“Yeah, that she did,” Nikki said, then turned the conversation back to Amity. “So what about the guy Amity was interested in?”
“I don’t know, but I saw her once with her mom’s boyfriend, and she was like, all giggly and girlie. Not like her.”
“You think she had a crush on Roland Camp?” Nikki asked, surprised.
“I don’t know what you’d call it, but there was something going on there, something I didn’t really want to think too long and hard about.” With that he twirled his drink, ice cubes clinking.
“One more thing,” Nikki said, now that she’d gotten all the information she could from him about Amity. “What about your dad and Blondell? They knew each other, you know, growing up.”
“Don’t think so.” He shook his head, his blond hair catching in the soft light.
“I heard he had the hots for her. That a lot of guys from that neighborhood did.”
“What’re you getting at?”
“That Amity wasn’t Calvin O’Henry’s biological child,” she said boldly.
“So?” He glowered at her. “Oh, you think my old man was? Come on. Amity was younger than I was and Mom and Dad have been married for . . .” He squeezed his eyes shut for a second. “Just because Dad blew a gasket that I was seeing Amity . . .” He stopped short and set his drink on the table and said through his teeth, “You know what, this interview is over.” A vein was throbbing near his temple as he glared at her. She knew she’d pushed him as far as she could.
“I’m just trying to find out the truth.”
No answer. Just stony silence.
“Fine, but if you change your mind . . .”
His eyes were cold as a glacier.
“Okay, then,” she said. “Thanks for the drink.”
Then she left, and as she pushed open the door to the outside, she heard him order another whiskey on the rocks.
CHAPTER 28
Deacon Beauregard was furious, his face a color Morrisette had never associated with the human complexion as he leaned over his desk. His office was small, crammed floor to ceiling with books, with barely space for his law degrees to be displayed.
“I find it impossible in these days of DNA analysis and photographic enhancement and all the other effing forensic advances, that you couldn’t find enough evidence to keep Blondell O’Henry behind bars!” He was leaning forward over his desk, looking for all the world as if he truly were going to have a heart attack or stroke or some kind of major health trauma, all of which was just fine with Morrisette. She’d always figured him for a prick, and he was doing his best this afternoon to prove it.
“All the evidence hasn’t been gone over yet,” Reed said, “even though the lab is working overtime. We hoped that there would be something found, like epithelial tissue collected under Blondell O’Henry’s nails or DNA that matched from the cigarette butt, or that the weapon could be located or something, but in this case time was our enemy. The DNA is inconclusive or too corrupted. It’s been too many years since the crime occurred and too little time since Niall O’Henry decided to recant his testimony. We even had the lab check those love letters that were located in Blondell O’Henry’s house. Her fingerprints were all over them; they were all written in her hand and are assumed to have been meant for Roland Camp. She’d testified to the same in the original trial.”
“You just didn’t look hard enough,” Deacon accused. “This is my dad’s case. His reputation!”
Morrisette had heard enough. “Maybe if he would’ve worked harder on building his case on evidence rather than the testimony of one little kid, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The fact is your dad had a hard-on for nailing Blondell from the get-go,” she said, then, hearing herself, stopped short.
Deacon charged, “And maybe if you’d been following legitimate leads instead of visiting my mother and asking for her help with your case, we would have wrapped this up by now and Blondell O’Henry would be staying where she belongs: in Fairfield Prison.”
“That’s enough!” Kathy Okano must’ve heard the last part of the conversation as she walked into the room, because she too was agitated. She and Beauregard were both ADAs, but she’d been with the department longer and was therefore his senior. “Let it go, Deacon. It’s over.”
“The case was solid!” Deacon insisted.
“Not solid enough.” Morrisette wasn’t backing down. The guy was no better than his old man.
“Enough said.” Through her glasses, Okano looked from one to the other. “We have other cases. Was justice served for Amity O’Henry? Who knows? Was Blondell O’Henry put away for a crime she didn’t commit? Again, who knows?”
“The problem is,” Beauregard pointed out, “if we do find evidence now that proves undeniably that she’s guilty, then she can’t be tried again. Double jeopardy applies.”
Okano inclined her head. “She’s served twenty years.”
“And her daughter is dead, along with the child that daughter was carrying. And two other people—”