214 Wills novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: Ten Cards
The notary was about seventy, with a white mustache and a hand that shook on the back of his chair.
"Tell them, old friend," Bert said warmly.
"I notarized the document," the old man said. "I watched her sign it. I remember her very well."
He did not look at Callie.
Callie rolled her chair a foot toward the edge of the stage, and the microphone caught her breath.
"What day was it?" she asked.
"A Saturday. In the spring."
"What time?"
"It's on the stamp. A little before two. One-forty."
"Where?"
"At the dealership. In Mr. Garland's office."
The old man said it quickly, to his own tie.
"On the Saturday I buried my mother," Callie said. "I was in Rosehill Cemetery from eleven until half past one. I was in handcuffs, with two corrections officers, and then I was in a state prison van, forty miles away."
The room began to murmur.
"The prison logs every minute a prisoner is out. Every stop, every signature. That log sits in a county building."
She turned her head and looked down at the front tables.
"Sir," she said, and the prosecutor's face went still. "You can pull that log. You have the authority. Will you?"
Three hundred people looked at him.
He had spent eight years being photographed beside this family.
He opened his mouth, and nothing came out.
"I will review it," he said at last, so thickly that the microphone barely picked it up.
"Monday?"
"Monday."
A woman near the front said something under her breath, and it carried.
"Oh, my God."
The old notary sank into his chair.
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