I looked away. He’d used this tactic before, and I didn’t want to go through it again. “Jesus!” Donny hissed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him flip the photo over. “Really, Faraday? My niece is sixteen! Quit trying to shock a reaction out of her by showing her these crime scene photos!”
Faraday reached out and flipped the picture back over. I didn’t look away fast enough, and I caught a glimpse of Payton’s face, her eyes open, her cheeks swollen and bruised, a gash on her forehead, and a large open wound at her neck. My eyes watered, and I squeezed them shut. I heard Donny’s chair scrape the floor. “Maddie,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“Oh, I’d advise against that,” Faraday said. I peeked out at him, and he was leaning back in his chair as if he double-dog dared Donny to leave. “At least not until you hear me out, Fynn.”
Donny picked up the photo and tossed it at the agent. “You have thirty seconds to tell us what you want, Faraday, and then I’m walking Maddie out of here, and if you even think about flashing another gruesome photo at her, I’ll be on the phone with the DOJ demanding they investigate your tactics before I’m even out of this building.”
Faraday picked up the photo from the floor where it’d fallen and put it back in the box, but he still seemed really angry, and I could understand, because what’d happened to Payton looked worse than any nightmare I could imagine. But I wasn’t responsible. He had to know that.
Faraday inhaled deeply, and it seemed like he was trying to rein in his anger. He then looked me square in the eye and tapped the evidence bag with the card and said, “Here’s the thing, Madelyn. We didn’t find this in Payton Wyly’s trash.” My brow furrowed. “We found it in Arnold Schroder’s trash can.”
My jaw dropped. That made no sense! “See,” Faraday continued, “Agent Wallace and I went over to reconfirm you alibi with Schroder, to check if maybe he wanted to change his story. Your buddy stuck to the facts, but he was so nervous and jumpy that we felt he was hiding something. So, later that night we swung by again and noticed that he’d set out the trash. You don’t need a warrant to go through someone’s trash, did you know that? We picked up yours, too, by the way. You guys need to recycle more.”
I felt the blood drain from my face. Ma hid her empties in the trash because she didn’t want our neighbors seeing how many liquor bottles were in the recycle bin.
“So Schroder never mailed the card,” Donny said, the vein at his temple noticeably throbbing. I knew he was furious at the agent for that last comment. “Is that a crime now, Agent Faraday?”
Faraday seemed to ignore him and went back to fishing around inside his box. I felt myself bracing for what might come next. He retrieved a sheet of paper and set it on the table. I was so tense and on edge that I immediately turned away. “Recognize him?” he asked.
I didn’t look until I felt Donny’s hand on my arm, and then I focused on the piece of paper now on the table. It was an artist’s sketch of a man’s face, and even though it was a pretty rough sketch, the first person I thought of when I looked at it was Stubby.
My pounding heart was like a wrecking ball in my chest. I knew that Faraday could tell I saw the similarity, but I smelled a trap, so I shook my head. “No,” I said, but it came out in a whisper.
“Really?” Faraday said, all shock and awe. “You don’t recognize your own best friend, Maddie?”
Donny was looking from me to Faraday. He smelled a trap, too. “You have her answer. What’s your point?”
Faraday pulled out another document. It looked like a handwritten letter. Then he pulled out another and another and another. Donny lifted up the papers and began to read, but I was focused on Faraday, who in turn hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “Those are witness statements,” he said. “From Payton’s fellow cheerleaders. They all give pretty much the same story. They say that last Monday afternoon right after cheerleading practice, Payton was approached by the boy in that sketch and he had a pretty amazing story to tell her. He claimed that he was psychic, that he had visions that often came true, and that he’d seen Payton at a football game and was overcome by a vision of her being killed on her birthday. He didn’t give her his name, but he warned her not to drive her new car, which he said he’d also seen her getting for her birthday.”
I felt my blood turn to ice. I knew instantly what Stubby had done. He’d taken the card after leaving me at Starbucks, and he’d had second thoughts about sending it, knowing it was likely Payton would think it was a joke. He’d probably decided then and there to ignore all my warnings and headed straight to Jupiter High only a few blocks away.
And after I’d told him that Payton had been murdered and the feds had come back to question him about my alibi, he’d panicked by tearing up the card and throwing it out in the trash to get rid of the evidence.
With a sudden horror I knew exactly where the feds were going with this. They thought Stubs had murdered Payton. And since her crime scene photo had resembled Tevon’s, it wasn’t a leap to think they’d try to pin his death on him, too.
While I was putting all of that together, Faraday reached into his box again and pulled out yet another statement. “Here’s a witness statement from Payton’s coach, who told us that a boy resembling this sketch approached her and claimed to be from the Poplar High newspaper. He was very interested in the new star on the team, Payton Wyly. This was before the football game, Maddie, when you supposedly saw Payton’s deathdate. And we checked with your school’s newspaper—Arnold doesn’t contribute to it, and he never has.”
“He didn’t do it!” I blurted out, panic-stricken about where this was heading.
Donny’s hand clamped down on my arm, but it was too late.