“What does that mean?” I asked sharply.
“It doesn’t matter,” Oscar said as he sank into the metal desk chair opposite mine. “You come to town, you argue with the mayor, the mayor threatens to press charges and sue you, and then… totally unrelated… twenty-four hours later he’s dead in his office with a crime scene arranged to look like it’s the Canceled Killer—the case you’re obsessed with?”
Oscar glared at me.
I couldn’t believe I had to defend myself like this. I couldn’t believe Oscar thought so little of me.
“I. Didn’t. Kill. Him.Believe me, I wish I had.” Part of me did feel robbed. If he had to die, I would’ve liked to have been the last face he’d seen before he’d slipped into the black nothingness. It would’vebeen nice to whisper something like “Good luck in your next life as a roach” before he’d floated into the great beyond. Except I didn’t really want that, because I’m not akiller. And Stokes might be a piece of trash, but I would much rather see him rot in jail.
“You can’t go around saying things like that.” Oscar’s face grew red. He was furious. “It makes you look guilty, El.”
“Ugh!” I groaned. “First of all, if I did stage a scene, I’d do it better than with a grocery-store lemon. Second, I was with Jude all day, and the body was still in the pallor mortis state, and hadn’t moved to rigor mortis, so I’d say the man had only been dead a couple of hours at most.”
“I don’t want to know why you know that,” Oscar grumbled. “Thatalsomakes you look guilty.”
“I interviewed coroners like a million times for the podcast,” I protested. “I know things about crime scenes.”
“Right. Like how to stage one.” Oscar narrowed his eyes.
I burst out of my seat. “You can’t think I did this!” I shouted, slapping my palms on the table. “I am not a killer!”
Oscar pressed his lips in a thin line. “Sit down,” he warned me.
We stared at each other a beat. Then I sank back into my seat.
“You think I’m just another unhinged angry woman with an ax to grind, so that automatically makes me an emotionally unstable, hormonal killer?” I said, crossing my arms across my chest. “Fun fact, Oscar: Women can be angry and justbe fucking angry. Men don’t have the sole right to be pissed off. Don’t burn me at the stake for it.”
Oscar groaned. “Now is not the time for one of your rants,” he protested, sighing as he leaned back in his chair.
“Well, clearly you need to hear more of them, because none of them have sunk in.”
“You get so triggered—” Oscar began.
“You’re telling me I shouldn’t get triggered when my own brother accuses me of murder? Thenwhenis it appropriate to get angry, Oscar? Tell me. I’d love to know.”
Oscar shook his head slowly but said nothing.
“You shouldn’t have tripped Stokes at the bar. You should’ve called me. You’re always trying to handle things on your own when you should just ask for help.”
“Oh, that’s rich, Oscar. I should’ve just called you? You never got any charges to stick to Stokes, no matter what he did.”
“I was a Marine when prom happened,” Oscar reminded me. “And when I became sheriff, I did what I could to reopen the case, but the judge—”
“What about his other victims?”
Oscar sighed and scrubbed his face.
“After me, Stokes groped at leastfiveother girls in high school,” I added, which to me just underscored the problem with letting bad guys get away with it the first time. “And then he went on to grope countless others in college, and then the intern last year, and probably many more, because he’s a classic serial offender.”
“I know.” Oscar pinched the bridge of his nose. “But for your information, I helped get that judge friend of his removed from the bench. I contacted the FBI, and we’ve been investigating the judge and many others who helped him get away with it. We were about to charge him with assault for the intern and countless other charges around bribing officials. I was going to arrest him next week.”
This took me by complete surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because the investigation is confidential, you know that. And the federal prosecutor I’m working with wasn’t sure yet whethershe was going to ask you to testify. To talk about your experience at prom.”
“Oh.” The thought was terrifying but also thrilling. Sitting in the witness stand telling the whole world what a horrible person Stokes really was? Say less.
Oscar looked at me. “I never forgot about your case, El. Sometimes, justice takes a long time.”
