Casey Daniels - Dead Man Talking

I left my team to get all the details as well as some prices, and promised that I’d be back ASAP. Except for Crazy Jake, who demonstrated an instant attachment to Walter and showed it by snapping dozens of pictures of the old guy, none of my other teammates were happy with what sounded a little too much like homework. They reminded me we weren’t anywhere near the planting stage. I told them I didn’t care. With them busy with a project that would pass as work-related if anyone questioned us, I was free to search for Darcy Coleman.

According to the university’s website, she was a professor of philosophy who taught classes in alternative religions. Whatever that was.

When I finally located the classroom where Darcy was supposed to be teaching, I found a note taped to the door. It said the day’s class had been relocated to an outdoor venue behind the university’s sports complex.

I schlepped there, parked the van I’d borrowed from Garden View to accommodate my team members, and followed a little trail of signposts-purple balloons hanging from paint sticks along with handwritten notes that said Prof. Coleman’s Class, This Way.

Good thing I wasn’t a student. By the time I got to a clearing surrounded by tall oaks and hemmed in on all sides by lilacs as overgrown as the ones in Monroe Street, most of the class was already heading back the other way. There were still a couple stragglers-or brown nosers-around, and I watched as they chatted with a middle-aged woman who was gathering an armful of books.

There was nothing all that unusual about Darcy Coleman. She was average height, with an abundance of dark, thick hair streaked with gray. It hung around her shoulders. The style wasn’t particularly flattering to a thin face scored with wrinkles. Had we passed in a more conventional setting, I probably wouldn’t have noticed Darcy at all.

Well, except for the fact that she was wearing a long velvet robe. Purple. It brushed her bare feet.

“Professor Coleman?” I moved in as soon as those last remaining students were gone. “I wonder if I could talk to you.”

She glanced at a watch that graced her arm along with a dozen or more bangle bracelets. “I’ve got another group coming in just a couple minutes. Do I know you? Are you one of my students? If so, I’m guessing you’re in a pack of trouble, because I haven’t seen you in any of my classes, and part of what I grade on is attendance.”

“I’m not a student.” I was glad, too, especially when the professor set aside her books, reached into a large duffle bag, and brought out a dozen or more tall purple candles. She handed them to me.

“Talk,” she said, “while you help me get ready.”

I wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. While Darcy walked a wide circle around the center of the clearing, I followed along. And when she stopped and signaled, I handed her a candle. At each spot, she used a stick to poke a hole in the ground, placed a candle, and moved on.

I waited until we’d set up two candles before I broached the subject. “I’m here about Jefferson Lamar,” I said.

This wasn’t something she expected. Her eyebrows arched, she looked over her shoulder at me. “You know he’s dead.”

“Yes, of course. But his widow-”

“Helen.”

“Helen thinks he was innocent.”

Darcy stopped in her tracks, and believe me, I’m not overly sensitive or anything, but when she looked me up and down, I couldn’t help but feel a little defensive. “And she sent you to try and find out more?”

I didn’t like her tone. Then again, I wasn’t crazy about her fashion choices, either, so I guessed there wasn’t much the professor and I had in common. I reminded myself to hold on to my temper. “I’m doing some research about Lamar. I thought if I talked to someone who knew him well…”

“All these years, and Helen still won’t let it go. She wants you to prove Jeff was innocent, right?”

“Can you help me do that?”

She shook herself out of the initial shock that had rooted her to the spot and continued on. We didn’t stop again until we were on the far side of the circle. She signaled, I handed, she placed.

“I never thought Warden Lamar was guilty,” she said.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “I knew he was innocent. That’s all. Or I thought I knew. He wasn’t that kind of man.”

“But there was plenty of evidence against him.”

“The gun, you mean.”

“And his blood at the scene.”

“On Vera’s blouse. Yeah, I remember that.” She moved on to the next spot. “It made him look really bad. I remember how disappointed I was. I didn’t want it to be true.”

“But you think it was.”

“I think the jury had to make a decision based on the facts, and the facts were pretty clear.”

“But what if he wasn’t guilty? What if someone framed him?”

I thought maybe I’d get the kind of reaction I had from Lenny Fitzpatrick, but Darcy was more matter-of-fact than angry. “Of course, I thought of that,” she said. “I was living in California by that time, and I was pregnant and pretty sick. I couldn’t travel back for the trial, but I gave a deposition. I told the court everything I knew, and everything I knew said that Jeff was a good and honor-able man.”

“Did you tell them you thought he’d been framed?”

“There was no proof.”

“But it was possible?”

Another shrug.

“If somebody framed him, do you have any idea who it could have been?” Her expression was sour, and I knew if I didn’t justify myself, she’d tell me to get lost. “You must have known more about what went on in that prison than just about anyone else,” I said. “You knew what was in each prisoner’s file, right? Who had disciplinary problems. Who had a beef with the warden.”

She grunted a laugh. “Every prisoner in there had a beef with the warden. Comes with the territory.”

“But maybe some of them were more pissed than others?”

This gave her pause, and we stopped in the shade of the biggest of the oaks. “I was Jeff’s secretary for six years, and I’ll tell you what: in that time, I saw my share of trouble-making prisoners. There were a couple who were worse than the others, though. Yeah.” Thinking, she narrowed her eyes. “There were a couple who were lots of trouble.”

“Would any of them have been capable of framing Lamar?”

This time when she laughed, there was not one bit of humor in it. “You don’t know prisoners, do you? Oh yeah, there were a few who would have loved to see Lamar get jammed up. I told the police that when they called and talked to me about the case. If they followed up on my information or not, I can’t say. I only know that if they did, they must not have found anything, because Jeff was the one who was arrested, and he was the one who was convicted.”

“It’s possible things might look different now. I mean, a lot of time has passed. If you could give me some names…”

I don’t know if she was going to agree or not because at that very moment, five other women entered the clearing. They were all middle-aged and all dressed pretty much as Darcy was, in long robes. I’d held my curiosity in check long enough.

“What in the world-”

Darcy’s smile sparkled. “We’re doing a croning ceremony,” she said, and in answer to my blank look continued. “Debbie over there”-Debbie was apparently the plus-sized woman in the red robe-“is turning fifty, and we’re going to honor the wisdom she’s gained over the years. Would you like to join us?”

“Will it get me the names of the prisoners you think might have framed Jefferson Lamar?”

Darcy didn’t answer. In fact, all she did was smile.

Right before she and all the other women there stripped off their robes.