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CHAPTER 6
He couldn’t let it go.
Wesley Tate shoveled snow from the short walk to the converted warehouse where he owned a condo, but his thoughts were on the Cold Lake Massacre and Jonas McIntyre, who was, by all accounts, a free man again. If not absolved of the brutal murders of his family, at least not behind bars. He threw his back into his work, the broad, flat blade of the shovel scraping against the cement below. He was breathing hard, his breath visible in the darkness, and his thoughts were on a twenty-year-old murder scene. He tried to take himself out of the situation, attempted to ignore the fact that his father had given his life saving that of Kara McIntyre, but, of course, that proved impossible.
Another push on the shovel’s handle, another toss of heavy snow into the tiny garden by the walkway. And more thoughts about the case. His jaw clenched and he was beginning to sweat beneath his flannel shirt, gloves, and down vest, but he kept at it, working his muscles as his mind swirled in the recent developments.
Merritt Margrove, that has-been attorney, finally found a way to get his client out. According to what Tate had read, the lawyer had found someone, a cop with a newly scrubbed conscience, who suddenly, after all this time, admitted there had been a problem with the evidence found at the scene. The murder weapon, an old sword from the previous century, had gone missing for over forty minutes in the confusion that was the crime scene.
Tate had a call in to the cop, Randall Isley, now retired, who lived in Omaha, but Isley hadn’t answered. Tate had left a message.
He also had joined a Facebook fan page for Jonas McIntyre. He’d used a fake name—no reason to tip any of Jonas’s apparent legion of fans by giving his real name. They were so rabid, they’d put two and two together if he logged in with the same last name of one of the victims who’d died that night.
All the same, they were a weird group, dedicated to the belief that Jonas was innocent, and had posted their thoughts, along with links for donations, to the Free Jonas McIntyre Go Fund Me page, which hadn’t reached its fifty-thousand-dollar goal but was close.
What was that all about?
There were the names of three women who seemed to be the ringleaders or, at least, were the most vocal on both sites, so he was looking into Brenda Crawley, Simone Hardesty and Mia Long. There was also one guy who was pretty vocal, too. Aiden Cross made a lot of noise online about injustice in general and Jonas in particular, though a cross-check of his profile indicated that Aiden was involved in over ten antigovernment causes.
What was their connection with McIntyre?
The women obviously communicated with the object of their cause as all three had posted what Jonas was thinking about his release, the horrible night he’d found his family slaughtered and almost died himself, as well as who he thought was responsible for the heinous crimes. Cross was out of that loop; never commenting on what Jonas McIntyre thought, but always championing his case. It seemed a little off. But didn’t everything?
Tate had created a fake online identity as Jessica Smith, thirty, divorced, no kids, self-employed as a web designer who was into all kinds of causes, Jonas McIntyre’s case being one. He’d bought a picture of a thirtysomething woman online and posted it for “Jessica’s” profile. Average looking in a hat and scarf that obscured most of her features, Jessica Smith, two of the most common names for her age, lurked, gaining information and giving none.
The group was elated that Jonas had been set free.
Several had commented that they hoped to meet him.
Most of those who commented frequently agreed that he was not only innocent and wrongly accused and convicted, but “hot.”
One woman compared his likeness to Jesus on the cross, the white people’s vision of the Son of God depicted in so many pictures, but other than the short beard and long brown hair, the resemblance was lost on Tate.
Then again, people saw what they wanted to see.
There was one member, though, whom he found intriguing. Her name was listed as Hailey Brown. She didn’t offer much in the comment section and she was just one of thousands on the site, but the site allowed him to see who was “on” the site at any given time, and there were less than fifty who seemed always to be online, specifically logged into the Save Jonas McIntyre site. He’d been through them all, wondering why they were so connected. Most of the people forever on the site, like Aiden Cross, Simone Hardesty, Brenda Crawley and Mia Long, could be found easily and confirmed as actual people. Several had seemed sketchy at first, but by process of elimination over weeks and months, there had been several dozen who had no connection to other online causes about freedom and liberty and social justice, and he’d checked them out. But Hailey Brown from Modesto, California, was different. An online search had proved her profile picture was a stock image. Cross-checking, using identity searches online, he couldn’t locate any Hailey Brown that matched any information he could dig up. The name was so common. An alias. He felt it in his gut.
Not that her fake identity meant anything.
Wasn’t he, like she, a faux person?
But why? The question gnawed at him.
Two more thrusts of the shovel and the short walkway to the cavernous building was cleared. He stood and leaned on the handle, watched as a teenager in ski gear and a cap, ear buds visible, cruised down the street on a skateboard. The kid hurdled a pile of plowed snow at the corner before continuing down the hill at a breakneck speed.
Tate shouldered his shovel and walked into the foyer. He clomped the snow from his boots before walking up two flights to his loft on the top floor, where windows climbed to a soaring ceiling. Once in his living space, he kicked his boots to a spot under the hall tree and peeled off his vest. In the kitchen area he cracked open a beer, took a swallow, then dropped into his favorite chair in front of the TV already tuned to an all-news channel.
He’d taken a break from his deep dive into the case that had consumed him for most of his adult life. Well, really since he was eleven. A helluva thing, losing your dad like that. His mother had remarried a few years after the tragedy, and her new husband, Darvin Williams, was a good enough guy. Another cop, now retired. He had stepped into the role of father without too many problems, especially in dealing with Wesley’s younger sister, who had ended up adoring her new “Papa-D.” But Wesley had been another story, always ended up comparing Darvin to his father. Of course Darvin came up short each and every time, an earthly man being sized up against a martyr, a saint.
So the whole father-son thing hadn’t really gelled between them.
Now, all things considered, it never would.
* * *
Faiza Donner sat in her Mercedes SL450, a convertible that was impractical in winter in Oregon, but she’d always lusted after this model and had decided, just three months earlier, to indulge herself. Why not? she’d asked herself, though she’d known all the reasons leasing the vehicle might be a mistake.
Now she was parked in the circular driveway staring at the house she’d called home for nearly twenty years, a huge Tudor in the West Hills. Her sister Zelda’s home once upon a time.