by Alex Finlay
Keller shook her head.
“Ron Sampson.”
“The cop who interrogated Danny Pine?”
“We were scheduled to meet, and then…”
“He killed himself,” Keller said.
Ira tilted his head to the side, held Keller’s stare like maybe Sampson hadn’t killed himself.
It was all too much. Too many conspiracies. Too many leaps. And Keller was starting to think the Adlers had been drinking the Kool-Aid.
“Charlotte’s father moved to North Dakota,” Ira added. “We’ve asked him for access to her things, to let us exhume the body for a DNA test, but he’s refused to speak with us.”
What a surprise. The guy they were accusing of being a child molester didn’t want to cooperate. Keller glanced at the computer screen again. In one of the windows she saw a familiar face: Noah Brawn.
Judy Adler followed Keller’s gaze, and said, “We interviewed him again. We’re hoping that the climax of our film will be a pardon, but we’ll see.”
Keller gestured to the computer. “May I?” she asked.
Judy nodded, and Keller clicked on the window with Brawn’s handsome face.
The interview started with Judy’s voice off-screen: “Do you think with all the attention on Danny Pine, Charlotte got forgotten?”
“Absolutely not. I certainly never forgot her. But we won’t get justice for her if the wrong man is in prison. We won’t get justice until the truth comes out.…”
Judy stopped the video. “You get the idea. More of the same from last time: the Smasher, the U.P., blah, blah, blah. We’ll see if he puts his money where his mouth is on the pardon.”
“You don’t think he’ll pardon Danny now that he’s governor?”
“Acting governor,” Judy said. “He only got the job because the former governor was a crook and had a taste for young girls. I suspect Brawn will tread lightly until he’s actually voted into the office. Have you been following the scandal?”
“Loosely.”
“The former governor is a real sleaze. And his henchman, what’s his name, Ira?”
“Flanagan. Neal Flanagan,” her husband replied.
“That’s right. This Flanagan is straight out of a movie. Who knows, it may be our next documentary—right, Ira?”
Her husband shrugged.
“Anyway, Nebraska is unusual since the governor doesn’t hold the power to pardon on his own. Brawn’s part of a pardon board. And he may be waiting to see who else the governor’s henchman snitches on before he starts associating himself with the former governor’s people on the board. That administration was dir-ty.”
Politics. It didn’t matter how big or small, it usually was dirty.
“Okay, we’ve shown you ours,” Judy said. “How about you show us yours?”
“I told you, I’ll call as soon as I get the CODIS and DNA analysis.”
“You’ve gotta have more than that,” Judy said. “Just talk to us, deep background. No one will ever know. The family—they were murdered, right? And what Matthew said, were they really in Mexico chasing a lead? That sounds like Evan. He just couldn’t let go.”
“I’m sorry,” Keller said. “I can’t comment.”
Judy Adler’s mouth was a tight seam.
“But I’ll tell you what,” Keller added, “I’ll talk to Matt, encourage him to speak with you.” It was a lie, but no reason to piss off the Adlers. Keep your enemies closer and all that. If they found a lead, she wouldn’t want them holding a grudge.
“That would be terrific,” Ira Adler said. He’d probably spent their entire marriage playing Good Cop.
Judy added, “We really do want to help his brother.”
Keep telling yourself that, Keller thought.
CHAPTER 44
MAGGIE PINE
BEFORE
Maggie looked across the aisle of the cramped flight. Mom and Dad were talking about something, smiling. It had been a while since she’d seen that. And it took a little of the sting out of the past few days. She glanced at Tommy, next to her with all the essentials spread out on the tray table: coloring books, Goldfish crackers, juice box, and his favorite stuffed animal, Sweet Bear. He was watching a movie—one with those creepy blue creatures, the Smurfs—on the tiny screen of Mom’s phone.
Maggie wanted to get her mother alone. They hadn’t had a moment since they’d whisked Mom away from one airport gate to another. Mom and Tommy stepped off the plane from Omaha, and three hours later were boarding the flight to Mexico. Maggie had expected her mother to be annoyed that it was all so unplanned. She hadn’t even gotten to pack her own bag for the beach. But Mom was either putting on a face or she was excited to go. Energized by the spontaneity. Or maybe it was seeing Dad so upbeat.
Ever since Maggie had found him on the floor when he’d passed out (drunk or food poisoned, she still couldn’t decide), he’d been different. Make no mistake, Danny’s case was still the giant hippo in the room—or was it elephant, she could never remember, whatever—but her father seemed more available, more present. Maggie wondered if her mother would be so carefree about the trip if she knew why they were going. Um, she certainly wouldn’t be smiling and ordering another wine right now. Watching her mother drain the plastic cup, laugh at something her father said, Maggie didn’t care why they were going.
Maybe she’d hold off telling Mom about what had happened with Eric. Why ruin the trip, right? Maggie could handle it. Just don’t think about it. But it wasn’t so easy. She felt a prickling down her spine remembering how he’d pinned her arms against the wall. She still had fingerprint bruises on her wrists. She was being melodramatic. It wasn’t like he’d raped her. But she’d felt so powerless, so scared, so ashamed. But if she told Mom, then Mom would tell Dad and then he’d … Well, the trip would be wrecked. Maggie also didn’t think her father could take another instance where he hadn’t been there to protect one of his kids.
The plane hit a patch of turbulence and Maggie clutched the armrest. Tommy gazed up at her, smiling, the headphones giant on his head. When was the last time she’d felt that safe and secure, that invincible? Had she ever? She thought so. Before a young girl was found murdered at Stone Creek. The boogeyman could still be out there, her dad reminded her and anyone who’d listen. Maggie had been on the hunt for him ever since.
Sure, she’d had doubts over the years. She didn’t really know Danny. She’d been only ten when he went away. He’d been larger than life. The boy who playfully called her dork, mussed her hair whenever he walked by, gave her piggyback rides. She remembered him playing tea party with her and her dolls. Remembered going to the football games, feeling special that she was Danny Pine’s sister. She didn’t remember Danny being home much. Back then their parents didn’t believe in monsters, and let the kids come and go. Maggie knew Danny was no saint. He drank too much, wasn’t particularly kind to the unpopular kids, and wasn’t a great boyfriend, at least from what Maggie had learned working his case over the years. But he also wasn’t a murderer. She believed that. Needed to believe that.
Maggie chewed the inside of her cheek, examining the purple spots on her wrists again, wondering if Mom would notice them. She then caught her father gazing at her from across the aisle. He did that a lot. She’d catch him stealing looks at her. He smiled, then put his head back, closed his eyes. Mom rested her head on his shoulder.
That was it, she decided. Maggie would wait to tell Mom about what had happened at the party until they got home. She could suck it up. She had one more decision to make: when to tell her father about the email she’d received right before they boarded the flight. From the cell phone aggregation service—the company Toby had hooked her up with. She thought she’d thrown away two hundred bucks, but the report arrived as promised, a one-page map showing blue pins at two locations in Tulum.
The first was the Moloko Bar, where Charlotte—or someone pretending to be Charlotte—had made the call. It verified the caller ID. But more interesting was the se
cond blue dot. It pinged for only one day at an address a few blocks away from the bar. Maybe that was where the caller lived or was staying. If Maggie showed the report to her dad—who at that moment was ordering another beer and beaming—he wouldn’t be able to focus on anything else. Whatever fun they were going to squeeze in before going to the Moloko Bar would vanish. She was going tell him, just not right away. Maybe if she waited, the trip would be about them.
She looked across the cabin at her father again. Yeah, who was she kidding?
CHAPTER 45
MATT PINE
“Is he always like this?” Matt looked over at his grandfather, who sat catatonic in his old armchair in the nursing home suite. Matt and his aunt were at the small bistro-style dining table. The room was larger than the one his grandfather had occupied when Matt was a boy. And it was cozy, decorated with framed family photos, houseplants, and furniture Matt remembered from his grandfather’s house. Whatever you could say about his gruff aunt, she’d taken good care of her dad.
“He’s gotten much worse this year,” Cindy said. “But when your mom visited, he came alive. She always had that effect on him.”
“Does he know?”
Cindy shook her head. She didn’t say so, but Matt could tell she thought there was no point in telling his grandfather about the tragedy. Matt didn’t push it. But didn’t his grandfather have a right to know that his daughter was dead? That his son-in-law had perished? That two of his grandchildren were gone?
There was a tap on the door and a nurse came into the room. She had a smile on her face—until she noticed Cindy.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Ford, I didn’t know you were still here. I can come back.”
“Where’s Alvita?” Cindy said. “I told Chang that my father didn’t need a series of strangers tromping in and out of here. He likes Alvita. I like Alvita.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. Ford. She’s off today.”
Cindy frowned.
“I’ll come back,” the nurse said, retreating as fast as she could out of the room. Matt didn’t blame the woman.
Cindy turned back to Matt. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“It’s about the services.”
Matt had already fielded dozens of texts from Cindy about the funeral, and wondered how there could possibly be more questions—more decisions about the flowers, the photos to display, the program, the obituary, and the other things Matt cared nothing about. He supposed immersing herself in the details was how Cindy was coping with the grief.
“Noah Brawn would like to have the wake at his home,” Cindy said.
Matt thought about this. “Mom’s high school boyfriend? The guy from the documentary? Won’t it be weird to—”
“Look, it’s not ideal. I frankly never liked Noah when we were growing up. But he’s the governor of the state now. The reason your grandpa has this big room. And I think your parents would want this.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I’m not so sure that my—”
“We need Noah for Danny’s pardon.”
And there it was. His brother’s case had dominated his family in life, so of course it would dominate in death. There was no use fighting about it.
“Okay.”
“And I know you haven’t wanted to talk about it, but we need to take care of your parents’ affairs. The house, their credit cards, the will, the life insurance, the—”
“You’re right, I don’t want to talk about it,” Matt said. It came out more sharply than he’d intended, reminded him of the outrageous newspaper story from that morning suggesting he and Danny had killed their family for insurance money. He needed to shake it off. In a softer tone, he said, “After the funeral, I promise.”
Cindy looked like she was going to protest, but stopped herself. Purposefully changing the subject, she said, “So what did those assholes the Adlers want?”
She’d asked him the same thing on the car ride over, but he’d shrugged it off. “I guess they’re making a sequel,” Matt said.
Cindy’s expression turned to disgust. “I’ll never forgive myself for letting them interview me. The way they treated your father. And now they want to put everyone through it all again? It makes me sick.”
Cindy’s eyes were misty. The first sign of emotion other than irritation or anger Matt had seen in his aunt since he’d arrived in Adair. He reached across the table and put his hand on hers.
Cindy gave a sardonic smile. “We’re a pair, aren’t we?”
Matt didn’t know what she meant by that.
“All we’ve got is a guy who doesn’t recognize us, and another guy in prison for life.” There was dark humor in her voice, masking the pain.
“No,” Matt said. “We’ve got each other.”
It was the right thing to say, the kind thing to say. But the truth was, Matt felt alone. And he wondered if he would always feel this way. Wondered if the loss and pain would always consume him. Wondered if he’d ever recover from the magnitude of it all. Eyeing his frail grandfather staring out at nothing in his beat-up La-Z-Boy, Matt decided that Cindy was right. Grandpa was lucky he’d never know the truth.
CHAPTER 46
SARAH KELLER
Since watching the video at the Adlers’ farmhouse, Keller had thought a lot about Charlotte’s cousin and the theory that Charlotte was alive. It just didn’t ring true. For one, if it wasn’t Charlotte who was murdered, who was the young woman with her skull crushed in at the creek? And how did the police and prosecutors screw that up? Charlotte’s father might have been abusing her. And she might not be the innocent cheerleader portrayed in “A Violent Nature.” But that didn’t mean she was alive. Even if she was, what would it have to do with the death of the Pines?
Still, Keller wasn’t drowning in leads. She was playing the waiting game now. Waiting for the report on the DNA sample, waiting for the report on the facial rec of the man and woman in the photo Maggie Pine had sent her brother, waiting on a report from Carlita Escobar. So, Keller decided, she might as well confirm that it was Charlotte buried at that cemetery.
Short of digging up the body, Keller thought the best place to test the theory was with those who’d lived the case. Ordinarily, she’d confer with the local prosecutors and detectives. But they’d been under attack since the documentary aired, and had circled the wagons. That left Danny’s lawyers. Not his hippie lawyer at the trial, whom the documentary painted as borderline incompetent, notwithstanding the fortune the Pine family had paid him. And not the new white-shoe appellate lawyers the Adlers found too boring to carry the documentary’s sequel. Keller wanted to talk to Louise Lester, the passionate attorney who’d taken Danny’s case before the cameras were rolling. Who by all accounts was a skilled advocate.
Keller pulled her rental car into the strip mall in North Omaha. It had a payday loan company, a Dollar Store, and a nail salon. She scanned the address on her phone to make sure it was the right place. This was it, all right. Then she saw it, at the far end, a plain storefront with a small sign that read THE INSTITUTE FOR WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS.
Keller found Louise Lester at a cluttered desk hemmed in by piles of paperwork. The place had no walls, no separate offices or even cubicles. Just a large room with about ten workstations, the hum of chatter and clicking keyboards filling the air. It reminded Keller of an old-time pressroom.
These weren’t reporters, though. The Institute for Wrongful Convictions was staffed by volunteers—law students, retirees, social justice warriors—which was why Keller had assumed it was open on a Saturday. She felt an electricity in the room.
“Thank you for seeing me on short notice,” Keller said. She’d been saying that a lot lately.
Lester gave her a fleeting smile. She wore no makeup, and wore a threadbare suit that was too large for her frame. Keller suspected there was an attractive woman hiding in the boxy attire. Her look screamed, There are more important things than looking pretty.
�
�Just when you think it couldn’t get worse for the Pines,” Lester said, her tone melancholy. Like the loss wasn’t just professional.
“Did you know them well?”
“Mostly Evan. He was a real advocate for us. A wonderful man.”
“I saw him in the documentary. He was really passionate.”
Lester nodded. “Those fucking filmmakers made him seem unbalanced. I would’ve never participated if I’d known what they’d do to him. They had the nerve to ask me to help with the sequel, and I told them where they could stick their movie.” Lester took a cleansing breath, as if she were stopping herself from getting worked up. As if it were something she’d learned to do as a child to temper the fire naturally blazing through her veins. “I’m sorry,” she said. “The Adlers just aren’t my favorite people. Evan was one of the finest humans you’d ever hope to meet. He didn’t deserve what they did to him. And Judy and Ira, they used him in the worst kind of way. They couldn’t care less about him or Danny or the thousands of other wrongfully convicted.” She waved her arm around the room. “They just wanted the ratings. To hell with the truth. They just wanted to tell a good story.”
“You think the documentary was just a story?”
“Absolutely.”
“But you represented Danny Pine.”
“Of course. But not because of the half-assed theories in the documentary. Because his confession was laughably unreliable. I’ve got two dozen other cases that are even worse. But those kids weren’t white hometown football stars, the victims not pretty white girls.…”
Lester’s eyes flared. They had a vibrant intensity. Keller usually didn’t care for true believers. She thought they often suffered from tunnel vision, saw conspiracies that didn’t exist. Exhibit A was the Adlers back at the farmhouse. But as she eyed the woman across from her, Keller could only hope her twins would live life with such zeal.
Lester continued, “So do I think the Unknown Partygoer or Bobby Ray Hayes or the boogeyman killed Charlotte? No.”
