Subj: What Could Have Been part 6/?
Date: 1/2/00 12:10:47 AM Central Standard Time
From: Kim D
What Could Have Been
By KimD
Part 6 of?
She went back into Collinsport later that day. She wanted to see Barnabas again.
A guard escorted her to Barnabas’s cell, where he sat pensively. He rose at her entrance. “Vicki,” he said, “I’m glad to see you. I wasn’t sure that you’d come back after last time. I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” she said. The last thing she wanted to hear was an apology from him. “I didn’t come here to talk about last time. I wanted to ask you what your lawyer has been able to find out.”
“Not much yet. He wants to find the real killer. He’s been interviewing people about any strangers who’ve come or anyone who has left town recently. He thinks since the victim was a stranger that the murder was also.”
“I’ve been doing some investigating myself. I was in New York yesterday looking for information.”
“Vicki,” Barnabas said growing concerned, “you could put yourself in danger by trying to help me like this. I appreciate what you’re doing, but I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
She told him about her talk with the coroner after she had left him two days ago, and of her trip to New York, leaving out the part about being hit from behind. That would only make him worry about her. “I’m afraid that I didn’t find out much, but I feel that I was close to finding out something important. What can you tell me about the night it happened?”
“After you fell asleep, I went to Collinwood to tell Liz where you were, so she wouldn’t worry. She agreed with me that you needed to sleep. I didn’t stay long. On the way back, in the woods I saw a shadowy figure. I called out to it, and tried to follow it, but it escaped me.”
“Do you remember anything about the figure that you saw?”
“No, it was too dark to see anything.” He paused for a moment. Then continued, “Vicki, my lawyer says that if this goes to trial that I could face the death penalty,” he said in a voice filled with apprehension.
“NO!” Vicki nearly shouted as she choked down her fear. “It won’t come to that,” she said trying to sound more calm and confident than she felt. “I’m going to prove you innocent.”
“But what if I am guilty?” What if the monster in him had come back? Although he had faced sunlight when Sheriff Patterson came to take him away, he still had doubts. What if something had happened to make the beast return?
“Why would you think that?”
“I was in the woods at the same time that the man was killed. Maybe I’ve just blocked his murder out of my mind.”
“Look at me,” Vicki commanded as she turned his head to meet her gaze. “You’re one of the most gentle people that I know. You’re not a murder.”
During the drive home, she was plagued with thought of what Barnabas had said. Why had he thought that he could have done it? Had something else happened that he hadn’t told her about or has he just spent too much time alone thinking? She hated the thought of him all alone in that tiny jail cell. Worse than that she hated what he had told her. He could face the death penalty! That thought terrified her. She couldn’t allow it to come to that. How could she prove that Barnabas was innocent? New York hadn’t turned up as much as she had hoped, but maybe she would have better luck if she searched the ground where the body had been found. Although the police should have already thoroughly checked, maybe there had been something they had overlooked.