“On your feet, hands backward through the bars,” one of them says. “You give us any trouble and we’ll beat you down.”
He complies. He won’t give them any trouble. They walk him through the open air and he lifts his face up to the stars, feeling the cool air on his skin for the last time, as he takes his final walk—the waltz, they used to call it, when there was an electric chair, the walk from Death Row to the execution chamber.
They take him through another door, walk him down a hall, footsteps echoing on the hard surface. He is disoriented, thinking of Paige, humming symphonic music fit for a waltz, ready now, however it will come.
Then his feet are on carpet, a surface they have not touched for many months. He doesn’t understand. He looks up at a door that says WARDEN’S OFFICE.
Two COs see Noah and give him a smirk. Then they open the double doors, and Noah is pushed into the warden’s office. So this is how it happens? Right here in the warden’s office?
Then he sees the warden, a lean, aging black man. Standing next to him is …
No.
“What … what is this?” he says.
Detective Jenna Murphy says, “I’m having you transferred, Noah. We’re sending you back to Suffolk County Jail, pending a postconviction hearing.”
“A … hearing on what?”
“You were framed, Noah,” she says. “And I can prove it.”
43
THE COURTROOM IS wall-to-wall with spectators and media, cops and prosecutors, people from the community, standing room only once again. The room is so quiet that you can actually hear that ringing sound that absolute silence produces, everyone craning forward, eagerly awaiting the next words that will come from the mouth of this witness—even the judge, peering over his glasses at the witness stand, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed.
The news leaked out yesterday—CNN picked it up first—but not the details. The details are for today. For this hearing. For this moment.
Detective Jenna Murphy, dressed in a blue suit, has testified for over an hour thus far, setting the table for what will come next. Noah’s defense lawyer, Joshua Brody, has proceeded methodically, establishing her credentials, her minor role in the investigation, and going through a lot of technical questions and answers that the court needs to establish the “authenticity” of the letter found on her uncle’s computer. Ultimately, the judge decided that the letter could be admitted into evidence, which paved the way for Brody to cut to the heart of this hearing.
“My uncle was the chief, so he could take over any crime scene he wanted,” says Detective Murphy. “He took over the investigation of the crime scene at 7 Ocean Drive, and he removed the bloody knife and Melanie’s charm necklace before any investigators arrived. Then he controlled the search of Mr. Walker’s house after his arrest.” She shrugs. “He could do whatever he wanted. Nobody would know.”
Joshua Brody nods. “So you’re telling us—”
“I’m telling you that my uncle taped the knife and necklace under the heating duct and pretended to ‘discover’ them there,” she says. “I’m telling you that my uncle planted the evidence in Noah Walker’s kitchen.”
A release throughout the courtroom, a collective gasp. Behind him, footsteps—reporters, prohibited from using smartphones in the courtroom, rushing out to send off a text message, a tweet, a quick phone call. That courtroom exit is probably like a revolving door right now, journalists stepping out for the breaking news, then returning to hear if there’s anything more.
But Noah Walker won’t turn back to look. His eyes are forward, on Jenna Murphy. The woman who spin-kicked him in the face the first time they met, who broke into his house and fired a bullet only inches from his head the second time, who provided the crucial testimony, the testimony that led to his conviction, the third. And who now, after reading a letter from her uncle on his computer, is coming forward to stand up for Noah.
“There was testimony at trial,” says Brody, “that my client confessed to the murders of Melanie Phillips and Zach Stern.”
Murphy nods, blinking slowly, her expression blank. If she is enjoying this, she doesn’t show it; if she’s conflicted, she hides that as well. Something tells Noah she’s good at that, at concealing her thoughts, her feelings.
“That’s what the chief told me,” Murphy says. “But it was a lie. He lied to me, and I repeated the lie to the jury without realizing it was false.”
Another audible reaction from the spectators, another banging of the gavel from the judge. “Anyone who is unable to sit quietly,” says the judge, “will be removed.”