Execution of Innocence Read Free

Dryer's Tune Up just off the town square. The car had a quarter of a million miles on it and it ran faster in Reverse than Drive, but she was hoping it would hang on until she could move to Palo Alto and start college. Stanford was practically all she thought about these days, although she had applied to half a dozen other colleges as back-ups. But to be at Stanford was her dream because that was where her mother and father had gone to school and met. Now if Stanford would just accept her A-minus average and her nonexistent bank account.
    Maple, where she lived, was not the sort of city that sent many kids to one of the best colleges in the land. Located in southern Oregon, not far from California’s Mt. Shasta, the town was at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet and often suffered serious snow-bound winters. Because of the weather the total population never rose above ten thousand, and that included tourists and passing truck drivers. Yet the surrounding pines and hills always inspired Mary. She was anxious to break away from her small town but she knew she would miss it after she was gone.
    As she parked that auspicious day and got out of her car, Charlie looked up from under the hood of a Ford Explorer so dirty it looked as if it had unsuccessfully dodged a mud slide. He was pretty dirty himself, with an oily face and jeans. If someone had told her right then she would soon be head over heels in love with this guy she would have wanted to know the person's IQ. He wiped his nose on the back of his arm as she walked over. He had a wrench in one hand and a hamburger in the other. Yeah, he liked Pennzoil on his meat and bun. She wrinkled her nose before she spoke to him.
    “Charlie?” she said as if maybe she had the wrong one.
    “Yeah?” He had pretty blue eyes but they weren’t dancing with joy at the sight of her. His black hair was long and stringy and hung over his broad shoulders like strips of leather. He took a bite of his hamburger and chewed slowly, his handsome jaw moving with a casual rhythm unconnected to her haste.
    Mary was about to be late for work, and Miss Soulte, her supervisor at the library, was always looking for an excuse to fire her. Mary thought the woman hated her because she thought Miss Mary was no longer a virgin, which was not true. Mary was as virgin as an unopened copy of Cosmopolitan . She had a rich imagination and poor prospects, although she did get asked out regularly enough, but by guys who had thrown spitballs at her in kindergarten. That was the trouble with growing up in a small town. The male population was largely made up of specimens she had seen develop from sperm and ovum. Not that she knew much about Charlie. He took another bite of his hamburger and waited for her to say something.
    “I need a time up,” she said.
    “Shouldn’t you see a doctor?”
    She blushed, although she didn't think he was being funny. She gestured to her car. “It's speeding up and slowing down all the time, even when I don't do anything. I don't know what’s the matter with it.”
    He studied her car. “It's old,” he said.
    She frowned. “Should I go somewhere else?”
    He shrugged. “If you're in a hurry.”
    She glanced at her watch. “I am in a hurry. I have to get to the library.”
    “I never heard of anyone who was in a hurry to get to the library.”
    She sighed and put her hands on her hips. “I work there.”
    He set his hamburger down and wiped his hands. He finally smiled—he had a nice smile. “I know where you work, Mary,” he said.
    He offered to drive her to work and said her car wouldn't be ready until tomorrow. She said that was OK, a friend at the library could give her a ride home and a ride to school the next day. She didn't talk to him about money. She had heard that he was good at what he did and never overcharged. Riding to the library with him, she noticed he hardly looked over at her.
    But that evening when she got home she was surprised to see her car