Free The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens Page B

brought.” I handed Carl the form and a pen and watched him sign the release, his knuckles poking through his skin, his forearms so slight that I could see the pop and contraction in each muscle as he signed. He handed me back the paper, and I folded it, sliding it into my pocket.
    â€œOne thing though,” he said, looking down at his fingers, which now rested on his lap. He spoke to me without raising his eyes. “When you read that file, you're gonna see a lot of things in there, terrible things that'll make you want to hate me. It sure made the jury hate me. Just keep in mind, that's not my whole story.”
    â€œI know,” I said.
    â€œNo you don't,” he said softly, turning his attention back to the colorful towels flapping on the apartment balcony across the way. “You don't know me. Not yet.” I waited for him to finish his thought, but he just stared out the window.
    I left Carl to his memory, heading to the front door, where Virgil stood waiting for me. He held out his hand, a business card pressed between two of his fingers. I took the card. Virgil Gray Painting—Commercial and Residential . “If you want to know about Carl Iverson,” he said, “you need to talk to me.”
    â€œWere you in prison with him?”
    Virgil seemed to be on the cusp of aggravation, speaking in a tone that I had heard often in the bars when guys talked about their bad jobs or nagging wives—irritated yet resigned to the circumstances. “He didn't kill that girl. And what you're doing is bullshit.”
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œI know what you're doing,” he said.
    â€œWhat am I doing?”
    â€œI'm telling you: he didn't kill that girl.”
    â€œYou were there?”
    â€œNo. I wasn't there. Don't be a smartass.”
    It was my turn to be irritated. I had just met this man, and he felt that he knew me well enough to insult me. “The way I see it,” I said, “only two people know what happened: Crystal Hagen and the person who killed her. Anybody else is just saying what they want to believe.”
    â€œI didn't have to be there to know he didn't kill that girl.”
    â€œTed Bundy had people who believed in him, too.” I didn't know if that was true, but I thought it sounded good.
    â€œHe didn't do it,” Vigil snapped. He pointed to the phone number on his card. “You call me. We'll talk.”

I wasted the better part of a week and eight phone calls trying to pry Carl Iverson's criminal file from the public defender's office. Initially, the receptionist struggled to understand my request, and when she finally did understand, she gave me her opinion that the file had probably been destroyed years ago. “Regardless,” she said, “I have no authority to hand over a murder file to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who asks for it.” After that she simply passed my calls on to the voice mail of Berthel Collins, chief public defender, where my messages seemed to fall into an abyss. On the fifth day of no return call from Collins, I skipped my afternoon classes and caught a bus to downtown Minneapolis.
    When the receptionist told me that the chief was busy, I told her I would wait and took a seat close enough to her desk that I could hear her as she whispered into her telephone. I read magazines to kill time until she finally whispered to someone, telling them that I was lingering. Fifteen minutes later she broke down and ushered me into the office of Berthel Collins, a pale-skinned man with a mop of uncombed hair crisscrossing his head and a nose as big around as a ripe persimmon. Berthel smiled at me and shook my hand as if he wanted to sell me a car.
    â€œSo you're the kid that's stalking me,” he said.
    â€œI take it you got my phone messages,” I said. He looked flustered for a second then motioned me to a chair.
    â€œYou gotta understand,” he said, “we don't get calls all that often asking us to