No police, no security.
Probably a burglar alarm on the outside door. But on the window?
Well, let’s find out.
He steps out into the clearing, a small expanse of grass behind the building, but still outside the reach of the overhanging lights. Still in the dark. Still invisible.
The window has iron bars over it. He’ll deal with the bars if necessary, but first he wants to see if the window has an alarm.
He raises his tire iron to eye level, angles it through the bars, and jams it against the glass. The glass shatters, an unmistakable sound, but not a very loud one, especially with a light wind. And really, nobody should be around right now, past midnight in an empty industrial park.
After shattering the glass, Noah steps back, ready to retreat into the darkness.
He hears no glass-shatter alarm. No police sirens.
But there could be an alarm on the window itself, triggered when it’s opened.
So he tries that next, slipping his hand between the iron bars, carefully through the half-shattered window, until he finds the interior latch. He unlocks the window. Then, with both hands, he pushes it up from the bottom frame.
A few more shards of glass fall onto the floor inside.
But no alarm sounds. The window is not armed.
They must have figured the iron bars were enough.
They figured wrong.
Noah shines his flashlight on the screws. They are deeply embedded, some of them rusted. They won’t be easy to unscrew. But his cordless drill will get the job done, sooner or later.
It will make some noise, but nothing too loud, and he’s out here alone.
He just needs to hurry.
Noah puts on his rubber gloves. Then he fits the drill bit into the first screw and gets to work.
98
“HEY THERE.”
I’m sitting upright, against the wall in a holding cell beneath the substation, on a mattress about as thick and comfortable as a piece of paper, my thoughts scattering about.
My head turns toward the cell bars, toward the voice.
Lauren Ricketts, in uniform, giving me a sympathetic smile.
“Had to wait until the chief went home,” she says. “He didn’t want anyone visiting you. Least of all me.”
I push myself off the wall, pain running down my neck and back.
“What the hell’s going on, Murphy?” she asks. “How can this be right?”
That’s all I’ve been thinking about.
“No clue,” I say. “No freakin’ clue. These girls were murdered in 2007. I wasn’t even here in 2007. I didn’t come here until last year—four years later.”
“But you can’t prove that,” she says.
“How can I prove I never came here?” I throw up my hands. “Like Isaac said, nobody knows when, specifically, those two girls were murdered. June? July? August? There’s no specific day or even month that the murders happened. So how can I produce an alibi? Am I supposed to have an alibi for every single day of the entire summer of 2007? It’s impossible.”
“Oh, Murphy. What a clusterfuck.”
“And this hunting knife they found, the murder weapon? I haven’t so much as touched a hunting knife since I came back here. I’m not sure I’ve ever held one in my life. I mean, it’s not physically possible.”
Ricketts doesn’t have an answer for that. Neither of us does.
“What about Aiden?” I ask. “They’re looking for him?”
“Oh, yeah. His prints on the weapon, the bodies behind his property—and we heard from East Hampton PD about what happened at Justin’s house last night, the attack. There’s a manhunt.”
“We have to find him, Lauren,” I say. “We have to find Aiden.”
“Believe me, we’re trying—”
“No, I mean, we have to find him. Isaac doesn’t want Aiden found. He’s the one who told Aiden to leave. And if he does find Aiden, he’ll kill him. Y’know, make it look like a shootout with a suspect or something. He wants Aiden gone or dead. So Aiden will take the fall all by himself.”
Ricketts looks at me, doubt creeping into her eyes. “Jenna…”
“You think I’m wrong?”
She lifts her shoulders. “I’m not sure. Are you? Are you so sure it’s Isaac? That Isaac’s a killer? That he framed you for this?”
I’m not sure of anything anymore. Aiden, Isaac, Noah—or some combination thereof. My fingerprints magically appearing on murder weapons without my knowledge. I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.
“The fingerprint match was clean,” Ricketts says. “I found the murder weapon, that hunting knife, myself. And I delivered it directly to our forensics team. I watched the guy run the analysis, Murph. Isaac didn’t tamper with that. So how could Isaac get your fingerprints on the knife?”
“How could anybody? But somebody did. Probably easier for him than anybody else.”
Ricketts steps back from the cell bars, her focus dropping to the floor.
“You don’t believe me,” I say.
She shakes her head slowly. “I’m not ready to believe our chief of police is a serial killer. No.”
I stare at her. She looks suddenly uncomfortable, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.
“He got to you,” I say. “He told you what a great job you’re doing. How a big promotion could be in the works. A bright future. ‘But just watch out for Jenna Murphy! Don’t believe anything she says. She’s bad news. She’ll take you down.’ Is that about it, Officer Ricketts?”
“No, that’s not it.” Some steam in her voice, color to her face. “I’m following the facts wherever they lead.”
“Including my prints being found on that hunting knife.”
“Yeah, including that.” Her eyes rise to meet mine.
A gulf between us, suddenly, the cop on the one side, the suspect on the other.
“So we’re done?” I say. “You and me?”
“I told you, Murphy. I’ll follow the facts wherever they lead.”
Another one bites the dust. First Noah, now Ricketts. My “team” has been reduced to a team of me, myself, and I.
“Then I have some facts for you to follow,” I say. “Aiden’s mother. Gloria Willis.”
“Yeah?”
“She was killed in a hit-and-run,” I say. “Find out when.”
She thinks about that, nods. “I can do that.”
“And while you’re at it,” I say, “find out whether Isaac or Noah Walker was adopted.”
99
JOSHUA BRODY, once Noah Walker’s attorney and now mine, walks into my holding cell as Lauren Ricketts leaves. He looks around and then looks at me.
“Thanks for coming in the middle of the night,” I say.
“Part of the job.” He scratches the back of his neck, his eyelids heavy. He looks around again. “So is this the cell where Noah supposedly confessed to Chief James?”
I shake my head. I’m not in the mood. Joshua beat me up pretty good over that during the cross-examination.
“Talk to me,” I say.
“The arrest is solid,” he says. “Your prints on the murder weapon are sufficient for probable cause.”
“We don’t know it’s the murder weapon,” I counter. “They don’t have DNA back yet. We don’t know that it’s Annie’s and Dede’s blood on the knife.”
Brody looks at me like he would look at a child who just doesn’t get it. “The hunting knife was covered in blood and was found with the bodies,” he says. “You’re right. They haven’t conclusively tied the knife to the dead girls, but c’mon. Dead women with stab wounds, a bloody knife found inside…”
“Did they die of stab wounds? I thought their skulls were crushed.”
“I don’t know,” he says. “Autopsy’s tomorrow. But whatever the cause of death, they have sufficient evidence for an arrest. Remember, they don’t have to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt until trial.”
The trial. I can’t believe it.
I’m going to be tried for murder?
“You have to get me out of here,” I say.
“Best I can do is try to get a reasonable bond,” Brody says. “The hearing’s tomorrow. But on two counts of murder? It will be hard. If you get bond at all, it will be a million dollars. Maybe two million. Which means you’ll need to come up with ten percent. A hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, whatever.”
“Noah Walker bonded out. He was charged with a double murder.”
“Noah Walker had a girlfriend for whom a million dollars was pocket change. I don’t suppose you have a trust fund or anything like that?”
I let out a bitter laugh. I have a little bit of money saved up, but nowhere near that kind of scratch.
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Brody says. “Unless there’s anything else I can do.”
I drop my head against the wall. But then it comes to me. There is one thing.
“You’re a lawyer,” I say.
“Last I checked, yeah.”
“Maybe you can help me with something,” I say.
100
JOSHUA BRODY rubs his unshaven face, mulling over everything I’ve just told him.
“So you think the sixth and last Holden Dahlquist had a son. A son who’s running around killing people.”
“That’s my theory, yes. A pretty good one, I think.”
“And you think this boy is the younger half brother of Aiden Willis, the other person whose prints were found on the knife.”
“Yes. The half brother was abandoned at birth. But somehow, in some way, he was able to discover his biological father, or vice versa.”
“So you figure there might be some records of this? Maybe the biological mother filed a paternity suit. Or there’d be adoption records. Or both.”
“Something,” I say. “But whatever it may be, I’m pretty sure—”
“It would involve his attorney,” Brody says. “Yes, I agree with that much. If a guy like Holden Dahlquist had a problem like that, his first call would be to his lawyer. Sure.”
“So that’s why I’m asking about his attorney,” I say.
“Okay. Well, to answer your question: These days, most files are stored electronically. But Holden the Sixth, as you call him, he died…when, again?”
“He died sometime in 1994,” I say.
“Okay.” Brody nods. “So any records would be no later than ninety-four. And back then, nobody was creating the kind of electronic files we have today. There would be hard copies.”
Hard copies. That’s what I thought. That’s what I was hoping.
“Where would those hard copies be?”
“Something that old, they would be in off-site storage,” he says. “But it’s not like you have access to them. These are attorney-client documents. You’d need a court order.”
“Then let’s get one.”
“On what grounds? Your hunch?”
“Yes, my hunch.”
He shakes his head. “It would be hard. Nearly impossible.”
“How long would it take?”
“Very long. Months. There’d be a vicious court battle.”
“I don’t have months, Mr. Brody. I have to know this now.”
“Murphy,” he says, “you haven’t even been indicted yet. When you are, there will be a court case, and maybe we can explore that. But now? Right now? No chance. Zero.”
I deflate. He’s making sense, I know it. It would take months to get court-approved access to those files, if they even exist at all.
Unless…
“Just out of curiosity,” I say, “where would the law firm keep its old hard copies of files?”
“Oh.” Brody shrugs. “Most law firms around here use a place out in Riverhead called Dunbar Professional Storage.”
Dunbar Professional Storage in Riverhead.
“I know the name of Holden the Sixth’s lawyer,” I say. “A guy named Finneus Rucker. Do you know him?”
“I knew him,” says Brody. “He died a few years ago. Cancer, I think.”
I deflate. “But I looked up his law firm online. Rucker, Rice and Spong.”
“Yeah, his firm still exists. But he doesn’t.”
“But—his firm would still have the records.”
Brody nods. “I’m sure they do.”
“Well, do you have any idea if his firm uses that storage facility?”
Brody’s eyes narrow. “No, I have no idea. But like I said, wherever they keep those records, you’d have to go through a judge.”
“Absolutely,” I say.
“Don’t get any dumb ideas. You’re in enough trouble already.”
“Of course.”
Dunbar Professional Storage in Riverhead.
Remember that.
That’s my next stop. If I ever get out of this jail cell.
101
NOAH REMOVES the third iron bar from the window and decides it’s enough.
He tosses his cable cutters in through the open window.
He stuffs the flashlight into his front pocket.
Using the remaining iron bar as a brace, he hauls himself up and onto the window ledge.
His head through the open window, his body dangling outside, he looks around. It’s dark, but he can see enough to get the drift.
An office. A desk covered in paper, a chair, file cabinets.
He has no choice but to fall in headfirst. He can’t see the floor, but he knows it’s littered with broken glass now.
He lunges forward and catches the chair to break his fall, but fall, and fall hard, he does. An awkward landing, his jeans doing enough to protect him from the glass. Could have been a lot worse.
He brushes himself off and turns on his flashlight just for a second. Then he opens the locked office door, looks beyond it.
Darkness, until he finds the light switch.
And then: a warehouse, a wide and long and high expanse of space, filled with nothing but rows and rows of shelving, a rolling ladder in each row to reach the higher shelves. He looks around long enough to get his bearings. Then he kills the lights. Those overhead lights are no good. Someone could detect an intruder from a mile away.
With his flashlight, he roots around the office and finds the index. He leafs through it until he finds what he’s looking for.
Then he walks into the warehouse, his footsteps echoing, the space pitch-dark except for the beam from his flashlight.
He finds the right row, and then the right shelf. He’s ready to break a lock with the cable cutters, but there aren’t any locks on the doors.
Even better.
He riffles through the files, the flashlight in his mouth. It takes him longer than expected, the risk of detection growing with each moment that passes.
When he finds it, he flips through the pages briefly—time does not permit a thorough review—shining his flashlight over each page, before he closes it up, the story from the newspaper on top:
Newborn Abandoned at Police Station
He takes the news clipping and the other documents, stuffs them back in the file folder, and places the folder under his arm. Then he closes the doors and climbs down the ladder.
He retraces his steps, closing the office door, climbing back out the window, falling into the grass.
He scrambles back to his hiding spot in the shrubs and looks over his handiwork. If he had all the time in the world, he could replace the iron bars. But he doesn’t. And there’s no replacing a shattered window.
But that’s okay. He didn’t leave any prints. He didn’t even have to break any locks. The file doors he opened are now closed up, like before, with no evidence that Noah looked inside that door versus any of the other hundreds of doors in the facility.
So tomorrow, when the employees of Dunbar Professional Storage arrive at work, they’ll know someone broke one of their windows and got inside, but that’s all they’ll know.
They won’t know who broke in. They won’t know where he looked.
And they?
??ll have no idea which files he took.
102
THE COURTROOM, filled with media and spectators. The discovery of the Yale students, plus the ex-cop who starred prominently in the Noah Walker case—too much for the reporters to stay away. I’ve become tabloid fodder.
Justin, sitting in the front row, trying to give me an upbeat expression when I walk into court. I can’t bear to make eye contact with him.
The lawyers make their arguments. Joshua Brody argues that the evidence against me is weak—the fingerprints on the knife, but that’s all. No motive. No evidence that I even set foot on Long Island during the summer of 2007.
Sebastian Akers rises for the prosecution. Oh, how he must savor the opportunity to prosecute me. He’s never forgiven me for blowing his conviction against Noah Walker.
“Of course she’s a flight risk,” he says. “These women were stabbed, and her prints are on the knife. It’s hard to imagine more direct evidence of guilt, short of capturing the whole thing on video.”
The judge, an old guy I’ve never met named Corrigan, raises his hand.
“Bond will be set at two million dollars,” he says. “In the event bond is made, the defendant will surrender her passport and will submit to electronic monitoring. She will be restricted to home confinement with waivers for work, attorney or medical visits, religious observation, and household errands under the supervision of the sheriff’s office.”
The judge bangs his gavel.
We won, but we lost.
Two million dollars? That means I have to come up with two hundred thousand to get out of here. I don’t think I have ten thousand to my name, and what little I have is going to Joshua Brody as a retainer to defend me.
“I’ll pay it,” Justin calls out to me as the courtroom grows noisy. “It’ll take me a day or two, but I have it.”
“I—can’t ask you to do that,” I say.
He looks at me, almost wounded. “You didn’t ask,” he says.
I don’t know how to respond. I absolutely hate being dependent on someone else for anything. But I don’t have any other options.