The Old Man in the Club Read Online Free PDF

speechless.
    â€œYou still want to be here?” Elliott asked with sarcasm.
    Tamara said nothing.
    â€œI was in my last year of college, at home working in Woodbridge,Virginia at a car dealership for the summer,” Elliott began. “This woman who had come to do a test drive with me earlier that day was found raped and murdered near her home around the time I got off work that evening.
    â€œI was driving back to my parents’ house in D.C. The route took me past the woman’s home. Before I could get to Interstate 95, police sprung up from every angle, with their guns drawn. Scared me so much I was afraid to pull my hands off the steering wheel to roll down the window or open the door. Before I knew it, I was snatched out of my car, on the ground, roughed up and in the back of a police car. I thought I was dreaming.”
    Tamara’s fear eased. She was not sure why, but it did. “Why did they think you did it?”
    Her question pleased Elliott. She could have asked, as another young lady had, “Did you do it?” Asking the question Tamara did sent the message that she hadn’t judged him.
    â€œIt was crazy,” he said. “When her body was found, sometime before I left the dealership, this woman said she saw a man drive away in a yellowish car. I had a yellow 1969 Duster and—”
    â€œA what?” Tamara asked.
    â€œOh, wow,” Elliott said. “There was a car at that time called a Duster. It was made by Dodge. This was 1971. They haven’t made them for a while now. You’re so young.
    â€œBut anyway, they said my car matched this witness’ description of the car leaving where the body was found.
    â€œSo I’m in jail and not sure what the hell is going on; no one said anything to me about this crime. So, finally a detective comes in and shows me a photo of the lady’s driver’s license picture. He asked if I knew her. I looked at the photo and said I didn’t. She didn’t look familiar.
    â€œThey then questioned me over and over about why I was in that area, where was I going, I mean, just about anything they could think of, they asked me. I left out something, though: I had stopped at this little area that was off the beaten path, not far from the job, down by a lake. I went there to smoke a joint. I got high back in those days. It was a long week and I would do the same thing every Friday—go to this place, loosen my tie and smoke a joint while sitting there in my car, listening to music.
    â€œWell, they finally tell me that the woman in the photo was dead—and that they knew I had killed her after raping her because she was jogging in that same area where I had my joint.
    â€œI’m sitting there looking at them like they were crazy. I stood up and told them I didn’t do it, wouldn’t do it and couldn’t do it. They didn’t believe me. After taking my mug shot and fingerprints and making me feel like a criminal, I was put in a cell and given an arraignment date. My parents, my whole family, was scared and angry.
    â€œBut why did they think it was you?” Tamara wanted to know.
    â€œA crazy list of coincidences,” Elliott said. “The lady in the picture was a woman I had gone on a test drive of a car with earlier that day. She had told her girlfriend that she had visited the dealership, and when they checked with my boss, the records showed that I took her on the test drive. But she didn’t look like the photo on her license, which I did not see at the dealership when she had the test drive because an office assistant made the copy of it. Her hair was different and she wore glasses. I didn’t recognize her. And I just did not recall her name.
    â€œBut they said I was lying about that, and if I was lying, that meant I was hiding something.
    â€œAnd they found my fingerprints on her car door. They werethere because I walked her to her car when she was leaving the