“I’m sorry. I’m okay.”
“Alright, Mr. Knowles, you may continue.”
“Yes, your honor. Katy, did you mention to Miss Wells that you suspected your brother was hurting her?”
“No. I didn’t say anything. I knew my parents wouldn’t listen. And I couldn’t talk to Sorrow because what if she went away and I was stuck with him again? I was so selfish.”
“No. You were a scared child. None of this was your fault.”
She nods but dips her head, and I know the guilt is still riding her like it is me.
“The night of the crash. Do you remember anything?”
“I remember Alec going to a party. He was half drunk before he even left because he raided Daddy’s liquor cabinet. I didn’t know Alec was gone until the morning, and the housekeeper woke me up and told me he was dead.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
She hesitates before looking at our parents. “Relieved.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
SORROW
Needless to say, after that, it was pandemonium. Katy’s mom lost her shit, and the judge threatened to hold her in contempt before ordering a brief recess. My only concern was making sure Katy was okay. Though she was naturally shaky, it also seemed as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
I think by the time Stephenson was called back to the stand, everyone was ready for it to be over.
“It’s been a long day, Mr. Stephenson. A long couple of days, actually. A lot has been alluded to, but I’d like to focus on the truth. Both Katy Bannerman and Sorrow Wells deserve that from you, a man who should have had their backs regardless of your relationship with the Bannerman’s.”
Stephenson swallows. “Okay.”
“Did either Mr. or Mrs. Bannerman ask you to falsify police reports regarding Miss Wells?”
“No. They did not.”
“So your treatment of Miss Wells was because of who her mother was?”
“No. Well, perhaps to an extent, though I didn’t think about it at the time.” He sighs, looking over at me with regret. “The Bannerman’s never asked me outright to change anything, but they led the narrative, and I let them. They told me about the supposed suicide attempts, threats made to Alec and the Bannerman’s themselves, and that she’d called Alec the night of the accident to tell him she was going to kill herself if he didn’t come. Then Alec was dead, and my friends were distraught. I’ll admit, it was hard keeping my feelings professional, but I never took it out on Miss Wells. I did my job, but I’ll admit, I didn’t do it well. I believe Miss Wells knew Alec planned on leaving her, so we had a motive. There was also a pattern of concerning behavior, according to the Bannerman’s. As far as I was concerned, we had an unstable young girl who would never get the help she needed with her home life. So when they asked me to support them in pushing for Miss Wells to be tried as an adult, I agreed.”
“Are you saying you didn’t follow all leads because you already had a suspect, so you went with the evidence that fit?”
“Yes.”
And I’ll give him his dues—he looks ashamed. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to knee him in the balls, though.
“We never tested the blood. Never admitted the camera footage into evidence. Miss Wells’s court-appointed lawyer never asked for any of those things, so we didn’t offer them. When Sorrow stopped speaking, I took it as a sign of guilt that she didn’t defend herself because she didn’t want to get caught in a lie. I never looked at it as a sign of trauma when I should have. I know that now.”
“So what happened when she came home? She’d served her time. You know your actions were beyond reprehensible, and the police commission agreed. Otherwise, you would still have your job and pension.”
“I agree. I deserved to lose both of them. I didn’t know until after the trial that the medical files had been altered. Leanne mentioned it so casually to me over dinner once that I thought I’d misheard her. She admitted that John and she not only paid off the nurse to falsify the doctor’s reports but also paid off the lawyer representing Miss Wells to look the other way and not cause trouble. I remember walking away in a daze. She had to be joking, though, right? The Bannerman’s are good people. They have a legacy in this town. I couldn’t believe it. They were my friends. They wouldn’t risk my job or reputation to get revenge on the one person who never deserved it.”
I lean forward, and Banner runs a hand up and down my back. Everything I’m hearing is leaving me feeling confused and conflicted.
“Then I checked the phone records,” he continues. “One of the officers pulled them, but I’d never checked them. The night of the crash, Miss Wells never called Alec Bannerman, as I was told. But he sure called her. Twenty-seven times, to be exact. And she answered only once, which lasted for less than a minute. After that, he called his mother and then made his way to Miss Wells’s home. I reviewed older records, and it wasn’t difficult to discern a pattern of behavior. He called and texted an excessive number of times throughout their relationship, sometimes up to a hundred times a day. That sent up an immediate red flag. It prompted me to delve deeper into the case, which is when I discovered that what Leanne revealed about the nurse and the lawyer was true. I felt sick to my stomach, but by that time, Miss Wells had been released from prison and was far away from here. I figured she was better off.”
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
“I know. And then she came back, and I knew it was going to be bad. John and Leanne told me that unless I got rid of her,they’d tell everyone I was having an affair with Claire and that I’d falsified records, blaming Sorrow in revenge, just like she did.”
