A Reasonable Doubt by Susan Sloan (free novels .txt) 📕

. . .

Lily sat in her office long after Megan and Wanda and Joe had left for the evening.  It was quiet, and she could think her thoughts without having to worry about sharing them with anyone.  Because, of course, she couldn’t share them.  She would never be able to share them.  It was part of the job.  She sighed.  It had been a tough nine months -- tougher than she would ever be willing to admit.  From the moment she had walked into Grace Pelletier’s office to the moment she had left John Henry’s.  So many things had happened during that time -- not the least of which was that her whole world had been turned upside down by a pair of idiots in an airplane.  Which was probably why the pieces had taken so long to come together.  But who knew?  Perhaps that was just the price she had to pay.

She meant what she had told John Henry.  She didn’t think he wanted to know who had really killed Dale Scott.  To be honest, she would have preferred not knowing herself.  But of course, that was irrelevant now.

She got to her feet and snapped off the light, then walked down the stairs and out of the Victorian, into the cool night air.  It had been a long journey to the truth, with one theory dissolving into another, which in turn morphed into yet another.  So many times that she had lost count.  She wasn’t sure she would ever understand it completely.  She was certain no one else would.

Well, maybe there was one person who would.  One very wise person who had gotten it from the beginning, had tried his best to tell her, and then had tried his best to steer her in the right direction.  Maybe, if her brain hadn’t been so messed up, she would have seen it sooner.

“Everyone has his breaking point,” he had said.  “Maybe it had nothing to do with Dale Scott at all.  Maybe it was about something else entirely.”

It wasn’t clear what that something else might have been, but it really didn’t matter.  It was over, and to be honest, she actually did think it had turned out pretty much the way it should have.  The proof of that, if she needed any, was Randy Hitchens.  She would never have been able to go after him in court as she had, or agree to represent him, for that matter, if she hadn’t known, beyond any reasonable doubt, that he was telling the truth.

. . .

Jason Lightfoot had become something of a celebrity in Port Hancock.  The small cadre of people who never stopped believing in him was soon bolstered by a significant part of the community.  Good people all, they wanted to right a wrong.  If they had unjustly accused him of a crime, they now wanted to make up for it.

A local matron offered him a cottage on her estate, free of obligation.  Odd jobs came pouring in from all over, some even from people who could afford to pay.  And offers of fulltime employment were tendered -- from a building contractor, the local dairy, and the city’s largest building supply store.  And those who had always known the quality of Jason’s work smiled to themselves.

“It’s your time, my boy,” Billy Fugate told him.  “Make the most of it.”

Jason thought it all over.  Then he turned down the offer of the cottage, because it was too far out of town, but he agreed to take a room at Miss Polly’s, in exchange for maintenance services.  It was a room with a bath over the garage, actually, detached from the house itself, and he figured the measure of privacy he would have out there more than made up for the flight of stairs he would have to climb.

He liked doing odd jobs, but he liked the idea of regular employment even better.  Because of his knee, he accepted the offer from the building supply store.  The store was about two miles from the boarding house, and the storeowner offered him the use of a secondhand Honda so he could get to and from work without having to rely on the bus.  For the first time in his life, Jason got a driver’s license.  Ironically, it turned out to be a sweet deal for the building supply store, too.  Just the fact that Jason was there brought in a lot more business than it lost.

And, too, now that he had reliable transport, he had no excuse for failing to show up at his uncle’s home for Sunday dinners.

As bits and pieces of Dale Scott’s life and work were carefully leaked to the media, the community reacted much as Lily had predicted, and even those who still believed that Jason was a murderer were willing to consider that there might have been mitigating circumstances.

In a matter of weeks, Jason had gone from accused cop killer to hero.  He had money in his pocket and he had something else, too -- something he had never had before -- respect.  But he didn’t let it go to his head, and he didn’t forget his friends.  In the evenings, he could still be found at The Last Call, having dinner and even cleaning up the place.  Which was exactly where Lily found him just before Thanksgiving.

He smiled broadly when he saw her.  “Hey there, Lady Lawyer,” he greeted her.

“Hey, Jason,” she returned.  “Had a feeling this was where I’d find you.”

He dropped down onto the barstool beside her.  “No place like home,” he conceded.  She nodded.  She understood.  “I thought you said it was all over,” he said, wondering why she had come.

“Yes,” she assured him, “it’s still all over.”

“Good,” he said, relieved.  “Although it wasn’t all bad, you know.  Ten months and Greg Parker, and I still ain’t gone back on the rum.”

“I’m glad.”

“In addition to everything else you done for me, I got you to