Last Call

children?'

Blowing noisily between puffed lips, Frank says, 'Let me just say, if Twan was my brother, I'd be scared.'

Ferris starts to cry. After six years her defenses are finally breaking. Frank moves in for the kill. She rests a hand on the woman's arm.

'Sharon. Your brother needs help. I know you've tried your best, but it's out of your hands. This is too big for you. Antoine needs professional help. We've got a lot of evidence suggesting your brother was involved with those two children.'

Frank refrains from ugly words like murdered and killed. She stresses there is hope for Antoine. She plies Sharon's weakness as a mother and responsible older sister.

'We also have a lot of evidence suggesting he didn't mean to, that it was an accident. He's never done anything like this before and as far as we know he hasn't since. But he's a ticking bomb, Sharon. Men like this can hold it inside for years before they act again, but we know, we see it over and over again, that sooner or later they're bound to do this again. They can't help themselves. Usually they don't even want to, but it's a compulsion. They can't stop it, no matter how hard they try. No matter how much they hate what they're doing. They can't stop without help, and if this goes on much longer, it might be too late to help. Is that what you want? To know you could've helped Twan but you were too afraid?' Frank bends her head to Sharon's, her voice a caress. 'Is that how you're gonna help your baby brother?'

Frank doesn't move until Ferris sobs, 'I don't know what to do.'

'I know. I know you don't. That's okay. You've done the very best you could do and it's over now. You don't have to keep trying. Turn it over to people who are trained to help him, who can deal with this kind of problem. That's how you can help him now. It's how you can love him and protect him.'

'It's like you said, I know he didn't mean to. I know it. It had to been some kinda accident. Whatever happened, I know Antoine didn't mean it to. He's a good boy.'

'I know,' Frank assures, thinking of Trevor Pryce taped and helpless, watching Antoine's assault on his sister. Sharon Ferris is at the flash point. Frank's job is to convince her she can help her brother. 'I don't think he's bad either. He just needs help.'

Ferris nods. 'Yeah. He just needs help. He'd never hurt no one. Not like that. Not little children. Not my Antoine.'

When Ferris wipes her nose and pleads, 'What do I do?' Frank conceals her elation and shows only compassion for Antoine Bailey's plight.

Chapter 35

Frank hasn't expected it to be so simple, but Sharon Ferris is tired. Once she caves, the rest comes like an avalanche. There are no spectacular details, no smoking guns, just a long, dreary account of Antoine Bailey's restive existence. The incessant wandering, his inability to keep a relationship, the family's increasing suspicions about his activities. Sharon knows he isn't kind to his girlfriends.

He'd briefly dated a friend of hers, as well as two other casual acquaintances in the neighborhood. None of the word that got back to Ferris was good. Her brother had a bad temper. He was violent. He could be cruel, in bed and out. He didn't care about other people's feelings.

Frank listens to Ferris for more than two hours, concluding within the first five minutes that the woman's beloved brother is a sociopath. Yet Frank is compassionate and understanding. By the end of their third hour, Sharon Ferris has her name on a statement. She has put into writing what she has held back for six years.

On the day the Pryces were killed, Antoine and Kevin had gotten into an argument at the breakfast table. Antoine had helped himself to a third helping of bacon and Kevin grumbled, 'You gonna eat like that you better start paying for some groceries.'

Antoine retorted, 'You begrudgin' your own brother-in-law his sister's good cooking?'

'I'm begrudgin' that I already got two boys to feed and I don't need to be shoveling food meant for their mouths into your belly.'

Antoine whined, 'You a cheap son-of-a-bitch, Kevin. Always was.'

Kevin threw his napkin down and stomped from the room. Sharon tried to calm him before he left for work but couldn't. He told her that Antoine either had to carry his own weight or get gone, and the latter would be preferable.

While Antoine watched her do the dishes she suggested he should apologize for calling Kevin cheap, pointing out that he did feed Antoine and let him stay at his house every time he came to get his check.

Antoine twisted the comment around, the way he always did, putting it on Sharon that she was siding with Kevin and they just wanted him gone. Sharon tried pouring oil on troubled waters but eventually rose to the argument, ending by cursing her brother as lazy and good for nothing. Antoine slammed out the door, accusing Kevin of turning Sharon against her own kin. Antoine then spent most of the day in his truck, coming in at suppertime to bolt two huge portions and announce he'd be leaving in the morning.

Ferris saw him once more that night, when he came in around 11:00 pm to take a shower. Antoine stayed in the shower so long Kevin remarked he was going to use up every last drop of hot water and wouldn't that reflect in the electric bill. Antoine slept late the next morning, which he didn't usually do. Sharon fixed him lunch and he took off a little while later. Sharon heard about the children that afternoon. She had an uneasy thought and quickly buried it. It resurfaced when she told Antoine that the cops had come around.

He made her put together a story, convincing her he'd be a logical scapegoat for the murders just by dint of being a black man and homeless. Plus, he admitted, he had some other business—nothing bad, he'd assured her— that he didn't want the police sticking their noses into. Sharon agreed, eager to put her doubt in the back of her mind. And there it had festered until Frank came along and lanced it like a boil.

After six cold years, the Pryce case is resurrected. Ferris has copped to the story her brother asked her to tell when Noah started snooping around about the camper. Bailey has no alibi for significant time frames in the Pryce case. This is excellent supporting evidence, but in and of itself useless. Frank still needs to materially connect him to the case. Her enthusiasm that Bailey still has his original camper is tempered by the amount of time that has passed since the kids were killed. The odds of recovering useful evidence from the vehicle are slim to none, but Frank is anxious to compare the surfaces in Bailey's camper against the bruise on Ladeenia's thigh.

She debates putting his vehicle description in the box, but the case isn't critical enough for an APB. He doesn't know he's wanted and Frank wants to keep it that way. She told Ferris that if she has second thoughts and thinks to warn Antoine, it will only hurt him more than help. She gambles Ferris will keep her mouth shut, hoping the combined relief of off-loading her secrets and of duty to Antoine will keep Ferris silent.

Besides, he'll show up soon to collect his check. His pattern is to arrive a couple days before it's due, expecting the check to be early, surprised when it's not and furious if it's late. When he shows, Frank will be there with a search warrant. She contacts Bakersfield PD. They are grudgingly cooperative, agreeing to notify her of Bailey's arrival and accompany her when she serves the warrants.

Frank waits patiently for Bailey to surface. When she's not on the clock she's at home studying the Pryce books. A bottle of Scotch is never far from her hand. Reviewing the SID reports for perhaps the fiftieth time, she bemoans the lost Pryce evidence. Frank thinks what she wouldn't give for it and wonders where the hell it ever ended up. If she just had it and could reprocess it, maybe they'd find a tiny smear of DNA this time. Something the lab might have overlooked on its first go-round. Something to put Bailey away with. Or exonerate him. Either way it would be conclusive.

'Yeah,' she offers to the drink in her hand. 'And if wishes were horses we'd all ride.'

She considers searching through Property one last time but hasn't the hope or the stamina to spare in some wild-ass chase. She'll have to build her case with what she has. But as improbable as it is, Frank still has one last ace up her sleeve.

Chapter 36

One of Bailey's old girlfriends still lives in the hood. Frank talks with her. She reiterates what a girlfriend Frank tracked to San Francisco has said.

'Front, back, sideways, upside down. That boy was just plain freaky. And he always wantin' some. Three, four times a day. Sometimes more. He wasn't never satisfied.'