Seated in the dining area, alone, is Justin Rivers, wearing a flannel shirt that he fills out very well, thank you very much, and blue jeans. He’s got a pencil poised over a section of newspaper—a crossword puzzle.
Must be nice, being the owner, relaxing while the employees bust a move to get the diner open.
He glances up at me with those boy-next-door looks and smiles widely.
“Detective!”
It’s like a punch in the stomach. But I don’t correct him. I’m not going to lie if he asks, but if he wants to think I’m still a cop, all the better.
“Hi, Justin. How’re you doing?”
“Great, great.” He looks down at his watch.
“I’m not here for lunch,” I say. “I was hoping to speak with you a moment.”
“With me? Okay.” He stands up. “You wanna…”
“Maybe we could step outside?”
“Sure. I’ll be right back,” he calls out to his staff, though nobody seems to notice.
He follows me outside and faces me, beaming, clean-cut and handsome.
“Good to see you,” he says. The million-dollar smile, the hair swept to one side, the broad shoulders.
“Um—thanks. You too. Listen, I was hoping to ask you a few questions.”
“Oh, you mean, official stuff?” His face dropping a bit, like he’s disappointed.
I nod. “If that’s okay. Did you think there was some…other reason?”
“Oh, uh.” His face turns red. “Now I’m embarrassed. Oh, I feel stupid.”
It sometimes takes me a while, but I get there. He thought I was going to ask him out.
“A guy can hope,” he says.
Now we’re both embarrassed.
“Oh, Justin, I’m sort of—I mean it’s not that I wouldn’t—”
He raises his hands. “No explanation required. My fault. My fault totally. God, this is embarrassing.” All the blood has reached his face at this point. “Go right ahead and ask, Detective.” He nods for emphasis.
“Okay,” I say, hoping that if I get down to business, both of us will feel less awkward. “Melanie Phillips. Your waitress.”
“Sure.” The mention of her name is enough to sober him up. “Great kid. Everyone loved her.”
“Well, I’m wondering if anyone seemed to take an interest in her while she worked here.”
He looks at the sky, thinks it over. I’m tempted to prompt him with a name, but I want to see if he comes up with it himself.
“Well, I mean, she was very pretty, so lots of guys would stare and stuff. But, like, obsess over her?”
“Yes, obsess.”
He runs his hand over his mouth. “Mmm…nah, not really. I mean, she and Noah had that breakup, like everybody knows.”
Noah. Not the name I was looking for, but since he mentioned it, I might as well see where that goes.
“What did you think about Noah for a suspect?”
“Me? Oh, jeez, I’m no cop. I always liked Noah, tell you the truth.”
“I noticed he still eats here, since he’s been out.”
“Yeah, sure. We get a lot of blue-collar types. Probably because we’re cheap.”
“But…I assume if you thought he did harm to Melanie—”
“Oh, right.”
“—you wouldn’t let him back in.”
“Definitely. I never thought Noah would do something like that. He always seemed like a good guy.”
“Okay.” I scribble a note in my little pad. “Change of subject. What can you tell me about Aiden Willis?”
“Aiden?” He smiles, shakes his head. “Well, he’s a good guy. He’s one of a kind, but a good guy.”
“Could you be more specific?”
“I mean, he’s…unusual, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe we all are. Good man, though. Good man.”
This guy’s Mr. Sunshine. Never speaks ill of his fellow man, as my favorite bartender would say.
“You said he was unusual.”
“Well, I mean—he comes in alone. Sits there and reads some book. Doesn’t talk much. Comes in for beers at night sometimes but pretty much keeps to himself. Grew up here. Went to Bridgehampton School. I think Noah did, too.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“Me? I grew up in Sag Harbor. Not far.”
“You didn’t go to school with Aiden and Noah?”
“No, I went to Lanier Academy in East Hampton.”
Oh, a private school. A rich kid. I was hoping to talk to someone who went to school with Aiden and Noah.
“You didn’t know them growing up?”
“Aiden and Noah? Nope. Hey, Aiden’s not some kind of suspect, is he?”
I give a noncommittal shrug. “Just basic questions, at this point.”
“I mean, he’s kinda odd, but not like that. Odd, but in a funny way, not scary.”
That seems to be the prevailing sentiment. I don’t remember laughing last night, when he had a shotgun aimed at my head.
“Well, anyway,” says Justin, “Aiden didn’t kill Melanie.”
I snap my focus off my pad to him. “How could you know that?”
“Because he was with me, here,” says Justin. “We have a liquor license until two a.m. I was pouring, and Aiden closed down the place with me.”
I feel some air deflate from my lungs. “You’re sure? You’re positive you have those dates lined up? It was a long time ago.”
“I’m positive,” he says. “The next day, Melanie missed work. We were calling her cell phone, even sent someone over to her condo. Then the cops showed up and told us she was killed the night before at the house on Ocean Drive. They asked me who was here that night. I gave them a list. It wasn’t that hard. It was just me and Aiden.”
I scribble a note, trying to hide my disappointment.
My biggest lead has just swirled down the drain.
73
OFFICER RICKETTS, still in patrol uniform, shakes her head as we look out over the Atlantic Ocean. “I still can’t believe they did this to you, Murphy.”
“You should take my advice and stay away from me.”
Ricketts nods and looks over at me, looking younger than her age, her cropped blond hair just long enough to show a hint of curl on the ends. “I’m not so good at taking advice,” she says.
“If Isaac ever knew—”
“I’d be fired. I get it.”
We are quiet. The sky is darkening and the ocean is reacting in kind. A storm on the way.
“We’re supposed to catch the bad guys,” Ricketts says. “The day I’m not supposed to do that is the day I look for another job.”
I like this girl. She’s way more poised and mature than I was as a rookie. And just as stubborn.
I look at her. “Are you sure?”
“Don’t ask me that again, Murphy. Just tell me what you need.”
“The last Holden was suspected in a number of rapes, right?”
“That’s what the book said.”
“So let’s see if we can find out if anyone filed a criminal charge. Someone must have. Maybe one of his victims got pregnant.”
“Okay. What else?”
I shrug. “That’s it.”
“That’s not it,” Ricketts says. “We should see what else may have been going on back then, in the early nineties. Missing-persons reports, unsolved murders. The last time you had me do that, I only went back ten years. Now I’ll go back to the early nineties.”
“To what end?” I ask.
“Who knows? Let’s just do it. See what shakes loose.”
I let out a long breath. “Ricketts, you’re going to make a good detective someday.”
“If I don’t get fired first.”
I take her hand. “That can’t happen. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if you got canned for helping me.”
She waves me off. “I just want you back on the force. We solve this thing, maybe I’ll have my mentor back.”
“Let’s not get too optimistic.”
She looks at me. “You know what you need, Murphy? If I may be so bold.”
“Shoot. Be bold.”
“You need to get laid.”
I let out a laugh. It feels good.
“I was thinking Justin,” she says.
I hem and haw. “Yeah, I mean, he’s…”
“He’s really cute. And I saw the way he was looking at you.”
I’ve already told Ricketts about my conversation with Justin today, the substantive part. Now I tell her the personal part.
“He actually said ‘A guy can hope’?” She pushes my shoulder. “What do you need, a written invitation?”
“Yeah, I know.” I let out a low moan. “Honestly, I mean—he’s a really nice guy, but I don’t know.”
“What, he’s too nice?”
I sigh. “Something like that.”
“You like the bad boys, don’t you? The guys with an edge? The dangerous types?”
“That’s my curse.”
“Murphy.” She puts her hands on my shoulders. “He’s a super-nice guy. He runs a diner with incredible food and he could double the prices and still fill the place, but he doesn’t. I mean, c’mon. He’s hot and he’s sweet and he has a crush on you. You’re gonna pass on that guy because he’s too nice?”
I just…I just can’t see it.
“I don’t have time for romance,” I say. “I have too much to do.”
“I didn’t say romance. I said sex. Just have dinner one time with the guy and then fuck his lights out. And then, of course, tell me all about it.”
“The dinner or the sex?”
“Both.”
I shake my head. I just…
“You know what you are? You’re afraid to be happy,” she says.
“Thank you, Doctor.”
She hits me on the arm. “I’ll get you that research,” she says.
“Hey, Ricketts?” I call out to her as she’s halfway up the beach. “I don’t even know your first name.”
She smiles. “It’s Lauren.”
“Well, thanks, Lauren. Seriously. Thank you.”
She nods back at me. “One more piece of advice?” she says. “Get some sleep. You look like crap.”
74
TWO IN the morning. The promise of a violent storm no longer just a promise. The windows rattling from the wind and rain, the sky a deep purple.
Pages and pages of notes, all over my desk, pinned up on the wall. I take a sip of wine and arch my back, roll my neck. My head aching, my eyelids heavy.
The answer has to be here. There has to be something. Just keep shaking trees and something will come loose. Keep connecting different dots and you’ll find it.
You’re getting closer.
Just keep telling myself that.
I’m getting closer…
Getting closer…
Closer…
Let me out
Bam-bam-bam
Let me out
Bam-bam-bam
I can’t see can’t breathe
Darkness, then penetrating light from above, a shadow blocking it
A face coming into focus, backlit by blinding yellow
A boy, long hair, a hand
Don’t touch me, please don’t touch
Get away, please don’t hurt me
I wanna go home
My head snaps upward, my hands shooting out across the desk, sweeping off papers, knocking the wineglass to the floor with a hollow clink. I take a long breath and shake out the cobwebs.
The boy. The long hair. The hand reaching for me into the darkness.
And the face. This time, I saw his face.
A face I’ve seen before.
The boy in my nightmare is Aiden Willis.
75
NOAH WALKER pulls his Harley up to the curb outside Jenna Murphy’s apartment. The streets are still slick from the heavy downpour last night. His sandals squish in the grass on his way up to the door.
He raps on the door and waits, adjusting the satchel over his shoulder.
When the door opens, he sees the face of a ghost.
Jenna’s hair is matted and unkempt, her face drawn and pale, her eyes deep-set and dark. A black Yankees T-shirt and men’s boxers are all she’s wearing.
She squints in the sunlight, doesn’t make eye contact with Noah. “You sure about Aiden?” she says as she turns back into her apartment.
“Good morning to you, too.” He wishes he’d brought coffee. She looks like she could use some.
The main room of the apartment looks more like an office than residential quarters. Papers everywhere—on the desk perched in the corner, covering the floor, lining the walls. Newspaper clippings, copies of police files scribbled over with notes in Magic Marker, Post-its haphazardly stuck everywhere. Organized in columns for the various victims, Annie Church and Dede Paris, Brittany Halsted, Sally Pfiester, Melanie and Zach, Bonnie Stamos—and Chief Langdon James, her uncle.
“You sure about Aiden?” she asks again, pacing the room, disappearing into her bedroom and coming out again.
“Am I sure Aiden’s not a killer? Yes, I’m sure. Why?”
She shakes her head absently, still pacing. “I’ve been having these…nightmares. Ever since I came here.”
“What kind of nightmares?”
She throws up her hands. “Like I’m trapped. Enclosed. Pleading to get out. And there’s someone above me, a boy, reaching down for me, going to hurt me. And I’m begging, Please, let me go, don’t hurt me, that kind of thing.”
That explains the sleep deprivation he’s noticed since he met her. She must have had a doozy of a nightmare last night, because it looks like she didn’t sleep much at all.
“Last night, Aiden showed up in the dream.”
“Aiden was the boy?” Noah nods. “That’s because you have Aiden on the brain, Murphy. You think there’s some meaning to your dream? Like, you’re assuming the role of one of the victims? Or you’re…seeing the future or something?”
“How the hell should I know?” She’s still pacing; then she stops and puts her hands on the wall. “Sorry. I don’t know. I…there’s probably no meaning to it. I don’t know. It’s just…”
It’s just making you crazy, he thinks.
She turns and looks at Noah, sizes him up, narrows her eyes.
“What?” he asks.
“The BB gun shooting at the school,” she says. “Back when you were a kid.”
“Oh, come on, Murphy.”
“I’m shaking trees,” she says.
“You’re what?”
“Tell me.” She walks toward him, then stops short, her hands on her hips. She could practically fall over. “Someone did it with you. A second shooter. And then set you up to take the fall. And you let him get away with it. Some kind of…code with you. Never rat out your friends or something.”
Noah looks down, pinches the bridge of his nose. All these years, all the investigation that took place back when it happened—everyone was sure it was Noah and Noah alone. Nobody ever questioned that. Any evidence to the contrary was swept aside, and the unanimous conclusion was that Noah shot all those kids on the playground, all by his lonesome self.
Not until sixteen, almost seventeen years later, when Detective Jenna Murphy from Manhattan came along and patched together a couple of interviews and some dry reports and reached a different conclusion.
“If you’re right,” he says, “and I live by the code that you don’t rat out your friends, why would I rat them out now?”
She works her jaw, her deep-set eyes burrowing into him.
“What’s it matter, Murphy? It doesn’t have anything to do with—”
“You were set up,” she says. “You were set up for Melanie’s and Zach’s murders. You were set up for the murder in the woods, the hooker, Bonnie Stamos. You were set up for my uncle’s—”
Her voice falters. Her whole body is trembling now.
She clears her throat hard, like an engine strugglin
g to start. “And you were set up to take the fall with the BB gun shooting.”
Noah shakes his head. What happened in that school yard doesn’t have anything to do with the murders. It was close to seventeen years ago now. She doesn’t need to know this.
“This guy is smart,” she says. “He’s careful. He might be deranged, he might be schizophrenic or a psychopath, but he does not make mistakes. He handed you to us as a suspect. Shit, I almost shot you myself, I was so sure you were guilty.”
That’s true. Something he’ll never forget, when she broke into his house after her uncle was attacked.
“Look, I’m grasping at straws, I’m looking for anything I can,” she says. “You said you wanted to help. You gave me this bullshit pep talk about—”
“I do want to help.” Noah slings his bag off his shoulder. “You didn’t even ask me why I’m here. Remember the research assignment you gave me?”
Jenna’s eyes move to the satchel.
“You found something,” she says.
76
“IT’S NOT much,” Noah tells me, opening his satchel. “I searched all the public records. Turns out I knew one of the clerks there, someone who grew up down the street from me. She helped.”
He removes a manila folder from his bag. “Holden the Sixth was part of three lawsuits in Suffolk County that we know of,” he says.
“Anything on paternity?” I ask.
“No, but my friend at the clerk’s office said, a lot of times, paternity lawsuits are filed under seal. She said that means the—”
“The names are redacted from the lawsuit,” I say. “Kept out of the public domain. So it’s possible there was a paternity suit, but we wouldn’t know it.”
“Yeah. I made copies of the three lawsuits I did find. They aren’t criminal cases. They’re civil. One is a property dispute and one is a defamation suit, whatever that means, and the last one is a lawsuit for assault and battery brought by a neighbor, some guy who said Holden punched him at a party.”
He hands me copies of the three civil complaints. He’s no lawyer, and neither am I, though a cop knows a thing or two about the legal system.