Stolen in the Night (5 page)

She turned her gaze across the aisle to a ruddy-faced man with reddish hair cut into
an old-fashioned crew cut and a brushy auburn mustache. He was wearing a navy blue
police officer’s uniform with a tie that was too tight for his fleshy neck. He sat
stiffly, drumming his fingers impatiently on the taut crown of his hat, which he held
in one hand.

“That’s the new chief,” Jake said, indicating the police officer she was looking at
across the aisle. “Rusty Bosworth.”

“He looks kind of…impatient,” Tess observed.

“He’s a bully,” said Jake. “I never liked him. He’s Lazarus Abbott’s cousin, you know.”

“You’re kidding,” said Tess, staring at the chief with renewed interest.

“Welcome to a small town. His mother was Nelson Abbott’s sister.”

“Really,” said Tess. “And does he agree with his uncle? Does he think Lazarus was
guilty?”

“Everyone around here does,” said Jake.

As if he could hear their conversation, Rusty Bosworth turned his basketball-size
head and studied them. Tess immediately looked away and met Chan Morris’s gaze. Channing
excused himself from the governor. He loped over to where Tess and Jake were seated
and bent down to talk to them.

“Would you two like to be seated up here at the table?” Chan asked. “It seems to me
that you have as much right as these others—”

“No, really,” said Tess before Jake could give some hostile answer. “Thanks anyway.
We’ll stay put.”

“Okay,” said Chan. “Thought I’d ask.” Stepping over wires and cables, he made his
way back to the table.

“That was nice of him,” said Tess to Jake.

“Yeah, he’s a peach,” said Jake disgustedly.

“I thought it was nice,” said Tess.

“He just wants to plaster our picture on the front page to sell newspapers,” Jake
scoffed.

“Does everybody have to have an ulterior motive?” Tess asked.

Jake slid down in the chair with his feet extended and crossed, his arms over his
chest. “Yes,” he said.

The governor turned to the audience, stood up, and tapped on the microphone in front
of him, lifting it off of its stand. The noisy conversations in the room immediately
ceased and the governor invited the assembled newspeople to come in closer. “Can everybody
hear me?” he asked, speaking into the mike.

A murmur of assent passed through the crowd.

“Okay,” said Governor Putnam. “Now, we all know why we are here today. Nearly twenty
years ago in this very town, a young girl”—he stopped and clarified—“an innocent young
girl named Phoebe DeGraff, who was visiting here on a vacation with her family, was
raped and murdered. Lazarus Abbott was convicted of her murder and ultimately put
to death for the crime. His mother, Edith…” The governor leaned over and indicated
the woman in the purple suit. “Even long after her son’s execution, hoped to prove
his innocence. Her attorney, Mr. Ramsey, knew of my feelings about the death penalty.
He insisted we get together and discuss the case. He pointed out to me, very cogently
during that meeting, that Lazarus Abbott was convicted mainly on the eyewitness testimony
of a child. And it is now a well-established fact that eyewitness testimony is often
unreliable.”

Tess’s face flamed. She thought she could feel Ben Ramsey’s gaze on her, but she deliberately
did not look at him. She kept her eyes focused to a point over the governor’s head.

“Mr. Ramsey convinced me that I should order a retesting of the evidence. Fortunately,
the evidence in this case had been preserved by the Stone Hill Police Department…”

“Fortunately?” said Tess under her breath as the governor continued to explain the
course of events. She felt a little frisson of anxiety.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jake whispered. “He’s just a politician enjoying the spotlight.
He’s going to drag this out for all it’s worth.”

“…and despite their obvious reluctance to reopen this case, the police were finally
prevailed upon to produce this evidence for testing,” the governor continued.

Tess glanced over at Chief Bosworth, who was staring at the people seated at the microphones
with narrowed eyes. His face appeared to be flushed with anger and he looked as if
he were ready to explode.

Tess looked back at the governor, who was taking a deep breath.

“Now, as you know, there has never been a case to date in the United States where
a person executed for a crime was later proved innocent of that crime by virtue of
DNA evidence. But many people have walked free from death row. And those of us who
oppose the death penalty have always feared that such a day would come. We are here
to determine if this is, indeed, that dark day.

“The results of these tests, which were delivered to me yesterday in the strictest
confidence from the Toronto lab that tested the DNA, can now be revealed to you. This
was the report which was sent to me.” He held up a few pieces of paper stapled together
in the upper right-hand corner. “I’m going to read it to you now.” He cleared his
throat and began to read aloud. “‘The evidence in this case which was presented by
the prosecution at the trial, namely the semen and the traces of blood on Phoebe DeGraff’s
undergarments, and the skin collected from beneath her fingernails, has partially
degraded over the years because of the conditions of storage…’”

A groan of frustration traveled around the room. “All this crap for nothing,” Jake
said to Tess in disgust. The governor held up his hand for silence and, when the noise
in the room simmered down, he continued. “Because of this decomposition, it would
be difficult, if not impossible, to definitively call this sample an exact match to
a suspect’s DNA. However, the DNA samples from the evidence are more than adequate
to rule out a particular suspect. We have determined that all of these samples belonged
to the same person. An unidentified male.”

The governor lowered the report he was reading, cleared his throat, and looked slowly
across the audience of people assembled there. His expression was grave. Then he lifted
the paper again and resumed reading. “The DNA did not, in any particular, match the
sample from the man who was convicted and executed for this crime—Lazarus Abbott.”

T
here was a wail from Edith Abbott as she rose from her seat and, with a feeble cry,
collapsed. A cluster of people surrounded her, trying to revive her.

“NO,” Tess whispered. The room had erupted into chaos with reporters shouting and
shoving. While the people in the room surged around her like a wave, Tess sat immobile,
frozen in shock, remembering the face of the man who had ripped the tent open those
many years ago. Ripped their lives apart. Her heart was racing out of control.

Edith came around quickly, although the color of her skin remained pasty. Clutching
her attorney’s arm, Edith resumed her seat at the table. The police chief, Rusty Bosworth,
was on his feet, demanding to be heard. The governor recognized him.

The chief lumbered up to the table and took the microphone from the governor. He glared
out at the assemblage. “All right. As many of you already know, Lazarus Abbott was
my cousin. But I never questioned the verdict in his case. Neither did anyone else
in this town. Everyone figured he was guilty.”

A murmur of disapproval went through the crowd.

“Now if these results are right, it seems maybe Lazarus was railroaded. I’m not making
excuses for the police work involved because I wasn’t chief at the time. I wasn’t
even on the force when this crime happened,” Bosworth continued. “But I personally
want to assure everyone here that this case will be reopened, and the police department
will not rest until we get to the bottom of this.”

“Thank you, Chief Bosworth,” said the governor as the chief took a deep breath and
appeared ready to elaborate on his promise. “That’s very reassuring.”

The florid-faced chief frowned and gave the microphone back to the governor, then
resumed his seat.

Tess stared straight ahead. Her hands were clammy and her face felt stiff, as if it
were not real, but a plaster cast set over her human face. The noise around her scarcely
registered. She felt light-headed and her stomach was churning.

“The chief is quite right to remind us, and the officers of the police department
of Stone Hill, that this case is now offically unsolved once again. I want to turn
this over,” said the governor, “to the woman who worked so hard to bring this day
about, and I refer, of course, to the mother of Lazarus Abbott, Mrs. Edith Abbott.”

“This is bullshit,” Jake muttered. “Pure bullshit.”

The governor tried to hand the microphone to Edith, but she was holding a large, white
handkerchief to her face and was shaking her head. The governor looked to the attorney
in the navy pinstripe suit. “Mr. Ramsey?”

The silver-haired attorney stood up and took the mike from the governor.

“Thank you, Governor,” said Ben Ramsey. The mike amplified a deep voice that was perfectly
modulated. “I want to thank the governor for having the courage to allow these tests
to go forward, so that the truth, as terrible as it is, could finally come out. Our
worst fears have been realized. The wrong man has been executed and there is no way
to bring him back. With all due respect to the good intentions of the police department,
this wrong can never be righted. There will be no justice for Lazarus Abbott.”

“No justice, my ass,” Jake swore.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” said Tess.

Jake looked at her. “Really? Like, puke?” he asked.

Tess nodded.

“You don’t look good. All right, hang on. I’ll get you out of here.”

Jake stood up and helped his sister to her feet. Tess felt as if she couldn’t breathe,
as if the room were spinning around her. A number of reporters swung cameras and microphones
in their direction.

“Move,” said Jake. “Get out of my way. Give my sister some air.”

A wall of reporters blocked their way. Chan Morris saw them getting up to go and leaned
over to whisper in the ear of the governor. Governor Putnam rose to his feet again
and indicated to Ben Ramsey that he wanted the mike.

“Excuse me, Mr. Ramsey. For just a moment. Folks, before you go…I want to say to the
family of Phoebe DeGraff that we haven’t forgotten their sister. Her death was a tragic
loss…”

Jake, who was attempting to lead Tess toward the door, elbowing reporters out of the
way, stopped and turned. He looked daggers at the governor and the people assembled
at the front. “You hack. Keep your fake sympathy and go to hell…”

“Jake, don’t,” Tess whispered, clinging to his arm. “Let’s just go.”

Reporters shoved their microphones at them, but Jake batted them away like greenhead
flies. “Get away from me,” he growled, “I swear to God…” Jake pulled his sister’s
arm through his own and lifted his shoulder, ready to batter his way through the crowd
if necessary.

“Let those people alone,” the governor insisted, his voice booming in the mike. “All
of you. Just get out of their way.”

Reluctantly, the newspeople began to part to make a pathway and let them pass. As
Jake pushed open the plate-glass door of the newspaper office, Tess extricated her
arm from his and rushed out, gulping in the fresh air.

“There,” said Jake. “Now you’ll feel better.”

But Tess shook her head. Clutching her jacket closed, she ran toward the car. When
she reached it, Tess was gasping. She steadied herself with one hand on the car’s
front fender and willed the spasms in her stomach to stop. It was no use. With a horrible
gagging cry, she bent over and threw up her breakfast into the brown grass bordering
the parking lot.

Dawn was watching at the front window of the inn’s library when Jake pulled up and
a white-faced Tess climbed out of the car on wobbly legs. Dawn rushed to the front
door and held her arms out. Tess entered her embrace like a small child.

“Come inside. Come in,” said Dawn.

Tess stiffened. “I can’t sit out here. It’s too…public.”

“No, I know. We’ll go to my rooms. Erny’s back there right now.”

The three of them hurried past the spacious common rooms of the inn and Dawn ushered
them through the curtained French doors that led to the tidy little innkeeper’s suite.
Erny was lying on a braided rug, gaping at the television. Dawn walked up to the TV
and lowered the volume.

“Hey!” Erny sat up in protest. Then he saw Tess. “Ma, we were looking for you on TV
but we didn’t see you.”

Jake collapsed into a corner of the sofa, rubbing his face with one large, weathered
hand. “Go on outside, Erny,” Jake said.

Erny was peering at Tess. “What’s the matter?” he said.

Tess sat down at the other end of the sofa. She shook her head. “Nothing,” said Tess.
“It’s all right.”

“They said on TV that guy didn’t do it,” said Erny. “I thought you said he did—”

“Not now, honey,” said Dawn. “Your mom isn’t feeling too well.”

“Can we talk about it later?” Tess asked, her face haggard.

Erny hesitated, his own face reflecting her distress.

“Everything’s okay, Erny. Really. I just need to…um…rest for a while.”

Erny accepted her reassurance skeptically. Then he had an idea. “Can I ride Sean’s
bike now?” he asked.

“Yeah, go take a ride,” said Jake.

“Far as I want?”

“Don’t go to the mountain. Don’t…talk to anyone you don’t know,” Tess warned him.
“You hear me? If anyone tries to talk to you…”

“I’ll ride away,” Erny promised.

“Take your jacket,” said Dawn.

The boy grabbed his heavy, hooded sweatshirt and disappeared. Dawn pulled up a cherrywood
rocker to the end of the sofa where Tess was sitting and took Tess’s hand, limp on
the armrest, into her own, rubbing it solicitously. “It’s just unbelievable,” said
Dawn. “I don’t understand. How could it be?”

“Lazarus Abbott was a crazy bastard with a sex crime record and his own stepfather
believed he was guilty,” said Jake. “He did it.”

Tess stared ahead, unseeing. “It was him,” she said. “I saw him.”

Dawn pressed Tess’s unresponsive hand to her own cheek. “Oh Tess,” Dawn crooned. “You
were a little girl. Completely traumatized. If…this is true…”

Tess looked at her mother, her eyes wide. “Mom, I know it was him. I recognized him
immediately that night when they brought him into the police station. I saw him in
that courtroom. I’ve seen his picture millions of times. I know that Lazarus Abbott
was the one who came into the tent that night.”

“Honey,” said Dawn gently, “I’m afraid we have to face the possibility that you…that
there was some mistake. You said it yourself. The science would settle it—put the
matter to rest. Now, as it turns out, it didn’t put it to rest the way we expected…”

“You always believed me. Now you think that I was lying?” Tess angrily pulled her
hand away from her mother’s grasp.

Dawn raised her hands in a placating gesture. “Not lying. Of course not. But you were
so little—and vulnerable. And the police were sure it was him. You had all these grown-ups
pointing to Lazarus Abbott. They may have influenced you. You were just a child. And
you had endured the worst experience…”

Tess stared at her mother. “No, I couldn’t have been wrong. That would mean…I implicated
an innocent man. I brought about his death.”

Dawn shook her head. “Your father was right. He was always against the idea of Lazarus
Abbott being executed. This is the problem with the death penalty…”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mother,” said Jake, leaning forward. “Are you really going to
get all teary-eyed about Lazarus Abbott? He was a psycho and I am not going to lose
a minute’s sleep over this. And neither should you, Tess. And don’t be so quick to
second-guess yourself. If you still think that he was the one who took Phoebe, I still
believe you.”

“Jake,” Dawn chided him. “That’s no help. No matter how we’d like to wish it away,
we can’t just pretend these tests didn’t happen.”

Jake shouted at his mother. “I’m not saying it didn’t happen.”

“Jake, don’t yell at me,” his mother bristled.

Jake lowered his voice. “I’m saying, Mother, that I believe Tess knew what she was
talking about. She was a smart little kid. Nobody conned her into anything.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Jake, we’re all upset by this but your attitude isn’t helpful.
How could Tess be right when the evidence proves that it wasn’t Lazarus Abbott who
killed Phoebe?”

“Test results…” Jake scoffed. “Everybody acts like God himself ran the tests. Let
me tell you something. I’ve got a guy on my crew—Sal Fuscaldo—you know Sal, Mom…”

Dawn nodded wearily.

“He wasn’t feeling good, so the doctor sent him for blood tests at the hospital lab.
The results came back positive for some kind of acute leukemia. Sal asked the doctor
what that meant, worst case, and the doctor told him he might have only four to eight
weeks to live. Can you imagine? Sal was making out his will and picking out his cemetery
plot. His wife, Bea, nearly had a breakdown. But the doc thought Sal didn’t seem sick
enough for that diagnosis so he sent him for a spinal tap, just to make sure. Guess
what? There was no cancer. The lab goofed. They sent Sal’s results to somebody else.
Some other poor slob thought he was off the hook and then found out different.”

Tess shook her head. “This was important. I’m sure they checked those results several
times,” she said.

“Oh, and you don’t think it was important to Sal whether he lived or died?”

“You know what I mean,” said Tess.

“That’s a true story, Tess. About Sal,” Jake said. “You wait and see. They’re going
to find out they made a mistake at the lab.”

“How I wish that were true,” said Tess.

Dawn shook her head. “I’m almost glad your father didn’t have to live to see this
day. Lazarus Abbott declared innocent. After all that we went through…” The three
sat in silence for a moment, numb, all lost in their own thoughts. Then the phone
began to ring.

“Don’t answer it,” said Jake.

Dawn stared at the phone. “It could be a reservation.”

“It’s the press. Hounding us,” said Jake. “Trust me.”

Dawn hesitated and then took her son’s advice and ignored the phone’s ringing. The
machine picked up. A reporter from CNN wanted to tape an interview with the family
and left his number. Dawn shook her head “What do we say to them?” she asked.

“We don’t have to say anything,” said Jake. “It’s not our problem. Lazarus Abbott
had a trial. He went to prison for Phoebe’s murder. He lost about a million appeals.
He was executed. End of story.”

There was a tapping on the voile-curtained French doors that led to Dawn’s quarters
and they all jumped. Then Dawn sighed and stood up. “What now?” She walked over to
the doors and pulled back the curtain, peeking out into the hallway. Then she let
out a sigh of relief and opened the door. Julie came into the room, wearing a puffy
mauve, quilted jacket over her hospital uniform.

“I came as soon as I could get away,” she said to no one in particular. She pushed
her glasses up on her nose and looked sympathetically at Tess. “The hospital was buzzing.
Everybody’s talking about it.”

“That’s not what my sister needs to hear right now,” said Jake to his wife.

“Well, excuse me,” said Julie. “I’m just telling you what I heard.”

“It’s all right,” said Tess. She looked at her brother and his wife, still together
but no longer in sync. Once, long ago, they were like bookends—Jake and Julie, youth
and beauty. Now Julie waddled and wore glasses and kept her faded blonde hair styled
in a sensible haircut. Jake, ungroomed but still good-looking, seemed to look at his
wife with distaste. For a moment, Tess felt critical of her brother’s superficiality.
Julie might no longer be the eye candy he married, but she was still the same kind
person who was loyal to Jake’s family in their darkest hours. She had always been
a practical girl and a source of strength.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Julie asked Tess.

“You can tell her,” said Jake, “how often those hospital lab tests get screwed up.
You’ve told me stories like that. Remember when they gave Sal the wrong results? You
were telling me some story about a woman who had a tumor and they told her she was
pregnant…”