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“I work for The Freedom Agenda in Long Beach. We’ve been contacted by Larry Wilkes. He claims he’s innocent and I’m just checking that out.”
“Why? Are you going to get him out of prison?”
“If we’re able to prove he’s innocent.”
“This doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
That was interesting. Why hadn’t he said that Larry was guilty? Did he think Larry was innocent? And if he did, why hadn’t he done anything about it?
“Do you know something about Larry’s conviction? Was he wrongly convicted?”
“I don’t know anything.”
“I met your wife.”
“Ex-wife.”
“Yeah, you managed to make that happen quickly. Do you mind telling me what happened?”
He glared at me a moment, then said, “It doesn’t have anything to do with Pete’s murder.”
That convinced me it did. I tried to get things on a friendlier basis by asking, “Why don’t you like being called Paulie?”
“Makes me feel like a little kid.” His arms seemed to get tighter across his chest. “Look, my dad’s not well. I shouldn’t leave him alone with my mother. It’s too much for her.”
“Did your wife cheat on you?”
Anger flashed and he shook his head. “She’s not like that.”
“But she did lie to you, didn’t she?”
“I’m going in the house now.”
“If you could just give me a few more minutes. Tell me about your brother.”
He began walking back to the house.
I said, “I’ll just come back.”
He stopped, with a heavy sigh he asked, “What do you want to know?”
“Anything. I’d like to get a picture of who he was.”
“He was a great older brother. Always took care of me. He was funny, always cracking jokes. Class clown I guess.”
“Did he have a lot of girlfriends?”
“Yeah. The girls liked him. I mean, he played the field. And why shouldn’t he? He never got past twenty.” He was a bit more defiant than he needed to be.
“Was it a surprise when you found out he’d been engaged to Anne?”
“Yes.” His throat suddenly seemed to get dry, and he cleared it. It took a few tries.
“But you believed her?”
“There was no reason not to. I mean, there wasn’t any other reason for Larry Wilkes to kill my brother.”
“What did you think of Larry? Before your brother was killed, I mean.”
