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Then I began to wonder about gunshot residue. Had Larry been tested for it? What were the results? I’d skimmed through the transcripts a couple of times and I didn’t remember anything about that. I made a mental note to ask Larry about it. I knew that he had not fired a gun, so would that test tell us that? And if so, why hadn’t it been done?
Then I wondered if phone records had been pulled. Coach Carrier and Pete had been in contact. They had to have set up the meeting that Saturday afternoon. Of course, if the information wasn’t collected during the trial, it’s likely gone. I couldn’t imagine the phone company keeping call records for twenty years. That was another question for Larry.
If Coach Carrier wore gloves of some kind, he must have entered and kept his hands in his pockets. Certainly, if Pete had seen the gloves—that brought up an interesting question: Were there any signs of a struggle? Was it possible Pete scratched the coach? That would result in DNA under his fingertips and we could test that. If it was there and if it was collected. Something else to ask about.
Winding my way through The Grapevine, I paid nearly as much attention to the murder I was re-enacting in my mind as I did to the freeway in front of me. After shooting Pete, Coach Carrier called Larry using the signal he’d had with Pete. I wondered how he knew they used the same telephone code? Had it been part of the conversation when Pete was working his way up to blackmailing him?
Had Coach Carrier known Pete’s parents would be home soon? Did he know they’d walk in on Larry? Or did he simply expect Larry to come over, see that Pete was dead, and call the police? It wasn’t unheard of for murderers to call the police and pretend they didn’t do it. Did he know the police would automatically suspect Larry?
When I arrived at the prison it was nearly one in the afternoon, and I felt like I’d explored every detail of Pete Michaels’ murder ad nauseam. There really wasn’t much we could do, and I felt like a man on his way to the gallows—not an inappropriate feeling given where I was.
I dragged myself through the complex and mind-numbing process of entering the prison. I found myself in the same visitors’ room I’d visited twice. After an unsurprising half-an-hour wait, Larry Wilkes was brought in. He gave me a hopeful smile.
“It’s nice to see you again. I hope you’ve brought good news.”
“Mostly I have questions,” I said. That wasn’t exactly true, but I wanted to let him down easily, if possible.
“What kind of questions?”
“Well… first, did you know that your friend, Anne Whittemore, married Paulie?”
“She what? Really?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I had no idea.”
“How is that possible? They were married nearly twenty years ago. No one ever mentioned it to you?”
Jutting out his jaw, he said, “I’m in prison. No one in my family speaks to me. They don’t write to me. They don’t visit. I told them what really happened. That I loved Pete and couldn’t have killed him. My father said he liked me better when I was a murderer.”
“That must have been a terrible thing to hear.”
“Anne was my best friend in high school. I guess I know now why she stopped writing.”
“You never get any mail?”
“I’ve gotten a few letters. Women who want to marry a prisoner. I don’t know how they find me.”
I wasn’t sure whether to believe him a hundred percent. It didn’t make a lot of sense that he wouldn’t know Anne married Paul Michaels. But then, maybe it was strange enough to be true.
“Let’s talk about what happened when you were arrested. Were you tested for gunshot residue?”
“No.”
“Why didn’t your attorney bring that up at trial?”
“He didn’t think it was a good idea.”
“He didn’t think it was a good idea?” A bell went off in my head. We were back to ineffective—
“I was covered in Pete’s blood. I’d been holding him. Sobbing. The blood would have gotten in the way of the testing. My lawyer thought that it was a good thing the test wasn’t done since my holding Pete would have transferred residue from him to me. He was sure the test would have been positive, so he didn’t make a big deal about it not being done.”
“Did they get phone records?”
“Mine.”
“Not Pete’s?”
