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.