“You okay?” Officer Kemper eyeballed me.
“Yeah, I just …” I motioned toward the stairs by way of explanation. “I’ll be okay.”
“I thought you’d been inside already?”
“I was. I didn’t look.” It did sound odd now that I’d said it out loud.
“I thought you were his lawyer?”
“I am.”
“Then you’d probably better buckle the fuck up,” he said before starting off toward the kitchen.
Officer Gill was crouched down, inspecting the broken dish with gloved hands. “Interrupted burglary, I’m guessing.”
“But they didn’t take anything?” I asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“They tried to, though.” Officer Gill motioned to the quarters. “An addict, I’d guess. Desperation break-ins usually are. They probably heard you, got startled, took off.”
Officer Kemper drifted over to the back door, opened it with an elbow, then stepped through, studying the backyard for a moment. I considered objecting to this patently absurd burglary theory. Someone totally unrelated to Amanda’s murder just happening to break in days later to steal a bunch of quarters? But Officer Gill would argue it wasn’t a coincidence: the house had been empty since—what, Saturday or Sunday morning—anybody keeping an eye out would be able to see that.
“You can run the fingerprints, right?” I asked as Officer Kemper stepped back inside. “On the door. They probably touched it on the way out.”
“Yeah,” Officer Gill said, sarcastic again. “Sure we can.”
“Are you saying you won’t?” I demanded.
“Nothing’s been taken and nobody’s been hurt,” Kemper offered diplomatically. “This isn’t going to be a top priority.”
My face flushed—part frustration, part embarrassment. “For all we know, the person who broke in here could be responsible for Amanda Grayson’s death. You’re telling me the police won’t try to figure out who it was?”
“Wasn’t your client arrested for that?” Officer Gill asked.
“He was arrested for assaulting an officer,” I shot back. “Anything to keep him where the DA can watch him.”
Officer Gill huffed quietly, but there was something resigned about it. Like she didn’t actually disagree. She held up her hands.
“Listen, we’ll put a request in to get the crime scene unit detectives back out here. We’ll also call the borough evidence collection team that handles property crimes.” She lowered her hands, placed them on her hips. “You’ll get one or the other. All I’m saying is that you’re gonna need to be patient.”
A few minutes later the officers were gone and I was alone in the house again. I made my way back out to the living room and then finally closer to the stairs. I looked up again the length of the metal banister, back down to that large circle of smeared blood on the floor.
And then I saw something on the second to the last stair. It was to the side, hardly visible against the blackened steel of the tread. I stepped closer. It was a pattern in the blood that could have been a print—fingers, a palm. Definitely it could be. What if the police had missed it? It was very hard to see. What if they hadn’t tested other prints on the wall? That also didn’t seem impossible under the circumstances. The crime scene was a mess and there’d been an excellent suspect already in hand.
As soon as the police stepped through the door, they’d have seen their prime suspect standing there, his own golf club at his feet, dead wife at the bottom of his stairs. Once they heard about the sex party, they’d have been even less worried about casting a wider net. And fair enough. The vast majority of female murder victims were killed by a loved one. Having settled on Zach as suspect number one, everything from that point forward would have been about the prosecution building a case.
From a former prosecutor, that wasn’t a judgment, it was a fact. It was also a fact that it was now my job to stop that particular freight train from barreling any farther down the track. And it felt more important now than ever. The outstanding warrant may have left me briefly questioning his trustworthiness, but the intruder in his house had left me more convinced than ever: Zach was an innocent man.
KRELL INDUSTRIES
CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION
Attorney-Client Work Product
Privileged & Confidential
June 26
To: Brooklyn Country Day Board of Directors
From: Krell Industries
Subject: Data Breach & Cyber Incident Investigation—Progress Report
The following is a summary of key data collected and interviews conducted. Preliminary conclusions will be made next week.
Data Collection
A review of Brooklyn Country Day information systems has revealed a series of malicious hacks beginning on April 15 of this year. On April 30 a more significant intrusion was made into Brooklyn Country Day data systems. At that time, it appears extensive family data—including emails, home addresses, birthdates, and private phone numbers—was obtained.
Interview Summaries
SUBJECT FAMILY 0005: Female Primary Parent (FPP) received an email from an anonymous source stating that if she did not comply with $20,000 demand, details of her husband, Male Primary Parent (MPP)’s, involvement with Terry’s Bench (a dating site for married individuals) would be posted on Park Slope Parents (PSP), a local parenting site.
SUBJECT FAMILY 0006: Female Primary Parent (FPP) stated voluminous and disturbing pornography, including so-called peeper porn, was emailed to her along with a demand for $20,000 cash transfer and the claim that said offensive material had been found on subject family computer. Failure to comply with the cash transfer demand would result in the offensive material being posted to PSP along with information that it belonged to Subject Family 0006.
Lizzie
JULY 7, TUESDAY
The sun set as I sat on Zach’s front steps, waiting for Millie to arrive. Reaching out to her had been a reflex, though as I waited I couldn’t shake a sinking sense of unease. On the one hand, as a former police sergeant turned respected private investigator and old family friend, Millie was an obvious choice. On the other hand, calling Millie came with obvious complications, especially given all her recent emails I’d ignored.
I didn’t usually avoid Millie’s emails, but they also didn’t usually have “please call me” in the subject line. And I’d only just heard from her a few weeks ago. Something was up, clearly. And, yes, I was deliberately delaying finding out what it was. Poor Millie. All these years, all she’d been trying to do was help. And she had. Proof that no good deed goes unpunished.
Of course, Millie being Millie, when I called and asked her to come she hadn’t mentioned my ignoring her. She’d asked only for Zach’s address and assured me she was on her way.
At least the calls about Case were now behind me. They’d been much worse than I was prepared for. The young residential adviser who’d answered the phone at Case’s camp had burst into tears when I told her about Amanda and then was in such a rush to put Case on the phone that I’d barely managed to stop her.
Luckily, I’d then spoken to the significantly calmer camp director, who’d agreed to keep Case away from the news and then had given me the number for the parents of Case’s friend—Ashe, it turned out, not Billy. That call had been even more upsetting. Ashe’s parents had known Amanda well, had been friends with her. The wife was so distraught she’d dropped the phone and screamed.
“This is so awful,” Ashe’s father said over and over when he was finally on the line. “God, Case—he’s like a member of our family.”
It was difficult to hear him over his wife’s guttural sobbing in the background. But eventually he had pulled it together enough to come up with a plan. By the end of the call, I was certain he would pick up Case and Ashe that weekend and deliver the news in a responsible, caring fashion.
I felt so relieved when I finally spotted Millie’s compact, athletic frame headed my
way. Her once-forceful stride was noticeably slower, but it had been a long time. And even from that distance, Millie still exuded that air of comforting forthrightness that had always been her best quality.
I was in the eighth grade the first time I ever really talked to Millie. Lots of cops came into my parents’ diner because it was right around the corner from the Tenth Precinct in Chelsea. Millie wasn’t just another cop, though. She’d been a good friend of my mom’s for years.
Millie was never as charmed by my dad, though. She always seemed to be peering into him, trying to figure out what made him tick. For my part, I was mostly trying to steer clear of him in those days. My father was obsessed with my studying for New York City’s hypercompetitive public-high-school entrance exam. It was all he talked about. Do well on that test, and my dad was sure it would be my ticket to a whole new economic class. His ticket, too, I could tell.
Luckily, my mom could not have cared less about that stupid test. To her, I was perfection the moment I was placed in her arms. She loved me with such raw ferocity and blind faith that I was all but convinced I could fly.
My mother’s love was outmatched only by her protectiveness. By eighth grade, she had finally started to let me walk alone to the Apollo in the afternoons. My school was only a few blocks from the diner, and all my friends had been taking the subway alone, much longer distances, for years. Still, for her it was a huge concession to permit me that small measure of independence. She worked twelve hours a day at the Apollo my entire childhood, but only when I was in school or asleep so that I would have sworn that I had the world’s best stay-at-home mom—homemade costumes for the Greek Independence Day Parade and lovingly baked koulourakia and hours of attentive listening; my terrible piano playing, my reading aloud of the trashy romance novels she hated, and my overly detailed tales of childhood triumph and occasional tragedy.
I’d arrived late at the Apollo that day. It was pouring rain, and I’d left a book at school. But my mom didn’t even seem to notice the time. She was sitting in a booth with Millie, who was dressed in plainclothes. Millie looked more human that way, but she had the usual fierce look in her eye—a woman accustomed to forcibly moving men. She always had a warm smile, too, and a big laugh that my mom seemed to find contagious. It was only with Millie that she laughed with her head tipped back. But not on that day. On that day neither of them looked happy. And they were holding hands.
“Sit, sit.” My mother waved me over the second I was in the door.
When Millie looked up, I could see that her eyes were teary. Later, I would learn that her wife, Nancy, had just been moved into hospice. Breast cancer. But I was thirteen at the time, and all I cared about was not being around an adult who was about to cry. I was desperate to slip away, but no one disobeyed my mother.
“Show Millie that puzzle,” my mother said, pointing until I’d sat dutifully. “The one from school you did for me yesterday. She could use some distraction.”
Be kind, I could hear my mother silently commanding. Do a good thing for this sad woman who is my friend. And so, even though I wanted to dive under the table, I did as I was told.
“I hear your dad has killed the summer trip to Greece again this year,” Millie said once my mother was gone.
I shrugged, trying to hide my surprise that my mother had shared that with her. “I guess.”
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you lots of questions,” Millie went on. “I actually don’t want to be sitting with you either.” My eyes shot up. But Millie’s expression was straightforward, not like she meant it meanly, but like it was the truth. She leaned in closer to whisper. “I mean, we’ll just pretend for a few to make your mom happy. We’d both do anything for her, right?”
Once Millie drew closer on the street, I noticed how thin her face was, her skin papery. How long had it been since we’d actually seen each other in the flesh? More than a decade maybe. Longer than I’d let myself think about. Millie and her emails were in a secret box, one that I peeked into as required, but which I otherwise stored far away.
“Look at you,” Millie said quietly, staring up at me from the bottom of Zach’s stairs.
I stood. “I’m sorry, Millie … Your emails—I’ve been really underwater at work, a—”
Millie held up her hand and shook her head as she made her way up the steps. “No, no,” she said. “I’m glad that you called.”
“It’s good to see you,” I said, trying to ignore the burning in my throat as Millie and I exchanged a quick, firm hug. She felt noticeably frail in my arms.
“You know I’m always here to help,” she said. “In any way I can.”
That was certainly true and it was because of her friendship with my mom. Guilt, too. Millie had always felt more responsible than she should have for the way things turned out. Like if she’d been able to find the guy who swindled my dad, my family would have survived.
“Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”
Millie looked for a moment like she might say something more, but instead she nodded and turned to eye Zach’s brownstone. “Now, what the hell happened here?”
Inside, we stood at the edge of the living room side by side, staring at all that blood at the bottom of the steps. I’d given Millie the background on Zach and Amanda, such as it was. I’d explained that Zach and I had been pretty good friends in law school, but that I hadn’t seen him in years.
“Well,” she began, eyeing the staircase, “at least this isn’t your mess to clean up.”
“Look at this,” I said, stepping over to that swirled pattern in the blood on the metal tread of the second to last step. I pointed. “Isn’t that part of a handprint? And maybe one fingerprint?”
Millie moved closer and tilted her head. “Could be,” she said, not sounding especially impressed. “Sure.”
“The police tonight were pretty blasé about taking prints in the kitchen, and that was after I told them I thought whoever was here probably had something to do with what happened to Amanda. I mean, they said they’d put in the request to get a team out here, but who knows? What if whoever was here the first time missed that print? It is hard to make out. I don’t see any fingerprint dust anywhere, either. Maybe they didn’t print anything.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Millie said. “They’d have run prints. And there’s lots of ways to lift a print, tape and whatnot. Dust is only for latent prints, not visible ones. It is possible they missed this one, with what a disaster this place is. But my guess is they probably did take it. Real issue is what happens when that print doesn’t belong to your guy and isn’t in the system. NYPD will eventually get elimination prints from friends, housekeepers, that kind of thing. But that’ll take time. They get them as they interview people. And what’s the rush when they think they’ve got their man?” Millie frowned equivocally. “There isn’t a police department in the country that’s got the resources to prioritize looking for alternate suspects to undermine a good case. But you know all that. You were a prosecutor. By the way—not that it matters, I’m here to help you, not him—but do you think your client did it?”
“No,” I said without hesitating. But also without elaborating. Because that remained the whole of my opinion on the matter of Zach’s innocence. I didn’t think he had killed Amanda.
“Of course, given the right circumstances, anyone is capable of anything.” Millie turned to look at me. “We both know that.”
“Yeah,” I said, looking away. “We do.”
We stayed quiet then for an awkward moment. I kept my eyes on the stairs. Looking at all the blood was better than facing Millie. Was she going to insist that we talk about everything, right now?
“Can whatever it is wait just a couple more days?” I asked, heading her question off at the pass. I motioned to the stairs. “I need to deal with this first, okay?”
“Okay. A couple more days.” She took a deep breath. “Let me make some calls and see how fast I can get someone of our own down here to lift prints
, including that one on the stairs. I’m sure the NYPD will send a team for the kitchen, and I can wait until they get here. Once we’ve got our own prints to work with, we can make whatever comparisons we want. We’ll get a blood spatter person, too. In the meantime, why don’t you try to find the golf bag—the club came from somewhere—and whatever else upstairs might be interesting. Investigators might have ‘overlooked’ something that wasn’t useful to them. Try not to touch anything with your bare hands, though, and take off your shoes. Let’s not corrupt the scene any more than necessary.”
While Millie got on the phone, I made my way up the steps, trying not to look too closely as I stepped around the blood in my stocking feet. At the top, well past all the blood, there was what looked to be fingerprint dust, so the NYPD had indeed done something. Upstairs, I passed Case’s spotless but cheerfully childlike bedroom and headed onward to Zach and Amanda’s master suite at the front of the house. I used the edge of my shirt to open their door.
The master bedroom was massive, spa-like and serene. Every surface was bright white—from the linens to the curtains to the walls—and yet somehow the exact right shade so as not to be sterile or cold. I tried to imagine Zach and Amanda snuggling in that huge fluffy bed late on Saturday, Case in between them, but I just could not picture it.
I turned away from the bed and headed toward the closet in search of the golf clubs or, as Millie had said, anything else that might be useful. A vast walk-in, with warm lighting and a small bench in the center, the closet had artfully arranged floor-to-ceiling racks and cubbies and endless amounts of extremely expensive clothing on hangers. I knew such closets existed in mansions somewhere, but in Brooklyn—even in a house as nice as Zach’s—it was hard to process. It also wasn’t a closet for golf clubs. Downstairs, maybe, or wherever they kept the rest of their sporting equipment. They had a child. They probably had a designated area for such things.
A Good Marriage Page 11
