Page 83 of The Happy Month

“Well, that’s always a possibility.”

“I don’t think she’ll do it.”

“Explain to her that if she swears her husband killed Pete, then Larry will get out of prison and there won’t be a second trial. If the district attorney believes her, it will all be over. She’ll be off the hook.”

“She’s already off the hook. She’s been off the hook for two decades. Isn’t she better off staying silent?”

“If we get Larry a new trial, we’ll need an alternate suspect. That would be her.”

“Which she’ll want to avoid,” I admitted. I took a long moment. Then said, “I don’t know if I can get this to happen.”

“It’s worth trying. A second trial could be risky. We don’t want him convicted twice.”

“God, no.”

I really didn’t have a choice. I was going to have to try this. I tried to decide if I had everything I needed. I shouldn’t approach her until I had my ducks in a row.

“The car is important,” I said. “She was a teenager, so it was probably registered to her parents.”

“We have witnesses who can tie her to the car, though.”

“Yes. Sharon Hawley and Kelly Walpole confirm that she had a white or yellow Chevrolet Vega.”

“Do you need more than that to talk to her?”

“I need as much as I can get.”

“I can put Karen on it Monday, but I’d like to move this along…”

I shrugged. “I’ll lie. I’ll tell her we’ve got the registration in her parents’ name.”

“And then we can work on it Monday. What else?”

“John Hazeltine.”

“Remind me who that is.”

“He confirmed that people suspected a relationship between Pete Michaels and Coach Carrier.”

“How can that help you with Sammy? We can’t prove she knew.”

“I’m not sure. I mean, at trial you’d certainly be making it look like she should have known.”

“True. Do whatever you need to do to get her in. Okay?”

“Okay.”

She only stayed a few more minutes. I did the polite thing and asked about her husband, though I really didn’t care. He lived in a world I didn’t care about and didn’t understand. Honestly, I didn’t think Lydia cared much about that world either. She told me his career was taking off without much enthusiasm. After she left, I ate a sandwich, grabbed a few things, and went out to find my Jeep.

Sammy Blanchard lived in a stepped condominium complex in Signal Hill. One side ran along Cherry Avenue, another along Hill Street. Because of the staggered nature of the building, there was a parking lot below each section. It made sense that the spaces were assigned to the units above.

Sammy’s condo was in the topmost section. I found a parking place that had a decent angle on the gate to the garage. I was about two and a half car lengths above it. There was about forty-five minutes before the sun set completely.

The walls of the garage only came halfway up. There were columns that supported the building, but the walls themselves didn’t reach the first floor. I imagined the benefit of that was that you didn’t have to heat orcool the garage since it was open to the elements. It also meant I had a good view of anyone leaving or going to their car. The garage lights came on and I could see even better.

If you’d asked me, I couldn’t have told you why I thought it a good idea to sit outside Sammy’s condo. It was just a gut thing. I needed to make sure I had as much information as I could get my hands on before I tried to convince her to come in for a deposition.

Since it was a Friday night, it wouldn’t be too much to expect Sammy would leave her apartment. Go to a movie, dinner, drinks with friends.Did she have friends?If she was anything like she was in high school, the answer was no. But then, the worst people had friends. It wasn’t that hard to find someone desperate enough to be your friend.