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“What’s wrong?”
“Slade told me what happened to him.”
“Wait, he talked to you about it?”
She looks up at me and frowns. “Yeah. Why? Is he not supposed to?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just that Slade is pretty private. He doesn’t usually share with anyone.”
“I think he was trying to explain why he reacted the way he did today in town.”
I don’t say anything for a minute, stunned that he opened up at all. I’m one of the few people who knows what happened because I’ve been there from the beginning.
“He told me how he was framed and sent to prison. He didn’t get around to the part where he was exonerated, though.”
“Honestly, the whole thing was a shit show. Here. Sit while I stir.”
She sits on the stool closest to me as I toss the chopped ingredients into the pan and lower the heat.
“Slade always claimed that he was innocent, and I never doubted him for a second. I know him better than he knows himself, and he’s just not capable of something like that.”
“I didn’t think for a second he was. But how did it get so far? Isn’t the husband the first person the police look at?”
“To the outside world, they had the perfect marriage.”
“But surely the truth would have come out during the trial?”
I scoff. “Like I said– shitshow. Elks told the court how much he loved her, how he would never hurt her, how they were trying for a baby. It was total bullshit mixed with fake tears. And the guy she was having an affair with before she hooked up with Slade was dead, so he couldn’t testify," I tell her. "Add in that Elks was supposedly out of town when it happened, and Slade was found guilty. But there were a lot of inconsistencies in Elks’ story that threw the timeline off completely.”
"If there were inconsistencies, how—" I cut her off.
“It was easier that way. And don't forget, he was a major with more powerful friends and the money needed to grease the right pockets. What kills me is that anyone who knew Slade should have known how smart the man is. If he had killed her, he sure as fuck wouldn’t have left his DNA all over the place.”
I shake my head. “I’ve never felt so helpless in my life. Most of Slade’s so-called friends abandoned him. His family disowned him. He was convicted in a court of public opinion way before he saw the inside of the courtroom.”
“How did it all come out in the end?”
“Elks got drunk and tried strangling his new fiancée. She went to the police and pressed charges, and the media caught wind of it. After that, lots of shit came out.
“Unearthed security footage from the parking lot Slade passed through has him timestamped as being there at one. This place was ten minutes from the Elks’ residence, but Slade was on foot that night because he’d been drinking, so it had taken him over an hour. That meant he left their place before midnight. Yet the coroner places the time of death between 12:30 and 1:30 a.m. A neighbor remembered seeing the lights on in the bedroom and a person moving around inside when he returned from his shift at the hospital at 1:15 a.m. But the neighbor was never questioned by the original investigating officers. He also remembered seeing Elks’ car in the driveway, which should have been impossible.”
“I can’t even begin to process how this could happen.”
“It’s the military. Rank is everything. It was a fucking mess. And then, when the truth came out, they tried to bury it. But with social media being what it is, it was impossible once it had been exposed.”
“Did the asshole get arrested?”
“He killed himself before he went to trial, confessing everything in a note.”
“What a fucking coward!” she snaps, angry on Slade’s behalf.
“Now you can see why he has such a hard time trusting people. The army turned their back on him, the legal system fucked him, his family washed their hands of him when he needed them the most—”
“He had you. Trust me, one true friend is better than a hundred fake ones.”
“Truer words have never been spoken.” Astrid jumps at the sound of Slade’s voice, turning to look at him.
“Hey,” she says quietly, looking worried.
