Steve regained his senses and grabbed her wrists, pulling them behind her back. In the distance, he could hear police sirens approaching. He looked up exhaustedly at Booger.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Booger said. “I phoned 911 earlier in the backyard. The real heroes should be here any minute. They can take that psychological mess away with them…” As the rush of adrenaline left Booger’s body, the reality that he had been shot slowly overcame his nervous system. He fell back against a wall and slid down to a sitting position. The gun rested loosely in his fingers.

Shortly after, two squad cars and an ambulance arrived on the scene. An officer from the Tulsa Police Department placed Walters in custody on one count of first-degree murder along with many other charges. He walked her to his patrol car and left for the county jail.

The emergency medical personnel tended to Booger in the living room. Luckily, the bullet had gone straight through his body, missing all of his vital organs. As the paramedic on site finished patching up the holes in the front and back of his right shoulder, Booger looked across the room and sighed, visibly sad.

“I’m honestly going to miss that girl,” he said to Steve, who also turned to look across the room at Emily’s body.

The sight of her hit Steve for a second time. With everything that’d happened in the past few minutes, he had pushed it from his brain, but now the thoughts came flooding in like a tsunami hitting a small island hut. Emily is dead. A psychopath shot her in the head in my living room. If I hadn’t gotten her involved in this case, she would still be alive. Was it worth saving Scottie’s life in exchange for hers?

Steve fell to his knees beside Booger and leaned in for consolation as he began to cry. Booger put his arm around him and cried, too.

CHAPTER 40

Steve greeted Emily’s parents at the front of the church as he went in to attend the funeral; this was most assuredly not the way Steve had imagined he would meet them. The services were nice, and the cathedral was packed with friends and family. Steve met a number of her classmates from high school, college, and graduate school. Several employees of the district attorney’s office and law enforcement she had worked with over the years attended. Emily was clearly loved and respected by people from all stages of her life, and she was someone who would be deeply missed by her community.

Afterward, Booger and Steve went to The Empire Bar. They ordered two Hoegaardens. Outside, the clouds were dark, a light rain fell from them. But the two partners chose to sit at the patio table Emily and Steve had always shared. Each man sat holding his umbrella in an attempt to ensure neither their suits nor their beers got wet.

“I really thought she was the one,” Steve said, wondering if he had just lost his one true love. A tear formed in the corner of his left eye. Since Emily’s death, Steve had had trouble sleeping and eating. There was an empty space inside him he hadn’t felt since the third grade.

“Yeah, she was a great girl. You two genuinely seemed to hit it off.”

They quietly drank their beers in the rain for a bit until the door connecting the patio and bar opened. Adam, the twenty-something bartender who had waited on them almost every time they ordered drinks, waved hurriedly at them. “Steve. You need to come see this.”

CHAPTER 40

Steve and Booger quickly walked inside. On the television overlooking the bar was a local reporter standing in front of the Tulsa County jail.

“This is Sandy Shores, reporting live from David L. Moss Criminal Justice Center. My sources have informed me that Heather Walters, a.k.a. ‘The Murdering Mistress,’ just hung herself in her cell. As I am sure you remember, Ms. Walters was facing murder charges in two counties, including a charge for the murder of Rogers County Deputy Sheriff Andrew Blackburn. She was also likely to be charged with the 2008 murder of Ashley Pinkerton, whose husband is still sitting on death row and awaiting the completion of the county’s reopened investigation. Reports surfaced this morning that her diary was found during a search of her residence after she was arrested. Jailers say that after she saw reports of the diary on the morning news, Walters returned to her cell. Shortly after, another inmate informed the staff she had hung herself with a tied-up bedsheet.”

“Well, so much for getting a confession from her on Scottie’s murder,” Steve said.

“Don’t jump the gun, young man. I bet there is something in that diary that implicates her,” Booger speculated. “Probably the reason she went ahead and ended the suspense.”

“I bet you are right. It makes me wonder what exactly she wrote in that diary.” Just as Steve said this, his work phone rang in his pocket. It was Ian Battel, Rogers County’s assistant district attorney.

“I am calling to let you know that we plan on dismissing all charges against Scottie Pinkerton,” Battel said. “I just finished reading Ms. Walters’ diary, and I believe Scottie had no involvement in his wife’s murder. I will submit the appropriate paperwork to the federal court and the Oklahoma Department of Corrections this afternoon. I suspect he should be released tomorrow.”

“Wow, that is great news. Today may be both the best and worst day of my life,” Steve said humorlessly. “I just finished burying a dear friend this morning.”

“Yes. I have heard you and Dr. Babbage became quite close. I am very sorry for your loss.” There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Since you lost a loved one in this matter, and since you have saved me from being the catalyst to executing an innocent man, I am willing to bend the rules for you a little bit. I think you would find Ms. Walters’ diary very interesting. If you can make it to my office this afternoon, I will let you read it. I would ask that you give me your word, as an officer of the court, that you don’t let anyone else know you have read it or the contents in it. I’m doing this only for your own peace of mind.”

“Can I share this with my investigator?” Steve asked. “Without his assistance, I never would have uncovered the truth in this matter, and I wouldn’t be alive today.”

“Yeah. I know Booger. I even worked against him on many cases. I trust him; he can come, too.”

“We are on our way now. See you in about thirty minutes.”

CHAPTER 40

CHAPTER 41

When they arrived at the Rogers County District Attorney’s Office, Battel met them at the door. He led them to a small conference room in the back. On the table was what appeared to be an ancient book. The cover was leather and the pages were clearly handmade papyrus sheets. The writing was done in calligraphy. Next to the book was a small stuffed elephant with tattered edges.

“We have been telling the media it’s a diary, but it is actually something slightly different,” Battel said. “It appears to be written as a new

book for the Bible. She titled it The Book of Heather.”

“When she attacked me, she mentioned the Lord spoke to her through her mother and she mentioned someone named Boopie.”

Steve said inquisitively.

“Boopie was her stuffed elephant, the thing you see there. Her mother died during childbirth, and the stuffed animal was the only thing Heather ever owned that her mother bought for her. Apparently, her mother had purchased it while she was pregnant. We found the doll hidden in the closet with this book when we searched Walters’ home. When she was eight years old, the severe trauma she had endured finally caused her psychological break; it was then that Boopie told her to start listening to the other voices in her head. Her mother was one of those voices. Over time, her mother began giving her instructions on things that God wanted her to do. That is why she killed Ashley Pinkerton.” “So, she admits to the killing in here?” Steve asked.

“Yes. She goes into great detail about how she planned the murder. It is honestly quite chilling how intricate her plan was. Of course, according to her, all of it came as an order from God, told by the stuffed elephant.”

“How intricate?” Booger asked.

“I don’t know if your client told you this, but Walters was having an affair with him when this all occurred. She was also sleeping with Deputy Blackburn at the time, whom, as you two figured out, was Gabriel’s father. This was the reason Walters believed that Ashley needed to be killed. Her sin was punishable by death.”

“What about the two affairs she herself was having?” Steve pointed out. “God didn’t want to punish her?”

“We are dealing with a sociopath here,” Booger said. “What they think doesn’t always add up logically to those of us in the real world.

“Originally, the plan was for Deputy Blackburn to be convicted of the murder, and she was supposed to end up with your client. She started sleeping with Deputy Blackburn to learn his work schedule. She even talked him into changing his hours to include Saturday mornings so that he would be on duty when the 911 call came in. During the two weeks before the murder, she came up with excuses not to see him. Then, that morning, she told him to meet her at the Will Rogers Downs Racino because she wanted to give him a special gift in his patrol car as an apology for not getting together in so long. She also paid some homeless drunkard two hundred dollars to raise a ruckus and get the sheriff called so he would have an official reason to be that close to the Scotties’ home, not just to meet her.”

“How did she manage that?” Steve asked.

“According to her diary, she had met the homeless man several months before, and she regularly brought him food. She gave him a hundred dollars the Thursday before and told him to be at the casino Saturday morning at 9:00 a.m. He was to act belligerent and get the sheriff’s office called. Once the deputy arrived, she told him to calm down so as to avoid arrest and leave peacefully around 9:45 a.m. She promised him another hundred dollars if he performed well. This put Deputy Blackburn in his patrol car five minutes from the Scottie residence when the 911 call was made.”

Booger shook his head. “I guess that means she is the one who talked Ashley into making the call and setting Scottie up.”

“Exactly. She talked Ashley into making the 911 call and told Scottie that if anything weird happened, like a 911 call, he was to leave immediately and go back to the hotel. It’s all there in the diary.”

“It sounds like she was a puppet master over all these people,” Steve said.

“You have to remember,” Booger said, “none of these people realized she was delusional. It is very easy to talk people into doing things when they trust you. Look at Charlie Manson or Jim Jones. Most importantly, she wasn’t getting Ashley or Scottie to kill themselves or others, just to do things that seemed somewhat reasonable.”

“True.” Battel said. “The most interesting thing is that her original plan was for both Deputy Blackburn and your client to look equally guilty so that neither could be convicted. She set Scottie up with the 911 call, the scratches, etc. She even took a pair of his tennis shoes and put them on before she killed Ashley and purposefully left bloody shoe prints in the house. For Deputy Blackburn, she was going to make an anonymous call the following Monday telling them he was Gabriel’s father and to search his home, where they would find the bloody knife. Since he was the last person to see her alive and the knife would be found in his possession, she figured he would be convicted of the murder despite the evidence she planted against Scottie. Unfortunately, Walters accidentally left the knife at the house in her rush to get out. I assume Ashley fought her harder than she expected, and it took Walters longer to kill Ashley than she had planned. She had set an alarm on her phone, and when it went off, she dropped the knife in her haste and ran out the front door. Once in the driveway, she quickly changed shoes and then ran around back and through the field to where she had hidden her car.” “She set an alarm?” Steve asked.

“Yes. Like I said, she had everything planned meticulously. She knew how long it would take Deputy Blackburn to get to the residence from the Racino. So, as soon as the call was made, she set an alarm on her phone and put it in her pocket to ensure she would not be seen by Deputy Blackburn when he pulled up to the house.”

“Okay. Start from the beginning. You have given us a lot of different information,” Booger said. “Now, put it all together and give us the timeline of how the murder occurred.”

“Walters went to the Scottie residence around nine o’clock that morning. At the same time, the homeless man was causing a commotion at the Racino to get the sheriff’s office called. When Walters got to the house, she talked to Ashley about the affair your client was having and convinced her to set him up for a weekend in jail. While in the house, she excused herself to the restroom, grabbing the tennis shoes and unlocking the back door without Ashley noticing. Then, she left the house and texted your client, telling him it was okay to go home. While he was driving over from the hotel, she took her car around the field and parked. From there, she walked back to the house. She put the tennis shoes on and waited outside the back door while everything went down between Ashley and your client. When the 911 call was made, Walters set an alarm on her phone for four minutes and thirty seconds. As soon as your client left, she went inside and attacked Ashley with the butcher knife. When the alarm went off, she dropped the knife by accident, walked out the front door wearing the bloody tennis shoes, and changed shoes in the driveway. That was why the bloody footprints ended in the driveway. It was obvious from the blood splatter the shoes were placed into the secure Walmart bag in the driveway. We always assumed Mr. Pinkerton did that right before he left, since we never found any of Ashely’s blood in the car.”