“Oh,” he said. His eyes brightened a touch. “Wait, so that’s like forty minutes before that photo of the boat?”
“Uh-huh. And I don’t know how fast you walk, but from where you two were on the beach, it’s just under a mile to the marina. And that’s to the entrance. From there, you still got to get to where he moored his boat, and then you got to unmoor it and ride out to halfway around St. Helena Island.”
“Halfway—oh, that’s almost impossible.” He sat up straighter in his chair.
“You got it. That’s the point.”
“So wait. If you got the photo, why do we need this lady in Charleston?”
“To authenticate it. To get up on the stand and say, yeah, I took that photo on June 6 when I was out celebrating whatever she was celebrating on that yacht. And the prosecution is probably also going to want to take a look at her phone, which she’s not happy about.”
I could see he was thinking about something, but it wasn’t what I expected. Instead of saying anything else about the wedding planner or the prosecution, he asked, “But doesn’t it sound—I mean, who wouldn’t confess to an arson if it 100 percent, for sure, got them out of murder charges? What if they think I’m just saying I did it to get out of thirty years in jail?”
“You know what,” I said, “you got a good head on your shoulders.”
He laughed. “I like how you sound surprised.”
With a smile, I said, “You got me there. I’m sorry. We haven’t talked about much other than what happened when, so I don’t suppose I’ve had that much opportunity to see how you think.”
He flicked his eyebrows up and down. I got the sense that my apology would do for now, but to him I was just one more old man who didn’t respect him. I’d added to the chip on his shoulder, and I regretted it.
I said, “Tell me what you think might help. I mean, to get the jury past that problem.”
He shrugged but said nothing. I waited. After a solid thirty or forty seconds, he leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, head down, like he had something to confess. “Okay,” he said. “Well, I didn’t sleep on the beach that night.”
“Oh? Where’d you go?”
“You know down past Broad Street, that little block of boarded-up stores?”
“Oh, yeah.” It was the derelict part of Basking Rock, about a mile inland from the beach.
“There’s one where kids go a lot, to smoke. The one in the middle. It’s boarded up, but one of the boards you can just slide right out. And then behind that, there’s… I guess it used to be a bait shack?”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded. “That’s what it was when I was a kid. A shop, I mean, not a shack, but I guess it’s falling down a little now.”
“Yeah. So I slept in the store in front of it, and then before I went home, when the sun was coming up, I saw my jacket had burn marks on it. So I took it off and hid it under a pallet in the bait shack.”
“Oh, so could that be evidence? The jacket? I see where you’re going with that. Yeah, it could.”
He sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and gave me a look that said, See? You can think I’m dumb all you want. That don’t make it true.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s a good idea. I’ll stop by there now and take a look.”
“It’s a little gross in there,” he said. “Ain’t been taken care of in I don’t know how long.”
“That don’t bother me.”
It seemed like about time to leave, but first I checked the pocket notebook I scribbled reminders in. “Oh,” I said. “I did have a question about something.”
He was peering across the table at my notebook, twisting his head to see it more right side up. “What is that? I mean, are those words?”
I smiled. I was proud of my chicken-scratch shorthand. “To me they are. I write this way to maintain confidentiality.”
“Huh,” he said. “I’d have flunked out of school for that.” He thought for a second, then added, “You better take care of yourself, then. If some public defender or whatever had to replace you, them notes would be no help at all. They’d have to start from zero.”
I looked at him. He didn’t say anything more.
“Jackson, did someone in here say anything about my safety?”
“Not you, exactly.” He was looking at the table, and in that moment I saw the little boy in him. He was scared.
“What’d they say?”
“Just… that there’s people of mine on the outside who could get hurt.”
I nodded slowly, taking that in.
“And are they also threatening you? Because I could see about getting you moved again.”
He shook his head. “I got it calmed down now, I think. I got it under control. And isn’t there something about keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer?”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “Yeah, there is. But look, you change your mind, you call me collect right away. Anytime.”
He nodded. Then he took a deep breath. It was a lot to deal with—for anyone, much less a kid his age. To get off the subject, I guess, he gestured to my notebook and said, “You still got some scribbling to read me? You never asked your question.”
“Oh, yeah.” My question, unfortunately, was not going to cheer him up. “Uh, so, your mom told me she overheard you on the phone with Karl, yelling at him to tell Pete to stay away from ‘her.’ Just wondering, how’d you know Pete Dupree?”
His face answered for him. Not the details, but enough for me to know that was indeed the Pete he meant.
When he didn’t answer, I continued. “Pete’s a big guy. You trying to
