I leaned back in my seat, waited for more.
“Had a few run-ins with the law. Drinking and driving, times two, one of them a hit and run. Think that might affect his credibility now, Mr. Bannister?”
“It might, yes.”
“And if the man had a drinking problem—which it appears he clearly did—who’s to say he wasn’t also drunk on the job, maybe even the day he supposedly saw my brother wandering through the neighborhood? See where I’m going with this?”
“I do.”
“And, in fact, who knows
“What about the judge? If the mailman was such a lousy witness, why did he allow the testimony?”
She flashed a smile that looked more bitter than happy. “Taggert claimed he hadn’t touched a drink in over a year, and since there was no proof he’d been drinking that day, the judge ruled it as admissible. Not that the jury would have held it against him anyway. We’re talking about Texas in the seventies.”
“Even so,” I said, “there was other evidence against your brother.”
“Nathan’s bloody clothing.”
I nodded.
“Well, there’s more to that, too.”
“Like what?”
“Like, they lost it.”
“Excuse me
“That’s right,” she said, nodding. “Lost. Oh, they eventually managed to find it, but there was a gap of a few days in there, certainly long enough for it to get tampered with or contaminated.”
“How did that happen?”
“Nobody knows for sure, except that somebody screwed up.”
“And the judge still let the evidence into court?”
“Shades of gray, Mr. Bannister, shades of gray. With no proof the evidence was tampered with, he allowed it. Besides, the clothes
“So how do you explain that?”
“I don’t, really,” she said, with a sigh. “I’ve always thought it must have been planted there.”
“By whom?”
“I was hoping maybe you could find out.”
“Ms. Lambert, I don’t have a problem investigating leads, but I usually need something to go on before I do. What you’re telling me here is all circumstan—”
“My brother wasn’t a murderer.”
“It’s not my place to say he was or he wasn’t. That was the jury’s job, and they convicted him.”
“Based on lost and possibly tampered evidence? Based on bad testimony from a questionable witness?”
“With all due respect, Ms. Lambert, your brother also had two prior sex offenses going into this. Did he not?”
“One,” she said, raising her index finger, “and it was for statutory rape. He was nineteen, and she was sixteen. Not the best judgment on his part, I’ll grant you that, but it doesn’t make him a child killer.”
“And the other charge?”
“Dropped.” She was looking into my eyes but still folding and unfolding the sugar packet. “When you’re a convicted sex offender, you become an instant suspect in just about anything that happens within a twenty-five mile radius of where you live, sometimes even farther. But when all was said and done, they had zip for evidence. Couldn’t charge him.”
I gazed at her for a long moment and thought. Nothing earthshaking here, but it did raise some questions. I said, “The cops were led to your brother because of an anonymous tip. Ever find out who that was?”
She laughed, but again there was no humor. “Sheriff wouldn’t say. No way to know if the person even existed.”
“You don’t have much faith in law enforcement, do you?”
She leaned forward and looked directly into my eyes; I could have sworn I saw something burning in hers. “My brother went to the electric chair for a crime he didn’t commit. How in God’s name
“Okay,” I said, raising my hands. “I get what you’re saying here, and it does appear there could have been some evidentiary issues during the trial—there’s no denying that. But to be perfectly honest, what you’ve told me doesn’t necessarily scream out his innocence, either.”
She reached into her bag and removed a sheet of paper. Slid it across the table, and said, “How about this Mr. Bannister? Does
She watched me carefully as I picked it up and read it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
It was a handwritten statement:
My hand shook slightly as I took it in. I said to Nissie, “Why wasn’t this introduced during the trial?”
“Ronnie didn’t tell anyone he had an alibi.”
“Even though it would’ve saved his life?”
She was rolling her hands against one another. “It’s complicated, but let me see if I can explain. Emma was Ronnie’s on-again-off-again girlfriend. Mostly off again. A real winner, I might add. She was in the process of losing her two-year-old girl in a custody fight. Her ex claimed she was an unfit mother, which she was.”
I raised an eyebrow.
“Drug problem,” Nissie said, “and the father was worse. Abusive as hell. He liked to beat the crap out of Emma, even smacked the kid around a few times. That’s when Emma decided enough was enough, that it was time to get out of the marriage. Of course, she had Ronnie’s arms to run into. They’d been carrying on together for quite some time by then.”
The waitress came by to refill our coffee cups. We paused, watching and waiting for her to finish and leave. She flashed me another Big Texas Smile as she left the table.
Nissie continued, “So one day, Ronnie calls, wanting to meet, but she tells him she can’t, that she has the baby at home and doesn’t have a sitter. Of course, he couldn’t come to her. His parole officer wouldn’t allow him to go near any minors, and obviously, Emma couldn’t bring the baby with her, either. But he insisted, told her he was thinking about ending the relationship. Well, that was all Emma had to hear. She put the baby in the crib for a nap and rushed off to meet him at The Alibi bar a few blocks from her house.” She saw my response to the name and smiled. “I know, talk about irony, huh?”
“And this is the same time that Nathan went missing...”
“Yeah. The exact time.”
I held the paper up. “So why didn’t he use this to clear his name?”
She raised her hand. “I’m getting to that. So, they argued for a while, and then they made up…it took a while. Fast forward to when she gets back home. She finds the baby on the floor, bleeding. She hadn’t closed the crib properly and the baby fell out and hit her head. Emma panicked. She rushed to the emergency room and told them the baby had fallen while playing in the driveway.”
“Knowing that if she told the truth, she could lose the kid.”
“Exactly, yeah. Then Ronnie gets arrested, and here’s where it gets complicated: if she provides an alibi, it all comes out in court, that she left the kid unattended.”
