Evidence of Guilt by Jonnie Jacobs Page B

mother was killed in a boating accident when he was a baby," Pammy said. "He wrote a story about it for the school literary magazine."
    "Are you sure it's the same family?" I asked. "If this guy has a sixteen-year-old son, he must be quite a bit older than Lisa."
    Andrea arched her perfectly tweezed brow and looked at me as though I were unbelievably out-of-it. "So?"
    I shrugged. Maybe I was.
    Jake drummed the table lightly with his fork. "I'd like to be kept apprised of these other leads you're following. I've got my own network of connections, and I may be able to help out. I'm always amazed at the volume of information that travels via the grapevine."
    Throughout the discussion Grace had remained quiet, pushing the food around on her plate without ever taking a taste. Now she folded her hands and looked up. "What about trying to work out some sort of deal with the DA's office?"
    Jake's eyes met hers. "Grace, we've ..."
    She turned to me. "Do you think there's a chance they'd let him plead to a lesser charge?"
    "Wes doesn't want that, I'm afraid."
    "Maybe you could talk to him, change his mind."
    Jake placed a hand over hers. "We've been over this, Grace. You don't want him to spend the rest of his life in prison if he's innocent."
    She pulled her hand away. "It's better than being dead, isn't it?"
    Jake's expression was pained. I wondered if, like me, he wasn't so sure.

10
    After dinner Grace retreated to the kitchen, steadfastly refusing my offer to help. Sam and Jake moved to the living room with glasses of brandy. I passed up the brandy and instead stepped outside to drink in the freshness of the night air. The sun had set and a few stars glimmered above, but the sky was still cast in gradations of blue and gray, I took a seat, leaned back and gazed out at the hills, lulled by the pleasant drone of crickets and the faint rustle of the breeze in the grass. I wondered, fleetingly, what sounds greeted Wes's ears right then.
    "Do you mind if I join you?" Pammy slid into the seat next to mine, tucking her feet up under her. She rested her chin in her hand. "So, what do you think? Is my brother guilty or not?"
    Before I could decide how to answer she jumped ahead.
    That's okay, I know you can't tell me. I'm not sure I want to know anyway." She shifted position and sighed. "Unless you're certain he's innocent, that is." She paused
    and looked over at me. When I didn't respond right away she sighed again. "Yeah, that's what I was afraid of."
    "Just because I'm uncertain doesn't mean he's guilty." The fact of the matter was that as his attorney, I didn't want to know the truth.
    "Andrea is sure he did it." Her voice was thin, like a puff of dust "That's what my mom thinks too, though she'd never admit it. I don't know about my dad. Sometimes I think his standing solidly behind Wes is all for show, and other times I think he really believes Wes is innocent Maybe he just wants to believe it so bad he's convinced himself it's so."
    "And what about you--what do you think?"
    She pulled a loose thread from the bottom of her cutoffs and rolled it into a ball. "I don't know what to think. Wes has been really nice to me. I know he's got a reputation as a rowdy, but I've never seen that side of him. In fact, I've only seen him lose his temper once, and that was when he'd had a lot to drink."
    Pammy played with the ball of thread for a moment, rolling it between her palms. There's no way I can imagine him doing what was done to that woman and her little girl, but there's an awful lot of people who think he did it. I keep wondering if maybe they know something I don't."
    "Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe you know Wes better than they do."
    "I get along better with Wes than I do with anyone else in the family. Better than I get along with, my mother and sisters anyway."
    I nodded. I knew about sisters. Sabrina and I had been like oil and water the whole time we were growing up.
    "Sometimes I'd drop by his place after school or on