People like Hicks drifted around and frequently changed names to dodge debt collectors or the cops. Of course he had to drift because he appeared to have a problem with his temper and self-control.

“Ron is on it too. He’ll call me tomorrow to check in and I’ll let you know. So he’s in Porter which means you’ll go talk to him? Or?”

“I need to find out all I can and then start putting together a case. I don’t have probable cause right now for a warrant. I can’t search his house either. Hell, you and I know he can tell me to eat shit and slam the door in my face when I go. And yes, I will go to Porter and talk to him, yes.”

“We need a connection. I never knew him so he wasn’t a friend of our family. I worked out at the diner every weekday afternoon so he wasn’t a server or a cook. Do you have pictures?”

Shane opened a file folder and showed her a few of his mug shots.

She shook her head. “He wasn’t a regular. At least not in the afternoon, evening and weekends. I was there enough to know the regulars. I was at school in the mornings until three so maybe it could have been then.

“I’ve been through all the papers I could salvage. Before the trial, early on, my grandmother went through our house, put every one of my dad’s belongings in plastic bags. She told the police to come get it. They’d already searched the house so they didn’t care. One of my friends kept those bags for me in her back shed until my uncle could get it. I had all those papers and ledgers. I’ve never seen that name. She had journals, my mom I mean.”

Shane froze. “I’ve been over that case file three dozen times. There were no journals admitted into evidence.”

“No there weren’t. We brought that up on appeal. I personally called the police department to say I had them, and they weren’t interested. Even his original attorney didn’t care. But I’d have tried to use them, for God’s sake. Anyway, she mentions silly fights they had, or when he left his beard hairs in the sink. But there were no affairs. No violence in their home or in their relationship. No mentions of Vernon Hicks.”

She needed to figure out that connection. Once she knew how Vernon Hicks came into their lives, she’d have everything they needed to send him to prison forever.

“Can I see them? The journals I mean.” He paused at the look on her face. “I’ll respect them. I know these journals are about her inner life. But if anything in them can help me nail Hicks and clear your father, I think it’s worth it.”

She nodded. He was right.

They left after she promised to bring him the journals to the police station the following day. They were in her storage unit so thankfully they weren’t destroyed when her apartment had been broken into.

“You know, I think we should go to the storage unit now. I’m just skeeved out by this Hicks guy, and I don’t want to go there if he can watch you. It’s dark, we’ll know if anyone is around by their lights.”

She agreed, and they headed out of town and toward Riverton, where her stuff was. No one was behind them on the road the whole drive over so Royal breathed a lot easier once they’d retrieved those journals and were on the way home again.

She was quiet, he knew she was anxious and worried and scared and too freaked out to hope. In the dark, mouths fused into a kiss, he loved her until she was too tired to do anything but fall asleep in his arms.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ron had shown up and had briefed Caroline, Edward, Justin and Shane. He’d found Vernon Hicks’s trail from before he’d come to Petal. He’d been born Vernon Pickerell in Amarillo. He had a sealed juvenile file and had enlisted in the army at eighteen and had been dishonorably discharged eighteen months later. He’d lived in Sacramento for a few years until he skipped four months’ back rent, some department-store credit and an assault charge against a nineteen-year-old who worked weekends at the feed store who’d dared to say no when he’d asked her out. As Bob Vernon he’d bounced around, never staying anywhere for long. Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, all for a few months. He’d done six years for manslaughter in Missouri as Bob Vernon. And he’d come to Petal not even a week after he’d been released.

Shane took over at that point, talking about Vernon’s life since he’d left Petal. The DV stuff he’d found along with the assault charges and the time he did for that.

“He’s still in Porter. He’s got a part-time job at a print shop. Which we think might be his connection to the information about the security outage for the cameras at your office.”

“It’s pretty clear he’s got some issues with the ladies.” Caroline shook her head.

“Given the types of crimes he tends to commit over and over, yes, I think women are his favorite target. And in my gut I am convinced this man killed your mother. We’re going to nail him. I’m going to Porter tomorrow. I have a call in to the PD there. I have a few friends so one of them will come with me out to Vernon’s apartment. You will not be coming so don’t even think about asking, Caroline.”

“I’ll wait in the car.”

Royal put his face in his hands.

“What? I want to know! I want to see him. I want to hear him when he lies. I need to.”

Shane took her hands. “Caroline, I know you do, and in your place I would too. Hell, I’m not in your place, and I gotta tell you it will be my pleasure to take this piece of garbage down for you. But this has to be done right. Step by step. You’re a defense attorney, you know this better than anyone else in this room. I want this done absolutely to the letter. You didn’t wait this whole time, suffering all those defeats to screw it up by rushing at the very end.”