The Last Innocent Man

THE SECURITY GUARDin the lobby signed him in, and David took the only working elevator to the thirty-second floor. He used his key to unlock the door to the firm offices and walked rapidly down the corridor to the file room, flicking light switches as he went. Darkened corridors were suddenly bathed in light as he advanced.

The file was in the Closed section. It was thick and intact. The audiocassette was tucked into a small manila envelope that had been taped to the inside of the folder. David carried the file to his office and closed the door. He took a tape recorder from his bottom drawer and fitted the cassette into it. He pushed a button and the tape began to unwind. David leaned back and listened, praying that he was wrong. Hoping that he would not hear what he knew he would.

It was there. The very first thing on the tape. He pushed the Stop button, then Rewind, and played it again to be sure.

“This is Detective Leon Stahlheimer,” the voice on the tape said. “It’s Thursday, June sixteenth…”

David switched off the recorder.

All lies. She had lied on the stand and she had lied to him. Used him. Had it all been a play to her? A carefully rehearsed role? Had any of the emotions been real? What did it matter? How could he ever love her again?

David switched off the office lights. It was better in the dark. Not seeing enabled him to direct himself inward. What should he do? What could he do? He felt powerless, defeated. He had built a dream on Jennifer’s love and Larry Stafford’s innocence, and the dream had crumbled, breaking him under the debris.

All the despair he had felt months before flooded back, drowning him in a sea of self-pity and disgust. The dead feeling he thought he had conquered returned to gnaw at him, leaving only the bones of a sorry, tired, and aging man.

David looked at the desk clock. It was midnight. Not too late for a confrontation. Not too late to put an end to something that had been so good.

DAVID REMEMBERED LITTLEof the mad drive to Newgate Terrace. There were occasional lights on the early-morning freeway, then a winding country road and the crunch of gravel under his tires. House lights came on after his second knock, and the first thing he recalled clearly was Jenny’s face, pale from sleep.

“You lied,” he said, forcing her back into the hallway. The darkened surrounding rooms gave him the feeling of being in a miniature theater.

“What?” she asked, still groggy from sleep. He grasped her shoulders and made her look at his eyes, fierce now with the pain of knowing.

“I want the truth. Now. Everything.”

“I don’t-” she started, then twisted painfully in his grasp as his strong fingers dug into the soft flesh of her shoulders.

“I’ll make it easy for you, Jenny,” he said, making the name he had once loved to hear sound like a curse. “We met that evening at Greg’s house. Senator Bauer’s fundraiser. You remember? The first night we made love.”

She flinched. The way he had said “love’ made it sound sordid, like copulation with a whore in a wino hotel room.

“I interviewed a girl that morning at the juvenile home. We recorded the conversation. The date was on the tape. June sixteenth. The day Darlene Hersch was murdered. You couldn’t have been with Larry that evening, Jenny. You were fucking me. Remember?”

Her head snapped sideways as if she had been slapped. He shook her to make her look at him.

“Don’t,” she cried.

“You lied to me.”

“No!”

“Knowing all the time…” he screamed at her.

“I didn’t…I…Please, David, I love-”

“Love,” he shouted, bringing the back of his hand sharply against her cheek. Her eyes widened in shock and she crumpled at his feet.

“So help me, if you ever use that word again, I’ll kill you. You know nothing about love,” he said between clenched teeth.

She reached out blindly, trying to touch him.

“It wasn’t…I…Let me talk to you. Don’t just go like this. Please.”

He watched her, huddled like a child at his feet, her long golden hair cascading over shoulders that jerked with each wretched sob.

“I’m sorry, David. I really am,” she wept, “but there wasn’t any other way. I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

“Not even telling the truth?”

“I was afraid you wouldn’t defend Larry. I thought…It looked so bad. And I still believe he is innocent. But no one else would have.”

David looked at her hard, trying to see behind her ravaged, tear-stained face.

“Innocent?”

“Larry swears he is. I don’t know if…I don’t think he’s lying.”

“But he lied to me about being with you on the evening of the murder.”

“Yes. I told you, that day in your office. We fought. He had dinner with Barry Dietrich, then went back to his office to work. I was sick of it. I never saw him anymore. It was that damn job. Making partner was all that counted. I called him and told him that I was going to leave him.”

As David listened to Jenny, he could hear echoes of his fights with Monica. David sagged and sat down on the bottom of the staircase. Jenny looked spent. She had stopped crying.