Barbara Callahan - The Day After

The knowledge of the accident and Melissa’s mother’s death would have impelled me to don my oppo hat and interview police, EMT responders to the scene, and hospital personnel and have them swear Greg was drunk. Machiavellian Mama would have vaporized his chances, but she was otherwise engaged.

Aside from Eve, my only other visitor was Will Stafford. He believes I’m innocent, but he chuckled in admiration at the “best damned oppo dirty trick” he’d ever seen. He’s paying for my lawyer, who raised both eyebrows when I told him my story.

“Look, you say you went all those places with McKenzie and his daughter, yet no one’s come forward who saw you with them. There’s not one phone call from his cell or home phone to your cell or home. And there’s only one call from you to him, from your cell to his home phone on the night of the kidnapping.”

“Alleged kidnapping,” I snapped. “We made arrangements when we were with Melissa. And he did call my office twice, once to set up our first date and again the day I picked up Melissa. I know the last call was from a pay phone. Isn’t there a record of either call?”

“Yes, but there’s no proof the pay-phone calls came from him. There’s no proof of any connection with him or with the child, and she can’t testify. Give me something concrete.”

He called for the guard, then opened his briefcase and handed me some books.

“My wife went to your condo and picked up those books you asked for.”

Wondering why I even asked for them since they belonged to the day before, I tossed them onto the bed in my cell. Ruefully, I watched as the volume of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets From the Portuguese hit the floor. I had actually been reading those poems on the day before when my fatal romantic side held me captive. A white card bookmarked a particular poem. Masochistically, I picked up the book to read what I had once considered so meaningful.

I smiled. “Something concrete, you said. How about fingerprints?”

The card that marked my place was much more interesting to me than the poem. It was literally my ticket to freedom and perhaps Melissa’s return ticket to relatives in Colorado who wouldn’t manipulate her. It accompanied the roses sent by Greg as an apology for spilling wine on my skirt, asking me to lunch at McDougal’s. And even better, silly old starry-eyed me had clipped a memento to the card. It was the receipt from McDougal’s that Greg had left on the table. I had taken it for insertion into a future scrapbook to be labeled “Our First Meal Together,” a romantic lunch consisting of one adult McDougal burger, one adult garden salad, and one child’s Fun Meal.

Copyright (c) 2007 by Barbara Callahan