Still, I don't think I ever really appreciated how beautiful it is until tonight. Maybe everyone should spend a few days in jail.'
Matthew didn't answer right away, wanting the moment to last as long as possible. Finally he said, 'It is beautiful.'
They stood quietly for a moment more. Then Abbie looked up at Matthew.
'Are you hungry?' she asked.
'A little.'
'The jail chow lived up to its reputation and I'm famished for real food. Will you join me?'
'I had Barry stock the refrigerator.'
'I know. You've thought of everything.'
Matthew blushed. Abbie laughed.
'When are you going to stop doing that? We're going to be spending a lot of time together and I can't always walk on eggshells so as not to embarrass you.'
'I'm sorry.'
'Don't be. So will you stay for dinner?'
'If you'd like.'
'Good, but you'll have to wait until I shower. I've got to get this jail smell off of me. Then I'll fix us bacon and eggs. Lots of eggs.
Soft scrambled. And stacks of toast. Will that be okay? For some reason, bacon and eggs sounds so good' to me.'
'That's fine.'
'There's coffee in the cupboard over the refrigerator. Why don't you make a pot while I'm upstairs.'
Matthew wandered into the kitchen, taking his time, savoring each moment. He lingered in the hall and ran his hand over the molding and along the wall. Somewhere on the second floor the shower started.
Matthew strained to hear, imagining Abbie with the water cascading down her body. He was suddenly terrified by the possibility, no matter how fanciful, no matter how remote, of intimacy with a woman like Abigail Griffen.
After starting the coffee, Matthew sat at the kitchen table waiting for Abbie to come downstairs. She had asked him to stay with her. Would she have asked anyone to stay with her, just to have someone with her after her ordeal in the county jail? Was he special to Abbie in any way or was he simply an object she was using to ward off loneliness, like a television kept on through the night for the comfort of the sound?
The shower stopped. The silence was like an alarm. Matthew was as nervous as a schoolboy. He stood up and rummaged through the kitchen drawers and cupboards for silverware, cups and plates. When he was almost done setting the table, he heard Abbie in the doorway of the kitchen. Matthew turned. Her hair was still damp, falling straight to her shoulders. Her face was fresh-scrubbed. She wore no makeup, but she looked like a different person from the woman he had visited in the jail. There was no sign of despair or exhaustion. She glowed with hope.
The phone rang. They froze. Abbie looked at the bracelet on her wrist and the glow vanished. The phone rang a second time and she crossed to it slowly, her arm hanging down as if the bracelet was a great weight.
Abbie raised the receiver on the third ring. She listened for a moment, then in a lifeless voice said, 'This is Abigail Griffen. The time is eight forty-five.'
She put down the receiver and inserted the tapered metal strip that was attached to the bracelet into the slot in the box.
The effort to answer the phone and complete this simple task exhausted her. When she turned around, the face Matthew saw was the face he had seen in the visiting room. He felt helpless in the presence of such grief.
Chapter SIXTEEN
'You are not going to believe who the mystery witness is,' Barry Frame said as he dropped the police reports in Abbie's case on Matthew Reynolds's desk.
'Tell me,' Matthew said, looking at Frame expectantly.
'I should make you guess, but you'd never get it.' Frame flopped into a chair. 'So I'll give you three choices: Darth Vader, Son of Sam or Charlie Deems.'
Matthew's mouth gaped open. Frame couldn't hold back a grin.
'Is this good news or what?' he asked Reynolds. 'Geddes is basing his case on the word of a drug-dealing psychopath who murders nine-year-old girls.'
Matthew did not look happy.
'What's the matter, boss?'
'Have you read all the discovery?' Reynolds asked, pointing toward the thick stack of police reports.
'I barely had time to pick it up from the DA's office and make your copy. But I did read the report of Jack Stamm's interview with Deems.
That was also a piece of luck. If Geddes had been the first one at him, he'd never have written a report.'
'Something is wrong, Barry. Geddes would never base a case on the testimony of Charlie Deems unless he could corroborate it. I want you and Tracy to go over the reports. I'll do the same.'
'Tonight?' Barry asked, knowing that his plans for the evening had just set with the sun. Reynolds ignored him.
'I want a list of our problem areas and areas where the prosecution is soft. I want your ideas on what we should do. It scares me to death that Geddes is confident enough to base his case on the testimony of Charlie Deems.'
Abbie was wearing tan shorts and a navy-blue tee shirt when she answered the door. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Her legs and arms were tanned and she looked rested. When she saw Matthew her face lit up and he could not help smiling back.
Matthew was wearing his undertaker's uniform and Tracy looked businesslike in a gray linen dress, but Barry Frame was casually dressed in a denim work shirt and a pair of chinos.
Abbie ignored Barry and Tracy and took Matthew's arm.
'Let's sit outside,' she said, leading Reynolds onto the patio.
A tall pitcher of iced tea and a bowl of fruit were standing on a low glass table next to Abbie's copies of the police reports. Matthew waited until Tracy and Abbie were seated, then he took a chair and placed his copies of the discovery on his lap. Barry took out a pad and pen. Tracy leaned back and listened.
'You've read everything?' Matthew asked.
Abbie nodded.
'What do you think?'
'The whole case is preposterous. The things Deems says, they're simply not true.'
'Okay, let's start with Deems's story. What's not true?'
'All of it. He says I asked him to come to the beach house the day of the attack and offered to pay him to kill Robert. That never happened.
I haven't seen Deems since his trial and I've never spoken to him, except in court.'
'What about the dynamite?'
Abbie looked concerned. 'Robert did buy dynamite to clear some stumps on the property.'
'How would Deems know about the dynamite if you didn't tell him?' Barry asked.
'Robert kept the dynamite in a toolshed. Maybe Deems cased the cabin when he was planning the attack and saw the dynamite in the shed.'
'Was there dynamite in the shed on the day of the attack?'
Matthew asked. 'Is it possible that Justice Griffen used all of it when he blew up the stumps?'
'I don't know. Robert told me he cleared the stumps, but he didn't say if he used all the dynamite.'
'Do you remember looking in the shed, the day of the attack?' Matthew asked.
'No. The shed's in back of the cabin. I wasn't in the back that much.
Mostly I was on the beach or the front porch or in the house.'
'Have you gone to the coast since the attack?' Barry asked.
'No. I don't think Robert was there either. The court heard arguments in Salem that week.'
'Barry, make a note to go out to the cabin. We can check the shed,'
