The Drowning Child

36

The first person Ren walked into the next morning was Paul Louderback.

‘How’s your head?’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Your headache... last night.’

Shit. ‘Oh,’ said Ren. ‘Yes. It’s fine.’

‘You look tired.’

She stared at him. ‘You know that’s right up there with asking a woman when she’s due...’

‘Ooh... cranky.’

‘Cranky – wow. You’re on fire this morning.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Have I done something?’

Yes. ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m... just...’ fucking bereft... ‘it’s the case.’

Paul nodded. ‘That’s understandable.’

Really – you’re buying that? I’m... fucking sad... I’m heartbroken. I don’t want to sleep with you. I want to cry. And, yes, in your arms would be a great place to do that, but I don’t trust your hands not to go anywhere else. I will lie there and cry, but part of me will be expecting to ward off an advance and where’s the comfort in that?

‘I’m sorry for being short,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t a great night, even before I got to that shitshow at the Veirs.’

‘So he got you at a bad time,’ said Paul.

‘What? John Veir?’ said Ren. ‘Do you believe him? That it was Merrifield?’

Paul shook his head. ‘No, but...’

Oh, I get it. ‘But I shouldn’t have let it get to me.’

‘No, you shouldn’t have.’

‘Sorry.’

‘No need.’ He paused. ‘I hope you know you can pick up the phone to me any time.’ He looked at her with great kindness. ‘And it doesn’t have to be about the case.’

Oh, God, I’m such an asshole. ‘I do know that,’ said Ren. ‘Thanks.’

‘So... before the shitshow?’ said Paul.

‘Memories,’ said Ren. ‘Sadness.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Paul.

‘Also, though, I looked into Alice Veir’s wrongful conviction case.’ She filled him in.

‘Do you think it’s relevant to this?’ said Paul.

‘I don’t know,’ said Ren. ‘If we’re taking Caleb’s disappearance in isolation, maybe. Could Alice Veir be a target through her work? What if Caleb was calling her because someone had approached him about her? Mentioned her name? Or he was concerned someone was following him? I don’t think Alice Veir would tell us if she’d been threatened in any way. If Caleb’s been abducted, his safe return could be dependent on her doing something.’

‘It’s worth looking into,’ said Paul. ‘Do you think her wrongful conviction guy is innocent? Could the real killer be getting nervous?’

Ren nodded. ‘I do think he’s innocent. There was one thing that was slightly odd, though: the show was a panel format and there were three Innocence Project lawyers on it with her, one of whom was from Innocence Project Northwest – which covers the area where the Kevin Dunne murder happened – but there was definitely some tension between this lawyer and Alice Veir when the presenter suggested they collaborate.’

‘So, let me get this straight – Alice Veir – a strong, smart woman – is a lone wolf,’ said Paul. He gave Ren a meaningful look.

Ren laughed. ‘Screw you, man.’

Ren went to her desk and looked up the Innocence Project Northwest. She found Emma Ridley’s contact details and called her direct line.

‘Emma, my name is Ren Bryce, I’m with the FBI – I’m in Tate, working on the Caleb Veir disappearance—’

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘I’m familiar with that. How can I help?’

‘It’s actually about his aunt, Alice Veir,’ said Ren. How do I put this? ‘We’re looking at every possible angle here, and whether this could be connected to anything that Alice Veir was working on. I watched the show you and Alice appeared on together, and I was wondering if you were aware of any particular reason that Alice had not come to you with the Anthony Boyd Lorden case?’

Emma let out a breath. ‘Well, she didn’t need to come to us – I went to her.’

‘Oh,’ said Ren.

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Before Alice Veir ever got involved, we reached out to Lorden’s original lawyers, and asked them if he would agree to us taking a look at his file, and he did. I studied Kevin Dunne’s autopsy report very carefully. I consulted with a forensic anthropologist, who offered an alternative as to what happened to Kevin Dunne – that it was not, in fact, a homicide.’

Holy shit. ‘Really?’

‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Dunne had signs of two separate head traumas, but according to the anthropologist, they could also have been caused by him being struck from behind by the side-view mirror of a high vehicle, like an SUV or a pickup: this would have accounted for the skull fracture at the back of his head where he was hit by the mirror, and the skull fracture at the front of his head from when he hit the ground. Dunne was dressed in dark clothing, it was late at night: yes, it would have been a freak accident, but it’s a very strong possibility. Because Lorden confessed, the autopsy photos weren’t analyzed in any great detail, and even if they were, I think the idea that it was an assault was so ingrained in people’s minds that there would have been a reluctance for opinion to shift. We see that a lot: we see, for example, victims’ families still insisting that whoever was convicted for their loved one’s murder was guilty, even after DNA evidence has exonerated them.’

‘It’s too much for people to bear that they may have contributed to someone’s life being destroyed,’ said Ren.

‘Exactly,’ said Emma.

‘Did you talk to Alice Veir about your theory?’ said Ren.

‘Well, yes,’ said Emma. ‘What happened was that by the time I had received the report back from the forensic anthropologist, Alice Veir had approached Lorden and taken on his case.’

‘So, he didn’t reach out to her?’

‘No – she approached him,’ said Emma.

‘And how did she react to your findings?’ said Ren.

‘She shut me down completely,’ said Emma. ‘I thought I’d made this amazing breakthrough, I was so excited, but she ruled it out completely, she said absolutely not, that she still believed that Dunne was the victim of an assault, just that it wasn’t at the hands of her client.’

‘Did she look at your evidence?’ said Ren.

‘I sent it to her,’ said Emma, ‘but I didn’t hear anything back. I tried her a few times, but I had no luck. And then we were doing that show together. Awkward...’

‘Do you think it might have been an ego thing?’ said Ren. ‘That she’s not the type to want help?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Emma, ‘but she’s an intimidating lady, so I didn’t want to push it. I don’t get it, though – it’s excellent for her client. If Alice is only focusing on the confession being false; well, juries have a real hard time understanding why a person would make a false confession. When I started out doing this, it was the one thing that my family and friends found really hard to understand about my world – why someone would confess to a crime they didn’t commit. Now, though, my mom is online finding cases she wants me to take a look at, looking out for confessions, checking out who might have been coerced.’

‘Good for her,’ said Ren. ‘Emma – would you mind emailing me that evidence?’

‘Sure,’ said Emma. ‘No problem. It’ll have to be Monday, because I’m in court all day and then out of town for the weekend.’

‘That’s no problem,’ said Ren. ‘And if you could keep this confidential...’

‘Of course,’ said Emma. ‘I really feel for Lorden. I’m not sure that Alice Veir is going about this the right way. We have a lot of resources here, and we’re happy to help. She doesn’t seem interested.’