Innocence Denied
By Mike Garrett
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CHAPTER ONE
Talladega County, Alabama
A cool, gentle breeze blew whitecaps across Logan Martin Lake’s beautiful 275-mile shoreline. Leaves shimmied overhead in trees that lined Kradle Kove, and fallen pine needles skittered across the lawn in the wind. In the distance a Jet Ski buzzed across sparkling blue water. Overhead came the steady drone of an airplane, obscured by hardwoods and pines surrounding the house.
Fifty-four-year-old Derrick Walton stepped outside onto the deck of his lake house overlooking the water and slid the glass door shut behind him, the sound of Credence Clearwater Revival blasting from the stereo inside. He set a glass of iced tea on the picnic table in front of his older sister, Karen Danvers, then dropped into an adjacent chair as he sipped a glass of his own.
“Derrick, it’s not like you to be this withdrawn,” she said, a look of concern etched across her face. “You’re losing too much weight, and you’re not yourself anymore,” she continued. “This is an awful time for you to go gallivanting across the country away from me. I’m all you’ve got left.”
Derrick swept a hand across his receding hairline and sighed. Still slightly overweight despite having lost several pounds, his belly strained against the waistline of his pants, and the undersized long-sleeve T-shirt he wore stretched tightly against his chest as he inhaled. He hadn’t shaved in days.
For the first time ever he noticed the aging in Karen’s face and her predominantly gray hair. The two were indeed getting older. Where had the time gone? It seemed like only yesterday he had pestered her as a child, hiding her favorite doll, Betsy, and making her cry.
Suddenly he felt a nudge on his shoulder. “Derrick! Are you listening to me?” Karen said in an irritated tone.
Jarred back to reality, he answered, “I’m sorry, Sis. Guess I got a little preoccupied.”
“So what’s your answer? Why now, and why so far away?”
Derrick took a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s just something I have to do. I don’t expect you to understand.”
He noticed more worry in her voice than he’d heard before, even when times seemed at their worst. “Scooter, I know you still miss Sherry, bless your heart, but you need me now instead of just running away.”
“I’m not running from anything,” he snapped, then apologized. “Sorry. You know I’ve been through a lot lately, and I just need to get away for a while, that’s all.”
Karen projected a weak smile, lightly shaking her head. “I still can’t believe she said those awful things to you before . . . It makes me madder than a wet hen. You didn’t deserve—”
“I’m not so sure about that,” he interrupted. “If I was such a great husband, why didn’t I see it coming? If I was as attentive as I should have been, I would have noticed the changes in her. She lost weight and was getting back into shape and changing her hairstyle. I was stupid enough to think she was doing it for me. If I hadn’t been so blind, she never would have had a reason to look elsewhere.”
He buried his face in his hands and stifled a tear, hating the way his emotions overwhelmed him at times like this. After all he’d been through, at this point he expected to be stronger.
“But why do you have to go now, of all times, so far away? Couldn’t you just go some place closer to home like Gulf Shores or Little River Canyon for a few days?”
“I told you already, I happened to find a short-term lease on a cabin in Cottonwood, and I’m familiar with the area.”
“Oh Derrick.” He heard her sigh in frustration. “I thought you were done with Arizona. And it’ll dredge up old memories for sure.”
“Not as many memories as there are around here. Sherry and I only lived in Arizona two years, and that was what, five or six years ago? Besides, it’s the perfect place to clear my head without any distractions and get my life back on track.”
Dixie, a black Labrador retriever mix that had recently joined his household, slowly padded up the steps behind Karen, and Derrick knew she would be surprised. Dixie’s tail showed her delight in seeing her master as the dog sat beside him on the deck and raised her head to be scratched.
“And who is this?” Karen asked.
He smiled. “This is Dixie, my traveling buddy. She’ll keep me company in Cottonwood.”
“I didn’t know you had plans to get a dog,” Karen said.
“I didn’t,” Derrick answered, “but Dixie had plans of her own.”
“Another abandoned dog, huh?”
“Yep. People should be ashamed dumping helpless animals in the middle of nowhere and expecting them to survive. It makes me furious.”
“So you didn’t even try to find her owner?”
“Are you kidding me? You know how many stray dogs have been dropped off around here before. And Dixie’s smart. If there was any way she could get back to her owner, she would have, I promise you.”
He leaned over and scratched under Dixie’s neck. Her big tongue curled out and licked his hand. “I’ve had her a couple of weeks now, and she’s just what I’ve needed.”
The Jet Ski on the lake buzzed closer. Two teenagers aboard cheered as they created a surge of waves that rocked Derrick’s floating pier. He smiled. It was heartwarming to see kids enjoying innocent fun even after the fall weather had turned cool.
“Okay, so you tried to change the subject by introducing Dixie to me, but I’m not done trying to convince you to stay,” Karen said.
Derrick exhaled deeply and took another sip of tea. “Karen . . . I can design websites in Cottonwood as easily as I can here. I get all my business online, and I pay my bills electronically, too. I don’t plan to stay there long; a couple of months, three or four at most.”
“Months? Goodness, Derrick, I thought you’d only be gone a couple of weeks! Months? This is worse than I imagined.”
Derrick slowly shook his head and tried not to let the pain inside show. There was so much that Karen didn’t know, even though he was closer to her than anyone else on the planet. He glanced at the house he so dearly loved. To the left of the sliding door his rusted barbecue grill rested in a corner of the deck, complete with a propane tank collecting dust. A couple of potted plants that would need to be taken inside for the winter occupied the opposite corner. The front of his home was virtually all windows, and the view of the lake from inside was amazing. The opposite shore was over a mile across the water.
He would miss this place, having lived here the better part of the past sixteen years. He would miss Karen, too, but it would only be for a short while. It was hard to explain to her why he needed to leave temporarily. He wasn’t even sure himself why he felt so compelled to go, but he knew that he could deal with his latest personal crisis better there than here.
The isolation in Arizona would be perfect. He’d already blocked every number on his cell phone but Karen’s and unsubscribed from all the emails he could and deleted the rest. He had a lot of thinking to do without any interference.
“Sis, I’ll miss you, but we can talk every day. Anyway, it’s all set. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Karen leaned over and gave him a tight hug. “You’re hopeless. You’re also the stubbornest man I’ve ever known. Even though you terrorized me when we were kids, I can’t help but love you so.”
“Me, too, Sis, and I’ll get over this, I promise.”
Dixie spotted a squirrel scampering across the yard. She barked and raced down the steps in a futile attempt to catch it but was too late.
“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine,” Derrick said, but he felt that perhaps he was trying to convince himself more than her.