Page 104 of The Happy Month
“I have news. Larry Wilkes will be out of prison by the end of the week.”
“You finished your writ and got it filed?”
“No, I was a little distracted last week. There was a proffer. Sammy Blanchard has offered to confess to Pete Michaels murder in exchange for a lighter sentence.”
“How light?”
“Manslaughter.”
“What is that, ten years?”
“Yes.”
“She’ll be out in five.”
“Probably.”
“And the attempted murder… Which would be first degree by the way. She sat there for hours waiting for me to come out.”
“She’ll plead guilty to that as well.” The way she said it I knew it wasn’t as good as it sounded. “Sentence to be served concurrently.”
“So, five years for two class A felonies.”
“She was an abused teenager when she killed Pete Michaels. Nobody wants to put that in front of a jury.”
“Do they have to be lumped together? Do I have anything to say about it?”
“You’ll be able express an opinion.”
“Which they won’t listen to.”
“Dom, it’s not a bad thing if there’s no trial. Is it? Do you want to testify? Do you want the scrutiny?”
That was the real issue; I knew it, and she knew it.Scrutiny was the last thing I wanted. Now I wondered if she had a hand in this. Was she protecting me?
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t want the scrutiny. They can do what they want as long we get Larry out of prison.”
“It’s a win for our side,” she said. Though, honestly, it didn’t feel that way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
August 12-13, 1996
On Monday, I stopped taking the pills. There was pain, but I wanted to be able to think. There was still a lot I had to do on the Vera Korenko murder and I needed to have my wits about me. I’d spent much of Sunday attempting to make a list of what I’d need to do, and between the Percocet and everyone coming and going I hadn’t gotten far.
The first useful thing I did was send Junior to the library for me. “Get me whatever you can find on the Shirley Kessler murder. You said you remembered it. Ask the librarian to help you and then copy everything.”
I gave him forty dollars and didn’t expect to see any of it back. Once he was gone, I got up and brought the phone over to the couch, carefully sat down again, and called Georgia Dawson.
“Hi Georgia, this is Dom Reilly again.”
“Oh, hello.”
“I have some additional questions for you.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure about this.”
“Why are you not sure?”
