dates meant anything to John, he wasn’t letting on. Will continued, “Then, I might get curious about last Sunday.” Now, there was a reaction. Will pushed a little more. “You’d remember that day because of the Super Bowl. And the next day, the sixth. That was a Monday. Maybe I’d ask you where you were last Monday.”
Keenan said, “He doesn’t have to answer any of your questions.”
Will spoke directly to John. “You need to trust me.”
John stared at Will the way he might stare at a blank wall.
Will sat back in his chair and listed it off for both of them. “I’ve got a dead hooker, a dead teenager and two little girls north of here who are trying to figure out how to live the rest of their lives after having their tongues bitten off.”
Will was watching the lawyer as he said this. She wasn’t as practiced as John, hadn’t learned how to hide her emotions as well.
Will continued, “I’ve also got a missing little girl. Her name is Jasmine. She’s fourteen. Lives at the Homes with her little brother, Cedric. Last Sunday, a white man with brown hair paid her twenty dollars to make a phone call.”
John clasped his hands together on the table.
“The funny thing is, this man gave her a dime to make the call.” Will paused a moment. “I don’t think pay phones have cost a dime since at least nineteen eighty-five.”
John worked his hands.
Will told the lawyer, “Ms. Keenan, this is the question that keeps coming up: How does John Shelley know Michael Ormewood?”
She literally gasped at the name.
“Kathy,” John cautioned.
Will explained the situation. “Last Monday, a fifteen-year-old girl died. Somebody cut her tongue out. I can’t help thinking, Mr. Shelley, that twenty years ago, you cut out another little girl’s tongue.”
Keenan couldn’t take it anymore. “It wasn’t cut!”
“Kathy,” John said. “Wait outside.”
“John-”
“Please,” he told her. “Just wait outside. Try to find Joyce.”
She obviously didn’t want to go.
“Please,” he repeated.
“All right,” she told him. “But I’ll be right outside.”
“Actually,” Will began, standing, “you’re not allowed to wait in the hall, Ms. Keenan. Government office, terrorists, you know how it is.” He opened the door for her. “There’s a room for attorneys one floor down, right by the vending machine. You can make some calls there, maybe get a snack.”
She shot daggers at Will as she left the room. If anything, her departure heightened the tension rather than alleviated it.
Will took his time closing the door before sitting back down. He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for John Shelley to speak. At least five minutes of silence ticked by. Will waited a little longer, then decided to give in. “How do you know Michael?”
John’s fists were still clasped on the table, and the fingers tightened. “What did he say?”
“I’m not asking him. I’m asking you.”
John stared all his anger straight into Will.
Will asked, “Is Joyce your sister?”
“Leave her out of this.”
“It must’ve been hard all those years. You being in prison like that, her on the outside.”
“She knows I didn’t do it.”
“That must have made it even harder.”
“Stop trying your psychology bullshit on me.”
“I was just curious about what it was like.”
“What was it like?” John repeated, some of his anger starting to seep out. “What was it like to ruin my family, send my mother to an early grave? What was it like to be treated like some kind of fucking pariah by my own father? What do you think, man? What the fuck do you think?”
John’s words hung in the air, his voice echoing in Will’s ears. What did Will think? He thought that the pieces were finally fitting into place.
He said, “I want you to do something for me.”
John’s shoulders went up in a noncommittal gesture.
Will had kept a copy of Aleesha Monroe’s letter in his pocket, sort of like a talisman to help him in the case. He unfolded the paper, slid it across the table to John. “Can you read this for me? Out loud, please.”
The man gave him a strange look, but curiosity won out. He leaned over the table, not touching the paper as he read it to himself first.
John looked up at Will, confused. “You want me to read this out loud?”
“If you don’t mind.”
John cleared his throat. Obviously, he didn’t know what was going on, but Will took it as a sign of trust when the man actually started reading it.
“ ‘Dear Mama,” “ John began, but Will stopped him.
“Sorry. Third line down,” he said. “If you could start with that.”
John gave him another look that said he was only going to let Will go so far with this. “ ‘The Bible tells us that the sins of the parent are visited on the child. I am the outcast, the untouchable who can only live with the other Pariah, because of your sins.” “ He stopped, staring at the words like he knew he was missing something that was right under his nose.
John asked, “Who’s Alicia?”
“Aleesha Monroe,” Will told him, and the expression on John’s face showed him everything he needed to know. “I talked to her mother yesterday morning. I had to tell her that her daughter was dead.”
John swallowed visibly. “Dead?”
“Aleesha Monroe was raped. Beaten. Her tongue was bitten out.”
“It was…” John whispered, more to himself. He picked up the letter, stared at Aleesha’s words to her mother.
“She wrote pariah twice,” Will said, knowing that now was his only chance to get John to trust him. “The first time, she used a lowercase p. The second time, she capitalized it.
John’s eyes scanned the page, and Will knew the line he was reading.
Will leaned forward over the table, made sure he had John’s attention. “Who is the Pariah, John?”
He was still staring at the letter. “I don’t know.”
“It’s somebody Aleesha knew way back when. Somebody she’s having to live with now.” Will’s phone rang in his pocket, but he ignored it. “I need you to tell me who the Pariah is, John. I need to hear it from you.”
John knew the answer, had figured it out. Will could see it in his eyes.
All the man said was, “Your phone is ringing.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Will said. “Who’s the Pariah?”
He shook his head, but Will could tell he was right on the edge.
“Tell me what she’s talking about.”
The phone kept ringing. Will didn’t move to turn it off. He saw John starting to slip away, the ringing acting like some kind of warning bell reminding the con to keep his mouth shut.
“John,” Will prodded.
John stood, wadding up the note and throwing it in Will’s face, screaming, “I said I don’t know!”
Will sat back in his chair, cursing Angie for picking now to return his call. He flipped open the phone, demanding, “What?”
“Trent,” Leo Donnelly said. “I’m at Mike’s place.”
“Hold on,” Will said, then pressed the phone to his chest as he told John, “I’m going to step out and take this
