Corrine leaned close to her bathroom mirror to apply a second coat of mascara and then stepped back to make sure it wasn’t too much. As a final check, she used her compact to inspect the back of her hair, which she sometimes forgot to tend to. Not too shabby. She had a seventh date tonight with a sports producer named Andrew who made specials for ESPN. He was the first man she’d been willing to see that many times since the divorce. Even more surprisingly, he had asked her to go with him next weekend to a wedding in South Carolina, and she hadn’t hesitated. It dawned on her that she—who prided herself on being at least one step ahead of everyone—may have gone and gotten a boyfriend without realizing it.
She was strapping on high-heeled sandals she knew she’d regret later when her cell phone rang. It was a 516 area code—Nassau County. Something in the back of her brain told her what was about to happen.
It was Netter. The body had been found late the night before by two teenagers who had wandered away from a beach party for privacy. “I’m sorry it took me so long to tell you. Been working nonstop. No autopsy yet, obviously, but it was clearly a head injury. You were right about the missing crystal egg.”
She had known she was right the second she inspected Kerry’s living room.
“What beach?”
“Ocean Beach. The task force is on it now, but I’m still lead.” Ocean Beach was at least an hour east of Kerry’s house, in Suffolk County, a two-hour drive from Manhattan with zero traffic.
“Anything new on Tom Fisher?”
“His wife and kids were visiting the grandparents on the Cape the night Kerry was last seen, so if he has an alibi, we don’t know about it. The drive from Kerry’s to the drop site and back to his place is about ninety miles. We’re hoping he had to stop for gas and are checking all the stations off the Meadowbrook. And we’re getting warrants now for his house, car, and office.”
Married ex-boyfriend she was shaking down for money, spotted at the house the last night she was seen. Corrine could imagine a judge signing off on that.
“If you need anything from the NYPD, let me know?”
“Will do.”
“And, hey, thanks for calling. Seriously.”
Corrine made it all the way to dessert before she mentioned the case to Andrew. She could tell from the way he kept looking at his napkin that he would have preferred to discuss anything else, and she knew that he would find a reason that maybe she shouldn’t join him in South Carolina after all.
57
Six days later, the nightmare began again. I was on my way home from Dr. Boyle’s office when my cell phone rang. It was Susanna.
“Are you okay?” She sounded rushed.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s up?”
“You don’t know?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I need you to sit down.”
“I’m on the street, covered in sweat.” Last weekend at Mom’s had been a break from the city heat. I was counting down the days before I could sit on a beach again. “Just tell me.”
“I got a call from our crime beat guy. Jason’s in custody. They arrested him at his apartment.”
I turned to face Jason’s building on Eighth and Mercer, and remembered the three police cars I had seen pulled to the curb on Eighth Street on my way to therapy. I’d thought nothing of it at the time. “Is it another woman?”
“No. It’s Kerry. They’re charging him with murder, Angela.”
I reached out for something to help me stand. I was leaning against a trash can. “That doesn’t make sense. She was found all the way on Ocean Beach. That’s at least two hours away, and we gave them a timeline for the whole night.”
“Are you listening to yourself, Angela? Have you forgotten that Jason wasn’t actually with you? If they arrested him, they must have evidence. And they know you lied to the police about his alibi. I told you to come clean by now.”
Her words were still ringing in my ears when I walked into my lobby. It took a moment to register that the doorman was speaking to me. A police officer wanted to see me. He gestured to a man in a uniform, sitting on a bench by the elevator.
Technically, he was a sheriff’s deputy, not a cop, and he was there to serve me with documents. It was happening: I was subpoenaed to appear in front of a grand jury in Nassau County.
58
Netter finally answered his phone the third time Corrine tried to reach him. He obviously knew why she was calling.
“Sorry, I wanted to give you a heads-up, but the ADA’s on the warpath about leaks.”
“I could’ve at least helped you pick him.” She had learned about Jason Powell’s arrest from a news report on her car radio only twenty minutes earlier. Netter had apparently gone through the Manhattan South homicide squad instead of contacting Corrine for assistance.
“I think our DA is pissed that your DA made a statement clearing Powell before all the facts were in.”
“And what are the facts? Last I heard, you liked Fisher for it.”
“You’re won’t be happy about this, either, but we matched a piece of physical evidence near the body to the DNA swab you took from Powell. Sorry.”
Her swab; his case.
“What kind of physical evidence?” she asked.
There was a long pause, followed by another apology.
“Wow, it’s like that. Okay. I guess the wife lied to me about his alibi after all.”
“So it would appear. The ADA subpoenaed her. We’ll see if that puts the fear of god into her.”
“Assuming she lied, how’d he get to Long Island that night?”
“We’re thinking he trained it out to her place, and then used Kerry’s car to move her body to Suffolk County and back. Hey, I gotta run.”
She heard voices in the background. “Wait. Did you find blood in her trunk? Or video from the train station?”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ve got DNA. It’s locked and loaded.”
That was the problem with DNA. It made law enforcement lazy. If they convicted the wrong person years ago, they expected DNA to fix it. And if they had DNA to match? Forget about it; they were done.
As she continued to crawl through traffic, she realized that transportation was the one equalizer in New York City. Unless you were in a helicopter or a hovercraft, you had to deal with this bullshit in one form or another.
So how the hell had Jason Powell gotten to Long Island that night?
Netter didn’t seem bothered by this hole in the case, but Corrine could picture a lawyer like Olivia Randall driving a long-haul truck through it.
Sitting behind the wheel of her own car, she started thinking of all the ways a person could get to Port Washington and back. The train, cab, the usual car rental companies, Zipcar, Uber, Lyft, Juno. The more she thought through the options, the more futile the search felt.
Forget the train; he would definitely use a car. And he would use his own car if at all possible to avoid a paper trail. His plates hadn’t turned up on the readers from the bridges and tunnels, but a lot of city drivers bought blocking devices to protect themselves against red-light cameras.
Kerry Lynch was no longer her case, but Corrine wasn’t the type to accept loose ends. Maybe she’d poke around in her spare time.
59
Five Days Later
Jason looked ten years older and ten pounds lighter. It was the first time Olivia had been able to get me access to him since he was denied bail after his arrest. I spotted what I thought was a bruise on his left cheekbone, but he swore I was seeing things because I was worried.
“How are you and Spencer holding up?”
I shrugged. “I mean, fine, under the circumstances. I’m doing my best to tell Spencer this will all get worked out, but I see him on his computer all the time—trying to figure out why exactly his father is here.”