Page 32 of Nobody's Fool

“I didn’t kill her.”

“Yeah, I heard your press conference. You did things you aren’t proud of. You sent awful texts, including the one that said you were going to put a bullet in her brain. But you didn’t kill her. Anything else you want to tell me?”

“My conviction,” Tad said slowly, “was set aside. Not overturned.”

“But—let me guess—you want to clear your name,” I say, my voice booming with sarcasm, “because gosh darn it, you didn’t do it and the killer is still out there!”

Tad doesn’t even blink. “Yes,” he says. “And no.”

I look up at Arthur as if to say, “Can you believe this crap?” Then I turn back to our adversaries. “Tad, whatever bullshit you’re peddling, I’m not buying. Your lawyer here”—I motion toward Kelly Neumeier—“I don’t think she buys it either. This wasn’t about guilty or innocent for her. She knows you did it. It’s about issues of procedure and what she sees as law enforcement abuses.”

Kelly Neumeier doesn’t like that. “Don’t speak for me, Mr. Kierce.”

“You’re the one who dragged me down here.”

“Exactly,” she says. “Do you think I would do that if I didn’t believe what Mr. Grayson had to say had merit?”

“Then I do apologize, Ms. Neumeier. Seems I was wrong about your motives. He’s snowed you too.”

“You’re missing my point,” Tad says.

“And what point is that, Tad?”

“The conviction was set aside, not overturned.”

“Yeah, you said that already.”

“That means,” he says, “I can be retried.”

“And for that reason,” Neumeier adds, “I have advised my client not to say anything to you. It leaves him unnecessarily exposed. I advised him to keep a low profile or perhaps leave the area, at least temporarily. With the illegally obtained evidence now thrown out, he is scot-free. There is currently no path toward retrying him, much less obtaining a conviction, so if my client takes counsel’s advice and just keeps his mouth shut, he will be in the clear. But despite all that, Mr. Grayson is ignoring what I’ve recommended and insists on talking to you.”

Tad gives me the pleading eyes. “I didn’t do it, Kierce, and yeah, I know you don’t believe me. I’d like you to, I guess, but in a sense, I don’t care either.”

“Then what do you want from me?”

“I want you to help me find Nicole’s killer.”

“Don’t say her name.” I feel the rage now. “Don’t youeversay her name.”

“I’ll answer any question,” Grayson babbles on. “I’ll take a lie detector test.” He rises slowly and walks creakily toward me. Like an old old man. I like that. I like that he’s weak and beaten. He keeps trudging forward. I make a fist. I want to hit him. I also want to step back, but then again I don’t want to show fear. So I stay where I am. I hold my ground. I let Tad Grayson come right up to me, face-to-face, so close I can smell the decay coming off him.

“And here’s the best part for you,” Tad Grayson says to me. “If the new evidence we find points to me, well, then you can use that to retry me. You want her killer in prison? Cool. Let’s find them. And if the killer ends up being me”—he spreads his hands—“then you’ll know that too. A fresh bite at the apple, Kierce. This is your only chance of getting enough evidence to send me back to prison.”

Everyone just stands there, all eyes on me.

“Ballistics matched your illegally purchased Walther PPK as themurder weapon,” I say, because I’m stupid and can’t help myself. “How do you explain that?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ve had a long time to sit in a cell and think about it. No theories?”

“Just the obvious one: The killer stole the gun and framed me.”

“The gun you bought under a pseudonym at a gun show in Pennsylvania?”

“Yes.”

“Wearing a disguise. Trying hard to cover your tracks.”

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