The Edge

“Someone committed a wrong, a horrible wrong, against a fellow colleague of ours, and was never held accountable for it. I tried to work through the proper channels to right that wrong. And I was stonewalled. So I took matters into my own hands. But by righting a wrong I committed one of my own. After that I felt I didn’t have the right to wear the uniform. The honorable thing to do was leave, and so I did. My penance was giving up the thing I loved the most.”

She stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before saying, “I’m sorry that happened to you. But thank you for being honest with me.”

“You deserve it.”

She looked around and said, “Why did you bring me here?”

“I want you to see if you notice anything different from when you were here last working with Bertie.”

“Why?”

“Just bear with me and I’ll explain later. Go ahead. Use your artist’s eye for detail.”

She shrugged and walked around looking at everything. Then she stopped and pointed toward the ceiling rafter. “That wasn’t there before.”

He looked where she was motioning. A blackened pulley had been screwed into a roof joist directly above where Earl had been found hanging. It was the same color as the board it was attached to and thus blended right in. Devine wasn’t certain he had even noticed it before.

“You’re sure it wasn’t there?”

“Very sure. We could have actually used something like that to lift up a few of the heavy sculpture pieces Bertie and I did here.”

Lift up?

She eyed the pulley and then glanced at him. “On the widow’s walk, you mentioned that someone might have killed Earl?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. Yet.”

Devine quickly formulated a rough trajectory that carried him back to a large bolt that was screwed into the wall over the top of a wooden workbench set there.

He bent down and examined the bolt more closely with his phone light. Was that a rope fiber on top of the workbench?

Things were starting to make sense. Still, there were unanswered questions. Lots of them.

“Was that helpful?” she said, drawing Devine from his reverie.

He looked at her. “Oh, Alex, you don’t know how much. Thank you.”

Chapter 60

Devine and Alex next drove to the police station, where Mildred James greeted them.

“Alex?” she said in surprise. “I haven’t seen you in some time.”

Alex looked down at her boots. “Yes, I’ve... been pretty busy.”

“I’m sure. And I am so sorry about your sister, hon. Jenny was so—”

“—perfect?” said Alex, looking up with a sad expression. “I know everyone says that, but she really was, you know.” She glanced nervously at Devine. “At least she was to me. She looked after me and supported me, when others were... preoccupied.”

James looked a bit confused by all this, and Devine hastened to move things along.

“The evidence file for Earl Palmer? Can I take a look at it?”

“Certainly.”

She led them back, warned Devine that he couldn’t let Alex touch anything, and then left them. He figured she would have been far more hesitant to let the two of them have access to this evidence if Palmer’s death had not been officially ruled a suicide, despite her agreeing with Devine’s theory as to it possibly having been a murder.

“What are we looking for?” asked Alex.

Devine proceeded to tell her about his theory of the case with Earl’s death having been a homicide because of the man’s physical limitations. “And your seeing the pulley bolsters that.”

“That all makes sense, Travis. You would think Chief Harper could see that, too.”

“When he was Sergeant Harper he accessed your evidence file.”

“Why?”

“I guess he wanted to see if he could solve it, but your rape kit was missing, as I told you before.”

“Who would take it?”

“Whoever didn’t want your attacker to be found.”

“Do you have any idea who it is, Travis?” she asked in a trembling voice.

“I’m getting closer, I can feel it.”

He looked over the evidence that had been gathered from the Palmers’ studio and focused on the noose.

He took pictures of it with his camera.

“God, that is a gruesome-looking thing,” said Alex.

“Between World War II and 1961 the U.S. military executed 160 soldiers for various offenses. They were all hanged, and the Army was responsible for 157 of them.”

“An eye for an eye?”

“Not really. Fourteen offenses are punishable by death during times of war or peace. Every soldier knows what they are, or should. So long as he or she avoids them, they have no problem.” He didn’t tell her that one of them was for rape.

“And for times of war only?” she said.

“Four, including desertion and willfully disobeying or assaulting a superior officer.”

“I suppose you never willfully disobeyed or assaulted a superior officer?”

“Not a superior officer, no,” said Devine, thinking of Kenneth Hawkins, who had, like Devine, also held the rank of captain.

He drove Alex back to Jocelyn Point. She got out of the truck and then poked her head back in. “I heard about your rental. Annie said it was shot full of holes.”

“It was. But I’m not.”