Robert Ellis - The Dead Room

“I didn’t shoot Eddie Trisco,” Andrews whispered in a shaky voice. “I need your help. You were there. I need people to understand what really happened.”

Teddy didn’t have any sympathy for Alan Andrews. His decision to meet with him was a result of the emptiness he’d been feeling deep inside himself ever since the night Trisco was found and killed. It was entirely a matter of confronting his demons. First with Barnett and now with the district attorney. Andrews was the kind of prosecutor who had taken his father away from him so many years ago. Teddy had come here today because he wanted to look the man in the eye. See him behind bars. Gain some degree of resolution, even if it was only secondhand and he’d never had the chance to meet the man who virtually sent his father to his death in a prison cell.

“I know the way it looks,” Andrews said. “But I didn’t do it.”

“How do you think it looks?” Teddy asked.

“Like I’m worse than Eddie Trisco. Like I was in it with him. They think I murdered Trisco to cover it up.”

“Trisco was sick,” Teddy said. “He couldn’t help what he was, but you could. You had a choice.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Andrews said. “I didn’t go there to shoot him.”

“When did you know it was him?”

“I didn’t. Jesus Christ, kid. When I read the profile and realized you guys were looking for an artist, it scared the shit out of me. I hadn’t thought about Eddie Trisco for five years, and I was out on a limb with Holmes.”

“How could you have forgotten about Trisco when you were taking payoffs from his parents?”

“Stop calling them payoffs. They were legitimate political contributions. I’d helped them with their son. Five years ago Eddie was just another kid whacked out on drugs. He didn’t really hurt the girl, and I didn’t think the prison system would do him or anyone else any good. He belonged in a medical setting. A hospital where he could receive treatment. I didn’t have any contact with his parents. Their first contribution to my campaign was after I made my decision about Eddie. Not before.”

Teddy folded his arms over his chest, ignoring the pain in his shoulder from the gun Andrews had fired at him. “When did you know it was Trisco?” he repeated.

“When I read the profile. I could feel that something was wrong. But the evidence kept pointing at Holmes. We knew he was a painter as well, and your profile didn’t exactly rule Holmes out. When Jackson met you at his apartment the second time, all you wanted to do is see the paintings. I thought it deserved a closer look and had them moved to the art museum. The x-rays seemed to point back at Holmes. When I spoke with Barnett, I agreed to plea the case. But only if Holmes confessed so that I could be sure.”

“Why plea the case? It never made sense that you didn’t want to take it to trial.”

“Barnett wouldn’t let me speak with Holmes unless we had a deal. I had to give to get. That’s the way the world works.”

He was dancing around the issue. He’d need a better answer before his trial.

“When you met with Holmes,” Teddy said, “I’m surprised you didn’t sense that something was wrong with the man. It seemed obvious to me the moment I met him.”

“Holmes wasn’t coerced. I didn’t grill him, kid. The confession came quick, like what he’d done had been eating at him and he wanted to spit it out.”

“If you were so sure that it was Holmes, then why did you start looking for Eddie Trisco? And why did you do it in secret?”

“What choice did you give me? You went out to their house, intimating that their son was involved. They called me when you left. I needed to find him to make sure. I needed to see him and talk to him before I could straighten it all out.”

Teddy narrowed his eyes. “By demoting Carolyn Powell, you mean.”

Andrews didn’t respond, his hands trembling.

“You’re bullshitting me, Andrews. But it sounds good. With a little polish, maybe it’ll work for a jury.”

“I have a friend in the lab,” he whispered. “When the manager at the cafe was found, she told me what was going on. A hair sample matched Trisco to the body. His fingerprints were found, a partial anyway, on the frame of a painting at Darlene Lewis’s house.”

“It would seem that was the time to come forward,” Teddy said.

“But I’d fucked the thing up. I couldn’t admit it was true. I knew what it looked like when you opened the door.”

“But it’s the truth, Andrews. It really is. You knew it was Trisco and you didn’t say anything. Instead, you tracked him down and murdered him. What do you want to happen? What do you think should happen? People think you’re worse than Trisco because you are.”

“You’re not hearing me, kid. I didn’t shoot Eddie Trisco. The basement was like a maze. I heard the shot and opened the door. The gun was on the floor and he was still alive. At the time I thought I’d walked in on a suicide. But now I’m not so sure. Someone else could’ve been there. Someone else could’ve fired the gun.”

He was reaching at straws. Still playing Teddy for a fool. And he couldn’t explain why he’d pointed the gun at him and fired, then hid in a room and attacked him. Or even how the box of hollow-point shells ended up in the glove compartment of his car. As Teddy mulled it over, he realized that Andrews couldn’t explain anything at all. He’d say and do anything to save his skin. His record over the years proved as much.

“Think it over,” he said to Andrews as he stood up. “How many people’s lives have you wasted and ruined? And for what? Just so that you could climb onto the pile and stand on top.”

Teddy walked out of the visiting room. Glancing at his watch, he noticed the date. Even though it was Christmas Eve, he couldn’t turn the other cheek or dig any compassion out of an empty hole. He couldn’t help it. He hoped the motherfucker would burn.

Teddy could see the judge pounding his gavel on the bench, the jury pronouncing their verdict, the turmoil that followed in the press, six years of appeals in a case too bizarre not to be real. District Attorney Alan Andrews had been convicted of the murder of Edward Trisco III, a serial killer whom authorities estimated had tortured and brutally murdered more than two dozen people.

It defied the imagination. Ate at a person’s soul, leaving the gristle behind. At a certain point, Andrews withdrew from the courts and finally gave up.

Teddy glanced at Nash sitting beside the pilot, then gazed out the window at the ground, watching the world sweep by in the darkness. They were making the short flight from West Chester to State College. Teddy had made arrangements for the twin-engine plane. Once they landed, a car and driver would be waiting to take them to the execution complex at Rockview Prison. Alan Andrews was due to make his exit by lethal injection in less than two hours and they were running late.

It had been a tumultuous six years.

Andrews had also been convicted for two separate attempts on Teddy’s life. When Detective Michael Jackson was confronted with both the payments he’d received from Andrews and his shoe prints found in the snow out at the lake, he copped a deal and admitted cutting the brake lines on Teddy’s car. He’d been following orders from Andrews, he said. Although Andrews denied it, and there were suspicions Jackson might be lying to save his own skin, the detective had enough experience in court to appear like a reliable witness and sell his side of the story to the jury. When confronted with hitting Teddy over the head and running Barnett over with his car, Jackson swore he knew nothing about it, took a lie detector test, and passed.