s apartment. Why go out of their way to find another witness? Or there could’ve been a cover-up.”
I lean over and flip through the pages of my notebook until I find the one I created for the eyewitness. “Damien LeFeaux. He’s got several arrests for possession and three for dealing. He’s a big, fat meth head. He testified in my brother’s case and somehow escaped California’s three-strikes law. Of course, he’s such a freakin’ idiot that he got arrested again for possession and is serving twenty years in Donovan. I guess he didn’t witness any new crimes to get out of that one.”
“I’d like to talk to him,” Leo says.
“That might be a job better suited for me,” Mr. Nash cuts in. “I have a connection at Donovan. We’re going to have to tread very lightly with Mr. LeFeaux.” He turns a few more pages. “I’m not joking here, Cora. This is some of the finest, most thorough investigative work I’ve ever seen. You’re organized and resourceful. If you’re ever interested in a career in private investigation, I’d hire you in a minute.”
I lower my head and nod. My cheeks are on fire, my heart is thumping hard, and I don’t know where to look. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Where do we start?” Leo asks.
“We start at the beginning.” Mr. Nash flips back to the first page of my notebook. Cassandra’s page. I used a photo Beau had taken of her. She’s smiling at him and you can see how much she loved him.
“We start with the victim, Cassandra Bethany Williams.”
Chapter 4 Leo
My dad isn’t easily impressed. He’s certainly never been as enthralled with anything I’ve ever done as he is with Cora and the work she did on her brother’s behalf. I should be jealous or ashamed, but I’m not. Cora is damn impressive. When I think about her—which has been pretty much every waking moment since I laid eyes on her—I imagine what life has been like for her since her brother went to prison. I try to picture myself putting my life on hold to help one of my sisters, but I can’t. That realization does shame me. I wouldn’t have done what she has. Not many people would.
Glancing over the papers strewn across the table after she unloaded her box, I realize I’m totally fucked. Luckily my dad helped us map out a plan and now it’s up to me to captain this investigation. I’m in way over my head. Cora is looking at me like she expects me to either come up with something brilliant or fall on my ass. I will not fail her. I won’t. This isn’t at all the way I pictured my summer, but now, looking into her take-no-bullshit stare, I can’t remember any of the plans I made. I’ve fallen headfirst into her life, inserting myself into it like I had a right to be there. She challenges me on that every time I dare to meet her gaze.
“Tell me about Cassandra,” I say.
She pulls her binder toward her. It’s meticulous. I mean that in the most sincere way possible. It’s a work of art. She took the tiniest pieces she could find and fashioned them into something that is organized, informative, and flat-out fucking brilliant. I can see the case the way she sees it. She laid it all out for anyone who would care to look. But I don’t need her to tell me what’s in it. I need her to tell me what’s not in it. I need to know what can’t be put down on paper—her impressions, her feelings, her, I don’t know…intuition.