Rick caught her staring at the file and reached for it, picking it up as if to test its weight. “Hasn’t bitten me yet...”
Fleur managed a smile. She took the file from him, opening it and laying it on the coffee table. Rick seemed unwilling to look at the contents without her permission, and she moved a little closer to him, pushing the file in front of him. She felt his arm around her shoulder, and suddenly she felt strong enough to do this.
There wasn’t much there. A very sketchy statement, in Sheriff Taylor’s handwriting with her signature at the bottom. A few forms, the gist of which was that there was insufficient evidence and no further action was to be taken.
“I suppose...that’s all pretty clear cut
.” Fleur felt a little disappointed. There was nothing here that she didn’t already know.
Jim pushed an envelope across the table to her. “There were a couple of photographic negatives. I had them developed.”
“I remember. He took some photographs before I gave my statement...” Fleur opened the envelope and heard Rick catch his breath.
“He didn’t think that this was worth taking any action over?” Angry incredulity sounded in his voice.
The cut lip and swollen eye were worse than Fleur remembered them. Much worse. And the anguish in her own eyes was so akin to the way she’d been feeling all these years. The emotion that she’d held onto and internalized for so long. Shock hammered through her and she sprang to her feet, looking for a way out...
She felt Rick’s arms around her, and realized that she was shaking. Fleur clung to him as if he were the only thing in the room that might stop her from falling. “I want to go...”
Jim shook his head, but said nothing.
“Okay. It’s okay. If you want to go then that’s what we’ll do. But if you want to stay, I’ll be here with you. All the way. We can stop at any time, and we can leave at any time. Right, Jim?”
“Yep. That’s exactly right.”
The panic began to subside, and Fleur sat back down. Maybe she could do this after all. If Rick just held onto her, and he showed no signs of letting her go, it would be all right. She took a gulp of coffee, wincing again to find that it was just as strong as it had been a moment ago.
She pointed shakily at the file. “There are tapes...” Three cassette tapes, in a plastic folder that had been stapled to the inside of the file. “Have you played them, Jim?”
“Yes. But I think you should hear them too.” A portable cassette player was on the table in front of them, and now that Fleur thought about it, there was no other reason for it to be there.
“Is that all right, Fleur?” Rick questioned her gently.
“Yes... Play them...”
Rick took the tapes from the folder, examining the written labels. “This looks like the first one.” He inserted it into the player, pressing the “play” button.
She heard Sheriff Taylor’s avuncular tones, along with her own, frightened and crying. But after only a couple of minutes the sheriff announced that they would take a break and the tape shut off.
“What happened there?” Rick looked as puzzled as Fleur felt. “Do you remember that?”
“I... I don’t know.” Fleur thought hard. “Yes...yes, I do. He went to get me some soda and he was gone for ages. I thought he must have had to go out and get it from the store, and that it was kind of him to do it.”
“Okay.” Rick reached for another tape. “This one’s marked as the second one...”
This one was a taped telephone call. Sheriff Taylor was talking to Evan’s father, telling him the time of the attack and where it had been. Evan’s father responded, saying that his son had been home all evening.
“Can you make this go away, Frank?”
“If I do, I want your boy off the island. Tonight. And I don’t want to see his face here again.”
The call ended, and Rick turned the player off with a sharp jab of his finger. He was obviously angry, but all Fleur could feel was numb confusion.
“That’s outrageous!” Rick exclaimed. “He was practically feeding him with a story, and then he explicitly says he can make it go away. It sounds as if Sheriff Taylor knew this man...”
Jim nodded. “They used to go out fishing together. You remember him saying that he was going to make a call, Fleur?”
Fleur shook her head. “I’m sure he never told me that he talked to anyone else. I just thought he was going for soda...”