False Accusations by Jacobson, Alan (great novels of all time .txt) 📕

father as MacNally pushed up off the sofa. He walked over to O’Hara.

“Sir, I’m placing you under arrest for the murder of Doris MacNally. Please put your hands behind your back.”

MacNally leaned back. “Arrest? For—Are you out of your mind? I loved my wife. We were going to—”

“I’m just following orders, sir. Now turn around and give me your hands.”

“How could you th— What could possibly make you think I did this?”

“Once we get to the station, we can talk about it in more detail, get it all straightened out.”

MacNally did as instructed. As he turned, he locked eyes with his boy. “Everything’s going to be okay, Henry. I’m going to clear up this misunderstanding and be back home as soon as I can. I promise.”

3

Walton MacNally soon learned not to make promises he could not keep. Because as it turned out, all would not be okay. MacNally was questioned at the station for hours. His alibi was thin at best—he repeated what he had told O’Hara outside, when he first arrived at the house—that he had gone shopping for groceries but then made a stop somewhere. He claimed it was a bar for his first drink in nearly a week to celebrate his new job—but couldn’t recall which establishment he’d visited.

O’Hara questioned the owners of local taverns in the vicinity, but none recalled seeing MacNally during the hours in question.

That lent credence to the prosecutor’s theory that the defendant had hired a prostitute, had sex with her in his car, then drove home and killed his wife when she confronted him with some form of evidence—errant lipstick, foreign perfume, or suspicion brought on by a pattern of such behavior.

Although Henry—the sole witness to the murder—had stated to O’Hara that the attacker did not speak before beating his mother, the prosecutor pointed out that it was only natural for a young boy to “cover” for his father, particularly once he realized the weight of the situation facing him: with his mother gone, his dad was his only remaining family.

And making the defense even more difficult was MacNally’s history—his father’s, to be exact—convicted of murdering a woman with whom he was accused of having an affair. That trial had made the newspapers, too, nineteen years earlier. And although MacNally’s defense attorney objected to the prosecutor’s mention of that old case during his opening arguments, it was a seed planted in the jury’s minds. More importantly, however, it brought his father’s legacy once again to the front pages of the newspaper and painted the MacNally family name with such distrustful strokes that it became a dirty image the public could not easily discard.

Henry MacNally, living temporarily in a local orphanage, was unable to provide any further description of the assailant...a description that could very well have been his father. Or—as the defense attorney claimed—it could have been thousands of other men of similar build.

Ultimately, Walton MacNally was found not guilty. But the job that MacNally had won in the days before his wife’s death was long gone. A man whose face had graced the local papers was a pariah, despite the prosecution’s failed bid to build a convincing case against him.

MacNally and Henry packed their belongings into two large suitcases and headed south. Where it would lead MacNally did not know. But perhaps it was better that way. Because had Walton MacNally known the turn his life would eventually take, he might very well have committed suicide. At least it would have eliminated years of incomprehensible pain and suffering.

4

Present Day

July 26

11:01 PM

The Marina District

San Francisco, California

San Francisco Police Inspector Lance Burden greeted the first officer on-scene with a firm nod. “What’s the deal?”

The man tipped back his cap and shifted his weight. “Pretty disgusting, if you ask me, Inspector.”

Burden yawned wide and hard, then said, “I did ask you. Can you be a little more specific?”

“Victim is an old woman. I didn’t want to mess up the crime scene and shit, so I’m just eyeballing it, but she looks like she’s in her eighties.”

“Okay. Go on.”

“Kind of looks like my grandmother.”

“She’s old. I got that. What else?”

“Her pants and underwear are pulled down to her knees. She’s...uh...she’s been penetrated.”

“Penetrated—how? You mean sexually?”

The officer rested both hands on his utility belt and hooked fingers around the gear. “Yeah. There’s something rammed up her, up her anus.” He looked away, shook his head, then continued. “Like I said. Disgusting. I mean, who’d want to rape and sodomize an old woman?”

Burden’s eyes widened. “Wait here.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not goin’ back in there,” the cop said with a sardonic chuckle.

Burden lifted his two-way and got an ETA on the criminalist: fifteen minutes, best case. His partner was en route, as well, but he decided not to wait. He pulled a pair of blue booties from his pocket—he’d learned first day on the job as a detective years ago to carry the things with him. And they’d come in handy on more than one occasion.

He walked into the townhouse. A sour-stale odor flared his nostrils. It was a scent he’d experienced a number of times over the years—the way homes of elderly individuals can sometimes smell, particularly when mixed with the putrid cologne of death.

The place was well kept, orderly, and clean. Oil paintings and dated knickknacks betrayed their age about as blatantly as the yellowing black-and-white photographs that sat on a bureau in the living room.

And then, in the bedroom...two bare feet visible from the doorway. Burden walked another couple of yards and had enough of a view to get a sense of what he was dealing with. He bit the inside of his lip.

“Inspector.”

Burden did not look away from the body. “What is it?”

“The criminalist made better time than he thought. He’ll be here in five minutes.”

“Yeah. Right. Send him in when he gets here.”

“See what I mean?” the officer asked. “What kind of monster would do that to a poor old woman?”

Burden