“Okay. Sunday morning you wake up. I understand your parents left early to play golf. You mowed the lawn until the detective came and you went with him to Hackensack. Did you go anywhere or talk to anyone after you got back from Hackensack and before your parents got home?”
Alan was silent for a moment. Parker put down his pen and said gently, “Alan, the only way I can effectively help you is if you are honest with me.”
“When I got back from Hackensack, I was freaking out. I needed somebody to back up my story that I went straight home from Nellie’s.”
“So what did you do?”
“I called one of the guys I was with. The two other guys were at his house. I asked them to back me up that I stayed at Nellie’s as late as they did.”
“Do you know if they’ve spoken to the police?”
“Yes, they have.”
“Okay.”
Alan gave Parker the names of his three friends and their contact information.
Alan said, “Look, I know I panicked, and I screwed up. And I know that by lying, I’ve made it worse. What can I do to start making things right?”
Parker looked directly at his client. “There are two things you can do. From now on, aside from your parents and me, talk to no one about the case. If anyone contacts you, refer him to me.”
Alan nodded.
“The other thing you can do is when you go home, tell your parents what you just told me. They’re going to find out anyway, so let’s get that difficult discussion behind us right away.”
26
In the morning at breakfast Steve announced that he was coming home early and he and Fran were going to the movies. Fran had not yet come down from their room. Over a quick second cup of coffee he said to Aline, “I think I need to get your mother out of the house. I told her that last night after Detective Wilson left, and she agreed. She’s so fixated on the idea that Alan Crowley murdered Kerry that she’s telling that to everybody she speaks to. I told her that until there is real proof, we have to keep an open mind. But even after all that Detective Wilson told us about the man who sold Kerry the beer, she is still fixated on Alan’s guilt.”
Steve carried his empty coffee mug over and placed it in the sink. “One night every week a theater in Norwood is running the old classics. Greer Garson is still one of your mother’s favorite actors. She’ll enjoy seeing Random Harvest on the big screen. It starts at five o’clock, and then I’ll take her out to dinner. Do you want to join us for the movie, dinner or both?”
“Thanks, Dad, but I’ll pass. I want to catch up on some stuff at school. I’ll pick up something for dinner on the way home.”
• • •
The next day at school was a little easier than the one before. Aline had always been good at remembering names and faces. After she passed one of the students in the hallway, she remembered that she had seen her before and where it was. This was the girl who had been standing across the street from the church when the Mass for Kerry was over. I wonder why she didn’t come in, Aline asked herself.
She was in her office until six. She had left her door partially open and Scott Kimball looked in. “Obviously working late again,” he said.
“A little,” Aline replied.
“Is there any chance that when you’re ready to wrap up, you’ll have dinner with me? I know I asked you only yesterday, but the question just popped into my head. You know, it might be a nice change.”
“Are you tempting me with the French restaurant you were talking about?”
“Absolutely.”
Then my answer is “Oui.”
They laughed together.
Aline declined Scott’s offer to ride with him and instead took her own car to La Petite restaurant. Scott had told her he lived in Fort Lee. Driving her back to pick up her car at school would take him way out of his way.
On the way over, she started to have second thoughts. She berated herself for agreeing to go to dinner with him. She went over in her head why it was foolish to alter the business relationship of two faculty members who worked in the same school. Just this once, she told herself, absolutely just this once.
She began to relax at the restaurant. La Petite turned out to be every bit as good as Scott had promised. In the three years she had taught at the International School in London, it had been easy to take the train through the Chunnel to Paris. It was a trip she had made every few months while she lived in England. She would stay at a small hotel on the Left Bank that overlooked Notre Dame Cathedral. She made regular visits to the Louvre and other museums, as well as boat trips on the Seine.
Along the way she had developed a passion for French food. At the same time she had perfected her natural gift for languages. Her goal was to become fluent in French and to speak it without an American accent. When their waiter introduced himself with a French accent, she saw an opportunity to practice.
Scott then surprised her by following her lead. His command of French was very good, but his American accent was clearly discernible.
After listening to the specials, they gave their orders. As they sipped the Bordeaux Scott had chosen, he said, “I took a semester in France when I was in college. It was a program where I took courses in French and lived with a French family.”
“Total immersion?” Aline asked.
“That was the idea,” Scott chuckled. “But when I was with the other students, it was really easy to slip back to speaking English.”
“I wish I had had an opportunity like that,” Aline said.
“Whatever you did, your French is better than mine.”
“There’s a reason for that.” She told him about her frequent trips to Paris.
They compared notes on different places they had visited in and around Paris. The conversation shifted to the high school, and Scott shared his impressions of his fellow teachers and the administration. It was only over coffee that he brought up Kerry’s name.
“Aline, I’ve had a wonderful time tonight. Part of me wants to tell you about how great a young woman Kerry was, but I’m reluctant to introduce a topic that might upset you.”
“No, it’s okay. I saw Kerry through the eyes of a big sister. If I had it to do over again, I would not have been away as much as I was the last three years. What was it like to be her coach?”
“She was really special. She wasn’t the best player on the team, but she was very good, and she had a natural ability to lead. The best compliment you can give a player is that she made her teammates better when she was on the field.”
When the evening ended and she was driving home, Aline realized that she had enjoyed the dinner very much. Scott was a very nice guy, and he was good company.
27
The results of the autopsy revealed that Kerry had been killed instantly by a massive blow to the back of her skull. There was almost no water in her lungs, indicating she had not been breathing after being struck. The alcohol level in her blood was .06, the equivalent of a person her size consuming two to three drinks. There was no evidence of sexual assault.
The State Lab’s analysis of the golf club verified that it was the weapon that had been used on Kerry. The strands of hair on the head of the putter were matched with samples of her hair. The specks of blood lifted from the club contained Kerry’s DNA.
Fingerprints on the rubber grip would be virtually impossible to collect, but there were five identifiable prints on the shaft that potentially could be matched.
Mike began the process of identifying the prints by going first to Steve and Fran Dowling. It was as he had expected, a difficult meeting. Once again he swung by at about 6:45 P.M., when Steve would be home. When he explained his reason for being there, it caused Fran to cry out in near hysteria, “Are you telling me that our golf club was used to kill my little girl?”
“Fran, Detective Wilson is telling us that he needs to identify whose fingerprints are on the club. Obviously, he wants to know which are ours and eliminate them.”
“Y
ou can have them taken at the Saddle River police station,” Mike said. “They’ll forward them to the Prosecutor’s Office.”
“We’ll go there tomorrow morning,” Steve assured him.
Aline put her arm around her mother. “Mom, we all want to see whoever hurt Kerry get caught.”
Fran repeated what she had said before. “It was Alan Crowley.” Turning to Wilson, she said, “Do you have his fingerprints?”
“Yes, but let’s wait for the total fingerprint analysis to be complete.”
Aline again walked him to the door. “Mike, I’ve been thinking and thinking about that text Kerry sent me the day before her party. I say this with love. Kerry had a little bit of the drama queen in her. Whether it was a quarrel with a boyfriend or a dispute with a teacher, she always quickly said what was on her mind. In the text she sent the day before the party she referred to something very important, but didn’t say what it was. That’s not the way Kerry usually did things.”
“Aline,” Mike said, “I know how hard all this is for you. But I can see that you are a great comfort to your parents.”
His hand brushed hers as she opened the door for him. “Aline, I promise you and your mother and father that we are going to find out who did this to Kerry and your family, and that person will go away for a very long time.”
“At that time maybe we’ll be able to try and put our lives back together,” Aline said, but there was doubt in her voice.
28
Bobby, Rich and Stan had collective guilt after lying for Alan. The detective had interviewed them one at a time, and each of them stuck to the story. “Alan got to Nellie’s about ten-thirty and left at the same time we did, about eleven-forty-five.”
Rich even shared that Alan told them that he was going to see Kerry in the morning and make up with her.
Stan told Mike Wilson that Alan had been mad when he came to Nellie’s, but he got over it.
Bobby volunteered that Alan had said that Kerry liked to tease him because she enjoyed making up.
When Mike asked them if they knew who sold the beer to Kerry, they claimed truthfully that they had no idea.
But after they spoke to Mike, they got together and discussed the possibility that Alan might break down and admit that he had left Nellie’s early, gone back and killed Kerry.
If Alan did that, what would happen to them? Would they end up in jail for lying?
The three of them, together and individually, worried about that.
They tried to reassure one another but they still had visions of getting arrested and going to jail.
29
Aline was sure she knew why Marge had not brought Jamie to the funeral Mass. From the time Jamie was born, the Chapmans and the Dowlings had been very cordial. Kerry had been Jamie’s lifelong friend. How hard it must be for him to comprehend that she’s gone forever, Aline thought.
Steve had put in the pool when Kerry was ten. Jamie always wanted to swim in it if Kerry was there. If he was out in the yard, Kerry would call Marge and ask if he could come over to swim. He followed Kerry’s every movement in the pool and became a very adequate swimmer himself.
Aline always knew how much he adored Kerry, and how much he would miss her now. When the company came in to close the pool for the winter, she noticed Jamie watching them from his side of the hedge that separated the backyards. Impulsively, she walked over and spoke to him.
“Jamie, how are you?” she asked.
“I’m sad.”
“Why are you sad, Jamie?”
“Because Kerry went swimming and then to Heaven.”
“I know, Jamie. I’m sad too.”
“My daddy went to Heaven, so Kerry is with him.”
Jamie’s eyes were filling with tears. Aline felt herself on the verge of breaking down. She didn’t want to do that in front of him. She said, “I’ll see you soon, Jamie,” and went back into the house.
30
Mike Wilson decided that his next move would be to go to Nellie’s and verify the time that Alan and his friends had been there and when they left. He phoned the restaurant and was told by the manager that the same waitstaff that had been on duty Saturday would be there this evening.
It turned out to be easy to find the waitress he wanted to speak to. Glady Moore had been telling everyone that she had served Alan Crowley the night that poor girl was murdered. Wilson got to the restaurant at seven, spoke to Glady briefly and was told she could take time to talk to him in about fifteen minutes.
The tempting smell of pizza reminded him that he was hungry. He ordered a Margherita pizza and a glass of beer.
As she had promised, Glady came over to his table and sat opposite him. “Kerry used to come in here with her friends,” she said. “She was such a beautiful girl. To think that she was murdered the very night that I was serving pizza to those boys.”
“Do you remember what time they got to the restaurant?”
“Three of them, not the boyfriend Alan Crowley, came in around ten o’clock. The Yankees were playing, so they took a table near the bar so they could watch the game.”
“When did Alan join them?” Mike asked.
“It was about ten-thirty. You should have seen the look on his face.”
“What do you mean by that?” Mike asked.
“He looked so angry. You’d think he wanted to kill somebody. He was so rude to me. He didn’t ask for anything. Just pointed to the pizza the other boys were eating, indicating that’s what he wanted. Just between you and me, I think he avoided talking because he had been drinking. When I brought his order, he was texting on his cell phone.”
“Okay,” Mike said. “He arrived at ten-thirty. Let’s say you took his order at ten-thirty-five. How long does it take to make the pizza?”
“About ten minutes.”
“So you brought him his order at ten-forty-five. What happened next?”
“When he finished it, he just walked out without paying.”
“If you can remember, what time was that?”
“Let’s see. He talked to the boys for a while. I noticed he was on his phone, texting some more.”
“What time do you think it was when he left?”
“I know it was a little after eleven, not later than eleven-fifteen.”
“Let’s focus on his three friends. Do you remember what time they left?”
“They stayed until the end of the game.”
Mike had checked. The game had ended at 11:46.
“Thank you, Glady. You’ve been very helpful. I may ask you at a later date to come down to my office and give an official statement.”
A delighted smile came over Glady’s face. “I’d love to. I can make it anytime you want.”
As Mike was getting up to leave, he asked, “Did you ever get paid for Alan’s pizza?”
“One of his friends took care of it.”
• • •
Mike went to the Prosecutor’s Office, where Assistant Prosecutor Artie Schulman was waiting for him. Artie was the Chief of the Homicide Unit. “Artie, can we talk in my office?” he asked. “It will be easier.”
On his wall Mike had a series of whiteboards. The first showed in alphabetical order the names of the kids who had been at Kerry’s party. Most of the names were written in black. The seven names written in red were under eighteen years old.
To the left of each name was the date Mike or a member of his team had questioned the student or a big “R.” R, Mike explained, meant they refused to be interviewed, or if they were minors, their parents had refused the interview. Eight names were preceded by an “R.” To the right of each name was a date in August or September. It was the date of the student’s departure for his or her respective college.
On the second whiteboard there were eight names. These were students who claimed they had witnessed the argument that took place between Alan and Kerry at the party. A “T” to the right of their names indicated the girls who had sent a text message to Kerry after the party. r />
The third whiteboard listed the names of Alan Crowley’s three supposed alibi witnesses.
Artie looked at the whiteboards.
“Two of the students who witnessed the arguments are headed for schools in the Midwest and another is going to California,” Mike said. “I’m assuming that for budget reasons, Matt Koenig will want me to complete these interviews in New Jersey versus flying across the country,” he added, referring to the County Prosecutor.
“You’ve got that right,” Artie agreed.
Mike updated him on the progress of his investigation. “We got the court order to go through Alan Crowley’s cell phone records. He is lying about how long he stayed at the restaurant. His phone pinged a tower right by the victim’s home on the other side of Saddle River at 11:25 P.M. It’s pretty clear he went back to the victim’s home after he left Nellie’s.”
“What about Crowley’s friends who gave him an alibi?”
“It looks like he asked them to lie for him, and they did. I’m going to contact the three of them and have them come down here to give a formal statement. After I read them the riot act about what could happen when you lie to an investigator, I’m sure their memories will improve.”
“We’ve confirmed the golf club was the murder weapon,” Schulman said. “Any progress on identifying the fingerprints on it?”
“Yes, but that’s going to be a problem,” Mike told him.
“Why?”
Mike picked up a report on his desk and flipped the page. “According to the lab, there are five separate, identifiable prints on the putter. All of these are on the steel shaft. The numerous prints on the rubber grip are so smudged that they’re unusable.”
“Anything on the putter head?”
“No.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Alan Crowley’s thumbprint is on the putter. The victim’s parents, the Dowlings, gave us their prints. Each has one fingerprint on the putter. That leaves two we still have to match.”