Murder House

1

Noah Walker stands carefully on the roof of his house, takes a moment to ensure his balance, and removes the Yankees cap from his head to wipe the sweat off his brow under the scorching early-June sun. He never minded roofing work, but it’s different when it’s your own roof, the place you’re renting, and the only reason you’re doing it is the landlord will take six months to get to it, and you’re sick of water spots on the ceiling.

He runs his hands through his thick, wavy hair. The Matthew McConaughey look, Paige calls it, noting that he has the physique to match. He’s heard that comparison for years and never thought much of it. He never thought much of what anyone thought or said about him. If he did, he sure as hell wouldn’t still be living in the Hamptons.

He hears the crunch of car tires down the road, the hum of a powerful, well-maintained engine. The unpaved roads just off Sag Harbor Turnpike are uneven at best, sometimes bumpy and other times outright treacherous. Not like the roads by the ocean, by the forty-thousand-square-foot mansions where the elite like to “summer.” Not that he should bitch too much about the blue bloods; he makes twice as much from May to August, doing their bidding, as he does the rest of the year combined. He fixes what they need fixed. He digs what they need dug. He stomachs their condescension.

“Paige,” he says to himself, even before her black-on-black Aston Martin convertible pulls into his driveway and parks next to his nineteen-year-old reconstructed Harley. She’s not being discreet. She should probably be more careful. But back here in the woods where he lives, people don’t mingle with the wealth, so there’s no real danger of this getting back to Paige’s husband, John Sulzman. It’s not like his neighbors are going to run into Paige’s husband at some high-society event. The closest people like him have ever come to a tuxedo is watching penguins on the Discovery Channel. Same zip code, different world.

Paige floats out of her convertible with the same grace with which she always carries herself. Noah feels the primal yearning that always accompanies the first sight of her. Paige Sulzman is one of those people for whom beauty is effortless, a privilege, not a chore. In her white hat and polka-dot dress, one hand holding the hat in place in the wind, she looks every bit the Manhattan socialite she is, but she hails from upstate originally and has maintained a sense of proportion and humility.

Paige. There’s something refreshing about her. She is a natural beauty, with her shiny blond hair and killer figure, her softly upturned nose and stunning hazel eyes. But it’s not just her looks. She has a sharp wit, the ability to laugh at herself, the manners of a well-raised girl. She’s one of the most sincere and decent people he’s ever known.

She’s pretty good in bed, too.

Noah climbs down the back and meets her inside the house. She rushes to him and plants her lips against his, her hands on his bare chest.

“I thought you were in Manhattan,” he says.

She gives him a mock pout with those juicy lips. “That’s not much of a greeting, mister. How about, ‘Paige, I’m so very thrilled to see you!’”

“I am thrilled.” And he is. He first saw Paige three years ago when he was cleaning the gutters on the Sulzman estate. Her image lingered with him long after. It was only six weeks ago that the stars aligned.

The prospect of Paige has always been both exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating, because he’s never met someone who could light that flame inside him quite like she can. And terrifying, because she’s married to John Sulzman.

But all that can wait. The electricity between them is palpable. His big rough hands trace the outline of her dress, cup her impressive breasts, run through her silky hair, as she lets out gentle moans and works the zipper on his blue jeans.

“I’m going to leave him,” she says to him between halting breaths. “I’m going to do it.”

“You can’t,” says Noah. “He’ll... kill you.”

She lets out a small gasp as Noah’s hand reaches inside her panties. “I’m tired of being afraid of him. I don’t care what he — what he — oh — oh, Noah—”

He lifts her off her feet and they bump against the front door, pushing it closed with a thud, a sound that seems to coincide with a similar sound, another door closing outside.

Noah carries Paige into the family room. He lays her down on the rug and rips her dress open, buttons flying, and brings his mouth to her breasts, then slides down to her panties. A moment later, her underwear has been removed and her legs are wrapped around his neck, her moans growing more urgent until she is calling out his name.

He moves upward and works his jeans down, freeing himself. He braces himself over Paige and gently slides inside her, her back arching in response. They find a rhythm, first slow and then urgent, and the sensation courses through Noah, the intensity building, a dam about to burst—

Then he hears another door closing. Then another.

He stops, suddenly, and raises his head.

“Someone’s here,” he says.

2

Noah pulls on his underwear and scrambles to his haunches, staying low. “Are you sure your husband—”

“I don’t see how.”

She doesn’t see how? John Sulzman has endless resources, more money than some small countries. He easily could have tailed someone like Paige, who is far too innocent to notice something like that.

Noah takes one deep breath; his heartbeat slows and his veins turn icy. He finds his jeans on the floor and fishes the knife out of his back pocket.

“Go upstairs and hide,” he tells Paige.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

He doesn’t bother to argue the point. Paige wouldn’t listen, anyway.

And besides, they’re not here for Paige. They’re here for him.

Noah hears movement outside, not voices and nothing deliberate, which makes it worse — they aren’t announcing themselves. He stays low and slips out of the living room, but not before catching a glimpse through the window of bodies in motion, some rushing around the side of the house, others toward the front door.

A small army is descending on his house. And he has nothing but a roofing knife.

In the hallway now, he faces the front door. There is little point in hiding. If he hid, they’d find him, and they’d be braced for action when they did, their guns poised, fanned out in some defensive formation. No, his only option is to get them when they come in, when they think they’re sneaking in on a lovers’ tryst, when they think Noah won’t be ready for them. Surprise them, hurt them, and escape.

He hears the back door slam open at the same time that the front doorknob turns slowly. They’re coming from both directions at once. He has almost no chance.

But he has nothing to lose, he figures, as he tightens his grip on the knife.

He moves one leg back, like a sprinter locking into his blocks before a race, ready to spring toward the front door with his knife, as the doorknob completes its rotation, as his pulse drums in his throat, as the front door pops open.

He lunges forward, ready to sweep the knife upward—

— a woman, a redhead dressed in blue jeans and a flak jacket, a gun held at her side, a badge dangling from a lanyard around her neck—

— A badge? —

— he tries to halt his momentum, falling to his knees, sliding forward. The woman spins and kicks up her leg, and Noah sees the treads of her shoe just before impact. His head snaps back from the kick. His body arches and his head smacks the floor, stars and jagged lines dancing on the ceiling.

“Drop the knife or I drop you!” she says evenly. “STPD.”

Noah blinks hard, his heartbeat still hammering. STPD.

The police?

“Toss the knife, Noah!” says the redheaded cop as several other officers flood in behind her.

“Jesus, okay.” Noah drops the knife to the floor. Blood drips into the back of his mouth. A searing pain shoots through his nose and eyes.

“Don’t move!” the other officers yell at Paige. “Hands in the air!”

“Don’t hurt her!” Noah says. “She didn’t do any—”

“Noah, you resist me again and I’ll put you in the hospital.” The redhead puts her foot on his chest. Despite his predicament, and the pain drumming through his head, and the fear gripping his heart, he registers this cop for the first time, her striking ice-blue eyes, her shiny red hair pulled back, her confidence.

“What — what is this?” he manages. His initial reaction of relief — nobody’s going to kill him — is short-lived, especially with the crew of cops flooding in from the back now. Ten officers, he guesses, all wearing bulletproof vests and heavily armed.

Why?

“You don’t have the right to do this!” Paige shouts from the other room. It comes out as half protest, half lecture, the kind of thing a person with money would say, someone who doesn’t shrink in the face of the cops like others might.

About the only thing Noah can see, through his blurred vision, is the female cop staring down at him. He’s in his underwear, flat on his back with her foot on his chest and a pretty good shiner developing from the kick to his face. But hearing Paige’s cry sets off something within him.

“This is my home,” he hisses, his hands forming into fists. “You have a problem with me, knock on my door and tell me.”

“We have a problem with you, Noah,” she says. “Feel better?”

Noah’s eyes catch Detective Isaac Marks, whom Noah has known for years, going back to school days. Marks doesn’t give much of a reaction, save for a small shrug of one shoulder.

The redhead orders Noah to roll over. She cuffs him and yanks him to his feet. The sudden movement, coupled with the concussive effects from the kick to his face, leaves Noah’s legs unsteady.

“This is ridiculous,” he says. “Does Dr. Redmond say I took his Rolex again? Tell him to look in the couch cushions.” It wouldn’t be the first time one of the gazillionaires misplaced something and accused the help of pilfering it. A movie producer once had Noah arrested for stealing his golf clubs, only to realize later he’d left them in the trunk of his car. “And do you think you brought enough cops?”

“Is that why you rushed me with a knife?” asks the redhead. “Because you thought I wanted to question you about a watch?”

“He knows this isn’t about a Rolex.” Noah recognizes the voice before he sees Langdon James swagger into the house. He’s been the chief of the Southampton Town Police Department for over fifteen years. His jowls now hang over his collar, his belly over his belt, and his hair has gone completely gray, but he still has the baritone voice and thick sideburns.

What the hell is the chief doing here?

“Detective Murphy,” the chief says to the redhead, “take him to the station. I’ll handle the search of his house.”

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Noah demands, unable to conceal the fear choking his voice.

“Be happy to,” says the chief. “Noah Walker, you’re under arrest for the murders of Melanie Phillips and Zachary Stern.”

3

The funeral for Melanie Phillips is heavily attended, filling the pews of the Presbyterian church and overflowing onto Main Street. She was all of twenty years old when she was murdered, every day of which she lived in Bridgehampton. Poor girl, never got to see the world, though for some people, the place you grew up is your world. Maybe that was Melanie. Maybe all she ever wanted was to be a waitress at Tasty’s Diner, serving steamers and lobster to tourists and townies and the occasional rich couple looking to drink in the “local environment.”

But with her looks, at least from what I’ve seen in photos, she probably had bigger plans. A young woman like that, with luminous brown hair and sculpted features, could have been in magazines. That, no doubt, is why she caught the attention of Zach Stern, the head of a talent agency that included A-list celebrities, a man who owned his own jet and who liked to hang out in the Hamptons now and then.

And that, no doubt, is also why she caught the attention of Noah Walker, who apparently had quite an affinity for young Melanie himself and must not have taken too kindly to her affair with Zach.

It was only four nights ago that Zachary Stern and Melanie Phillips were found dead, victims of a brutal murder in a rental house near the beach that Zach had leased for the week. The carnage was brutal enough that Melanie’s service was closed-casket.

So the crowd is due in part to Melanie’s local popularity, and in part to the media interest, given Zach Stern’s notoriety in Hollywood.

It is also due, I am told, to the fact that the murders occurred at 7 Ocean Drive, which among the locals has become known as the Murder House.

Now we’ve moved to the burial, which is just next door to the church. It allows the throng that couldn’t get inside the church to mill around the south end of the cemetery, where Melanie Phillips will be laid to rest. There must be three hundred people here, if you count the media, which for the most part are keeping a respectful distance even while they snap their photographs.

The overhead sun at midday is strong enough for squinting and sunglasses, both of which make it harder for me to do what I came here to do, which is to check out the people attending the funeral to see if anyone pings my radar. Some of these creeps like to come and watch the sorrow they caused, so it’s standard operating procedure to scan the crowd at crime scenes and funerals.

“Remind me why we’re here, Detective Murphy,” says my partner, Isaac Marks.

“I’m paying my respects.”

“You didn’t know Melanie,” he says.

True enough. I don’t know anyone around here. Once upon a time, my family came here every summer, a good three-week stretch straddling June and July, to stay with Uncle Langdon and Aunt Chloe. My memories of those summers — beaches and boat rides and fishing off the docks — end at age eight.

For some reason I never knew, my family stopped coming after that. Until nine months ago when I joined the force, I hadn’t set foot in the Hamptons for eighteen years.

“I’m working on my suntan,” I say.

“Not to mention,” says Isaac, ignoring my remark, “that we already have our bad guy in custody.”

Also true. We arrested Noah Walker yesterday. He’ll get a bond hearing tomorrow, but there’s no way the judge is going to bond him out on a double murder.

“And might I further add,” says Isaac, “that this isn’t even your case.”

Right again. I volunteered to lead the team arresting Noah, but I wasn’t given the case. In fact, the chief — my aforementioned uncle Langdon — is handling the matter personally. The town, especially the hoity-toity millionaires along the beach, just about busted a collective gut when the celebrity agent Zach Stern was brutally murdered in their scenic little hamlet. It’s the kind of case that could cost the chief his job, if he isn’t careful. I’m told the town supervisor has been calling him on the hour for updates.

So why am I here, at a funeral for someone I don’t know, on a case that isn’t mine? Because I’m bored. Because since I left the NYPD, I haven’t seen any action. And because I’ve handled more homicides in eight years on the force than all of these cops in Bridgehampton put together. Translation: I wanted the case, and I was a little displeased when I didn’t get it.

“Who’s that?” I ask, gesturing across the way to an odd-looking man in a green cap, with long stringy hair and ratty clothes. Deep-set, creepy eyes that seem to wander. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, unable to stay still.

Isaac pushes down his sunglasses to get a better look. “Oh, that’s Aiden Willis,” he says. “He works for the church. Probably dug Melanie’s grave.”

“Looks like he slept in it first.”

Isaac likes that. “Seriously, Murphy. You’re looking for suspects? With all you know about this case, which is diddly-squat, you don’t like Noah Walker for the murders?”

“I’m not saying that,” I answer.

“You’re not denying it, either.”

I consider that. He’s right, of course. What the hell do I know about Noah Walker or the evidence against him? He may not have jumped out at me as someone who’d just committed a brutal double murder, but when do public faces ever match private misdeeds? I once busted a second-grade schoolteacher who was selling heroin to the high school kids. And a teenage volunteer who was boning the corpses in the basement of the hospital. You never know people. And I’d known Noah Walker for all of thirty minutes.

“Go home,” says Isaac. “Go work out—”

Already did this morning.

“—or see the ocean—”

I’ve seen it already. It’s a really big body of water.

“—or have a drink.”

Yeah, a glass of wine might be in my future. But first, I’m going to take a quick detour. A detour that could probably get me in a lot of trouble.

4

Langdon James closes his eyes for just a moment and raises his face to the sun shining down on the backyard cocktail party. In these moments, with a slight buzz from the gin and the elite of Southampton surrounding him, he likes to pretend he is one of them, one of the socialites, the mega-wealthy, the trust fund babies and personal injury lawyers, the songwriters and tennis pros, the TV producers and stock speculators. He is not, of course. He wasn’t born with a silver spoon, and he was always more street-savvy than book-smart. But he has found another route to power, through a badge, and most of the time, that is enough.

There are at least a hundred people in the sprawling backyard, most of them blue bloods, all of them here to support the reelection of Town Supervisor Dawn McKittredge and her slate, but really here to be seen, to eat elaborate hors d’oeuvres served by waiters in white coats and talk about their latest acquisition or conquest. They don’t live here year-round, and the only relevance the governing authorities of the town hold for them is the rare zoning issue that may arise — water rights, land use, and the like — or in Chief James’s case, the occasional drug bust or DUI or dalliance with prostitutes from Sag Harbor.

“Nice day, Chief.”

Langdon turns to see John Sulzman. He’s had a place on the ocean in Bridgehampton, a tiny hamlet incorporated within Southampton, for over a decade now. Sulzman made his money in hedge funds and now spends half his time in DC and Albany, lobbying legislatures and cutting deals. His net worth, according to a New York Post article Langdon read last year, is upwards of half a billion. Sulzman’s on his third marriage — to the lovely Paige — and what appears to be his third or fourth Scotch, judging from the slurring of his words. He’s wearing a button-down shirt with the collar open and white slacks. He is overweight, with a round weathered face and a full head of hair if you count the toupee, one of the better ones Langdon has seen, but still — don’t these guys realize everybody knows?

“John,” says the chief.

“I understand Noah Walker is in custody,” says Sulzman, as if he’s commenting on the weather. “I understand you were there, personally.”

“I was.” The chief takes a sip of his gin. No lime, no tonic, no stirrer. To all appearances, he could be drinking ice water, which is the point.

“I saw the police report,” says Sulzman. “What was in it, and what was not.”

His wife, he means. The chief didn’t mention Paige in the police report, thus concealing her presence from the media. John Sulzman probably thinks he did it to curry favor, but he didn’t. There was no need to include her. She had nothing to do with the arrest, other than being a bystander.

But if Sulzman sees it as a favor — well, there are worse things.

“It’s not a well-kept secret that you have your eyes on the sheriff’s job, Chief.”

Langdon doesn’t answer. But Sulzman is right. The Suffolk County sheriff is retiring, and it would be a nice cap-off to Langdon’s law enforcement career.

Sulzman raises his glass in acknowledgment. “Ambition is what makes the world go round. It’s what drives men to excel at their jobs.”

“I always try to do my best,” says the chief.

“And I try to reward those who do.” Sulzman takes a long drink and breathes out with satisfaction. “If Noah Walker is convicted, I’ll consider you to have excelled at your job. And I’ll be eager to support your next endeavor. Are you familiar with my fund-raising efforts, Chief?”

It so happens that the chief is. But he doesn’t acknowledge it.

“I can raise millions for you. Or I could raise millions for your opponent.”

“And who would my opponent be?” The chief looks at Sulzman.

Sulzman shrugs and cocks his head. “Whoever I want it to be.” He taps the chief’s arm. “And do you know who else is familiar with my fund-raising efforts? Our town supervisor. Your boss.”

Chief James takes another sip of his gin. “Would that be a threat?”

“A threat? No, Chief. A promise. If Noah Walker goes free, there will be people in this community — maybe I’ll be one of them — who will call for your head.”

John Sulzman is not known for his subtlety. When you’re worth five hundred million dollars, you probably don’t have to be. So if Noah is convicted, the chief is a lock to be the next sheriff. If Noah walks, the chief can kiss his current job, and any future in law enforcement, good-bye.

“Noah Walker is going to be convicted,” says the chief, “because he’s guilty.”

“Of course he is.” Sulzman nods. “Of course.”

This conversation should be over. It never should have started, but it should definitely end now. A guy like Sulzman is smart enough to know that.

And yet Sulzman hasn’t left. He has something else to say.

“There’s a... new officer on the case?” he asks. “A woman?”

The chief whips his head over to Sulzman.

“Your niece,” says Sulzman, clearly pleased with himself for the knowledge he’s obtained, and happy to throw it in the chief’s face. “Jenna Murphy.”

“Jenna’s not on the case,” says the chief. “She handled the arrest, that’s all.”

“I only mention it because I understand she had some issues with the NYPD,” says Sulzman.

“The only ‘issue’ she had is she’s an honest cop,” Langdon snaps. “Truth is, the day she arrived, she was the best cop on our force. She’s as smart as they come, and she’s tough and honest, and she wouldn’t put up with corruption she found in Manhattan. She wouldn’t go along with dirty cops, and she wouldn’t look the other way.”

Sulzman nods and purses his lips.

“It’s not her case, John,” says the chief.

Sulzman appraises the chief, looking him up and down, then square in the eye. “I just care about the result,” he says. “Make it happen. Make sure Noah Walker goes into a very deep hole. Or there will be... consequences.”

“Noah Walker is going into a hole because—”

“Because he’s guilty,” says Sulzman. “Yes, I know. I know, Lang. Just... don’t forget this conversation. You want me as a friend, not an enemy.”

With that, John Sulzman makes his exit, joining some acquaintances under the shade of the tent. Chief Langdon James watches him leave, then decides he’s had enough of this party.

5

As the funeral for Melanie Phillips ends, I say good-bye to my partner, Detective Isaac Marks, without telling him where I’m going. He doesn’t need to know, and I don’t know if he’d keep the information to himself. I’m not yet sure where his loyalties lie, and I’m not going to make the same mistake I made with the NYPD.

I decide to walk, heading south from the cemetery toward the Atlantic. I always underestimate the distance to the ocean, but it’s a nice day for a walk, even if a little steamy. And I enjoy the houses just south of Main Street along this road, the white-trimmed Cape Cods with cedar shingles whose colors have grown richer with age from all the precipitation that comes with proximity to the ocean. Some are bigger, some are newer, but these houses generally look the same, which I find comforting and a little creepy at the same time.

As I get closer to the ocean, the plots of land get wider, the houses get bigger, and the privacy shrubs flanking them get taller. I stop when I reach shrubbery that’s a good ten feet high. I know I’ve found the place because the majestic wrought-iron gates at the end of the driveway, which are slightly parted, are adorned with black-and-yellow tape that says CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS.

I slide between the gates without breaking the seal. I start up the driveway, but it curves off to some kind of carriage house up a hill. So I take the stone path that will eventually lead me to the front door.

In the center of the wide expanse of grass, just before it slopes dramatically upward, there is a small stone fountain, with a monument jutting up that bears a crest and an inscription. I lean over the fountain to take a closer look. The small tablet of stone features a bird in the center, with a hooked beak and a long tail feather, encircled by little symbols, each of which appears to be the letter X, but which upon closer inspection is a series of crisscrossing daggers.

And then, ka-boom.

It hits me, the rush, the pressure in my chest, the stranglehold to my throat, I can’t breathe, I can’t see, I’m weightless. Help me, somebody please help me—

I stagger backward, almost losing my balance, and suck in a deep, delicious breath of air.

“Wow,” I say into the warm breeze. Easy, girl. Take it easy. I wipe greasy sweat from my forehead and inhale and exhale a few more times to slow my pulse.

Beneath the monument’s crest, carved into the stone in a thick Gothic font, are these words:

Okay, that’s pretty creepy. I take a photo of the monument with my smartphone. Now front and center before the house, I take my first good look.

The mansion peering down at me from atop the hill is a Gothic structure of faded multicolored limestone. It has a Victorian look to it, with multiple rooflines, all of them steeply pitched, fancy turrets, chimneys grouped at each end. There are elaborate medieval-style accents on the facade. Every peak is topped with an ornament that ends in a sharp point, like spears aimed at the gods. The windows are long and narrow, clover-shaped, with stained glass. The house is like one gigantic, imperious frown.

I’ve heard some things about this house, read some things, even passed by it many times, but seeing it up close like this sends a chill through me.

It is part cathedral and part castle. It is a scowling, menacing, imposing structure, both regal and haunting, almost romantic in its gloom.

All it’s missing is a drawbridge and a moat filled with crocodiles.

This is 7 Ocean Drive. This is what they call the Murder House.

This isn’t your case, I remind myself. This isn’t your problem.

This could cost you your badge, girl.

I start up the hill toward the front door.

6

I’m transported back hundreds of years, to a time when you rode by horseback or carriage, when you lived by candlelight and torches, when you treated infections with leeches.

When I close the front door of the house at 7 Ocean Drive, the sound echoes up to the impossibly high, rounded ceiling, decorated with an ornate fresco of winged angels and naked women and bearded men in flowing robes, all of them appearing to reach toward something, or maybe toward one another.

The second anteroom is as chilling and dated as the first, with patterned tile floors and more of the arched, Old Testament ceilings, antique furniture, gold-framed portraits on the walls of men dressed in ruffled shirts and long coats, wigs of wavy white hair and sharply angled hats — formalwear, circa 1700.

The guy who built this place, the patriarch of the family, a guy named Winston Dahlquist, apparently didn’t have a sense of humor.

My heels echo on the hardwood floor as I enter the airy foyer rising up three stories to the roof. Every step I take elicits a reaction from this house, fleeting coughs and groans.

“Hello,” I say, like a child might, the sound returning to me faintly.

The stairs up to the second floor are winding and predictably creaky. The house continues to call out from parts unseen, aches and hiccups and wheezes, a centuries-old creature drawing long, labored breaths.

When I reach the landing, it seizes me again, stealing the air from my lungs, pressing against my chest, blinding me, No, please! Please, please, stop—

— high-pitched childlike squeals, uncontrollable laughter—

Please don’t, please don’t do this to me.

I grasp the banister so I don’t fall back down the stairs. I open my eyes and raise my face, panting for air, until my heartbeat finally decelerates.

“Get a grip, Murphy.” I pass through ornate double doors to the second-floor hallway, where the smell greets me immediately, the coppery odor of spilled blood, the overpowering, putrid scent of decay. I walk along a thick red carpet, the walls papered with red and gold, as I approach the bedroom where Zach Stern and Melanie Phillips took their last breaths.

I step onto the dark hardwood floor and look around the room. Gold wallpaper is everywhere. Against one wall is a king-sized canopy bed with thick purple curtains and sturdy bedposts. The bed is dressed in a purple comforter and ruffle with velvet pillows, some of which are still on the bed, some of which lie on the floor. The dark wood dresser holds two pewter statuettes that were probably bookends for the thick volumes of short stories that also now lie on the floor. The statuettes, as well as an antique brass alarm clock, are knocked to the side on the dresser.

Opposite the bed, made of wood that matches the dresser, is a giant armoire. And in the far corner of the room, south of the armoire and west of the dresser, is the bathroom.

I remove copies of the crime-scene photos I xeroxed from the file. Zachary Stern was found lying facedown on the floor, his head turned to the right toward the door, his feet pointed toward the bed. Beneath him was a pool of blood and other bodily excrement from the horrific stab wound to his midsection. Several of his fingers were crushed as well. Melanie Phillips was found by the armoire opposite the bed, the back of her right hand touching the armoire’s leg; she was lying on her stomach like Zach, her head to the left, her eyes open and her mouth frozen in a tiny o. She was stabbed more than a dozen times, in the breasts and torso and then in the face, neck, back, arms, and legs.

Now back to the scene. The comforter on the bed has been pulled back on the left side, showing a large blood pool where Zach was first stabbed while lying in bed. There is blood spatter on the wall behind the bed, and a thick sea of blood embedded in the floor where he died. There is blood spatter on the armoire and all over the nearby floor where Melanie lay as she died.

Two more facts: Judging from the fresh semen found inside Melanie and on Zach’s genitalia, it seems clear that the two of them had had sexual intercourse not long before they were killed. And as of now, barring DNA testing that is still pending, there is no physical evidence putting Noah Walker in this house — no fingerprints, no carpet fibers, no shoe or boot prints.

And now the theory the STPD and the district attorney are running with: Noah was obsessed with Melanie. He somehow learned of her affair with Zach and followed her here. We don’t know how he got in. The front door should have been locked, and no damage was done to it. In any event, he lay in wait until they had completed their sexual intercourse, when they were relaxed, when their guard was down, to spring into the room.

Noah surprised Zach in bed, plunging his knife into Zach’s chest and dragging the blade downward, causing a vertical cut of roughly five inches, tearing open the esophagus and stomach. At this point, Melanie, who was in the bathroom cleaning up, came out. Noah subdued her by the dresser, knocking over the books and alarm clock and stabbing her multiple times in the breasts and torso before throwing her to the floor by the armoire, where he continued to stab her from behind, slicing her cheek and ear and neck and then her back, arms, and legs. He then returned to Zach and threw him out of the bed and onto the floor, stomping on and crushing some of Zach’s fingers in a blind rage.

I move to the corner beyond where Zach’s body was found and squat down, trying to get the angle right and using the photos to make sure I’m accurate. Where Zach would have been lying on the floor, with his head to the right, his sight line travels beyond the edge of the bed to the armoire. I repeat the same exercise from Melanie’s vantage point and get the same line of vision, from the opposite end.

I remove my compact from my purse and squat down by the leg of the armoire that Melanie’s right hand touched. I curl the compact under the armoire and around the leg so I can see the back of it. As I thought, the wood is abraded — scraped and cut.

Ten minutes later, I’m walking on Ocean Drive toward Main Street, on my cell phone with Uncle Lang. “Melanie Phillips was handcuffed to the armoire’s leg,” I say. “He made her watch the whole thing. This wasn’t an act of blind rage, Chief. This was a calculated, well-executed act of sadism.”

7

I get back to my car and drive to see the chief, who is away from the office this afternoon (don’t ever tell him he has the day off, because he’ll spend a half hour explaining that the chief of police never has a day off). My uncle lives on North Sea Road in a three-bedroom cottage set back from the road and flanked with well-manicured shrubbery that always reminds me of a defensive military formation.

The front door is unlocked and open. It smells like it always smells in here, musty guy scent: dirty socks and body odor combined with the latest fast-food takeout he ate. A bachelor pad, ever since Aunt Chloe left him two years ago.

On my way to the back porch, I detour to the kitchen, open his fridge, and peer inside. Cartons of Chinese takeout, half a Subway sandwich in its wrapping, a twelve-pack of Budweiser with three cans remaining, a long stick of summer sausage, a pizza box shoved in the back. Oh, yes, and then a tall plastic container of sliced fruit that’s packed to the rim, and a batch of veggie lasagna, still in the shrink-wrapped casserole dish, with only one square cut out of the corner.

I find Uncle Lang out back, sitting in a chair overlooking his lawn, a water sprinkler doing its thing, the air steamy as a sauna. Lang is wearing a button-down shirt and slacks and decent loafers. I’d forgotten he had that fund-raiser earlier today.

“Heya, missy,” he says to me. His eyes are small and red. The glass of gin in his hand isn’t his first of the day. He probably drank gin at the fund-raiser and pretended it was ice water.

I kiss his forehead and sit in the chair on the other side of the small glass table, the one holding the bottle of Beefeater.

“You haven’t touched the fruit I cut up for you,” I say. “And the veggie lasagna? What’s the deal there? You preserving it for posterity?”

He sips his gin. “I don’t like spinach. I told you that.”

“Yeah?” I turn to him. “And what’s your excuse for the fruit?”

He waves me off. “I don’t know, it’s... mushy.”

“It’s pineapple and melon and cantaloupe. You like them.”

“Well, it’s mushy.”

“That’s because you let it sit there for a week. I cut it up a week ago and you didn’t touch it. Not one piece.” I whack the back of my hand against his shoulder.

“Ow. Don’t hit me.”

“I’ll hit you if I want to hit you. You’re like a child. You’re like a little kid. That spinach lasagna is delicious.”

“Then you eat it.”

“Hopeless,” I say. “You’re hopeless. You know your doctor’s appointment is next week. You think Dr. Childress is going to say, ‘Congratulations, Chief, a month of eating meatball sandwiches and fried chicken and French fries did the trick — your cholesterol has plummeted!’”

Lang pushes the empty second glass over toward me and gives me a crosswise look. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, missy.”

“I’m looking out for the well-being of my only living family.”

“No, you’re deflecting. You call me up and tell me you’ve been to the crime scene, which you know you’re not supposed to do, since this isn’t your case, so you try to put me on the defensive about my eating habits.”

I pour myself a glass of gin. One won’t kill me. “Ten gets you twenty that the abrasions on the armoire leg came from a handcuff. He made each of them watch the other die,” I say. “He immobilized Zach and he handcuffed Melanie to the armoire. He made them watch each other bleed out.”

“Jenna—”

“This guy knew what he was doing,” I say. “He stabbed Zach in a place where he wouldn’t die instantly. I mean, he could have sunk that knife into his heart, or slit his throat. Instead, he stabbed him in a place that would cause incredible pain and a slow death. And when Zach made any feeble attempt to raise himself up, he stomped on his hands. And he did the same thing to Melanie. Every time she tried to move, he stabbed her. She kicked her legs, and he stabbed her in the calf. She raised her free arm, and he stabbed her in the triceps—”

“Jenna—”

“These were sadistic, brutal torture-murders,” I say, “not crimes of passion committed by a jealous lover.”

“Crimes of passion can be sadistic, Jen—”

“Do you really think if Noah was in love with Melanie, he’d watch Zach have sex with her first? Why wouldn’t he rush in while they were in the heat of it?”

“Hey!” the chief shouts. “Do I get a word in here? I’ve heard enough. There is protocol, and there is a chain of command, and nobody breaches that in Southampton. If you think just because you’re my niece—”

“Of course I don’t think that. And I’m just trying to help—”

“You’re not helping. You’re not helping at all!” The chief coughs into his fist, his face turning red. He needs to take better care of himself. I can make all the heart-healthy meals the culinary world has to offer, but I can’t make him eat them. I can tell him to walk a couple of miles a few times a week, but I can’t walk them for him.

He ignores every bit of advice I give him. He openly defies me on a daily basis. So why do I love this grouchy old man so much?

“Why am I not helping?” I ask.

Lang polishes off his glass of gin and composes himself. “Because Noah Walker confessed,” he says.

I draw back. “He... confessed?”

“Ah, the hotshot from NYPD doesn’t have all the answers, does she?” Lang pours himself another inch of gin. “He confessed this morning. So don’t you go writing up a report that I’ll have to show a defense lawyer. Not when this thing is tied up in a bow.”

“Noah confessed,” I mumble, raising the glass to my lips. “I’ll be damned.”

“Noah Walker is guilty, and Noah Walker confessed,” he says. “So do me a favor and move along.”

8

The Dive Bar is aptly named, dark in every way, from the dim lighting to the oak furnishings, with the Yankees on the big screen, mirrors behind the bar sponsored by various breweries, and nothing but some fried appetizers on the menu for those who dare eat. But the people are friendly and laid-back. It’s a place to disappear, and disappearing sounds good to me at the moment. It started as a glass of wine, and then it became three, and I’m thinking it’s five now. Once I started, I couldn’t think of a good reason to stop.

This place is locals only — tradesmen and laborers and the occasional cop — which I prefer, because it’s high season in the Hamptons and all the money’s in town. Not that I don’t enjoy seeing men with cardigans tied around their necks and women with so much work done on their faces that they’ve begun to resemble the Joker. Just not on my day off. And not after the day I’ve had, making a jerk out of myself in front of my uncle, the guy who gave me a second chance.

I should stop drinking. My thoughts are swimming and my mood is darkening. I’m still not sure I made the right move, coming to the Hamptons. I could have found something else to do in Manhattan, or I could have tried to find another big city and start over, even if I had to start at the bottom rung again on patrol. But my uncle the chief made me an offer, and nobody else was knocking down my door.

“Shit,” I say, the word slow and heavy on my tongue. I check my watch, and it’s nearing six o’clock in the evening. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and my stomach is hollowed out and churning. (Some might argue that’s an apt summary of my life, too.)

“Whatever, man. Whatever! You know I’m good for it! How long I been comin’ here?”

The small outburst comes from the guy at the end of the bar, whom I’ve managed not to notice since I’ve been here. Or maybe he just arrived. My brain isn’t hitting on all cylinders right now.

He’s dressed the same way he was today at Melanie Phillips’s funeral, a dark T-shirt that I might otherwise use to wipe my kitchen counter, a green ball cap turned backward, his long, strawlike hair popping out on both sides and covering his ears.

“Jerry,” I say to the bartender. That’s a good bartender name, Jerry. “Put his beer on my tab.”

Jerry, a portly guy with a big round head and a green apron, gives me a crosswise look. I nod and he shrugs, pulling on the lever to fill Aiden Willis’s mug with a Budweiser he couldn’t afford.

Aiden’s deep-set eyes move in my direction. He doesn’t say anything. There may be a glint of recognition, if he noticed me at the cemetery. My biggest flaw as a cop is my bright-red hair. When I was undercover for a year and a half and didn’t want to be memorable, I dyed it black.

I go back to my Pinot, trying to remind myself that I’m off duty but wondering if Aiden the cemetery caretaker will come over. When I glance back up a few minutes later, Aiden is still looking at me, his beer untouched. He doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, just stares with those raccoon eyes. But even his stare isn’t really a stare. His eyes move about, wandering aimlessly, always returning to me but never staying on me.

My cell phone buzzes, a text message. Ten mins away. R U at home?, the message reads. My hesitation to respond surprises me, but there it is. Always trust your gut, my father used to say. Sometimes it’s all you have.

Well, Pop, I had a gut feeling about Noah Walker, and look where that got me.

I type in the address of the bar and hit Send. I look back to the corner of the bar, where Aiden’s mug remains full of beer, but Aiden himself is gone.

I’m into my next glass, which now puts me at about five too many, if anyone’s counting, when the door of the place pops open and a lot of people’s chins rise. I don’t even need to turn around to know it’s Matty, who would stick out in this place like an oil stain on cotton. A moment later, an arm comes over my shoulder and playfully around my neck. His cologne greets me next, before his face is against mine. This is where I’m supposed to swoon with unbridled delight.

“Hey, gorgeous. What’s with the depressing-bar thing?”

Matty Queenan is a Wall Street investor with a job I can’t really describe because I’ve never really understood all the financial hocus-pocus these guys pull. All I really understand is that it’s a game without rules: You pick a winner for your clients, then bet on them to lose behind their backs, and if everything goes to shit, the little guy will get screwed but the government will bail you out.

“Want a drink?” I ask Matty.

“Here? No. Let’s go someplace decent.”

I look at Jerry, who pretends he didn’t hear what Matty just said.

“Seriously, Murphy. This place is a dump. I’m going to need a tetanus shot—”

“Keep your voice down.” I’m standing now, whispering harshly in his ear. “People can hear you. You’re being rude.”

He takes me by the arm, but I pull away. “Jerry,” I say, “I apologize for my rude friend, and please buy everyone a round on me.” I slap a fifty on the bar, having already paid for my other drinks, and get some applause for the gesture along with some hard stares in my boyfriend’s direction.

I hear my cell phone ring in my purse, but I’m too hacked off to do anything but storm out of the place, Matty not far behind.

9

“What’s with the asshole routine?” I say to Matty as soon as I’m back in the sweltering heat outside.

“What’s with being half in the bag before I show up? What’s with hanging out in a seedy dive like that?”

I turn to look at my boyfriend of eleven months, the first two of which we spent together when I lived in the city, the last nine of which have been long-distance. I probably am a little tipsier than I should be, but he didn’t even call and let me know he was coming until a few hours ago, when he was already on his way. That’s Matty for you, always on his own schedule, just assuming I’ll drop everything and jump into his arms when he shows up.

Okay, to be fair, it’s not like I was working on my doctoral thesis or trying to end world hunger when he called.

I turn back to him. Matty looks like a Wall Street guy even when he dresses down, in an Armani sport coat, silk shirt, and expensive trousers, with Ferragamo shoes that would consume an entire paycheck of mine, his long hair slicked back. He’s got the looks, no doubt. His confidence, more than anything, drew me to him when we met — guess where — at a bar in Midtown.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, moving to me. “I like you when you’re tipsy.”

I push his hands away. “Those people in there are nice folks. You insulted them.”

He thinks for a moment, then puts a hand on his chest. “Then I will march back in there and give a bar-wide apology. Will that make Jenna happy?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead raising his arm and checking his watch. “I just decided something,” he says.

I guess I’m supposed to ask what. A few one-liners leap to mind.

“I just decided that this place is bad for you. You don’t belong here. Just seeing you in the bar seals it. You need the city, kiddo. This place is depressing you.”

“Manhattan would depress me,” I say, even though in some ways, there’s no place I’d rather be. There’s no place like it in the world. But I got to know it through a cop’s eyes, and seeing it otherwise now would be like a cruel joke every day.

“Well, we need to figure something out,” he says as we reach his Beemer, fire-engine red with a beige interior. “This commute is a bitch.”

“It’ll be better after Labor Day, when the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts take off.”

“Talk about depressing,” he says as he uses his remote to pop the locks. “Summer’s the only time this place is interesting. Hey,” he says as I open the passenger door.

“Hey what?”

He nods at me. “Are you going to change? We’re going to Quist.”

For the first time, I take an inventory of myself. I’m wearing a sleeveless white blouse, blue jeans, and low heels. But even the nicest places — and Quist is the nicest, a hotel restaurant opened by some celebrity chef — have a pretty relaxed dress code in the summer.

“Let’s swing by your place,” he says. “Wear that lavender dress I bought you. Then you’ll be turning heads.”

“But I won’t turn heads in this?”

He chuckles at his faux pas. “C’mon, you know what I mean. We’re going to a five-star restaurant. You really want to look like that?”

I hike my purse back over my shoulder and remember my cell phone, the call I missed a moment ago. I pull out my iPhone and see that the call came from “Uncle Langdon,” which I really should change to “Chief James” now.

Taking another look at my phone, I see that the chief actually called me twice, once a minute ago and once twenty-four minutes ago.

Still standing outside the car, I dial him back.

“Jenna Rose,” he answers, the only person who’s ever incorporated my middle name when addressing me. The only one who’s lived to tell about it, anyway. “I was about to give up on you.”

“How can I help you, Chief? Were you looking for my recipe for grilled asparagus? It’s not that hard. Just grill the asparagus.”

“No, missy, not just now. You wanted to work a homicide, right?”

I spring to attention. “Yes, sir. Absolutely.”

“Then get your butt in gear, Detective,” he says. “You just got a homicide. One you may never forget.”

10

“It’s my job. It’s not like I have a choice,” I say to Matty, his knuckles white on the leather steering wheel of his Beemer as we drive along the back roads. “A woman was murdered.”

“It can’t wait until after dinner? She’ll still be dead.”

I close my eyes. “You didn’t really just say that, did you?”

The back roads are narrow and winding and unforgiving, two lanes at best, with no shoulders. Driving them in the dark is even worse. But without the back roads, the locals in Bridgehampton would collectively commit suicide during the tourist season, when the principal artery — Main Street or, if you prefer, Montauk Highway — is clogged like a golf ball in a lower intestine.

“I passed up Yankees tickets on the third-base line,” he says. “Sabathia against Beckett in game one.”

I know. I watched it in the bar. Sabathia got tagged for six earned runs in five innings. “It’s my job,” I say again. “What am I sup—”

“No, it’s not.”

“What do you mean, it’s not—”

“Not tonight it’s not!”

We find our destination, lit up by the STPD like a nighttime construction job, spotlights shining on the scene deep within the woods. The road has been reduced to one lane by traffic cones and flares.

Matty pulls up, puts it in park, and shifts in his seat to face me. “Don’t act like you have no choice. There are detectives on duty right now. You’re not one of them. You didn’t have to take this assignment. You wanted it.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Sorry about your Yankees tickets.”

“Jenna, c’mon.”

I step out of the Beemer and flash my badge to the uniform minding the perimeter. I dip under the crime-scene tape and watch my step as I walk through the woods, with their uneven footing and stray branches.

It’s a large lot, undeveloped land full of tall trees, with a FOR SALE sign near the road. Whoever did this picked a remote location.

Isaac Marks approaches me. “Bru-tal,” he says. “C’mon.” I follow him through the brush, my feet crunching leaves and twigs. “The guy who owns this lot found her,” he says. “Nice old guy, late seventies. He was stopping by for some routine maintenance and heard a swarm of insects buzzing around.”

I slow my approach when I see her. It’s hard to miss her, under the garish lighting. She looks artificial, like a museum exhibit — Woman in Repose, except in this case, it would be more like Woman with a tree stump through her midsection.

“Jesus,” I mumble.

The woman is naked, arms and legs splayed out, her head fallen back, as she lies suspended several feet off the ground, impaled on the trunk of a tree that has been shaved down to the point of a thick spear.

Technicians are working her over right now, photographing and gently probing her. The insects buzzing around her are fierce. She’s suffered some animal bites, too. That, plus the look of her skin, gives me an approximate window on time of death.

“She died... maybe one, two days ago,” I say.

Isaac looks at me. “Very good, Detective. At least that’s what the ME is saying at first glance. One to two days.”

“That’s a significant difference, one versus two days.”

“Yeah? Why?”

“Two days ago,” I say, “Noah Walker was a free man. But one day ago, we took him into custody, and he couldn’t have done this.”

“You’re connecting this with Noah Walker?” Isaac gives me a crosswise glance. “This is nothing like those murders.”

I move in for a closer look at the victim. This nameless woman, hardened and discolored now, with the ravages of nature having taken their toll, is hard to categorize. I’m thinking she’s pretty young, from the bone structure and lithe build. Early twenties, maybe, what appear to be nice features, and beautiful brown hair hanging down inches from the grass.

She was pretty. Before some monster impaled her on a wooden spear like a sacrificial offering to the gods, this woman was pretty.

“No ID yet,” says Isaac. “But we have a missing-persons from Sag Harbor that we think will check out. If it does, then this is...” He flips open a notepad and holds it in the artificial light. “Bonnie Stamos. Age twenty-four. Couple of arrests for take-a-wild-guess.”

“She was a working girl.” Not terribly surprising. The clients a prostitute serves come in all shapes and sizes, but it’s like I felt when I was on patrol, approaching a car I’d just pulled over — you’re never really sure what’s waiting for you.

“This is totally different than what we found on Ocean Drive,” Isaac says. “Those were a bloodbath. This thing is... what... posed, I guess. Dramatic. Like some ritual thing, some ancient Mayan ceremony. How do you connect these two crimes?”

I squat down next to the tree stump and gesture at it. “See the side of the tree and the surrounding grass and dirt?”

“I see blood everywhere, if that’s what you mean.”

“Exactly,” I say. “Blood everywhere. Her heart was still pumping. That’s how I connect these crimes.”

“Not following.”

“She was still alive when he did this, when he impaled her on the tree trunk.” I stand back up and feel a wave of nausea. “The symbolism was incidental, a means to an end,” I say. “He wanted her to die a slow death, Isaac. He wanted her to suffer.”

11

The chief has the porch light on for me when I walk up the steps to his house. The squad car that drove me here idles in the driveway. The door is open, and Uncle Lang has a bottle of gin and two glasses on the kitchen table. Dirty dishes are piled high in the sink just as they were earlier today, with evidence of meal choices — remnants of dried catsup or smears of brown gravy, a bit of hamburger. The floor could use a good wash, too. The clock on the wall says it’s almost two in the morning.

My uncle doesn’t look well. He’s gained a lot of weight since Aunt Chloe left him two years ago. His face is splotchy, broken capillaries on his prominent nose, his eyes rimmed with heavy bags. He’s wearing a wife-beater T-shirt that accentuates his added poundage, tufts of curly white chest hair peeking over the top.

“You don’t look good,” he says to me.

I kiss him on the forehead before I turn to the refrigerator. “I was just thinking the same about you. Still drinking, I see.” I take another glance into his refrigerator. The fruit container still hasn’t been touched, but a second square is missing from the pan of spinach lasagna.

I look back at him with an eyebrow raised.

“See?” he says. “I listen to you.”

“Yeah?” I take a seat across from him. “And if I look through your trash, will I find an entire square piece of lasagna, without a bite taken?”

“Now you’ve insulted me. I’m insulted.”

That’s not a denial. But I can’t spend every waking moment hectoring him.

“I’m serious, though,” Uncle Lang says. “You look worn out. Are you still having nightmares?”

I shrug. It’s been a thing, since I returned to Bridgehampton. Usually they come at night, the sensation of choking, the terror, the desperate cries. What happened to me today, at 7 Ocean Drive, was the first time it ever happened during daylight.

Lang pours me an inch of gin and slides the glass across the table. “Maybe you never should have come back here.”

The thought has crossed my mind. It leads to another thought. “Why did my family stop coming here when I was a kid?” I ask.

The chief shrugs. “A story for another time.”

“So there’s a story. Something happened?”

Lang casts a fleeting glance at me, then deflects. “Did you move the body tonight?”

I nod. “We had to cut the tree from underneath her. Didn’t want to separate her from the trunk yet. Never know what forensics might pick up.”

“Good. Good that you moved her. I don’t need to see photos in the Patch tomorrow. This is a dead hooker, Detective. Not a dead hooker who was split in half on a tree stump like some human shish kebab. Understand me? A dead hooker, to the media. That’s it. Just another hooker adiosed in the Hamptons. That’s a one-day story.”

A one-day story. Appearances. Politics. There’s an election coming up, and the town supervisor is already feeling heat from the Zach Stern / Melanie Phillips murders. Another sensational murder would just add pressure. It’s good police procedure, too, not mentioning gory details to the press. In Manhattan, that plan never worked; the NYPD leaked like a colander. But here, it might.

“Your case has nothing to do with Noah Walker,” Lang says.

Oh, Isaac, you little shit. Talk about leaks. No wonder the chief wanted to meet me tonight. Isaac must have sneaked away from me in a free moment and called him. So now I know where his loyalties lie. That little twerp.

“Too early to tell,” I say.

The chief casts his eyes in my direction. He takes a sip of Beefeater and lets out a breath. “A few hours ago, you thought Noah was an innocent man, wrongly accused. Now you like him for the carnage in the woods, too.”

“I don’t like him or dislike him. Not yet. But it’s possible the prostitute was killed while Noah was still a free man, not yet in custody. I’m just playing all the angles. That’s what I’m paid to do.”

He makes a noise as he finishes another sip. “No, you’re paid to do what I tell you to do.”

“I’m a detective,” I say. “Once in a while, I try to detect.”

The gin is sharp on my tongue, hot down my throat, leaving a delicious citrus aftertaste. Tastes better than it should. I take the bottle and pour myself another. “Let me ask you a question, Chief.”

He shows me a wary look but doesn’t speak.

“Why did we go in so hard on the arrest?”

“What do you mean?” He pours himself another drink.

“When we arrested Walker. The SWAT team. The automatic weapons. We were braced for a firefight. Noah didn’t have any weapons.”

The chief’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t make eye contact with me. “Missy, you’re lucky you’re my favorite niece.”

“I’m your only niece.”

“Don’t fuck with my case, Jenna.” He slams down his glass. “I’ve got Noah Walker dead to rights. I need that solved. I’ve got orders from on high. You start tying this dead-hooker murder in with it, then we have to turn your report over to Walker’s lawyer, and he’ll play with that window of time — maybe two days, maybe three, maybe Noah was already in custody when the hooker got hers — and suddenly Clarence Darrow is saying that one person did both murders, and that one person couldn’t have been Noah Walker.”

“And what if that’s true?”

My uncle gives me a look that I remember seeing as a child, that look an adult gives when a kid is being adorably precocious, a combination of pride and annoyance. But in this case, the annoyance is outweighing the pride.

“Stay away from Noah Walker. Don’t make your case something it’s not.”

“Just ‘another hooker adiosed in the Hamptons,’ right?” I push myself out of the chair. “I’m not going to do it. I’m following the leads wherever they go. You don’t like it, relieve me.”

The chief looks exhausted. He gestures toward me, the sign of the cross, absolution from a priest. “You are hereby relieved of any responsibility for the dead hooker in the woods.”

“That’s bullshit, Lang!” With the back of my hand, I whack my glass off the table, smashing it against the sink.

“Yeah? You wanna go for a suspension, too?”

“Sure!”

“Great! You’re suspended without pay for a week.”

“Only a week?” I yell, lost in my rage now, spinning out of control.

“Fine, then, a month! How about dismissal? You want me to can you?” The chief rises from his chair, directing a finger at me. “And before you answer that, missy, remember that being a cop is all you know. And I gave you a second chance. You’d think that would buy me just a little bit of loyalty from you, but oh, no!”

I shake my head, fuming. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

He waves me away with a hand. “One-month suspension, Detective, effective immediately. Now get out of my house.”

12

For the first time in over a week, he breathes fresh air, he walks in grass, he wears his own clothes, he sees the sun, not over a concrete wall for one hour a day but out in the open. Noah Walker takes a moment to savor it before he steps into the minibus that will transport him to the train station for passage from Riverhead to Bridgehampton.

When he’s home, he first takes a shower — no fancy showerhead or immaculate tub, but at least a healthy flow of water, without mold on the fixtures, without raw sewage bubbling from the drain, without having to look over his shoulder to wonder whether he was going to have an unexpected visitor. The biggest problem with Suffolk County Jail in Riverhead was the temporary nature of it all. Nobody in Riverhead had been convicted of a crime — if they had, they’d be in prison. Riverhead was just a pretrial holding facility for people with unaffordable bail or no bail at all, and thus there was nothing in the way of remedial programs or education, no recreational facilities, no pretense of nutritious meals. It was just walls, a handful of books, a chaplain on Sunday, shit for food, and an overpopulation of pissed-off detainees. He met someone inside, a guy named Rufus, who’d been in county lockup for over four years waiting for his trial.

None of that for Noah. He’s demanded a speedy trial, his constitutional right. He can’t stomach the thought of waiting months, even years, wondering.

Out of the shower, hair dripping wet, feeling warm and refreshed, he picks up his cell phone and hits the speed dial.

“Are you out?” Paige says breathlessly when she answers.

“I’m out,” he says, thanks to her, and the checking account that bears only her name, that her husband doesn’t control. “I’m home now.”

“I can... I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

He feels a rush, a longing for her, tempered with fear. “Are you sure? What about—”

“I don’t care. I’ll figure something out. I’ll tell him something. I don’t think he knows about us. He’s never said a word—”

“He knows about us,” Noah says. Of course her husband knows. That has to be what’s going on here. John Sulzman is a man of boundless influence. Influential enough to snap his fingers and have someone thrown in prison? Noah’s no expert on backroom deals, but he doesn’t doubt it.

“Well, I’m coming. I can’t wait to see you!”

“Me too.” Noah closes his eyes. “Just... be careful,” he says.

13

Noah’s toes curl into the moist sand. He looks out over the Atlantic, black and restless in the dark, the post-rain breeze brushing his face. This is what freedom feels like, he thinks. This is what I missed the most.

He hears the familiar hum of the superior engine approaching. He stands and sees her Aston Martin pulling up in the lot. She pops out of the car and forgets to close the door. Noah is already running toward her.

No, he thinks, she is what I missed the most.

“I can’t believe it,” she manages as he scoops her up in his arms; she wraps her legs around him and grips his hair. Their mouths press against each other, more of a smash than a kiss. His body is charged with electricity.

“I didn’t... kill those people,” he whispers.

“You don’t need to say that to me. Of course I know that.” Paige strokes his face. “What can I do to help? Do you need money for a lawyer? A private detective?”

“You can’t do that,” Noah says. “John will—”

“I don’t care about John. You need someone on your side. I’ll do whatever I have to do. I won’t let you go through this alone. Tell me what you need.”

“I just need you. That’s all I need right now.” Noah draws her close, breathes in her fresh-strawberry scent, takes in the warmth of her body. As long as he holds her, which could be five seconds, could be an hour, there is no criminal indictment, there is no prospect of life in prison, there is only Paige, the woman he loves, the woman who loves him.

And then he hears another vehicle approaching.

Noah raises his head. The beach had been empty, thanks in part to the lateness of the hour but more so to the rainfall an hour ago. The approaching SUV is not familiar to him. It stops in the middle of the small parking lot that serves as the end of Ocean Drive, positioned so that its headlights are trained on Noah and Paige.

Noah walks around the Aston Martin to stand between the headlights and Paige, a protective gesture.

“Well, shit, timing sure is everything, isn’t it?” says Detective Isaac Marks, getting out of his vehicle. “Another case of coitus interruptus.”

“What do you want now?” Noah’s hands curl into fists. He moves toward Isaac.

“Easy, son, easy.”

Son. Noah’s always hated how cops talk to him, the condescension. But especially from Isaac Marks, who was the same year as him at Bridgehampton, and their history — and now he’s calling Noah son. What a difference a badge can make.

“Just stop right there, Noah. I wouldn’t want to interpret your movements as a threat. Then I’d have to violate you, wouldn’t I? Send you right back where you came from.” Isaac nods in Paige’s direction. “Of course, I could violate you right now for public indecency.”

Noah, fuming, stands his ground. How much he’d love to wipe that smirk off Isaac’s face. But that would be giving the cop exactly what he wants, to haul Noah back to Riverhead.

“Who’s your friend?” asks Isaac, moving around Noah, shining his Maglite in Paige’s direction. “Is that the same little honey from when we busted you?”

What an asshole. He knows very well it’s Paige. This whole thing is because of Paige. It has to be. This has to be John Sulzman’s doing.

“What do you want, Isaac?”

“That’s Detective Marks to you.”

“This is harassment!” Paige shouts. “We’re not hurting anybody, we’re not doing anything indecent at all! The only indecency here is the police harassing an innocent man. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time, Detective?”

“Lady, let me give you a piece of advice,” says Isaac. “I know it’s fun to slum it once in a while and fuck the hired help, but your stallion here, turns out he’s a vicious killer. Now, I don’t know how in glorious hell he came up with the cash to bond himself out, but you better believe we’re going to watch every move he makes, and we’re not going to let him be alone with another woman after what he did to that waitress—”

“I don’t know what’s going on here,” Paige says, frustration overtaking her composure. “But Noah is innocent, and it would be nice if the police department spent its time searching for a killer instead of following around someone who’s out on bail.”

“You’re a real feisty one, lady, you know that?” Isaac shows her his teeth. “All the same, if we see you two together again, Noah gets violated and heads back to jail.” He turns to Noah. “That simple enough for you to understand, Mr. Walker? See, lady, Noah here, he didn’t do so well in school—”

“Oh, you want to talk about school?” Noah approaches Isaac. For a moment, it’s like they’re back on the playground, two kids, not a cop and an accused felon. “You want to talk about old times, Isaac? Because I’ve got a lot of stories. You wanna tell her how you got your nick—”

“That’s enough, boy.” Isaac raises a finger. “One more word, and it’s back to Riverhead. Your choice.”

Noah sucks in a breath. There’s nothing he can say.

“There, that’s better,” says Isaac. “Mrs. Sulzman, you should be getting along now. Say good-bye to the Hamptons until next summer. Noah, he’ll be at Sing Sing by then, but I’m sure you can find another boy toy, some gutter cleaner to pass the time.”

With that, Paige breaks down, into tears and gasping breaths. Isaac swings his SUV in a three-point turn and drives away.

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,” Noah says, holding Paige, touching her wet face. “I’ll think of something.”

And then, just like that, like the snap of a finger, he does.

14

No, please don’t make me, I don’t wanna—

Childish giggles, pressure on my throat, darkness, then light—

A bird, an angry bird with a hooked nose, standing upright—

Please don’t make me—

I wake with a gasp, my head coming off the pillow, sucking in air, the sounds of giggling and desperate cries slowly fading, the pressure removed from my chest, hands no longer gripping my throat.

“Shit.” My breathing finally slows. The clock says it’s two minutes to seven. Who needs an alarm clock when you have nightmares every day?

I grab my iPhone and scroll through photos, spotting the picture I took of that little monument on the lawn at 7 Ocean Drive, that gray-and-black bird with the hooked beak and long tail feather. Yep, that was it, the same one from the nightmare. Great.

I shower, eat some toast and fruit, and chug two glasses of water to work off my hangover, courtesy of the two bottles of wine Matty and I had last night as a send-off, my last night of forced vacation before I resume my job. Matty is long gone, having left my apartment around five this morning to head back to Manhattan; I have a brief memory of his aftershave and a kiss good-bye.

I go to work for the first time in thirty days. I feel like a tourist stepping onto foreign soil, the uncertainty of it all, especially of the reception I’ll get from the natives when I show my face.

The Southampton Town Police substation in Bridgehampton is not exactly an intimidating place, nestled in the corner of an outdoor shopping mall called Bridgehampton Commons off Main Street, filled with chain shops like the Gap, Staples, Panera, a King Kullen grocery store, Victoria’s Secret, and yes, a Dunkin’ Donuts (I know, the jokes write themselves). The black patrol vehicles park in the south corner next to a row of tall recycling bins for clothes and shoes.

I park my beater in the back and walk into the substation, my bag over my shoulder and a general wariness in my gut. I get some mock applause from a couple of detectives who welcome me back after my one-month vacation. Isaac Marks isn’t there, the weasel. He probably has his nose up the chief’s ass right now.

Somebody tidied up my desk during my absence. Not that there’s much to it, other than a photograph of my parents, and one of my brother, Ryan. There was a particularly nice shot of the entire family with Uncle Langdon and Aunt Chloe at Coney Island that I used to have on my desk at the NYPD, but I didn’t want to emphasize the familial relationship here, with my uncle being the top dog. There’s some resentment already, some whispers of nepotism about my hiring, though nobody could accuse the chief of favoritism after my suspension.

“Chief wants to see you, Murph.” One of the administrative assistants, Margaret, drops a bunch of papers on my desk, mail and assorted paperwork.

“The chief’s here?” Lang doesn’t usually spend time at the substation, generally working out of headquarters on Old Riverhead Road.

When I enter his office, he seems to be expecting me, wiggling his fingers for me to come in and pointing to the seat opposite the desk while he finishes up a phone call. He finishes barking out directions to one of his deputies before hanging up and looking me over, a hand straying over his mouth.

“Sit,” he says.

“I’m fine standing.”

He folds his hands together. “When an uncle tells his niece to sit, she can say she’s fine standing. But when the chief tells one of his detectives to sit, she sits. And right now, Detective, I’m your chief.”

I look away, biting my tongue. He’s right. Whatever else, he’s right about this.

I take a seat.

“At least you didn’t quit,” he says. “I thought you might.”

I toss my shoulders, like the statement is irrelevant. I’m not going to quit. That’s the one thing I learned from the month I spent in Matty’s condo in Greenwich Village, dining out and going for long runs, sleeping in and watching old movies, catching some theater and Yankees games. I love living in Manhattan, but I love being a cop more. And if I lose this job with the STPD, nobody will ever give me another chance.

Lang riffles through some paper on his desk. “There’s a joint task force tracking heroin coming out of Montauk. You’re joining it today.”

My mouth comes open, but I don’t speak. Look, it’s not like I’m too good to work narcotics. My last assignment with the NYPD was working undercover on a major heroin ring. But I volunteered for that, because undercover work was a new challenge, and I’d come from Robbery-Homicide. Your basic narcotics task force — that’s below my experience level. It’s a clear step backward. And the chief, my dearest uncle, would know that better than anybody.

“Yes, sir,” I say. “Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

I nod and push myself from the chair. When I reach the doorway, he calls out to me. I turn back and look at him.

“I’m having a salad for lunch today,” he says. “And I’ve been walking a mile and a half every day for the last two weeks.”

I don’t smile. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. “Why would a detective care what her chief has for lunch? Or what his exercise regimen is?”

He winks at me without smiling. “You’re still my favorite niece.”

I’m his only niece. But I won’t take the bait.

“Don’t worry, your favorite niece still loves you,” I say. “But your favorite detective still thinks you’re a horse’s ass.”

15

“The supreme Court of Suffolk County is back in session,” calls the bailiff. “People versus Noah Lee Walker.”

Noah shakes his head quietly. He hates it when they announce the case name. It’s hard to feel like you have a fighting chance when it’s the entire State of New York against you. And his full name — nobody’s ever called him Noah Lee. It makes him sound like a presidential assassin or a mass murderer.

He’s probably starting to look like one, too. In the three months since his arrest, Noah has not cut his hair, which was on the longer side to begin with. Now it falls in waves around his unshaven face. USA Today was the first to use the nickname Surfer Jesus, but now even the Times and Nancy Grace have adopted it.

“Mr. Akers?” The judge, an intimidating, steely-faced, silver-haired man named Robert Barnett, looks over his glasses at the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Sebastian Akers. Akers is a tall man with thick dark hair and the clean-cut good looks of a varsity quarterback or presidential candidate. But it’s not just his looks; his presence, too, the confidence, the performance adrenaline; he’s a man who seems to grow a few inches, whose voice lowers an octave, as he stands before a courtroom bursting at the seams with spectators and reporters.

“May it please the court,” Akers says, buttoning his suit coat and positioning himself before the jury box. Fifteen sets of eyes — twelve jurors and three alternates — are fixed on the prosecutor. “Melanie Phillips was one of ours, born and raised in Bridgehampton. She didn’t graduate at the top of her class and she hadn’t yet attended college. But she had dreams. At age twenty, she worked day shifts at a seafood hut and took drama classes at night to realize that dream, the dream of becoming an actress. It may have been unrealistic. Sometimes dreams are. But this is America, and we all have the right to pursue our dreams, don’t we? But Melanie — Melanie never got that chance. Her life, her dreams were cut short when she was brutally murdered, stabbed and slashed over and over again in a rental house by the beach three months ago.”

Akers sits on that thought a moment, shaking his head with sadness. “Zachary Stern,” he says, and the jurors pop to attention again. “Long time ago, Zach had the same dream. He was an actor. Never made it big, but did it for years, a few commercials here, a couple of television appearances there. And when he finally realized that being a movie star wasn’t in the cards for him, he decided to help other people fulfill their dreams. He became an agent, one of the most successful in Hollywood. And one day, while vacationing in the Hamptons, he met Melanie Phillips. He was going to sign her. Would he have made Melanie famous? Maybe. But we’ll never know. Because Zach was murdered along with Melanie.”

Akers turns sideways, so that the jurors can clearly see Noah at the defense table. Akers turns his head toward Noah and raises his arm. “That man, Noah Lee Walker,” says Akers, jabbing his finger at him, “savagely killed Melanie Phillips and Zach Stern in a fit of rage, in the most brutal of ways. He sliced them open and left them for dead.”

Noah shakes his head and locks eyes with the jurors. His defense lawyer said not to respond, to look composed and dignified, but he can’t listen to that accusation without responding.

“It was a crime of passion, a crime of rage,” says Akers. “A crime of jealousy. You see, Noah Walker was in love with Melanie. He didn’t want to lose her to Zach Stern or to Hollywood. No, if you try to leave Noah Walker, this is the price you pay.”

Akers nods to his assistant, who pushes a button. Noah’s lawyer had argued desperately to keep this out of the trial, but the judge ruled against him.

The slide show that pops on the screen shows crime-scene photographs of Melanie, close-ups and full-body shots, her vacant eyes staring into space, her mouth barely open, a dozen cuts from a knife, some of them deeper, some superficial. The photos of Zach Stern aren’t much better, perhaps less graphic but still horrific. The jury recoils at them, audibly gasping and murmuring.

Then the screen goes blank. Akers walks over to the witness stand. “You will hear from people who knew Melanie and Noah. They will sit in this chair and they will tell you about that relationship. They will tell you about Noah’s obsession. They will tell you that Noah couldn’t bear the thought of losing Melanie, that he was insane with jealousy.” Akers walks over to the evidence table and lifts a bag. “You will hear expert testimony that this knife was stained with the blood of Zach and Melanie. And you will hear from Chief of Police Langdon James that he found this knife under a heating duct in Noah Walker’s kitchen floor, along with a charm necklace that Melanie had worn around her neck every day of her life since she was six years old.”

Akers takes a moment, waiting for his conclusion.

“And you will hear something else from Chief James. You will hear testimony that Noah Walker confessed to these murders, that when his guard was down, he admitted killing Melanie and Zach and explained exactly how he did it.”

Akers turns again and points at Noah. “We will prove all of this to you, ladies and gentlemen, that much I promise you. And when this trial is over, we will ask you to give Melanie and Zach the only thing that you can give them now: justice. We will ask you to return two verdicts of guilty of murder in the first degree against Noah Lee Walker.”

In ten minutes, Akers has summarized the whole thing in a way that makes Noah look obviously guilty. Akers has horrified them with the gruesome photos and appealed to their sympathy with the talk of Hollywood dreams dashed. Hell, he’s even made that bloodsucker Zach Stern sound like a swell guy.

Noah sees it in the jurors’ eyes, the way they follow the prosecutor as he returns to the defense table, the way they stare in Noah’s direction with contempt.

He’s going to need a miracle.

16

“Remy Handleman,” the bailiff calls out into the hallway, summoning the prosecution’s first witness.

Remy Handleman enters the courtroom and takes the witness stand. He is wearing a suit, but not one that he’s worn before. The jacket hangs limp over his shoulders and the collar is too wide. Remy’s probably never worn a suit in his life.

After he takes his oath, he runs a hand over his oily hair and fidgets in his chair, his hands likewise unable to find a comfortable place to rest. The behavior of a liar, a bad one, at least.

“Mr. Handleman,” says the prosecutor, buttoning his coat at the podium, “is your appearance here today pursuant to a subpoena?”

“My appear—” Remy looks down at himself. “Somebody said I should wear a suit. Is that what you mean?”

Despite his predicament, Noah can’t help but feel for Remy, who’s too dim to understand why everyone’s chuckling in the courtroom. Remy first came to Bridgehampton when Noah was a seventh grader. He was one of those needy kids who wanted everyone to like him and could never understand when they didn’t, and never stopped trying. Noah tried to befriend him, even defended him a couple of times from playground beatings, but Remy never quite fit in. He smoked a lot of weed and sold some, too. He was known to the STPD long before they first busted him selling Oxy behind a diner off the turnpike about four years ago.

“Mr. Handleman, were you acquainted with the deceased, Melanie Phillips?”

“Yeah, I knew Melanie. I go into Tasty’s for steamers, maybe a couple times a week.”

“Tasty’s was the restaurant where Melanie waitressed?”

“Uh-huh, yes.”

“Take us back to the first weekend of June this year, Mr. Handleman,” says the prosecutor, Akers. “Thursday, June second. Did you go into Tasty’s that day?”

“Yeah, I did. I had lunch there.”

“Who waited on you that day?”

“Melanie did.”

“Did you see the defendant there on that day, at that time?”

“Yeah.” Remy nods at Noah. “Noah was there. He was, like, like following her around.”

“Melanie was doing her waitressing duties, and Noah was following her around?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you hear them speak?”

“Yeah. Melanie was like, ‘Leave me alone.’ And Noah was like, ‘Give me another chance, I love you,’ stuff like that.”

“Mmm-hmm.” Akers nods with grave importance, as if the witness has just said something brilliant. Remy is anything but. But he’s not so stupid that he couldn’t recognize a deal when it was offered to him. Three months ago, the STPD busted him for the second time for selling Oxy, and the second bust was likely to mean serious prison time. It was awfully convenient, then, that he just happened to have information that would help the STPD solve one of the biggest murders the region had ever seen. Suddenly an eight-year sentence is pleaded down to twenty months, all because of his testimony today, his assistance in a high-profile double-murder trial.

“The defendant told Melanie he loved her?”

“Yeah.”

“And he asked Melanie to give him another chance?”

“Yeah, he said, ‘Give me another chance.’ And she said it was over.”

“She said it was over?” The prosecutor leans in, like the testimony is just getting interesting. “Did the defendant say anything else that you heard?”

“Yeah, he said, ‘You don’t just walk away from me.’ He, like, grabbed her when he said it.”

“He... grabbed her where?”

“Like, by the arm. She dropped a dish when he done it, too.”

“He grabbed her arm and said, ‘You don’t just walk away from me’?”

“Right.”

“And this took place just two days before Melanie was found dead?”

“Yeah, it sure did.”

Sebastian Akers shakes his head, as if he’s hearing this testimony for the first time and can’t believe how damning it is. “No further questions,” he says.

17

Week two of the Noah Walker murder trial. My first day attending, but it’s packed wall-to-wall, as it’s apparently been every day since it began. The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office has started a lottery for the general public’s admission and a separate one for the media, though if you’re a reporter, not drawing a lucky ticket just means you go to a spillover room down the hall to watch the trial on a closed-circuit television. Even coppers like me have a hard time getting in, but I know Rusty the bailiff — that’s a good name for a bailiff, Rusty — so I got a spot in the fourth row, jammed between an older guy and a young woman wearing too much perfume.

I have a couple of days off after we completed our nine-week sting operation on the heroin trafficking, taking down over twenty people throughout Long Island, most notably a school principal at a private school in Montauk. I didn’t have anything else to do, so after my five-mile run this morning, I decided to clean up and come see “Surfer Jesus” for myself.

There he is at the defense table, scratching his beard and whispering to his defense lawyer. The press was initially intrigued with the story because Zach Stern was a victim and it happened in the Hamptons, but Noah himself has now become as interesting as anything else to the talking heads on the evening cable channels — his swarthy good looks, for one, and also his rebellious attitude, refusing to wear a suit to court, opting instead for the desert-islander look with a white shirt and blue jeans.

Taking the stand is a man named Dio Cornwall, an African American in his midtwenties with a long skinny neck and braids pulled tight against his head. He’s awaiting trial for armed robbery and had the pleasure of sharing a cell with Noah Walker during the week following Noah’s arrest, before Noah bonded out.

“It woulda been the second, maybe third night,” says Cornwall. “Guy just starts talkin’, is all. Didn’t need to ask him or nothin’. Just started talkin’.”

“And what exactly did he say about it?” asks the prosecutor, Sebastian Akers, who could double as a Ken doll.

“Says she got hers.” Cornwall shrugs. “Says the woman got hers.”

“Did you ask him what he meant?”

“Yeah. He says, ‘No bitch gonna leave me.’ He says, ‘I cut her up good. Can’t be no movie star now.’”

Oof. That’s not good for Noah. But then, nothing’s gone that well for Noah, from what I’ve read and heard on TV.

I look at him, huddling with his lawyer, and again feel something swim in my stomach. When I met him, I made him for a guy who’d grown up rough, and who didn’t hold the police department in high esteem, and yeah, someone I might like for a B-and-E or maybe an assault-and-battery. But a brutal killer? He just didn’t ping my radar that way.

But it doesn’t matter what I think anymore. It matters what twelve jurors think. The opening witness had Noah hounding Melanie at the restaurant where she worked, begging her to take him back and threatening her when she wouldn’t. The forensics came next. The knife found in Noah’s kitchen had traces of both Zach’s and Melanie’s DNA. A forensic pathologist testified that the knife had a slight jag in the tip that matched some of the cuts found on the victims.

There was no doubt, in other words, that the knife they found in Noah’s house was the murder weapon.

And now this guy, Cornwall, the second person to attribute incriminating statements to Noah.

“When he said ‘No bitch gonna leave me,’ and that she ‘can’t be no movie star now,’ did the defendant identify this woman by name?”

“Melanie,” says Cornwall. “He said her name was Melanie.”

Sebastian Akers nods and looks over at the jury box. Strong testimony for the prosecution, no doubt, but still — this guy Cornwall is no different than the first witness, a jailhouse snitch who’d probably sell out his grandmother to shave some time off his sentence.

Which makes the final witness all the more crucial for the case. The witness being my uncle, Chief Langdon James, the one who found the knife in Noah’s kitchen, and the one to whom Noah Walker confessed his guilt. Without the chief, there’s the knife and two cons who’d say just about anything.

After the chief’s done testifying, Noah Walker will be toast.

18

Langdon James takes a hit off his joint and squints through the smoke at the cable news show, where four well-dressed lawyers are talking over one another, arguing about the merits of Dio Cornwall’s testimony and the overall strength of the prosecution’s case against “Surfer Jesus.”

“If I’m Noah Walker’s lawyer, my argument is that the prosecution’s case is bought and paid for,” says one. “Remy Handleman and Dio Cornwall are criminals who would say or do anything to save their own necks.”

“But the case isn’t over, Roger. The chief of police will testify tomorrow—”

With that, the chief sees his image on TV, a stock photograph taken of him over ten years — and forty pounds — ago, walking outside headquarters, his sunglasses on, hands on his hip, head profiled to the right.

God, where did the years go? That was a different time, in so many ways. That was before Chloe left. That was back when the job was still new to Lang, when he still considered it an honor, even a thrill, to wear the badge.

That was back when his niece, Jenna, still looked up to him, following his career path into law enforcement. He remembers all those nights when Jenna was still a young girl, after her father and brother died, when she would sit with Lang, how her eyes would widen as she listened to his tales of cops and robbers, good guys and bad, fighting for truth and justice. He remembers the swell of pride he felt on Jenna’s first day at the academy, when he looked at her, eager to one day don a uniform and make the world a safer place.

The chief clicks off the TV and rubs his eyes. She’s a good kid, Jenna. He wishes they hadn’t clashed over Noah Walker. After all, she did what any good cop should do — pick up a scent and follow it — and he shot her down when she started to question Walker’s guilt.

He hated doing it, dousing her flame that way. But as good a cop as she is — she has more instinct in her pinkie finger than most cops will ever have in their whole bodies — she doesn’t always see the bigger picture. Noah Walker is guilty. He’s sure of it. Rules and procedure and evidence aside, at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.

Is the dead hooker’s murder in the woods linked to the murders at 7 Ocean Drive? He doubts it. Hell, Jenna didn’t even know for sure — it was just a hunch, an itch she was scratching. But he makes himself this promise: He will follow that lead — soon. Just not now. Not when Noah’s defense attorney could play with it. After Noah is convicted, he’ll personally check it out.

“Oh, Jenna,” he mumbles to himself. Maybe she never should have come back here. The nightmares, the drinking — yes, he’s noticed how much she drinks — it all kicked in since she came back here. Is that just a coincidence?

No, it can’t be a coincidence.

Seven hours. He remembers it well. If there were seven hours in all the world he could remove, erase completely, it would be those seven hours from Jenna’s life.

Seven hours of hell.

And her mother never let Jenna set foot in the Hamptons again.

Until she came back as an adult, to be a cop.

And he let her do it. He thought he was helping her, after she got run out of Manhattan. He thought he was doing a good thing.

He pushes away his notes on tomorrow’s testimony. He’s testified a hundred times in court. He knows the drill, the flow of the questioning, the way to frame his answers, the phrases to avoid, the importance of maintaining the appropriate demeanor. He stamps out the remainder of the joint, feeling a little stoned but not wanting to take it too far tonight, with the big day tomorrow. Seems like these days, he’s always seeking some kind of lubricant to get through the evenings.

He kicks his feet off the bed and heads for the kitchen, for a glass of Beefeater. Just one glass tonight, no more, especially after smoking so much—

Something... something is wrong.

A shudder runs through him. He reaches the threshold of the kitchen before he realizes that the something — a change in the pressure, a creak in the floor, a foreign heat source — is behind him, not in front.

He turns back just as the figure steps into the hallway from the bathroom. A man wearing a full mask, though Halloween is still weeks away.

“Wait,” the chief says as he sees the weapon rising, training on him. “Wait, just hold on, let’s—”

He feels the sharp pinch, the pure heat in his left upper thigh, an instant before he hears the thwip from the gun’s suppressor. He doubles over but keeps his balance, yells, “Wait!” before another bullet tears through his left biceps. The momentum spins him around, and this time he loses his balance, falling to his hands and knees, crawling like a wounded dog away from his predator, who takes slow, deliberate steps behind him, tracking him.

The chief makes it into the kitchen, pushing off with his good arm and good leg. Another bullet blows through the bottom of his foot, ricocheting off the tile, and this time the cry he lets out is gargled, and he collapses to the floor. He tells himself to keep breathing, to avoid shock, and when he finally manages a push-up, his right elbow explodes from another bullet and he’s down for good.

The floor is spinning, everything is upside down. The intruder now casts a shadow over the chief, seeming to be in no particular hurry for this ordeal to come to an end. The chief can do nothing but hope — hope that this man just wants to hurt him and not kill him.

The next bullet drills through his right calf. Langdon can no longer bring himself to scream.

Silence follows, a pause. For just that moment, the chief feels a surge of hope. He’s been shot in the limbs, not the head or torso, no vital organs. Maybe the man will let him live. Maybe—

The chief feels a foot in his ribs, a gentle nudging. And then he hears the man’s voice, slow and deliberate, icy-calm.

“I... need a few minutes,” the man with the mask says. “Your fireplace... is really old.”

19

I cup the badge in one hand and slam through the double doors with the other. There are other officers already in the emergency room, who register who I am and point down the hall with looks of apology, sympathy on their faces. The hallway feels narrow and too bright, full of people in police uniforms or surgical scrubs. Someone tries to stop me and I say, “I’m next of kin.”

There are rooms to the left, all covered with gray-blue curtains. A gurney pops through one of them, several doctors and nurses jogging alongside it, holding bags of fluids and calling out stats to one another.

An arm grabs me. Isaac Marks says, “They’re taking him to surgery, Murphy. He—”

“Call Aunt Chloe,” I tell him.

“I did already.”

I pry my arm free and follow the doctors. “I’m his niece,” I say when they object, and I position myself between them and the elevator so they can’t stop me.

Uncle Langdon looks foreign, ancient, a mask over his face for oxygen, a bulge in the covers by his lower torso. I take his right hand in mine. “I’m here, Lang,” I manage, yelling over the commotion.

His hand squeezes back. The elevator opens and we all go inside. I angle between two medics who don’t resist, allowing us as private a moment as they can possibly give us.

“You’re going to be fine,” I whisper, my face close to his.

Lang slowly raises his arm, like he’s doing a difficult biceps curl, his hand finally reaching the oxygen mask. He pulls it down to his chin. “Jenna Rose,” he says, the words thin and whispery.

“I’m here,” I choke out.

“You’re... a good cop.”

“I learned from the best.” I place my hand delicately on the top of his head, tears streaming down my face, my throat hot and full. “I’m so sorry I questioned you and said all—”

“No.” His eyelids flutter, and his head turns ever so slightly back and forth. “Don’t ever stop... questioning... look up... Chloe... look...”

“I will — Chloe’s on her way—”

“Okay, we have to go!”

The elevator doors part. I press my lips against his forehead. “You’re my favorite uncle.” I squeeze out the words through a sob.

One side of his mouth curves just for a moment; a tear slides down his temple into his ear. “I’m your... only uncle,” he whispers.

And then we are separated, a tug on my arm holding me back, my uncle wheeled off to surgery, my view of him narrowing as the elevator doors move toward each other and then shut.

Not Lang, I think. Not Lang, too. No. Please, no.

When the elevator doors open again, I hear Isaac Marks’s voice, talking to another cop. “Five gunshot wounds to his extremities,” he says. “And then he heated up a fireplace poker and drove it through his kidney.”

I turn in Isaac’s direction, not looking at him, the words echoing between my ears. Shot in the extremities and speared with a poker.

Tortured. Just like Zach Stern. Just like Melanie Phillips. Just like the prostitute impaled on the tree stump in the woods.

“Oh, Murphy.” Isaac’s hand rests on my shoulder. “You okay?”

I don’t answer. I can’t speak.

“It’s going to be hours before he’s out of surgery, Murph. Maybe — maybe get some fresh air. Get away from this place for a while. But take the back exit. The press is gathered out front. The chief was supposed to testify tomorrow against Noah Walker.”

Noah Walker.

I stagger toward the rear exit, into the humid night air, where I finish the long hard cry that I started in the elevator. I don’t cry much, but when I do, it’s a heaving, gasping avalanche. I fall to my hands and knees and let it all out, the images from my childhood rushing back, Langdon holding me in his arms after Dad and Ryan died, showing up on weekends at our house in the Bronx, always with a little toy or gadget for me, always ready with stories about the bad guys he put away.

Not Lang. Please, God, I know I’ve doubted you, but I’ll do anything now, anything at all, just please, please don’t take him away.

And then, after some amount of time I can’t quantify, it stops. I get up and brush myself off. The soft tide of sorrow running through my chest turns hard. My senses readjust, back to alert, cop-alert. My vision clears. My nose stops running. My muscles tense.

Noah Walker.

I check my magazine for bullets, then reholster the weapon.

Hours, Isaac said. That will be more than enough time. Noah Walker’s house is only a half hour away.

I shove my star deep in my pocket. I won’t need a badge tonight.

20

Noah Walker’s house is dark. If he’s home, he’s pretending to be asleep. But he won’t have to pretend much longer, and this time he’ll never wake up.

The night is sticky but peaceful, nothing but some stray insect sounds. I trot gingerly over the gravel driveway on the balls of my feet and cross around to the back of his house. There is a small yard that borders on heavy woods, an afterthought of a concrete slab with a barbecue grill covered by a hood. The back door is less secure than the front, especially after we busted through it during the arrest.

The door comes open with minimal noise. I shine my Maglite into the back room — a couple of motorcycle helmets, an old Corona typewriter, an easel with a canvas of a seascape, boxes stuffed with clothes and knickknacks, an antique desk in the corner, some framed artwork resting against a wall.

I move into the hallway, my flashlight and gun at eye level, moving them in tandem while I shuffle forward along the tile, surveying room after room — the kitchen, the foyer, the living room.

I stop. Listen. The house groans. The wind outside plays with the trees.

Now the attic bedroom. The only room left.

I try my weight on the first stair and it complains to me. I take every other step, crouched low, slowly transferring my weight onto each new stair like a spider approaching prey, keeping the light beam down.

My eyes are now level with the second floor, my body still below it. I listen for any sounds. There is no such thing as silence in a house. But this house, suddenly, is silent.

I take a step up into the attic, a large open space. I throw the beam of light onto a bed right in front of me, with the covers pulled back and a pillow indented in the middle. I swing to my left when something strikes me, sharp and violent, cracking me in the cheek, knocking me sideways to the right, sending fluorescent stars through my eyelids. The Maglite skitters across the floor, sending a crazy pattern of rolling circles of light against the wall. I remain standing but unbalanced, staggering, disoriented, and all I can think is—

Duck.

I drop to a crouch as a force propels itself at me, over me. Noah’s lunging tackle misses me, worthy of a SportsCenter highlight, but as he sails over me, his knees connect with my shoulder and we fall awkwardly. Noah’s momentum carries him to the corner, slamming him against the wall, while I land hard on my back, my head bouncing on hardwood, the gun no longer in my hand. Everything is dancing, but there’s no time. I get to my feet just as he does. He’s like a shadow, in a fighter’s stance in a dark room, the only illumination coming from the far corner, where the Maglite has rolled to rest and shines a wide yellow circle against the back wall.

My training comes to me by instinct, legs spread, knees bent, weight evenly balanced, fists raised. Noah makes a move toward me, but I jab with my left, connecting with his nose, straightening him up for a moment, then follow with my right hand, my knuckles catching on his teeth. His head snaps to the right, but he recovers quickly — more quickly than I would have thought — and lunges toward me, this time with his head down, not making the same mistake twice. My left leg shoots up for a kick, but I’m off my game, disoriented myself, and he’s too fast, too athletic. His shoulder plunges into my midsection and sends me spiraling backward, he along with me. We land hard and I lose my wind.

“Who are you?” he spits, straddling me now, his palms pinning my shoulders. “What the hell are — wait — you’re — you’re that cop—”

In the moments it takes me to recover my breath, I bring up my right knee and find my backup piece on the ankle holster. I remove it and shove it into his rib cage.

“Get off me now,” I say.

The pressure eases off my shoulders. My left arm free, I shove my palm against his chest and knock him backward, until I’m out from under him. I get to my feet with some effort, my gun trained on him, a tidal wave of adrenaline coursing through me.

“I didn’t know you were a cop,” Noah says, panting, touching the cuts on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to announce who you are?”

But I’m not a cop tonight. Tonight, I’m a niece. The niece of a dear, sweet man who was shot five times in the extremities and speared with a hot poker.

“You okay?” he says to me. “I’ve never hit a woman in my—”

“Shut up!” I hiss. I move a step closer to him. “You killed all of them. Say it. Say it right this second, right this second, or I’ll shoot.”

As my eyes adjust in the semidarkness, I see Noah more clearly, a man in his boxers, crouched at the knees; I see the whites of his eyes.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” he says.

I drive my shoe into him like I’m kicking a field goal, catching arms and knees and maybe his chin. I see him fall to the floor. I see other things, too. Uncle Lang, bobbing me up and down on his leg when I was a child. Tearing up at my cadet graduation, telling me how proud my father would have been—

Tears fill my eyes, screams fill my head, adrenaline fills my chest. I struggle to keep control of my weapon. “Admit you attacked him,” I say, “or die right now.”

I want him to defy me. I want to kill him. I want to shoot him the same way he shot my uncle, in all the places it hurts, maximizing his suffering, making him beg for his life, before driving a red-hot stake through his kidney—

“I’m not going to admit something I didn’t do,” Noah says with control, with calm. “You can shoot me if you want. But I don’t think you will. Because you’re a fair person. And deep down, I think you know—”

“Shut up! You... you took him from me... you took him...”

My entire body quivering, my voice choking off, tears rolling down my face, my breath coming in tight gasps, I lower the gun, then raise it back up, the screams in my head drowning out everything else.

“What are you talking about?” he asks.

I shuffle toward him, only steps away from him, both hands desperately clutching my gun. “Say it!” I scream.

But it doesn’t matter what he says anymore. I’m going to do it. I’m going to pull this trigger.

“I didn’t kill anybody,” he says.

My breath held tight in my lungs, I pull the trigger once, a single bullet, and then drop the weapon to my side.

21

I stand over the grave, the outlines of the freshly dug earth a tangible reminder of the funeral yesterday. It was a nice affair, with the police force in formal dress, a gun salute, the works. It was the very opposite of a private family ceremony, in part because Lang didn’t have any family besides me, but appropriate, too, because Lang was such a public figure, a giant in this community, the chief law enforcement officer for almost two decades.

Lang died in surgery that night at the hospital. The hemorrhaging was too massive, the doctor said. Too many wounds. Too much blood lost for too long.

Chloe Danchisin — Aunt Chloe — slides her arm inside mine and perches her chin on my shoulder. “He always loved this cemetery,” she says. “He bought these plots for us when we were first married.”

I blow my nose and take a breath. My throat aches from all the crying I’ve done over the past several days. “I... still can’t believe he’s gone.”

Chloe rubs her hand on my back, tiny circles. “It’s not fair to you, honey. It seems like just yesterday that Lydia died.”

Almost three years to the day, actually, that my mother gave in to the cancer.

“You know how much Lang loved you, don’t you?”

I nod but don’t speak. My throat is so strained that I don’t even sound like myself. My head is filled with a constant ringing.

“Oh, when he hired you to work here — he was so excited. He called me. We hadn’t spoken in over a year, but he called me to give me the news. He was like a giddy schoolboy.”

Despite the fact that I’ve shed enough tears over the last few days to fill a small lake, my eyes well up again. “I questioned his judgment,” I say. “I doubted his investigation of the Ocean Drive murders. I actually — I actually suggested that Noah Walker might be innocent.” I scoff at the notion in hindsight. It’s so clear to me now. Noah killed Lang so he couldn’t testify, and in much the same way he killed Zach and Melanie, and the prostitute in the woods. Different methods, but the same sociopathic brutality — maximizing their suffering, making sure they would bleed out in painful deaths.

Chloe directs my shoulders away from the grave, south toward the beach, and moves me along. “You were doing your job. I’m sure he was proud of you. Don’t confuse his stubbornness with disappointment.”

We walk toward the beach. Chloe looks good, notwithstanding the circumstances. Now single again for two years, she has lost about twenty pounds, cut her hair in a stylish bob, and dresses like she doesn’t mind being noticed. Sixty is the new forty, and all that.

My head is finally clearing of the hangover, from the extra bottle of wine after I left Chloe last night and went home. The nightly drinking is weighing me down, leaving me off balance and foggy. But right now, foggy feels like the best I can do.

Ocean Drive is teeming with joggers and bicyclists and people heading, like us, toward the beach. The activity, the smell of the ocean — this is precisely what I remember as a kid.

“Chloe,” I say, “why did we stop coming here when I was a kid?”

She keeps her head down, strolling along with me.

“Lang said there was a story.”

“You don’t know?” she asks.

“No.”

“If you don’t know, I don’t know.” She looks up at our surroundings, half-built structures and carved-out foundations. “That’s the house, isn’t it?”

I focus my eyes and realize that we’re passing 7 Ocean Drive, the Murder House. The crime-scene tape has been removed, but the Gothic monstrosity has no trouble looking creepy all by itself. It brings back everything in a rush, my meddling at the crime scene, my argument with Lang, resulting in my thirty-day suspension.

We were never the same after he dinged me. I was sent off to the narcotics task force assignment, and I saw him only sparingly after that. I turned down several offers to get together, for dinner or drinks or an afternoon at the beach. I was resentful. I wanted to punish him. And now he’s gone, and I’d do anything to have those weeks back. I’d tell him how much I love him, how he saved my life so many times, in so many different ways.

We arrive at the beach. Chloe lets out a satisfied sigh. Behind her, the beachfront homes stand in marked contrast to the cedar-shingled houses along Ocean Drive. They are gigantic, modern, concrete structures with oversize windows and sharp angles.

“Can I say something to you, sweetheart?”

I take her hand. “Anything.”

The breeze plays with the bangs on Chloe’s forehead. “Have you thought about going back to Manhattan now?”

I squat down, scoop up a handful of sand, weigh it in my hand. There is an inch-long scar on the palm of my hand that I got — according to my mother — trying to chop a tomato when I was a little girl.

Little things like that, small memories that sting the most.

“Lang called me a couple of weeks ago,” she continues. “He said you were having nightmares every night. That you were drinking a lot, too, probably as a coping mechanism.”

I look up at her. “He said that?”

“He did. He was concerned. He was glad to have you close, of course. But he wasn’t sure this was the right thing for you anymore, working here.”

I pick up a shell and send it flying into the ocean. I squint into the wind, the wet mist.

Chloe squats down next to me. “All your life, you’ve taken care of everyone else,” she says. “When your father and Ryan died, your mother... Lydia was devastated. I know you were, too, but it always seemed like you were the one doing the consoling. And you were so young. You were, what, twelve?”

“Yes.” It was less than a month before my thirteenth birthday.

“I remember just a couple of days after they died, you were supposed to be in bed, and Lydia was crying and Lang was holding her. We were all on the couch. And you walked in. You’d been sleeping. Your hair was all matted and your eyes were sleepy and you were in your pajamas. You opened your arms as wide as they could go and you said, ‘Don’t worry, Mommy, I have enough love for all of them.’ Do you remember that?”

I wipe away a tear. I remember. I remember my mother looking like there was nothing left in the world for her.

“Well.” Chloe rubs my arm. “Maybe it’s time you took better care of yourself. Go home, Jenna. Your best friends are there. Matty’s there. What’s left here?”

I stand straight as the wind off the ocean kicks up. I look back at the oceanfront housing, at the endless stretch of beach. This isn’t my home. It never will be. But it holds one thing for me that no other place in the world does.

“This is the only place I can be a cop,” I say.

22

The room looks more like a maximum-security prison than a court of law. The number of sheriff’s deputies has doubled, virtually lining the walls of the courtroom, beefy security guards with jumpy eyes, armed with handguns and cuffs and Tasers. The tension in the room has raised the temperature to something between stuffy and downright unbearable.

As we wait for the judge, I scroll through photos on my iPhone. Nearly all of the recent ones include Lang: in his ridiculous polka-dot swimsuit at the beach; flipping burgers on his Smokey Joe in his backyard, chomping on a cigar; asleep on his lawn chair, his wife-beater T-shirt creeping up to reveal his added poundage (a photo I often used when arguing about his diet). Silly shots, all of them, but so dear to me now, those little things, those frivolous moments that mean so much in hindsight.

And then, amid these pictures, the one from the lawn on 7 Ocean Drive, that crest with that hook-beaked bird, that insipid creature that has taken up permanent residence in my daily nightmares. What’s with that stupid bird?

We all rise; then a collective hush falls over the room as the Honorable Robert Barnett, a handsome and deadly serious judge, assumes the bench. “We are back on the record in People versus Noah Lee Walker,” he says dryly. “For the record, the court has stood in recess for the last week. Six days ago, the next witness scheduled to testify, Southampton Town Police Department chief Langdon James, was attacked in his home and later died of his injuries. The court granted a recess at the prosecution’s request.”

I shift in the courtroom pew, a front-row seat granted me by the prosecution. Noah Walker denied any involvement in Lang’s murder, but Judge Barnett revoked his bond anyway, out of an abundance of caution, so he’s locked up again in Riverhead when he’s not here in court.

“For the record, Mr. Akers is present today for the State, and Mr. Brody is present for the defense.” The judge removes his glasses. “And of course, Mr. Walker, the defendant, is present as well.”

My eyes move to Noah, sitting at the defense table with his hands folded and his eyes cast downward. His feet are crossed, raising the cuffs of his jeans slightly and revealing bare ankles. He didn’t even bother to wear socks to the trial. He looks like a hippie islander.

I let you live, you little shit. You could at least show a little respect.

I replay that moment in his attic bedroom, feel the surge of adrenaline returning. How close I came to doing it. How close I came to putting that bullet between his eyes, instead of firing it over his head.

As if he senses me, Noah turns his head ninety degrees and catches my eyes. He still has the shiner I gave him that night, though it’s now a dull-yellow bruise. The split lip has healed and the swelling dissipated. His jaw probably still hurts, but nothing was broken.

As far as I know, Noah hasn’t publicly complained about how I treated him that night, sneaking into his house, punching and kicking him, not to mention firing a bullet within inches of his scalp. That should be coming any time now, a police brutality lawsuit, probably a request for ten million dollars for his pain and suffering.

But for now, it’s just his eyes locked on mine. Something flutters through my chest as I stare back at him, that nagging feeling that I can’t read him, that I don’t know him. He is neither antagonistic nor smug in his stare. He is neither enjoying himself nor resentful. He just stares at me as if somehow, in some way, we are discovering each other, we are connecting with each other, something is happening between us.

I snap my head away, breaking eye contact, sweat popping at my hairline. I take a deep breath and brush the hair off my face.

He is the worst kind of creep. He’s the kind who can suck you in, the sociopath who can smile at you tenderly while he’s devising monstrous ways to torture you. Well, not me, pal. Not anymore. You may have fooled me initially, but no longer.

I turn back, looking in his direction again. He hasn’t moved. His eyes are still on me, his long dark hair hanging over his unshaven face. My heartbeat kicks into a higher gear. I uncross my legs and play with my hands. I shake my head slowly, discreetly, unsure of the meaning of what I’m doing, answering no to a question that has not been asked. His eyes narrow to a squint. His jaw rises slightly and his lips part, as if he’s going to speak, but surely he won’t, not in the middle of a court session while the judge is talking.

He will never speak to me again. And I will never speak to him.

I get to my feet and walk down the courtroom aisle toward the exit, which is guarded by two sheriff’s deputies. I’m done with Noah Walker. The next time I see him, it will be at his sentencing, after the judge informs him he’ll spend the rest of his life behind bars. Yeah, let’s make eye contact then, pal. Let’s see the look on your face then.

“Mr. Brody,” says the judge, “you have a motion?”

“Yes, Judge, I do.”

Defense lawyers always have motions. They always have bullshit arguments, smoke and mirrors, misdirection. But the next words coming from the mouth of Noah Walker’s lawyer freeze me in my tracks, only a few paces from the courtroom door.

“Your Honor,” he says, “the defense moves for a dismissal of all charges.”

23

The courtroom, already respectfully silent, is sucked dry of all sound as Joshua Brody, Noah Walker’s lawyer, makes his pitch for his client’s release.

“There is no competent evidence tying the murder weapon to my client,” he says. “There was never a fingerprint on the weapon. And the only evidence that the knife was found at my client’s house would have come from Chief James — who obviously cannot testify now.”

“Your Honor!” Sebastian Akers jumps to his feet, his perfect-cool persona shaken for the first time. “We will call Detective Isaac Marks — I’m sorry, Acting Chief Isaac Marks — who will testify that the chief showed him the knife after he discovered it under the heating duct in the defendant’s kitchen.”

“But Mr. Marks didn’t see it under the heating duct. Only the chief did, allegedly,” says Noah’s lawyer. “The defense’s theory is that Chief James planted that knife. But now we can’t cross-examine him to establish that. The prosecution shouldn’t be allowed to suggest that the knife was found in my client’s house when we can’t cross-examine the person who supposedly ‘found’ it.”

The judge looks at the prosecutor. “Mr. Akers, the defense makes a valid point here. If the defense can’t cross-examine the chief about a frame-up, how can I let you put the knife in the defendant’s house?”

“Everyone in this courtroom knows the reason why Chief James isn’t here to testify,” says Akers, his voice wobbling. “Everyone knows who made that happen.” He turns and looks at Noah Walker.

“If the State believes my client killed Chief James, they are free to charge him,” says the defense lawyer, Brody. “The last I heard, they found no physical evidence at that crime scene. They have no leads on the chief’s death, just supposition. And more importantly, Judge, this trial is not about Chief James’s murder. This trial is about Zach Stern and Melanie Phillips, and there is no evidence tying my client to the murder weapon, with the chief’s untimely passing. And the chief obviously can’t testify that my client confessed to him, either.” He opens his hands. “So what do they have, without the murder weapon and without a confession to the chief of police? Without any physical evidence whatsoever? They have evidence that my client argued with Melanie Phillips at Tasty’s Diner, and they have this ridiculous testimony from a jailhouse snitch that my client confessed to him.”

“The jailhouse informant’s testimony isn’t evidence?” the judge asks.

“It is, Judge, but c’mon. The unreliability of jailhouse snitch testimony is well documented. He got a sweetheart deal in exchange for making up these ridiculous claims against my client. I mean, Judge, really.” Brody takes a step toward the bench. “Can any of us say that a man should be convicted of two counts of first-degree murder based on no eyewitnesses, no physical evidence, no forensic evidence, no confession — nothing more than the word of a convicted felon looking to cut a deal? And keep in mind, Judge, that it’s our theory that Chief James coerced the snitch into testifying. But now I can’t cross-examine him on that issue, either. For the same reason the knife shouldn’t be considered against my client, neither should the testimony of Dio Cornwall, the snitch.”

“My God,” I whisper to myself. He’s making this sound credible. And the judge — he looks like he’s actually considering this. How could this — this couldn’t possibly—

No. No, no, no.

“Mr. Akers,” says the judge, “I agree with the defense on the murder weapon. The prosecution cannot introduce evidence that the murder weapon was found at the defendant’s house. And the testimony of the jailhouse informant is not exactly something you base an entire case around, now, is it?”

The judge puts out a hand. He seems troubled by this, too, as if he doesn’t want to toss the charges and is looking for help. “But... aside from the knife, there was the defendant’s confession to Chief James. Obviously, the chief can’t tell us about that now. Is there — I don’t suppose anyone else was present at that confession who could testify about it?”

“I...” Sebastian Akers shrugs and shakes his head absently.

“My memory, Mr. Akers, is that the chief was going to testify that he was alone with Noah Walker during the alleged confession.”

“That may be — it — but Judge, it would be grossly unfair to the administration of justice for Noah Walker to profit by murdering the star witness—”

“Mr. Akers,” the judge booms. “I know you have your suspicions about Mr. Walker’s involvement in the chief’s death. But it’s been six days and you haven’t arrested him, much less sought an indictment. Do you, or do you not, have evidence — evidence — that Noah Walker killed Chief James?”

Akers raises his hands helplessly. “As far as I know, the investigation is still in its infancy—”

“I will take that as a no.” Now the judge shakes his head. “So I will ask you again, Counsel, am I correct that Chief James was the only one who could testify to Mr. Walker’s confession?”

“Judge, I would have to—”

“Mr. Akers, you know your case. Don’t stonewall me. Was Chief James the only person present with Noah Walker when he confessed to the murder?”

Sebastian Akers flips through some papers, stalling for time, but he knows the answer as surely as Noah’s lawyer does, as surely as I do. The chief was alone with Noah during the confession.

A single thread in the weave has been pulled by the defense, and the entire fabric of the prosecution’s case has come apart. Without Uncle Lang to testify, the State can’t tie the murder weapon to Noah’s house. The State can’t say that Noah confessed to a decorated veteran of the Southampton Town Police Department. All Akers can say is that a jailhouse snitch claimed to hear a confession — if the judge doesn’t toss out that testimony, too.

The case is over. I can’t believe this. The case is over. He killed my uncle and is going to walk away from two other murders because of it.

And I passed on the chance to put a bullet between his eyes.

“We’re going to take a thirty-minute recess,” says the judge. “Mr. Akers, I’d advise you to use that half hour well. If you can’t think of some reason between now and then, this case is over.”

24

I push Sebastian Akers into the witness room adjacent to the courtroom and close the door. “This can’t happen,” I say.

“Detective, I know you’re upset, but right now I have to—”

“There’s a police report,” I say. “Lang filled out a report when Noah confessed. Can’t you introduce that as evidence?”

Akers, on the verge of coming unglued, lets out a pained sigh. “A police report is hearsay. You can’t use it unless the defense can cross-examine the cop who wrote it.”

“And Noah killed that cop,” I protest.

“But we can’t prove that, Detective! You know as well as I do that we haven’t been able to come up with a hint of physical evidence. His motive is all we have.”

I look up at the ceiling, searching for answers in the peeling white paint.

“He told me Noah confessed,” I say. “Lang told me.”

“Well, sure!” Akers waves his hand, exasperated. “He probably told a lot of people. Hell, he told newspaper reporters. But guess what that is?”

I drop my head. “Hearsay.”

“Hearsay. Inadmissible in a court of law.”

A long moment passes. I steady myself by placing my hands on the small table. But I sense something in the silence. I look up at Akers, who is studying me carefully.

“Unless,” he says.

I straighten up. “Unless what?”

“There are exceptions to every rule,” he says carefully. “Including the rule against hearsay.”

He gives me a long hard look. Sebastian Akers is a very ambitious man. Undoubtedly, he considers this high-profile case a launching pad for bigger and better things. Or, conversely, a crash landing if he blows it. And five minutes ago, standing before the judge, Akers was on the verge of seeing his case implode before a national audience.

And I was on the verge of watching the man who killed my uncle, and three other people, skip out of court a free man.

“Tell me about the exceptions,” I say.

Akers watches me very carefully, wondering if we’re on the same page. I’m wondering that myself.

“One exception in particular,” he says. “It has to do with when the chief told you about the confession. If he just mentioned it to you casually later that day or something like that, we’re out of luck.”

“But,” I say.

“But if he told you just after the confession happened — let’s say, if he walked out of the jail cell, stunned that Noah had confessed, and told you at just that moment, still in a state of excitement and shock — the law considers that statement to be sufficiently reliable to be admissible. It’s called an excited utterance.”

I sit down in the chair. “An excited utterance.”

“Right. If he said it while he was still in the moment.”

“Still in a state of excitement and surprise.”

“That’s right, Detective.”

Akers’s eyes are wide and intense. He’s holding his breath.

“Whether Noah Walker gets justice, or whether he laughs his way out of court, and probably kills again,” he says to me evenly, “is riding on your answer.”

It’s not the only thing riding on my answer. My sworn oath as a police officer is, too. Because I remember now. I remember when Lang told me about Noah’s confession. It was on his back porch in the early afternoon; he told me Noah had confessed to him that morning, hours earlier.

I clear my throat, adrenaline buzzing through me. “So if I testify that the chief told me about Noah’s confession immediately after it happened—”

“While he was still in a state of excitement...”

Time passes. Memories flood through my mind. My stomach churns like the gears of a locomotive. What does it mean to be a cop? Is it about rules, or is it about justice? In the end, what do I stand for?

What would my uncle do for me, if our roles were reversed?

Finally, Sebastian Akers takes the seat across from me. “We only have a few minutes,” he says. “So, Detective Murphy, I have a question for you.”

My eyes rise up to meet his.

“When was it, exactly, that the chief told you that Noah Walker confessed?”

A hush falls over the courtroom as Judge Barnett resumes his seat on the bench. There are even more sheriff’s deputies present now than earlier, ready to calm the crowd should it be necessary. The energy in the room is suffocating. Or maybe that’s just the shortness of breath I’m experiencing, seated in the front row of the courtroom.

The judge looks over his glasses at the prosecution. “Mr. Akers, does the prosecution have any additional evidence to present?” he asks.

The room goes still. Sebastian Akers rises slowly and buttons his coat. He turns and looks in my direction but does not make eye contact.

“The State calls Detective Jenna Murphy,” he says.

25

The judge gavels the courtroom to order after the lunch break. The morning was spent arguing over the admissibility of my testimony, a bunch of lawyer-speak about the rules of evidence that nobody else in the courtroom understood.

Then I testified for an hour. I told the truth — that my uncle told me that Noah had confessed to him — and then I told a lie. I lied about when he told me. Does it really matter if he told me immediately after the confession or several hours later?

That’s what I’ve been telling myself over and over, anyway, that a handful of hours should not be the difference between a killer going to prison and his walking free to kill again.

Joshua Brody gets to his feet eagerly for cross-examination. My adrenaline starts to pump. I know what’s coming, and it’s something I have to willingly accept, the price I have to pay for testifying.

“Detective Murphy,” says Brody, “you once worked for the New York City Police Department, correct?”

He’s not wasting any time. “Yes. I resigned about a year ago.”

“At the time you resigned, you were under investigation by the Internal Affairs Division, isn’t that true?”

“Yes,” I say, the heat rising to my face.

“You were under investigation for skimming money and drugs during the arrest of a drug dealer, true?”

“I was investigated for it. But I was never charged.”

“You were never charged because you resigned from the force,” he says. “The department couldn’t discipline someone who no longer worked for them.”

“I was never charged,” I reply evenly, “because I did nothing wrong.”

“Oh, I see.” Brody looks away from me toward the jury, then turns his stare back to me. “You just coincidentally decided that it was a good time to move on, at the same time that you were under investigation.”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” I say. “And I would add—”

“There’s no need to add,” he says, patting the air. “You answered my—”

“I would add that the district attorney’s office was free to charge me, whether I worked for the NYPD or not. But they didn’t.”

There is so much more I could say, everything that happened that led up to that bogus charge. But I don’t have the energy to fight.

Brody smirks. He’s gotten all he can here.

“Detective, you weren’t present for this alleged... ‘conversation’ between Chief James and Noah Walker.”

“Correct. I was down the hall from the jail cell.”

“You have no firsthand knowledge of what was said between them.”

“Firsthand? No.”

“You took the chief’s word for it.”

“Yes.”

“And this jury,” says Brody, gesturing toward the jury box, “they have to take not only the chief’s word for it, but yours as well.”

“I’m not sure I take your point, Counselor.”

“This jury has to believe that you’re telling the truth about what the chief said, and that the chief told the truth about what my client said.”

I nod. “I suppose that’s right.”

“They have to believe you, who resigned while under investigation for being a dirty cop—”

“Objection,” says Sebastian Akers, jumping to his feet.

“Sustained.”

Brody doesn’t break stride. “—and they have to believe the chief, whom they don’t get to hear from at all.”

I pause a beat, anger surging to the surface. “That’s right, they don’t get to hear from the chief, Mr. Brody. Because your client killed him before he could testify.”

I brace myself for an objection, for Brody to go crazy, for the judge to excuse the jury and give me a thorough dressing-down.

But to my surprise, Brody doesn’t object.

“My client hasn’t been arrested for that murder, has he?”

“Not yet.”

“As far as you know, there is no physical evidence implicating my client?”

“Not yet.”

“Very good, Detective.” I have no idea why he’s letting my statement slide. Presumably, he’s calculated that every juror — every human being in the Hamptons — has heard about the chief’s murder, and most believe that Noah killed him. He must figure it’s easier to acknowledge it, so he can make his points about the lack of any arrest or evidence thus far.

Or does he have some other reason?

“Can you tell the jury what happened to you the day after this alleged confession?”

“The... following day?”

“Yes, Detective,” he says, approaching me, a spark in his eyes. “Isn’t it true that the following day, you were suspended for one month from active duty?”

The spectators react sufficiently for the judge to call for silence.

“Yes, I guess that was the following day, now that you mention it.”

“Why were you suspended?”

Because I doubted the guilt of Noah Walker. Because I thought the murder of the prostitute might be connected to the Ocean Drive murders. But I can’t say that. It would be a gift-wrapped present to the defense. And it’s not what Lang said in the report he wrote up. That would be the last thing he’d write down.

“Insubordination,” I say. “I let our personal relationship intrude on our professional relationship. I was disrespectful and I was wrong.”

“You were disrespectful to him?”

“I was,” I answer, feeling a lump in my throat, recalling the moment.

“You and your uncle, you were upset with each other?”

I feel the first hints of emotion creeping in. I’m not going to break down in front of this jury.

“He was certainly upset with me,” I say. “And he was right to be.”

“You feel... I can see that you feel guilty about that.”

I don’t answer. I don’t need to.

“Looking back, it bothers you, doesn’t it? That just before his death, you were disrespectful to your uncle.”

I know what my answer should be. It should be Yes, but that doesn’t mean I would lie for him. But that is precisely what I’m doing here today.

“It bothers me,” I answer.

“You wish you could make it up to him.”

Again, I don’t answer. He doesn’t wait very long.

“You think my client killed your uncle, correct?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“But you’d agree with me that, with the full resources of the STPD on the case for almost a week, there’s been no proof thus far to back up your suspicion.”

“Not yet.”

“So this case here,” he says, pointing to the floor, “this case might be your only chance to get Noah Walker.”

“Objection,” says Akers, but the judge overrules him.

“And with the chief unable to testify about this supposed confession from my client, and with the judge on the verge of dismissing the charges against my client, you now suddenly come forth to claim that the chief told you about this confession immediately” — he snaps his finger — “immediately after it happened.”

I don’t reply. My eyes move along the floor, then upward to the defense attorney.

“What a convenient and unexpected coincidence!” Brody says, waving his hands.

I look at Noah Walker, his chin resting on his fists. He watches me intently, his eyebrows pitched, as if — as if he pities me.

“No further questions,” says Brody.

26

Noah Walker places his head gently against the bars of his holding cell, barely touching Paige Sulzman’s head on the other side. His hands come through the bars and interlock with hers.

“I don’t like you coming here,” he says. “I don’t like you seeing me like this.”

“I know, baby. Good thing I’m stubborn.”

“It’s not a good idea. How would John—”

“John’s in Europe. Copenhagen, this week, I think. I told you. He’ll be gone for another two weeks.”

Despite his protests, Noah looks forward to the fifteen-minute visits Paige is allowed every night in lockup. Riverhead is a dank, dark, miserable cesspool, purgatory for the accused in Suffolk County, short on hope and long on desperation and bitterness. Paige, with her freshly cut hair and generous smile, her sympathetic eyes and gentle demeanor, is like a rose sprouting in a swamp of manure.

“You could use a shave and a haircut,” she says, trying to keep it light.

He acknowledges the attempt at humor, but it’s hard to find anything funny right now. The trial is at its apex. Difficult decisions need to be made.

“Your lawyer did a good job today.” The hope in Paige’s expression, the tears shimmering in her eyes, reveal her lack of objectivity, but Noah doesn’t totally disagree.

“Yeah, he did. But still, babe. The jury heard a cop say I confessed to the murders. What’s the jury supposed to think when they hear I confessed?”

“That she made it up,” Paige replies. “That she’s trying to make it up to her uncle out of guilt. I thought that came through very clearly.”

“Yeah, I know.” He doesn’t sound like he’s convinced, because he’s not. Yes, his lawyer did a good job cross-examining Detective Murphy, but the jurors seemed to like her regardless, and their opinions are the only ones that matter.

“She just lied,” Paige says, spitting out the words. “She just lied.”

Noah purses his lips. “She thinks I’m guilty. I could see it that night, when she broke into my house. She thinks I killed her uncle, and she thinks I killed Zach and Melanie, too. She thinks she’s doing the right thing.”

Paige draws back. “You’re defending her? You must be joking.”

Noah almost laughs at the paradox, the fact that he’s sticking up for the cop who lied on the witness stand to put him away. “I just... understand why she did it.”

He wants to be upset with Murphy. She’s surely no friend of his. But there’s something in the way she handles herself, like she’s trying to prove something to somebody but isn’t sure what she’s proving, or to whom. He feels like he understands her. And regardless of what she did to him today, he can’t shake the feeling that...

...that they understand each other. That she doesn’t really believe, deep in her heart, that he’s guilty.

“Oh, why is this happening?” Paige says softly.

There’s no answer to that question. Noah feels like he’s caught in a tornado, unmoored from any reality, whisked away with brutal force and carried through the air against his will. He has lost all control. Forces beyond his reach — the sensationalist media, ambitious prosecutors, crooked cops — have aligned to deem him guilty and deny him any chance of fighting back.

He must focus on this one fact: It doesn’t really matter what anybody else thinks. It only matters what twelve jurors believe. He’s seen the looks on their faces, their disgusted expressions, their averted eyes. He knows he has an uphill battle. He can only hope that their minds are still open, however slightly, to what he has to say.

He has to testify. His lawyer doesn’t want him to. But he has no choice. He has to find some way to convince those jurors that he’s not the killer they think he is.

If he fails, his life is over.

27

Joshua Brody lets out a sigh. Almost three hours have passed, Noah testifying in response to Brody’s questions, and now it’s coming to an end. A pregnant pause by the lawyer, to emphasize these final questions — questions already asked and answered, but important enough to be repeated.

“Let me ask you one last time, Noah,” says Joshua Brody. “Did you kill Melanie Phillips?”

Noah leans forward into the microphone on the witness stand. “No, I did not.”

“Did you kill Zach Stern?”

“No, I did not.”

Joshua Brody casts a glance at the jury. “No further questions.”

Noah takes some deep breaths. Halfway done. The easy half, and it wasn’t that easy. It has to feel natural, not rehearsed, his lawyer kept telling him as they prepared for today, and Noah feels like, all in all, it was convincing. From time to time during Joshua Brody’s questioning, he glanced over at the jury. Did he see reasonable doubt on their faces? He doesn’t know. This isn’t what he does for a living. And he’s in the moment, tense and focused. He wouldn’t trust his instincts, anyway.

But he can’t suppress the surge of hope he feels. He has a chance.

“Cross-examination?” Judge Barnett asks.

The prosecutor, Sebastian Akers, drops a notepad on the lectern between the prosecution and defense tables. This is the kind of moment a guy like Akers lives for. The packed courtroom, the big trial, the cross-examination that will make or break this case.

Keep your composure, his defense attorney told Noah. Akers wants to paint you as someone who committed murder in a blind rage. He wants you to show the jury that rage. He’s going to try to bring it out, get you upset.

“Mr. Walker,” Akers begins, “you have no alibi for the night of the murder, correct?”

Noah clears his throat. “As I told Mr. Brody, I stayed in that night.”

Akers makes a face. “What I meant was, nobody can corroborate your alibi, correct?”

“Correct.”

“The jury has to take your word, and only your word, for it.”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

“And you admit you were once given a key to the front door of 7 Ocean Drive, correct?”

“Yes. I’ve done work on that mansion for years. At some point, it made sense for the contractor who used me to just give me my own key.”

“And that key has now magically disappeared.”

“I don’t know about ‘magically’ — but I don’t know where it is.”

There was no evidence of forced entry at the mansion on the night of the murders. The fact that Noah had his own key isn’t a good fact for him.

“You deny that you confessed to this crime to Chief James. You deny that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So when he said you did, he wasn’t telling the truth.”

“He wasn’t.”

“And when Detective Murphy testified to what the chief told her about your confession, she wasn’t telling the truth, either.”

“I don’t know if she was or not. Maybe the chief said that to her. Maybe he didn’t.”

“If he did, then he was lying to her, too.”

“Right.”

“Or maybe Detective Murphy just made the whole thing up! Right, Mr. Walker?”

Noah feels perspiration on his forehead, his neck. “Could be.”

“So maybe she was also lying. Right, Mr. Walker?”

“Maybe.”

“Sure,” Akers says with no shortage of sarcasm, flipping a hand. “And Dio Cornwall, who shared a cell with you in lockup, who testified that you confessed to killing Melanie, that you said you ‘cut her up good’ and that she ‘couldn’t be no movie star now’ — Mr. Cornwall was also lying. Right, Mr. Walker?”

“He was lying. I never said anything like that to him. I never talked to him about my case at all.”

“I see.” Akers looks at the jury. “Any idea how Mr. Cornwall would have known the name Melanie, or that she’d wanted to be a movie star, if you didn’t tell him anything about your case at all?”

“I–I don’t know. Maybe he read it in the newspaper.”

“The newspaper? Mr. Walker, Dio Cornwall was in lockup with you. Do you recall ever being given a copy of any newspapers while you were in lockup?”

Noah pauses. He casts his eyes downward.

“If you like, we can bring in the sheriff’s deputies who controlled lockup while you were—”

“No, we never got newspapers,” Noah concedes. “I don’t know how Dio got that information. Maybe Chief James told him.”

“Chief James? So now you’re saying not only that Chief James lied about your confession, but that he helped Dio Cornwall make up a story, too?”

“I don’t know.”

“And Chief James isn’t here to testify, is he, Mr. Walker? So we’ll never be able to ask him, will we?”

Noah fixes a glare on the prosecutor. He feels his blood go cold.

“During your direct testimony, you admitted that you confronted Melanie at her job — at Tasty’s Diner — asking her to take you back. You admit that, correct?”

Noah shakes his head, focuses on the change of subject. “Yes, I admit that we argued, and I grabbed her arm, but Remy has the date wrong. He said it happened two days before Melanie was killed. June second. But that’s wrong. Melanie broke up with me in April. About seven weeks before she died. That’s when I talked to her at Tasty’s.”

He met Paige a week after Melanie dumped him, in April. He’d moved on from Melanie. But he’s never told anyone that. He’s never publicly acknowledged his affair with Paige. And he won’t now. No matter how many times Paige has told him to do so. He won’t bring Paige into this.

Akers nods along, his eyes alight. “Pretty big difference between April — seven weeks before the murder — and two days before the murder.”

“Yes, it is.”

“So Remy’s lying, too.”

“I don’t know if he’s lying—”

“But he’s not telling the truth.”

“That’s right. He’s not.”

“So, to summarize,” Akers says, strolling along the edge of the jury box, “Chief James, Detective Jenna Murphy, Dio Cornwall, and Remy Handleman — none of them are telling the truth. But you, Mr. Walker, on trial for your life, whom Melanie broke up with so she could start dating Zach Stern — you are telling the truth.”

Noah feels his pulse ratchet up. The way Akers is stacking up all the evidence... nobody’s going to believe Noah. It hits him hard, for the first time. They won’t believe me. They’re going to convict me.

“I’m telling the truth,” he pleads. “I swear I am. I would never hurt somebody else.”

“You’d never hurt anybody?” Akers asks, with mock innocence. “Well, Mr. Walker, isn’t it true that, in 1995, you brought a rifle to Bridgehampton School and opened fire on a number of your classmates?”

28

The courtroom erupts at Sebastian Akers’s question. Noah’s defense lawyer, Joshua Brody, is on his feet, arguing. Judge Barnett stands down from the bench and walks to the far end of the courtroom, away from the jury, for a sidebar with the lawyers. The spectators are all abuzz.

I wasn’t in Bridgehampton back in 1995, but I have a memory of Uncle Lang mentioning that someone had brought a BB gun to school and shot a bunch of the kids on their way into school. He never mentioned a name; no reason he would have. This was before Columbine, before zero-tolerance policies cropped up around the country and kids were expelled from school for even bringing toy replicas in their backpacks.

If this was in 1995, Noah would have been young. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, something like that. It would have been a juvie beef. And if it was in juvenile court, it would have been confidential. I wonder if the town even knew who it was who did it. There would be rumors, sure, but I wonder if there was ever an official announcement. Judging from the reaction of the spectators — many of whom are presumably lifelong Bridgehampton residents — it seems like they’re hearing this news for the first time.

The lawyers and court reporter and judge resume their positions, and the room goes quiet again.

Noah’s lawyer, Joshua Brody, objects. “This is a juvenile offense,” he says.

“Your Honor,” Sebastian Akers replies, “he just testified he’d never hurt anybody. He opened the door. I’m entitled to impeach him.”

“Overruled,” says the judge. “Proceed, Mr. Akers.”

And the prosecutor does just that, with a vengeance, a gleam in his eye. “You were arrested on Halloween, 1995, for shooting a number of schoolchildren on the south playground of Bridgehampton School, correct, Mr. Walker?”

“I was... I was arrested, yes. It was a BB gun.”

“Fifteen schoolkids were shot that day, weren’t they?”

“I believe... that’s right.”

“One child was hit in the eye, wasn’t he?”

Noah nods but doesn’t speak.

“That boy was nine,” says Akers. “He had to have two surgeries to repair the damage, isn’t that true?”

Noah’s eyes are fixed on the floor now. “That happened, yes.”

“Yes, that ‘happened.’ That ‘happened’ because you shot him with a BB gun, correct?”

Noah doesn’t speak. Still staring at the floor.

“Is that a yes, Mr. Walker?”

“I didn’t shoot him,” Noah says, almost in a whisper, though the microphone gives it sufficient volume.

“No? You didn’t shoot that boy? You were wrongfully accused then, too, is that it?”

“I didn’t shoot him.”

“I see. So when school officials said you did, they weren’t telling the truth, either, were they?”

Noah’s shoulders close in on him, like he’s trying to shelter himself from a storm. “I don’t want to talk about that anymore,” he says.

“Oh.” Akers lets out a chuckle. “Well, what do you wanna talk about? The Yankees’ chances in the postseason?”

That gets a roar from the spectators. I thought it was clever, too, but I’m watching Noah. His face is turning red. He’s practically curled up into a ball. Akers, if he’s half the trial lawyer he thinks he is, senses it, too.

By the time the laughter has subsided and the judge has gaveled the room to order, Akers has slowly approached Walker, a tiger stalking prey.

“You shot fifteen people that day, Mr. Walker.”

“I — no — I’m not going to — I don’t want—”

“But you claim the school officials lied.”

“I said I don’t—”

“Just like you claim a decorated police chief, Langdon James, lied.”

Noah shakes his head.

“Just like Detective Murphy lied.”

It’s clear now Noah’s not going to answer, and that seems to be fine with Akers. He’s watching — we’re all watching — a defendant smoldering on the witness stand, and Akers is hoping he’ll erupt.

“Just like Dio Cornwall lied. Just like Remy Handleman lied.”

Noah turns his head away, as if he’s done with this examination.

“All of them lied,” says Akers. “It’s a grand conspiracy, isn’t it, Mr. Walker? The whole world against you.”

Noah says something, but he’s turned away from the mike and it’s inaudible.

“Mr. Walker—”

“Yes!” Noah hisses, spinning around, nearly knocking over the microphone. Akers jumps back. The judge reacts, too. Several of the jurors recoil, seeing a new side of Noah Walker.

“Everyone’s lying! The chief, that detective, the prison snitch, Remy, who couldn’t tie his own shoes without help — they’re all lying! They set me up!”

Noah surges to his feet, sweeping his hand, this time knocking the microphone to the floor. “They all set me up! They framed me! They’re all liars!”

“Sit down, Mr. Walker, or I’ll have you restrained!” the judge commands. “Deputies?” he calls out, and quickly two sheriff’s deputies approach Noah.

When Noah doesn’t immediately take his seat, one of the deputies grabs his arm. He yanks it free. Both bailiffs reach for their batons, but Noah drops himself back into his chair. The judge calls for order and admonishes Noah. His face has lost all hope now; it’s distorted with bitterness.

But when he looks up, his expression breaks, the scowl changing to despair, and for the briefest of moments, I think he’s looking at me. Then I realize he’s looking past me. I glance over my shoulder and see the woman he was with when I arrested him — Paige, I think her name was. She’s mouthing something to him from across the courtroom, but I can’t make out what she’s saying.

I look back at Noah, who shakes his head and breaks eye contact.

“Your Honor, I have no further questions,” says Sebastian Akers.

29

The first day, Noah didn’t think much of it. It had been a long trial. There was a lot of information to review. It could just be the simple matter of plowing through all the material, wanting to be thorough.

The second day, he began to wonder. He had no experience with this kind of thing, so he tried not to think too much about it.

The third day of jury deliberations, he began to have hope. Somebody on that jury was doing some heavy thinking about his guilt. Don’t read too much into it, his lawyer advised him during a visit. A lot of people have lost a lot of bets trying to guess what a jury is thinking.

At a quarter after one on the fourth day of jury deliberations, Noah is summoned by the sheriff’s deputy. He is heading, as always, toward the side door of the county courthouse, reserved for prisoner transfers, but the transport vehicle slows a block from the courthouse. The crowd has swelled beyond the sidewalks into the street. There are blockades, but they are hopeless against the swarm of onlookers. The transport vehicle moves slowly, and people grudgingly open a path, shouting at the vehicle as it passes, some of them even slapping the hood or one of the side windows.

When the vehicle turns toward the transfer door, Noah sees the trucks from all the national media lined up, faces of reporters he’d seen on television before the trial began and with whom he’s now practically on a first-name basis, plus countless other reporters who couldn’t get inside the courtroom but are always here, every morning, ready to shoot video footage or snap his picture.

The thousands of locals are here for various reasons, geriatric trial-watchers, concerned citizens, people just interested in the spectacle of it all, friends or family of Melanie Phillips. From time to time in the courtroom or standing outside here by the prisoner transfer, he has seen people who vaguely resemble Melanie and wondered if they were cousins or aunts or uncles. Melanie had a big family, though Noah never met any of them. They were only together for two months before Melanie ended things.

He remembers that day well, the day Melanie broke up with him, her resolve, the firmness of her words. I’m sorry, but I’ve made my decision. That was it. She wouldn’t hear his protests. She just made the statement, a second time to be clear, and that was that. Noah always wondered if she’d discussed it with her friends or family ahead of time. He imagines someone advising her, It’s best to do it clean, just break it off, no long explanations or debate. It bothered him to think that others knew about their breakup before he did.

He lets these thoughts occupy him so he won’t think about what’s coming as he passes down a long corridor lined with armed deputies, as he enters the courtroom from the side and dozens of heads turn in his direction. The law enforcement presence in this room is also heavy; the wall space is occupied by sheriff’s deputies ready to keep order when the verdict is read.

And then it’s as if everything is under water, almost dreamlike. His lawyer says something to him, but Noah doesn’t really listen; he’s gone to another place now, readying himself for what’s about to come. Judge Barnett walks in and calls for the jury. The jurors file in and take their seats, one by one. You’re supposed to watch them as they come in, looking for clues — If they make eye contact, they’re going to acquit you; if they don’t, they’re going to convict. That never made sense to him, why you’d look for clues in the first place, when you’re about to find out in a few seconds.

Instead, he turns around and finds Paige in the fourth row by the aisle. She moves her head so they can see each other between the other spectators. She mouths the words I love you. He wants to stay there, looking at her, but his lawyer takes his arm and he gets to his feet for the reading of the verdict.

He turns to face forward but doesn’t look at the jury. He finds a blank spot on the wall and stares at it, thinking through everything that has happened and wondering, How did it come to this?

He hears a woman’s voice. It turns out the foreperson of the jury is the single mother of two who has her own graphic design business, the one who sits in the front row of the jury box, three people from the left end. Is it a good thing that a woman is the leader? Another question that doesn’t make any difference. All that matters is what she’s going to say next.

“On count one, murder in the first degree with special circumstances, to wit the murder of Melanie Phillips, we find the defendant, Noah Lee Walker, guilty.”

Noah sucks in his breath.

“On count two, murder in the first degree with special circumstances, to wit the murder of Zachary Stern, we find the defendant, Noah Lee Walker, guilty.”

Noah turns and sees Paige. He starts toward her and she runs up the aisle toward him. There are bailiffs covering the gate that cordons off the spectators, and there are other bailiffs assigned specifically to Noah. Both sets of deputies do their jobs. Paige nearly makes it through, coming within a few feet of the defense table. The deputies grasp Noah firmly, gripping his arms, holding down his neck. He goes limp, compliant, before surprising them by breaking free and reaching Paige.

It won’t last, but he just wants to touch her one more time.

“Oh, baby,” she says to him, her face wet.

He puts his hand gently on the back of her neck and kisses her quickly. Then he moves his mouth to her ear. “Don’t give up on me,” he says as the deputies recover their leverage, pulling him back. When he refuses to go down, they shove a Taser against his neck, electrical current surging through him. His legs and arms go limp just before his mind does. He falls to the floor in a heap, his last memory of this courtroom.