“Anything else you remember about her?” I pressed, grasping for at any information that might start to untangle this web.
“Can't say much beyond what I've already told ya,” the old man said, looking somewhat apologetic. “She'd usually show upin the evenings, stay for a few hours and then vanish like the tide. And…yeah, there was something else.” He paused, as if weighing his words carefully. “She always drove this old blue Cadillac. Must've been from the fifties. Beautiful car, but it stuck out like a sore thumb.”
An old blue Cadillac. That was something at least, even if it was a thin lead to follow.
“Thank you,” I said, offering him a grateful smile. “You’ve been very helpful.”
He simply nodded, resuming his stroll. With nothing more to gain, I turned away from the house and headed back to my car. As I maneuvered down the winding coastal roads, the mystery of Peter Sullivan, and his mysterious redhead, deepened.
I met up with Andrew at a diner in Manteo, where we could discuss the case without the prying ears and eyes of the townsfolk. He waited for me at a corner booth, his face buried in the local newspaper when I walked in.
“Any luck?” he asked as I slid into the red vinyl booth opposite him.
“Sort of. I’ve got a new lead, but I'm not sure how much it's worth.”
Andrew lowered his newspaper, his brow lifted in curiosity. “Oh?”
I told him about the old man and the mysterious redhead with her blue Cadillac.
“That’s a start,” he said, folding the newspaper and setting it aside. “Could be a mistress, could be a close friend. Either way, we need to find this woman. She might know more about Peter’s actions leading up to his death.”
The waitress appeared then and took our orders. After taking a sip of my Coke, I looked up at Andrew and asked, “Do you think it would be possible for Judy and me to see Rosie? We haven’t spoken to her since her arrest, and we want her to know we haven't forgotten her.”
“I think that can be arranged. Just remember, they’ll probably be listening to everything you say, so choose your words carefully.”
Our food arrived, and we ate in relative silence. When we had filled our stomachs, we began to discuss our plan of action.
“All right,” Andrew began, folding his napkin meticulously onto his empty plate. “I’ll contact the prison tomorrow and arrange for you and Judy to meet with Rosalie. Since it’s the weekend, we have a couple of days to gather evidence, and I want to find out who this woman is that Peter was spotted with. In the meantime, I want you to look into that blue Cadillac. It’s not a common car around here, so someone must know something about it. And if there’s time, I want to retrace Rosalie’s steps the night of the murder. Maybe there’s something we missed.”
When we got back to the pier, Andrew parked the car and we talked for a while—about the case, about what he expected from me in the coming weeks, and about ourselves. We sat there, listening to the waves in the distance, enjoying each other’s company. Underneath the soft glow of moonlight, Andrew turned to me, his face partially obscured by shadows. I could still make out his eyes, though. They were warm, filled with a gentle sincerity that made my heart flutter.
“I have a confession to make,” he said. “You asked me once if I had ever lost a case, remember?”
I nodded, recalling our conversation.
“And I told you I hadn’t. Well, that wasn't entirely true. I have lost a case before, just one, but not as a defense attorney.When my career began, I was working for the district attorney’s office in Atlanta as a prosecutor. I always thought convicting the bad guys was my calling, but I quickly discovered that it wasn’t as black-and-white as I had initially thought. It never dawned on me that sometimes innocent people were charged with crimes. I was young…green…ambitious. There was this man…James Kellerman. He was accused of a robbery gone wrong, a convenience store clerk ended up dead. The evidence against Kellerman was flimsy at best, but I didn't see it then. I was too focused on winning the case, making a name for myself.”
His voice dropped to barely more than a whisper, tinged with regret. “Anyway, a couple of days before the trial ended, I discovered evidence that had been suppressed by the DA’s office, evidence that would have cleared Kellerman. I reported what I found, but the DA didn’t want a mistrial. He wanted a conviction.”
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could do. I revealed the evidence to the judge and the defense team, and then I quit.”
“That’s quite a story,” I said, having completely misjudged him. I'd seen him as a slick lawyer, playing the game, always on the winning side. But this revelation painted him in a new light. He was a man of principle, willing to risk his career for justice. “That must have been hard, thinking you wanted to go one direction, only to find out that it was the wrong path.”
“Yes and no,” said Andrew. “On the one hand, I felt as if I’d wasted time. But on the other, I discovered a new purpose, a new direction.”
That’s when it dawned on me that Andrew and I were more alike than I initially thought. He, too, had spent years chasing something he thought he wanted, only to realize that it wasn’t what he truly desired. I could see in his eyes that he was a man who had experienced the bitter taste of disillusionment, just as Ihad. “How did you become a defense attorney?” I asked, curious about the transition.
“After the Kellerman case,” he began, shifting in his seat, “I took some time off to clear my head, reassess my priorities. I traveled for a bit, visited places I'd never seen before. During that time, I did a lot of soul-searching. That was when I realized the kind of lawyer I wanted to be. I wanted to be the one who defended the underdog, who took on the hard cases, not just the ones that were easy to win. I wanted to ensure that justice was served, no matter what.”
The passion in his voice was palpable, a far cry from the calculated coolness he displayed in the courtroom. His shift in career, although subtle, had been not just a professional transformation but also a personal one.
“You know, I’m really glad you decided to join me on this journey. I wasn’t sure how we would work together, given our different backgrounds. But I’m beginning to see that our diverse backgrounds can really complement each other.”
“Me too,” I said, surprised at the sincerity in my voice. “I was nervous that I’d be in over my head, that I’d be out of place in your world.”
Andrew looked at me, spearing me with his gaze. “Believe me, you’re exactly where you need to be.”
