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  Tom Clone looked over. When he saw the red hair, his eyes closed to block out the memories.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was Alice Graham who initially led Detective Prehost to Tom Clone. Alice was a waitress at the Fossil Bed Café in Florissant who recognized the picture of Ivy Campbell in theRocky Mountain News the day after she was murdered.

  Alice had recognized the victim immediately. She was certain that she had waited on Ivy and a young man eight or nine days before. They had arrived in the café for a late breakfast, and the man had decided to use the opportunity of having her in a public place to break up with Ivy. Alice recalled that the girl didn’t eat a thing during the meal. Her untouched breakfast consisted of two poached eggs, a toasted English muffin, and half a grapefruit.

  Alice related to Detective Prehost that she thought the man had been unnecessarily cruel to the murdered girl, reciting the reasons he was dumping Ivy in great detail and repeating himself unmercifully in a manner that Alice considered belittling. The Fossil Bed is not a big restaurant, and even though Alice maintained that she wasn’t eavesdropping, it was hard for her not to hear what was going on between the couple. She remembered thinking that if there were indeed fifty ways to leave your lover, this guy had chosen one of the worst. Maybe number forty-seven or forty-eight.

  The man who broke up with Ivy Campbell was also one of only a handful of customers at the Fossil Bed Café to pay his bill that morning with a credit card. Alice remembered that, too, because after taking up her best booth for a couple of hours in prime time in the middle of tourist season, the guy at least had the decency to tip her well. It was her only fifty percent tip of the week.

  The credit card voucher provided to the sheriff’s office by Alice’s boss at the Fossil Bed Café led Detective Prehost directly to Thomas Clone, a fourth-year medical student at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver.

  The case against Clone developed with surprising speed.

  Although he denied even being in Park County the day that Ivy was murdered, a woman selling early sweet corn and apricots at a roadside stand a half mile from the house where Ivy died recalled seeing a man driving a car similar to Clone’s Honda Civic stop on the shoulder opposite her stand to examine a map. She was closing up for the day when he stopped, so she knew that the time was about two-thirty, no later than a quarter to three.

  Three days after the murder she called a local tip line to report what she had seen.

  A day after that she picked a photo of Tom Clone out of a photo lineup. “That’s the guy with the map,” she told Detective Hoppy Bonnet. “Yep, that’s him.”

  Clone’s alibi for the time of the murder wasn’t without flaws. He maintained that he’d attended a book signing at the Tattered Cover in Denver the evening of the murder. He even had a copy of the bookThe Charm School, by Nelson DeMille, that was inscribed to him, “To Tom, Best wishes, Nelson DeMille.” The date was written below the signature. But the El Paso County medical examiner, who’d done the post on Ivy Campbell’s body, had placed the time of death as early as five-thirty that afternoon, which would have allowed Tom Clone plenty of time to get back to Denver for a seven-thirty book signing in Cherry Creek.

  Clone maintained that he’d broken up with Ivy over a week before—he admitted that he’d done it over breakfast at the Fossil Bed Café, but he insisted that he hadn’t seen her since she’d asked him to come over to talk about their relationship three nights later. She wanted to try to work things out; his version was that she had begged him for another chance. He said he’d driven back up and they had talked in the Greens’ cabin, but that nothing had changed and Tom had decided not to see her again.

  “That was the last time you saw her?” Prehost had asked.

  “Yes.”

  During that first interview with Detective Prehost, who was accompanied by a detective from the local police department, Tom said he’d spent the afternoon of the murder studying at his little apartment in Cherry Hills, but he didn’t think anyone had seen him there. His memory was that he hadn’t left his home that day until the book signing at the Tattered Cover.

  Tom’s home in Cherry Hills was a one-bedroom caretaker’s unit attached to a decrepit barn on a three-acre spread near the end of Vista Road, which sits on a high bluff above University Boulevard in suburban, rural Denver. Now that their kids were gone, the couple who owned the place spent twice as much time at their second home in Carmel as they did in their place in Cherry Hills, so they no longer kept horses in the barn. Tom’s rent for the caretaker’s cottage was negligible. In return for a great deal on his tacky apartment, he agreed to keep an eye on the main house and make sure that the various service people who were supposed to show up to do maintenance—the gardeners, the guys who plowed the snow off the long driveway, the woman who cleaned the pool—did indeed show up. He also collected mail and kept an eye on the front porch for packages.

  Although his apartment was only fifteen minutes from the medical center, Tom felt as though he lived in the heart of the country. He knew he was the envy of his med student friends and considered the setup perfect. The way he looked at it, by living in Cherry Hills he was getting a taste of the life he’d have once he finished his radiology residency and set up shop reading MRIs at two hundred dollars a pop.

  As laboratory analysis proceeded on the fruits of the crime scene search, the local media dogged the Park County cops, and the Park County cops focused more and more of their attention on Tom Clone. The forensics lab at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation identified hair similar to Tom’s hairs in the guest room bed where Ivy had been sleeping. Semen from a secretor with Tom’s blood type was discovered dried on the sheets. His fingerprints were picked up in a dozen locations around the house, including on three different items in the refrigerator.

  During a subsequent interview with the medical student, Prehost, the young, agitated redheaded detective, said, “So you were there?”

  “I told you I was there. Not that day, that week. I spent the night there earlier in the week.”

  “Did you sleep with her?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but yes, I did.”

  “That was three nights after you took her out to breakfast and told her that you didn’t want to see her again?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Something like that? Or that exactly? Which is it?”

  “Three or four nights.”

  Prehost snorted.

  “What difference does that make, Detective?”

  “I’m asking the questions.”

  “The hell with this. I think I’d like a lawyer present if we’re going to continue this conversation.”

  “Just like that?” Prehost said. “I ask a tough question or two and you want a lawyer.”

  “Just like that. I guess we’re done unless I’m advised otherwise.”

  “We’re not done, sonny. We’re not done by any means.”

  Two days later Hoppy Bonnet had a brainstorm about the contents of the refrigerator in the Greens’ kitchen. He’d taken the expiration date from the milk carton in the refrigerator—one of the three items that was marked with Tom Clone’s fingerprints—to the local grocery store and asked what the earliest date was that the store had sold milk with that particular expiration date.

  Bonnet had then confirmed the date with the dairy that had packaged the milk. The first date that the milk had been delivered for retail sale, it turned out, was the day after the last day that Tom Clone claimed he was in the Greens’ house.

  “How,” Hoppy had asked Fred Prehost, “are his fingerprints on a carton of milk that didn’t arrive in the stores until the day after he said he was last up in Park County?”

  “Good question.”

  “The man is lying, Fred. Why is he lying?”

  Three days later, three weeks after Ivy Campbell’s murder, Prehost and Hoppy Bonnet arrested Tom Clone outside the auditorium where Grand Rounds was being held at the
Health Sciences Center and charged him with first-degree murder.

  CHAPTER 8

  Prehost wasn’t quite smiling as he looked past Kelda at Tom Clone, but she thought that his eyes were twinkling like an evil version of Santa Claus.

  “Remember us, Tom? Me and Hoppy?”

  Tom didn’t answer.

  Prehost said, “Just in case you’re confused about what it means that you’re off death row, here’s what it means and here’s all that it means: It means we’re not done, Tom, you and me and Hoppy. I want you to know that. I have some advice for you. You want to hear it?”

  Tom had resumed staring out the windshield.

  “Cat got your tongue? Too bad. I’ll offer my advice anyway. Here’s what I think you should do: Check for us every day when you wake up. That’s right, as soon as you open your eyes, and long before you begin to appreciate that you’re not living in a cement room anymore, I want you to take a look around and make sure that we’re not there watching you, waiting.

  “And if I were you, I’d check my back all day long, and then do a real careful check every night before you go to sleep. Why? Because one time I’ll be there, or Hoppy’ll be there, right where you least want to find us. See, we’re not going to rest until justice is done. And in my mind, justice won’t be done until they take that IV needle out of your arm and they slide your miserable dead body into a big plastic bag. Sometime before that happens, me and Hoppy’ll be there with a fresh warrant and an ice-cold pair of handcuffs.”

  Kelda said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Tom answered her. “This is Detective Fred Prehost of the Park County Sheriff’s office. He’s the detective who led the investigation of the murder of Ivy Campbell. He’s the one who arrested me. And out there?” He pointed at the skinny man standing on the shoulder of the road. “That’s his sidekick, a man named Hoppy Bonnet. Mr. Bonnet thinks he’s a genius.”

  Prehost said, “Yes, Special Agent, ma’am, I’m proud to say that I’m the one who put this man away back in 1989.”

  Kelda said, “And now you’re threatening him?”

  “No, no, no. Dear me, no. I don’t make threats. Never felt much of a need to. I’m just telling him the way things are.” She thought Prehost puffed up his chest just a little bit for her benefit.

  “And how are things, Detective?” Kelda asked.

  “Things are fucked up, Ms. Special Agent. That’s how things are. When convicted killers get set free, in my book things aren’t good. Especially when they get help they shouldn’t have from people who should know better.”

  She knew that he was talking about her.

  Tom said, “The DNA says I didn’t do it. I’m innocent, like I always told you I was.”

  “The DNA is fucked.”

  “DNA doesn’t lie, Detective.”

  “The eyewitnesses say you were there, Tom. Your fingerprints say you were there. Your lies say you were there.”

  Tom said, “Eyewitness testimony is unreliable. You know that.”

  Prehost countered, “Ivy’s friends said she was frightened of you. Then you went ahead and proved she had a reason to be.”

  “And I told my mother the tooth fairy was going to come. Then the next morning there was a buck under my pillow. Is that evidence that she actually showed up, Detective?”

  The detective shook his head. “The fat lady hasn’t sung, Tom. You’ve been released pending a new trial, that’s all. For now, the Park County DA has chosen not to retry the case. That means nothing is settled. Nothing. Given some time, who knows, I’m confident that I’ll be able to change the district attorney’s mind and you and me will get to do the same dance all over again.”

  Kelda asked, “Why don’t you just let it go, Detective? Let the courts do what they’re going to do?”

  “You want to know why? Here’s why: Because Ivy Campbell was a sweet kid. A really sweet kid. I only got to know her after she died. But I got to know her well enough to know that she didn’t deserve what she got from this asshole. Why do I care? Because my heart says that someone needs to be concerned about jerks like this who prey on sweet young women who don’t have a clue what they’re up against.”

  “I’m innocent, Prehost. Get used to it.”

  “Ivy Campbell is still dead,” Prehost told him. “I’ve been trying for over a decade and I haven’t gotten used to that. So don’t count on me suddenly getting comfortable with you being off death row. What girl’s next, Tom? You picked out your next victim yet?”

  “Someone else killed Ivy Campbell. Go find him. Leave me alone.”

  Prehost laughed. “We’re not done, Tom. You and me. We’re not done. The only finish line I’ll recognize is the flat line on a monitor attached to your heart.”

  Kelda said, “That sounds like a threat to me.”

  “Really? Why don’t you take it up with your FBI supervisors then, Ms. Special Agent. See if they want to investigate me for harassing this asshole. Maybe we can do a whole civil-rights-violation song and dance. I’m sure you’re their very favorite special agent right now and your word about what happened out here today will carry just a ton of weight with the U.S. Attorney.” He laughed again, turned, and took leisurely strides back toward Detective Bonnet, whose hands were still on top of his head.

  “Come on, Hoppy,” Prehost said, walking away. “And get your hands down, goddamn it.”

  Tom didn’t take his eyes off Prehost.

  A half dozen steps away, Prehost stopped and turned. He pointed a finger at Kelda. “You hang with this guy, you better watch your back. That’s free advice. And that’s good advice.”

  Beside her, Kelda thought Clone mumbled, “I could kill that fuck. I swear.” But she wasn’t a hundred percent sure.

  Less than an hour later the Buick was motoring up a tree-lined residential street on the southwestern side of Colorado Springs. “Is this area familiar at all?” Kelda asked.

  Tom said, “No. It’s sure pretty, but it’s not familiar. I don’t think I’ve ever been here.” He took note of the elegant homes and big lots. “A lot of rich people in this neighborhood. Really rich people.”

  “That’s the truth.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Kelda said, “I need some breakfast. After all these years locked up, I’m sure you could use some real food. And after that little run-in with your cop friends from Park County, we could both use what some say are the finest Bloody Marys in the state of Colorado.”

  Suddenly, the patrician outline of the stucco front of the main building of the Broadmoor Hotel was visible through the trees. Tom said, “We’re going to the Broadmoor for breakfast? I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it. It’s what free people do. They eat when they want to, where they want to. Don’t worry, it’s my treat.”

  “Am I dressed okay?”

  “You’re dressed fine. This is still Colorado, people tolerate just about anything.”

  The hour hand on the clock in the lobby wasn’t quite pointing due south when they walked into the hotel. At that early hour they were only the second couple in the restaurant, and the view from their choice window table extended from the placid lake in the center of the resort, to the emerald contours of the golf course, to the vaulting leap of Cheyenne Mountain, which seemed close enough to the hotel that Kelda thought she could hit it with a strong seven iron, and finally to the uncluttered morning sky.

  The waitress was pretty, pleasant, and efficient. With Kelda’s encouragement, Tom ordered a full breakfast—eggs, bacon, toast, potatoes, juice, and coffee. Kelda added waffles with fresh berries to his order and ordered a complete spread for herself—fruit, oatmeal, and an egg-white omelette. When the waitress asked, “Anything else?” Kelda said, “Yes, two Bloody Marys, please.”

  “Of course.”

  Tom sat back and fingered the silver cutlery. “It feels better than I’d dreamed. Being out.”

  “Blame it on the Broadmoor. This place has been known to distort re
ality a little bit.”

  “How about I blame it on you, instead? I’m just so happy to be free. I owe you so much for what you did.”

  “You can still say that even after our little visit from Detective Prehost?”

  Tom nodded. “I half expected to see him sometime soon. I thought it would be later on at the news conference, actually. Didn’t think he’d get in my face so quickly after I left . . . but I’ve prepared myself for the fact that there are going to be some people who are unwilling to accept my innocence. Prehost is definitely at the top of the list.”

  “You think that’s all that was? He was expressing his unwillingness to accept your innocence?”

  Tom managed a pinched smile. “No, that’s not all it was. Prehost wants me dead. He won’t be happy until I take the needle.”

  Kelda swallowed and looked away from him. Her eyes were focused on the lake as she said, “It’s hard for me to imagine that he could find that outcome so . . . satisfying.”

  “For people like Prehost, it completes the circle, I guess. Things aren’t complete for him yet.”

  “What about for you? How do you right the wrong that’s been done to you? How do you complete the circle?”

  “How do I get even with Prehost?”

  “Yes. I guess that’s what I’m asking.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe some lawsuits. I don’t know. I’m tempted to go there sometimes but . . .” He sighed. “I probably don’t get even. I think I probably just move on.”

  “You can turn the other cheek? Just like that? Before, in the car, you said you could kill him.”

  “What? I didn’t say that. Time will tell whether I can turn the other cheek, won’t it? I am surprised that Prehost pulled this in front of you, though. That surprised me. It doesn’t show much discipline. I thought he was disciplined.”

  “Well, he didn’t waste any time getting in your face.”

  “His act didn’t seem to faze you much. Weren’t you . . . scared? The guy terrifies me.”