Page 56 of The Ghostwriter

Charlie sighs and looks across the crowded coffee shop. “Mainly, we called the grand jury because of what was going on with the coroner who did the autopsies of your aunt and uncle. If you’ve read anything about the case, I’m sure you know he had a problem with drugs around that time.” Charlie shakes his head. “But your father’s alibi held up, and there were multiple witnesses who testified that the coroner wasn’t using drugs in June of 1975.”

“If you had that information, why call a grand jury at all?”

“The DA had to cross thet’s and dot thei’s. We figured it was better to let the system make the decision, not us.” Charlie thinks for a moment, then says, “I don’t know if this will help you or make things worse, but in my opinion the grand jury got this one right.” He must see the shock on my face because he hurries to clarify. “I know it’s not a popular opinion. A lot of people want to believe your father is guilty because that makes for a better story. But all I can tell you is that in this situation, I believe the system worked. We didn’t prove our case, and if we can’t do that, then the grand jury shouldn’t indict.”

I’m stunned. “Really?” I say.

He nods. “The media loves to talk about all the ways the system is broken. Poppy and Danny’s friends have a lot of theories about what was happening in 1975 and a lot of really valid concerns, but our only job was to examine the evidence in front of us. To present it in the most honest and compelling way for the grand jury. We did that. And they found it insufficient because at the time, it was. The purpose of reasonable doubt isn’t to prove anything; it’s to introduce questions. To show that there might have been another route of investigation. Reasonable doubt is like a bell—once rung, you can’t unring it.” He’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “The law can be a fluid thing,” he says. “Hard to pin down. We try to make it concrete, to apply it fairly, but it’s challenging even under the best of circumstances.” He looks up again. “I was never 100 percent on bringing the case to the grand jury. Not at the time. We didn’t have enough evidence.”

“Like what?”

“The murder weapon, for starters.” My mind flicks again to my father’s night terror. To Poppy’s hiding place, thankfully empty. Charlie continues. “But also, what we did have was completely circumstantial. The time of death, plus the testimony about the coroner which confirmed your father’s alibi, convinced them not to indict.”

I feel a glimmer of something—hope? relief?—that my father isn’t completely unknown to me. “So you believe it was the man who picked her up hitchhiking?”

Charlie looks out the window next to us into a crowded parking lot and, beyond it, a busy car wash. “No,” he says. “But unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got.”

“What about DNA? Technology has come a long way since 1975. Perhaps the evidence you still have could turn up something new.”

“Maybe,” he says, though I can tell he doesn’t believe it.

I think of the story Margot told me, how my father had once pulleda knife on Danny. Surely, she’d told Charlie the same story. And yet it didn’t seem to matter.

Charlie takes a final sip of coffee, setting his empty cup on the table between us. “This case was never going to make it into a courtroom.” He levels his gaze at me, and I see the years of toil, working in the public sector, never making the kind of money that his fellow law-school friends probably made, fighting for justice in a system that most will say isn’t perfect and many would argue is irretrievably broken. “A civil case could have been filed, but there wasn’t anyone left to file it. Your father’s parents had died years before, and he was the only one left.”

“Did you ever meet them?” I ask.

“No. We had their statements at the time of the murders, but that’s all we had,” Charlie says. “Both had maintained your father’s innocence until the very end, though their voices were muted. They’d been devastated by the loss. I don’t know if they really believed Vince didn’t do it, or if they just couldn’t bear to lose their last child.”

“What about the lead detective on the case in 1975? Any way I could speak to him?”

“Clint McGinnis died back in 2000.” He fiddles with his empty cup, turning it in a slow circle on the table. “You’re going to find that most of the people who were around that day—firsthand witnesses, people who knew Poppy and Danny, or people involved in the original case—are gone.”

“Do you think he’d be indicted if the case moved forward today?”

Charlie gives a hollow laugh. “You’re forgetting, we still don’t have a murder weapon. But regardless, I doubt it. The time of death plus your father’s alibi clears him. Your mother and the teacher they were with have never wavered. He didn’t do it.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, and when it’s clear he isn’t going to say more, I say. “Thanks for coming out to meet me today,” I tell him. “You’ve been incredibly helpful.”

He stands and we shake hands again. “You’re welcome. I’m very sorry for your loss, and I wish I had answers about what happened to your aunt and uncle. But what we know clears your father, and I hope that helps.”

***

I text Jack when I get back to my car.I need to meet with you, can you get away?

I sit there, my mind turning over my conversation with Charlie. His belief that the time of death was correct. More troubling was how easy it had been for me to believe my father had killed Poppy and Danny. A sixteen-year-old boy.

Finally Jack texts back.Meet at our spot in thirty minutes?

I send a thumbs-up and head toward the highway.

Our spot is in the Valley View Preserve, nearly two hundred acres of protected land. Jack and I used to meet at a fallen tree a few yards off the trail, where we’d sit and talk for hours, hiding out from our respective families. I find a parking spot near the Pratt Trailhead and make the quick trek, checking over my shoulder before veering off at the giant oak tree with the branches that swoop low across the path.

I find Jack already there, waiting for me. “How did it go?” he asks. When he sees my expression, he says, “I’m guessing not well.”

I sit on the log next to him and pick up a twig, breaking it into pieces in my hand. “I’m more confused than ever.” I give him a brief outline of what Charlie said to me.

“This is a good thing.”

---