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I managed to get through most of the grapevine before I began to fall asleep. Opening the window, the night air wasn’t all that cold. I pulled off into a rest area about a half an hour north of Castaic for what I hoped was a short nap.
I dropped into sleep like a stone into a pond. Chin on chest, head hanging, mind abuzz with dreams. I dreamed about Harker. I used to dream about him all the time. My lover from the early eighties. It was the money he’d left to me that I’d given to Ronnie to buy our first house. I owed Harker a lot.
I dreamed we were in my bed; not the bed I shared with Ronnie, but one I’d had in an apartment I’d rented in Hollywood for a while. Harker was sleeping next to me, except he wasn’t really. He was floating there just above the mattress. I rolled over to look at him. He smiled at me, then floated upwards, above the bed and then out the window, his body arching over the sill like a pole jumper. He slipped away with the night.
My cellular phone was ringing. That’s what woke me. I pushed the buttons until something happened.
“Dom? Dom where are you?”
I cleared my throat. “Still in the grapevine. I’ll be home in about an hour and a half.”
“I sold the house in California Heights. My clients accepted the offer.”
“Is that the one you showed me?”
“The other one.”
Ronnie was good at his job and sellers were beginning to figure that out. That meant I was having more and more trouble keeping up. I spent a lot of time acting like I knew what he was talking about. I could tell he knew I was doing it, but he didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, that’s great. Good job.”
“I miss you. I’m alone here with Junior. He’s trying to convince me that things were better when gay sex was illegal.”
“It’s still illegal in twenty-six states,” I pointed out.
“So, can I give him a list of places he could move to?”
“Don’t get your hopes up. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”
“That’s too bad. Did you eat?”
“Yeah, I had Mexican.”
“I’m tapingMelrose Place. We can watch it when you get home. I’ll make che-che.”
Che-che was a Vietnamese dessert soup he liked to make. His mother had made something similar, though his version was decidedly American: bananas, tapioca pudding, coconut milk and peanuts. It was pretty good.
I told him I loved him and said good-bye. I got back onto the freeway. As I drove, I tried to sort through the things I’d learned at the prison. I was even more convinced Larry Wilkes was innocent. I needed to figure out if I could get the transcript to his trial without taking the case. I had no clue how to do that, nor how much it might cost. I could probably put out the money and then ask to be reimbursed if I could get Lydia to take the case.
The first thing I needed to do was find Andy Showalter. I needed him to recant his testimony. Obviously, if he was interested in recanting he’d have come forward before now. I might need the transcript first. If I could catch him in a lie, that might get him to recant.
Anne Whittemore was also someone I needed to talk to. Larry said he’d told her to perjure herself. If I made it clear he now wanted her to tell the truth, she might recant as well. Two recanting witnesses were always better than one.
As I passed Santa Clarita, I turned my thoughts to the rapists. Well, the not-rapists. Alan Dinkman seemed like a decent guy. I’d have to call Selma Martinez and ask if the photo lineup she was shown included only Black men. And I needed to remind Lydia to request that the district attorney find and hand over a copy of the missing photo lineup. We also needed to establish if the photo lineup was handed over to the original defense attorney. That could be enough of a violation to spark a new trial on its own. Combine that with the DNA evidence and the DA should just give up. Didn’t mean he would, but he should.
Stu Whatley was another story. He was a real creep. I couldn’t be sure whether he was always like that or if he became that in prison. I was leaning toward always.
I was pretty sure Lydia knew exactly who she was dealing with. The trick here would be to not let the prosecution know the kind of person he was. That we could get a new trial seemed certain with the DNA evidence. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be retried though. The DA might roll the dice and hope that his vile personality trumped science and a jury would convict him again.
This might be why Lydia was focused on Detective Wellesley. If we had enough evidence that she manipulated the identification process, we would likely stay out of court entirely. That meant I needed to find and talk to Candy Van Dyke.
As I drove, my mind drifting along, picking other subjects until I asked myself why I was so interested in helping Larry Wilkes. I believed him but wasn’t sure exactly why. The lack of fingerprints on the gun was certainly a problem. But then people do illogical things when they commit murder. He could have wiped his fingerprints off the gun and then just stayed. It was stupid, but then murder is rarely a crime of the super intelligent.
Love. That was what made me want to help him. Pete had been Larry’s first love. I remember what that was like. And I remember how messed up it could get. My first love had been a librarian named Daniel. No one died when we broke up, though it did bring about the end of my time as a Chicago police officer. Our relationship had been full of high highs and low lows. An emotional roller-coaster.
Somewhere along the line, I lost track of him. He was replaced by other loves, intense loves, heartbreaking loves. I was grateful my life was much calmer than it had been in my late twenties and early thirties. I was grateful for Ronnie.
I thought he was remarkable for someone so young. But then he’d grown up in a different time. Things were better. Not great, but better. Despite his mother, Ronnie had been able to find broader acceptance than I had. He’d been in an LGBT group when he was in college. And he’d even pledged a gay fraternity. I don’t think he fully understood how lucky he was. How much easier things had gotten in a very short time.
