“Ah, right,” she said. “Sorry. Water?”
She pointed at a plastic pitcher and a couple of Styrofoam cups in front of him. He shook his head no. There was a long, silent pause, the only sound a faint ticking from a clock over the door and the sound of her pouring water into one of the cups.
“So, I only got twenty minutes,” he said. It was the first time she had heard his voice.
He was well-spoken, literate. “Maybe you should ask me what you came to talk about?”
“Yes, right,” Amber said, realizing she had been staring at him, sizing him up. “I came to discuss your case.”
“Okay.”
“My name is Officer Cross.”
“Pleased to meet you Officer Cross. All my friends call me Marc,” he said, an enigmatic twinkle in his eye.
“Ah, oh, okay, um, Marc. I’ve been going through your file at the request of Governor Cruz.” At the mention of the governor’s name, Marcario smiled a little wider. “See, we’re digitizing the whole thing. We’re scanning it into the cloud.”
“Probably some pretty dull reading,” he said.
She inhaled. “Actually, parts of it are interesting. I mean to say, there are some things I’d really like to discuss with you, if you’ve got the time?”
He laughed and glanced up at the clock. “I got nothin’ but time.”
“Of course,” she said, trying desperately to hide her nerves.
She pulled a clipboard out of her bag; they had taken her pen away. “It seems that you were convicted on the strength of two eye witnesses. Is that correct?”
“Yeah, but one of them retracted his statement,” Marcario said. “Seems his lineup was a couple of pictures of white dudes and me. Easy choice for him really.”
“I’ll look into that, thank you.” She pulled the yellow piece of paper out and placed it on the table. “What I’m really interested in, though, is your alibi witnesses.”
His face, that had been congenial up to this point, darkened. He looked like a Tarot reader who had just turned over the death card. “Nobody every called ’em. I got seventeen people who can vouch for me. I wasn’t in New York at the time this happened. I was in Cooper City. ‘Bout three blocks from the Walmart at a friend’s house. Him, his wife, his parents, her parents, they all on the list. They can all tell you I was there.”
Amber knew the area. South Florida. Not the slums, but nothing like the shining towers of riches just a few miles to the east on South Beach.
“So, they’re all family? How can they be sure you were there on this particular day?”
“Because Gemma had a baby.”
“And Gemma is your friend’s wife?”
“Yeah. She don’t like me much, but I knew I had to be there to celebrate my boy’s kid bein’ born and all. The detectives didn’t ever call anybody because they’re all family. They say they would all lie about me bein’ there, but that ain’t true by a long shot. Gemma would probably love to see me rot in prison. She don’t like me influencing her husband.”
Amber’s gaze landed on the last line on the page. “What about this one? Why is this one blacked out?”
“Blacked out?” Confusion spread across Marcario’s face. “Lemme see that.”
She turned the page around so he could see it. For a second, he sucked air across his teeth considering it. Then suddenly, he looked up, nodding his head.
“That’s the preacher. I almost forgot about him. We all went to church that Sunday, the day they say I killed that dude.”
“That was the 20th of June, 2010?”
“That’s it.”
“Do you remember the preacher’s name?”
Marcario squinted his eyes, looking into the past. But the time and the distance had clouded his memory. “It was like, uh, Jack, or maybe Jim. Can’t remember his last name, but he was the preacher at the New Wine church.”
Amber had taken a sip of water and she nearly spewed it over the table. “The New Wine Ministries Church? Are you … are you sure that’s the one?”
“Yes, ma’am. I remember ‘cause I asked if they were serving wine at the service we was going to,” he said, with a smile. “You find that preacher, um Jack, Jim, or whatever. He knows I was there ‘cause I shook his hand after he blessed the baby.”
Amber said nothing. She squeezed the edge of the table tightly to keep her hands from shaking.
“You could probably call Gemma and find out the man’s name. He preached good that day. I remember that much. Went to eat lunch with him after the service. He had fried chicken and black-eyed peas. I can still taste ‘em.”
Before Amber could ask him anymore questions, the door opened and the officer told her time was up.
“But, I…”
“Sorry, Mrs. Cross,” he said. “Rules are rules. You can always come back tomorrow.”
She knew she would not be back tomorrow. She had another plane to catch to South Florida.
9
New Wine Ministries
When the plane landed at the Fort Lauderdale - Hollywood International Airport, Amber hurried off into a wall of heat that took her by surprise. She knew that the temperature would be hotter than New York, but it still caught her off guard. But as she speed-walked through the terminal, the familiarity, the déjà vu quality of it all, chased her toward the door.
She punched up the Uber app on her phone and requested an economy car. As she stood on the curb, she realized she couldn’t stop her feet from fidgeting. Her hands tapped the sides of her legs relentlessly like a court reporter in a hurry and her breathing was shallow and quick. It had been less than twelve hours since she spoke with Marcario Morales and the full import of his revelation had been getting heavier and
