Dent shifted his position, making the bed rock. “That’s no answer. We didn’t come all this way for you to be cute.”
Dale took a shot of whiskey. “What did you come here for?”
Bellamy leaned toward him. “I want you to tell me that you believe with all your heart that Allen Strickland was guilty.”
He held her pleading gaze for as long as he could stand it, then looked down and studied the burning tip of his cigarette.
“Maybe he still thinks I killed her.”
Dale, knowing Dent had said that just to goad him, fired back. “I thought, and still think, that you were capable of it.”
“You could always apply a screwdriver to my eye again, see if I confess this time.”
The girl admonished him just by softly speaking his name.
But being reminded of the strong-arm, illegal tactics he’d used to interrogate Dent caused Dale’s gut to clench. “I didn’t believe for a single minute the alibi you and your sidekick came up with.”
“We went flying that day.”
“I’m sure you did. What I couldn’t prove was what time you came back.”
“It was in Gall’s log.”
“Log, my ass. He could’ve written any damn time in his log. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No, I think you’re clever. Clever enough to tell Rupe Collier that he couldn’t build a solid case against me. That’s when you two decided that Allen Strickland might be the surer bet on getting a conviction.”
Dale shot to his feet so quickly he nearly upset the TV tray. He saved the bottle of whiskey first, grabbing it before it could topple over. Then he crushed out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. He could feel their eyes like red-hot pokers on his
back as he moved to the screened door and stared sightlessly at what had been his unchanging view for far too long.
And suddenly he realized how very tired he was, and not only of the view. He was so damn weary, body and soul. Sick to death, literally, of it all. Just—as kids these days said—over it. He was almost a score of years too late to try to make things right. But he had one last shot at redemption and decided then and there to take it.
“I was eating lunch at one of those good Mex’can places on the east side of town. Haymaker called to tell me that Allen Strickland had been killed in the prison yard that morning. Stabbed in the back three times before he hit the ground. Each stab had punctured an organ. He was dead in under a minute. Seems he’d gotten in with a bad group—”
He paused and looked over his shoulder at them. “You gotta admit he was a slick, hustling type. In the pen, he affiliated with a gang of like minds.” He faced forward again. “The murder was blamed on gang warfare within the prison, although no one was ever brought up on charges.
“Anyway, I left my plate of food on the table, went outside, and threw up. Hard. Till I was completely empty, and then I kept on retching. Because the last I saw of Allen Strickland, he was being escorted from the courtroom after his sentencing. He turned to where I was seated in the gallery, looked me straight in the eye, and said, ‘I didn’t kill her. God is my witness.’
“Now, I’ve heard hundreds of guilty men and women swear on God and all the angels that they’re innocent. But I believed Allen Strickland. So, no, Ms. Price, I don’t believe with all my heart that he was guilty of killing your sister. I never did.”
He remained as he was for as long as it took him to take a deep breath and release it slowly. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel as washed clean, as sanctified, as he thought he might after making that admission, and realized that he’d been naive to think it would be that easy.
He turned back into the room and, resuming his seat, picked up the glass and drained it of the liquor. The two people sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bed were watchful.
She was the first to speak. “If you didn’t believe in his guilt, how… why…”
“How and why did I get the grand jury to indict, and a jury to convict? I could reel off a dozen good reasons, but the main one? We had to get the egg off our faces.”
“We?” Dent said.
“Rupe and me.”
“So he’s tarnished, too?”
Dale chuckled over Bellamy’s quaint term for corrupt. “You could say. Anyhow, we’d gone public with one prime suspect.” He looked at Dent. “But you had an alibi. We didn’t believe it, but we couldn’t crack it. That’s when Allen Strickland started looking like a winning prospect.
“We were desperate to make good our promise to the Lystons, the PD, everybody, that we’d produce the culprit and bring him to justice. We couldn’t let this big, juicy case get away from us.