Dead Certain: A Novel Read online

  “The conventional wisdom is definitely what my father advised when we last met—hunker down. Talking to cops now will lock you into a story, and if new evidence subsequently refreshes your recollection about something down the road, it will look like you lied. Here’s just one example. If you’d talked to the police before we were retained, you might have denied ever being in her apartment. Now that we know your prints are likely there, I can ask you to search your memory as to why that would be. So, for the sake of argument, maybe now you remember being there for some perfectly innocent reason. Maybe you now remember that you’d visited once to drop something off or to attend a party. If you tell the police one thing and then your memory gets ‘refreshed,’ they view that as a lie when the reality is that you just forgot. Also, cooperation’s like being pregnant, as they say. There’s no halfway. If you agree to an interview then they’re going to ask you to take a polygraph. They’re not admissible in court, but if you decline—or worse, fail—then they’ll think they’ve got their man. Same thing with their requesting to search your place. Right now, they probably don’t have enough to get a warrant, so they’ll ask for your permission. If you say no, then they again think it’s because you’ve got something to hide.”

  I can tell just from the way he looks at me that he isn’t going to cooperate. And not because of my bullshit refreshed-recollection scenario. He’s hiding something.

  “You’ve more than convinced me, Ella. Tell them thanks but no thanks.”

  I’ve done my job the way my father taught me. But I’m not willing to let Paul off the hook just yet. I need to know just how deep in the muck he is.

  “There’s a second option. And it’s an important one for you to consider.”

  I look at him with my most no-nonsense stare. I clearly have his attention.

  “If you were involved in any way in Jennifer Barnett’s disappearance, you should tell me. Telling me doesn’t mean we’re going to change our approach, but it allows us to better evaluate the risks. That’s because if you were involved, there’s a pretty strong likelihood that the police will ultimately be able to prove that. By contrast, if you weren’t, then cooperating has far fewer downsides and much greater rewards.”

  My proposal is met with a stony silence. I knew even while I was speaking that there was no way that Paul Michelson was going to confess, even just to me. He doesn’t seem to be built that way.

  “I didn’t do it, Ella. Please believe that. I know we haven’t spoken in more than ten years, but . . . you’re not just my lawyer, you’re someone who knows me. You know I couldn’t have hurt this girl.”

  His use of the phrase this girl doesn’t help his cause. I would have found Paul slightly more believable if he had referred to Jennifer Barnett by name, or at least recognized she was a woman, not a girl.

  “But I also don’t see any reason why I should help them out,” he adds.

  I let the words settle before responding. The echoes of Zach’s self-interested response are almost more than I can bear.

  “In that case, we follow my father’s script. I’ll call Detective McCorry and tell him that we’re representing you and that, for the moment, you’re going to decline their offer to submit to an interview.”

  In different circumstances, I might have waited for my father to return from court so I could run the decision by him to tell the police to pound sand with regard to Paul Michelson. But Paul was unequivocal, and this was my father’s standard operating procedure, so I figured I might as well just get it over with.

  He answers on the first ring. A gruff sounding, “McCorry.”

  “This is Ella Broden. We met earlier today, when I was with Gabriel Velasquez.”

  “I remember. Do you need me to get Gabriel?”

  “No. I was calling to speak to you. It’s about Paul Michelson. He’s a client of my law firm. I practice with my father, Clint Broden. Paul said that you reached out to him and expressed interest in an interview. I’m calling to inform you that he’s going to decline that offer at this time.”

  “Really?”

  The question throws me a bit. I was prepared for him to tell me the usual cop line—that my client was making a huge mistake by refusing to cooperate—but not to suggest that I might be joking.

  “Yes, really,” I say. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve never had an innocent man turn down an invite to chat with the police. I don’t think my father has ever—and I mean ever—brought someone in for a voluntary interview.”

  I surprise myself at how easily I flip into defense-lawyer mode. Paul might very well be a murderer and here I am, claiming the moral high ground for his refusal to cooperate with the police.

  “No . . . not on the cooperation,” Detective McCorry says. “I’m surprised that you’re representing Paul Michelson. It just seems . . . odd, given what’s going on with your sister.”

  It’s more than a fair point, so I drop the attitude. I could explain that Paul retained us before my sister went missing, but that would violate the attorney–client privilege.

  “The two really have nothing to do with each other, Detective. Paul is innocent.”

  “Okay,” he says with the same tone as if I’d told him that I think Santa is real. “I know you know this, but we focus hard on anyone who won’t cooperate with us. So if Mr. Michelson isn’t the guy, the best thing is for him to just tell us that.”

  “Thanks for the advice. I can tell you that he’s not the guy, and we’re going to have to leave it at that for the moment. He’s now going to go about his life. He and I are both confident that, if something did happen to Ms. Barnett, your investigative skills will be good enough to find the person responsible.”

  Less than a minute after I hang up with McCorry, my phone rings. The call is from the same number I had just dialed—the main line at One PP.

  “Did you forget something, Detective McCorry?” I ask without so much as saying hello first.

  “It’s Gabriel. Jim just filled me in.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  “Yeah. Oh. Look, I know everybody’s got to make a living, and the way of the world is that the toughest ADAs sell their souls for big money, so I’m not complaining about that. But you don’t want to represent Paul Michelson. Not now. Not on this.”

  This doesn’t sound like the normal police posturing. Gabriel has taken on the tone of a friend staging an intervention.

  “Care to share why not?”

  “You playing coy, or do you really not know?”

  “Why don’t we pretend that my father follows a policy that it’s not our job to prove our client’s innocence but to rebut evidence that you come up with indicating otherwise. There was no reason for us to ask Mr. Michelson anything about his relationship with Jennifer Barnett or the circumstances behind her disappearance.”

  “Hell of a way to earn a buck, Ella.”

  I let the comment go without response. He’s right, but so is my father.

  “Let’s just say that you should probably talk to your client about the affair he was having with Ms. Barnett. While you’re at it, ask him if the muckety-mucks at Maeve Grant heard that he was diddling a research analyst on his desk, whether that’d be the end of his seven-figure bonuses.”

  “What evidence do you have about the affair?”

  “She kept a diary,” he says.

  My father returns to the office an hour later. He looks like a beaten man, which is the last thing I’d normally say about my father, especially when he returns from court.

  “How’d it go with Judge Koletsky?” I ask.

  “Fine. I got the adjournment. He said he had no problem with an open-ended continuance—as a courtesy to me. The prosecution cried bloody murder, of course, and so he ended up cutting the baby in half. He granted the continuance but said we have to come back next month and tell him if conditions concerning Charlotte’s disappearance have changed. As if he lives under a rock and wouldn’t find out on his own.”

  “Garkov must
be happy.”

  “I haven’t told him yet. But I’m sure this isn’t going to disappoint him.”

  “There’s news about Paul Michelson,” I say.

  “Ashleigh told me that he called. What’s going on?”

  “A lot. The police likely have a match of Paul’s prints at Jennifer Barnett’s apartment, and they’ve invited him to come down and chat. I met with him and gave him the pros and cons—”

  “Emphasis on the cons, I hope.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry. He was con all the way. So I called over to One PP and told the lead detective no. And then, like two minutes after I told Detective McCorry that Paul wasn’t cooperating, Gabriel called me. He said that Jennifer Barnett kept a diary and it leaves no doubt that she was having an affair with Paul.”

  “So? If he said it was an affair, doesn’t that, by definition, mean it was consensual? Why would he need to kill her when he can just break it off? Paul’s not married, right?”

  “No, he’s not married. But it’s still the twenty-first century, Dad. Maeve Grant’s policies prohibit superior-subordinate relationships. Big firms have cracked down on that sort of thing. If Jennifer Barnett were to claim sexual harassment—which she could just by virtue of Paul being her boss—Maeve Grant might well fire Paul.”

  “So you’re saying that Paul has a decent motive.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.”

  My father doesn’t look the least bit fazed about the possibility that we’re representing a murderer. I’m not at all surprised. He’s represented them in the past and swears that they have been some of his nicest clients.

  “All the more reason to hunker down,” he says.

  14.

  I come home on the early side and order my favorite pad thai for dinner. My original plan was to watch a movie, but all the titles on pay-per-view remind me of Charlotte in one way or another. I give some fleeting thought to heading over to Lava, just to drink surrounded by people rather than drinking alone. I decide against it and open a bottle of chardonnay waiting in the fridge.

  The thought of Lava makes me think of Dylan. I figure that now is as good a time as any to do some cyber-snooping about my one-night stand. Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about him beyond his name and that he’s a doctor of some type temporarily living in Brooklyn.

  I type “Dylan Perry” into Google. The first hit is the Wikipedia page for the character on Beverly Hills, 90210—Dylan McKay, who was played by Luke Perry. I refine my search to focus on Brooklyn. That turns up some real people—a seventy-year-old lawyer, the Facebook profile of someone who looks like a science teacher I had in middle school, the LinkedIn page for a banker at Citibank who’s bald as a cue ball. None of them is my Dylan.

  I click on to Lava’s website, but Dylan doesn’t have a profile there. Next I check my own profile to see if he’s left me a message, but my inbox contains nothing but spam.

  I’m considering what other searches might bear fruit when my cell phone rings. As has been my Pavlovian response whenever I’ve received a call over the last two days, my entire body clenches, preparing itself for the call I’ve been dreading. The fact that the caller ID reveals it’s from One PP makes that likelihood all the greater.

  “Hello?” I say, tentatively.

  “It’s Gabriel. I’ve called to share some good news. We found the student your sister was involved with.”

  “Jason?” I say, and immediately realize that isn’t his real name.

  “His name is Josh. Josh Walden.”

  The name means nothing. I’m quite sure that Charlotte had never mentioned a Josh Walden to me before.

  “Have you spoken to him?”

  “He’s sitting in our interrogation room as we speak.”

  For the first time, I actually feel as if there’s a ray of hope. I’m afraid to ask Gabriel what Josh said, for fear that he’ll dash it.

  Gabriel offers it up without my prompt. “He admitted to the affair, but says he had no idea what happened to your sister. In fact, he claims he didn’t even know she was missing.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t believe anyone. You know that.”

  “Can I see him?”

  “That’s why I called you. You should get down here as fast as you can.”

  Detectives work in two shifts. The first team starts the day at 8:00 a.m. and goes home at 4:00 p.m. The second team arrives at 4:00 p.m. and stays until 1:00 a.m. For my sister’s case, and Jennifer Barnett’s too, for that matter, everyone is pulling doubles.

  That means that the squad room at One PP is fully staffed even though it’s near midnight by the time I arrive. Jim McCorry is tasked with retrieving me from the security guard downstairs. Meant as a tacit reminder, perhaps, about Paul’s lack of cooperation regarding Jennifer Barnett.

  “It’s an all-hands situation upstairs,” Detective McCorry says. “Not only are all of our guys here, but we’ve pulled a team from Domestic Violence and Homicide. Also, two detectives from BRAM.”

  I speak most of the police lingo, but BRAM is a new one. “What’s that?”

  “BRAM? Oh, Burglary, Robbery, Apprehension Module. There are two more detectives working who are pitching in on your sister’s case that are also on the Barnett investigation. The last thing anyone here wants is for either case to go to Missing Persons.”

  In New York City, a missing-persons case is handled by the local precinct for the first seven days. If you’ve got a little more pull—as my father and I do, and apparently Jennifer Barnett’s family as well—you get a top team like Gabriel’s to handle it, with the local precinct providing backup. It doesn’t go to Missing Persons until seven days have been exhausted, at which time it’s generally considered unsolvable.

  Detective McCorry brings me into Gabriel’s office. To my surprise, it’s empty.

  “Where’s Gabriel?” I ask.

  “He’s in with the witness.”

  “He wanted me to join him.”

  “No. He wanted you to watch. He told me to tell you that he’ll be in shortly to discuss the interrogation with you.”

  Of course, that was right. I’m no longer an ADA. I’m the victim’s sister. I’m not going to get within twenty feet of Josh Walden while he’s in police custody.

  Detective McCorry leans over to the computer terminal on Gabriel’s desk and turns the monitor so it faces me. A few keystrokes later, I have a window into the interrogation room.

  The picture is hardly high definition, but it’s in color at least. The camera is overhead, making the angle of the shot downward.

  My first reaction to seeing Josh Walden is that he does not remotely look like Charlotte’s type. I always go for the straight arrows but she has a thing for the bad boys, forever drawn to dark souls in the unyielding belief that her light can save them. But Josh makes even the guys I dated look like rebels. He couldn’t be more vanilla if he tried.

  He’s rail thin, as if he still hasn’t finished filling out yet. His hair is sandy brown, short, neatly parted on the side. Even though it’s near midnight, he doesn’t appear to have the slightest stubble on his chin. His eyes are blue, and he’s dressed in a white polo shirt and khakis, like he’s just stepped out of the J. Crew catalog.

  His leg bounces up and down with nervous energy. But he doesn’t have any of the shifty-eyed look of the liars I’ve seen. Then again, the best liars betray no tells.

  Gabriel must have received some notification that we were listening in, because he says, “Let’s recap where we are here, Mr. Walden. Tell me if I have any of this wrong, because it’s very important to me that I understand exactly what you’re telling me. First, you admit that you had a relationship with Charlotte Broden.”

  Gabriel stops, obviously expecting Josh to confirm this part. Josh, however, looks at him like a deer caught in headlights.

  “That’s right, isn’t it? For the last two months, you’ve been having a sexual relationship with Charlotte Broden?”

  �
�Yes,” Josh says.

  His voice is squeaky. Yet another reason for me to wonder how Charlotte ended up in bed with this guy.

  “And you had no knowledge that Charlotte was seeing other people. Is that also correct?”

  “I still don’t,” he says. “I just know you told me she had a boyfriend. I thought I was her boyfriend.”

  At least to my ear, it doesn’t sound like backtalk. Josh Walden actually believes that Charlotte has been faithful to him and that the police investigating her disappearance are lying when they tell him otherwise. I could see the fictional Jason reacting the exact same way.

  “And the last time you saw Charlotte was on Monday of this week . . . four days ago?”

  “Right. Monday night.”

  “And that was also the last time you spoke with her?”

  Josh nods.

  “Please answer audibly, Mr. Walden.”

  “Yes. I sent her some texts after that and tried her cell two or three times, but she didn’t respond.”

  “And you have absolutely no idea what happened to her?”

  “None.”

  Gabriel stands and walks to the corner of the room. Then he looks directly into the camera. It’s as if he’s asking me, What do you think?

  The truth is that I don’t know what to think. None of it makes any sense. If Josh doesn’t much look like the kind of guy Charlotte would have sex with, he certainly doesn’t give off the vibe of being the kind of guy who would kill her and then dispose of her body. But looks are a notoriously fallible indicator of guilt. Everyone said Jeffrey Dahmer seemed mild-mannered too.

  Gabriel resumes his seat, this time turning the chair so he’s facing the back, sitting in the wrong direction, but staring right at Josh. It looks to me like Gabriel isn’t buying anything Josh is selling.

  “Here’s the thing. I believe you,” Gabriel says, as sincere as I’ve heard those words sound. “I really do. But it’s department protocol that we can’t clear a suspect unless we check off some boxes. That includes getting your permission to allow us to fingerprint you, and for you to give us a swab of DNA. We’d also like to search your apartment, examine your computer and your phone, and administer a polygraph. We can do it all within the hour. If it all checks out, you’re in the clear.”