Free Out Of Time by Katy Munger

saying that a miscarriage of justice had occurred. Evidence didn’t match up.” She was silent. “At first I believed him, but when he failed to give me details, I realized that maybe he was drunk or his conscience just couldn’t take it.”
    “Or maybe he’s telling the truth?” I suggested.
    She shook her head. “He’s gone off the deep end. He’s calling because he wants me to say that I forgive him.” She looked up at me, her sharp eyes sad. “And, to tell you the truth, I can’t.”
    “What does he say when you ask for details?” I persisted. Maybe I was grasping at straws, but since no one was offering me a line, I had nothing else to grab onto.
    “Crazy stuff. Like how he’s not done gathering proof yet and that he can’t tell me anyway because I’m part of the ‘system.’ He’s become paranoid. He sounds like one of those conspiracy freaks.”
    “I can’t blame him,” I said. “He got a raw deal during the last election.”
    Brenda shrugged. “That’s the way it works. Judges are supposed to be bi-partisan and they don’t run on a party ticket, but you better believe it’s party money that gets them there. The Democrats were running scared long before he lost that election. He came under heavy-duty pressure during Gail’s trial to leave the door open for the death penalty. In return, the Democrats were supposed to support him all the way in the next election.”
    “But they didn’t,” I said. “They left him out to dry.”
    She nodded. “He traded away my sister’s life and got nothing in return. So it’s no wonder that he started drinking pretty bad after the trial, and when he got those two DUIs, everybody ran for the hills. That’s politics.”
    “That’s people,” I said.
    We were both quiet for a moment.
    “I know what you probably think of me,” she finally said. “You think I should be doing more to help my sister. I have been helping, you must understand, as much as I can, when I can keep it private and unconnected to this job. But if it looks like I’m abusing my power as a prosecutor, I could lose everything. Our family has lost enough as it is. The rest of us have to go on, including me.”
    “I do understand,” I said, resigned to finding—or not finding—a new lead on my own. I rose and shook her hand. Her grip was firm and confident, the shake of an athlete. “You’re a runner?” I asked.
    She smiled and nodded. “The only two-pack-a-day runner in the state. I’m trying to quit.”
    “Running or smoking?” I asked.
    “Smoking.” She gave a rueful smile. “I don’t think I can ever afford to stop running.”
    I walked back to my office, thinking about Gail’s sister and what a long way she had come from the farmlands of North Carolina. I admired her intelligence and respected her drive, but at the same time, it reminded me of how many years of my own I had wasted by making bad choices and foolish friends. I could easily have been Brenda. And I could just as easily have been Gail. Instead, I found myself somewhere in between.

CHAPTER FOUR
     
    One man’s crackpot is another man’s salvation. Which is why—despite Brenda’s skepticism—I headed for Peyton Tillman’s law offices that afternoon after stopping to refresh myself with a plate of chopped-pork barbecue and hush puppies first. His office was located in an old Victorian house along a stretch of Hillsborough Street that had somehow escaped renovation. It was the first in a row of four dilapidated buildings. One end of the wide front porch sagged forlornly toward a scruffy lawn, and the upstairs floors were obviously deserted. It appeared that Peyton Tillman, Esq. and a massage therapist who also offered acupuncture and hypnotherapy were the house’s only remaining occupants. Either Peyton Tillman had fallen on hard times or he was in the process of dropping out of the establishment that had screwed him.
    I liked Peyton Tillman the moment I saw him. He had a sleepy hound-dog face: