James Grippando - Last to die

“I understand she spent some time here with you.”

“Yeah. I was a bit surprised she came, but I suppose in the last few years nothing should have surprised me.”

“What do you mean?”

“Charity work in Africa is not exactly for Sally. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not for most people. But after her daughter was murdered, Sally just wanted to find a way to heal. She drifted from one extreme to the other, from partying to religion, from charity work to marrying a millionaire. In the end, I guess, nothing worked.”

The waiter brought their food, a lumpy, grainy dish that looked like rice mixed with a little meat. Jack tried it with caution, but it was surprisingly tasty. “Good choice,” he said. “I like it.”

“Really? For most people spider monkey is an acquired taste.”

“Huh?”

“Just kidding.”

They shared a smile, then Jack turned serious again. “I’m really sorry about what happened to your sister, so let me apologize in advance for some of the questions I have to ask.”

“I understand.”

“This might sound like a weird question, but do you have any reason to believe that Sally would have killed herself?”

“Suicide? She was shot in her car while waiting at an intersection.”

“I know. But what I’m really asking is, do you think it’s possible that she hired someone to kill her?”

She looked away, but Jack could still see the troubled expression on her face. “I don’t know. I have worried about her. She had a lot of issues, many of which I’m sure you already know about. Her money problems, the stalker, the murder of her daughter, her failed marriage.”

“What about the book that the reporter from the Miami Tribune was writing? Do you know anything about that?”

She paused, then said, “I do. If there was one thing that I think could have driven Sally toward suicide, it would have been that book. Or not the book, per se, but its premise.”

“What was your understanding of it?”

“Sally felt that she was being blamed for the fact that her daughter’s killer was never caught. We talked a lot about that. She was having an awful time dealing with those accusations.”

“Did you ever talk to her about the polygraph exam she took? I’m not insinuating anything, but my understanding is that it showed signs of deception when Sally answered no to the question, ‘Do you know who killed your daughter?’”

“You of all people-someone who has done death penalty work-should know that lie detector tests are not infallible. In my view, if that test showed signs of deception, the machine was wrong.”

“There was another area that the test said she was lying about. It had to do with some question about an extramarital affair.”

“If you’re asking me if Sally cheated on her husband, I don’t know. She never told me about a lover. I never got any awkward phone calls from Miguel asking, ‘Hey, did you and Sally really have dinner together last night?’-you know, the kind of checking up you’d expect from a husband if the wife was cheating.”

“Let’s assume she was having an affair. Was she the kind of person who would…how should I put this?”

“Who would cover up her own daughter’s murder to protect her lover? No way. I know that’s what the prosecutor said, and I know that’s what Deirdre Meadows wanted to write in her stupid book. Excuse my language, but that is total bullshit. Katherine was Sally’s life. She would never have covered up the murder of her own daughter out of love for some man.”

“What about out of fear?” asked Jack.

“Meaning what?”

“Again, I’m not making any accusations. Just want to consider all the possibilities. Is it possible that Sally was afraid to identify the man who killed her daughter because she was afraid he might come back and kill her, too?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I know-knew-my sister.”

“Did you know that she was being stalked before her daughter was murdered?”

“I found that out when everybody else did, after the murder.”

“If she was being stalked, how can you completely dismiss the prosecutor’s theory that this stalker was her lover and that Sally was afraid to identify him as the man who killed her daughter?”

“Because I know differently. I know that after the murder, Sally was obsessed with trying to find out who her stalker was. She was hunting him down.”

Jack laid his fork on the table, absorbing what she’d just said. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

“It’s true. Unless Sally was the world’s greatest actress, I’m convinced that she had never even met her stalker, let alone fallen in love with him.”

“How do you know she tried to hunt him down?”

“Like I said, Sally came to Africa to try to get over the past. She was terribly distraught over the fact that her daughter’s killer had never been caught. Finally, over two years after the murder, her stalker contacted her by e-mail while she was here in Africa. We were down at the Internet café together, checking our e-mails, when she found it.”

“What happened?”

“I scrolled through my messages, then Sally scrolled through hers. All of a sudden, she went completely white. I asked her what was wrong, and she said, ‘It’s a message from that same guy who was stalking me before.’”

“Did you read it?”

“Yes. It was benign, really. Just, ‘Hello, how have you been?’ You’d never know it was from a stalker. But I guess that’s the way all communications from stalkers start out.”

“What did Sally do?”

“She started corresponding with him. She even had one or two on-line chats. She had a plan.”

“What was it?”

“She was trying to arrange a face-to-face meeting with him.”

“In Africa?”

“No. She was willing to hop on the next plane back to Miami if he would meet with her.”

“Wasn’t that a little risky?”

“That’s finally what I said to her: ‘Hey, Sally, this could be the man who murdered Katherine and stuck a knife beneath your ribs.’ Finally, I talked her into a safer approach.”

“Which was what?”

“Just continue the on-line communications, see if he’d divulge some tidbit of information that might help the police find this guy.”

“Did it work?”

“She tried. Week after week, doing her best to coax him into saying something about where he lived, what kind of car he drove, anything. He was smart, though. Never revealed much of anything about himself. He would always turn it around and ask questions about her: What she was doing, what she was wearing, how would she like a big you-know-what in the you-know-where?”

“Did she get anything at all out of him?”

“One night, she was totally frustrated. She threatened never to talk to him on-line again if he didn’t tell her his name. He gave her a name, but Sally and I both knew it wasn’t real.”

“What was it?”

“Gosh, I don’t remember. Kind of goofy-sounding.”

“Take a minute. Think about it.”

Her brow furrowed as the wheels turned in her head. “I think it was…no. Yeah, that’s it. Alan Sirap.”

Jack froze. “Alan S-I-R-A-P?”

“Yes. Do you know him?”

She obviously had no idea that Sirap was the name of Sally’s sixth beneficiary, the “unknown” whom they’d been unable to identify. Jack settled back in his chair and said, “No, I don’t know him. But I’m starting to feel like I do.”

After lunch Jack took a look under the hood.

He’d offered to drive Rene back to Korhogo, and her business was finished, so she’d gladly accepted. Unfortunately, their Land Rover had developed the automotive equivalent of a smoker’s hack. Jack was no mechanic, but he’d learned a thing or two from his treasured old Mustang back home, enough to know that he should at least check the filters before returning down the same dusty road that had brought them to Odienné.