“Word spread quickly. We had some issues with Atherton PD sharing information. On the surface they appeared to be helpful, but every time we asked for information about disturbance calls to the Ames house or the school, we met with a delay. O’Neal became a suspect because we learned during our interviews that he and the victim had had a nasty breakup two weeks before, and her friends said she was seeing someone else but no one admitted to knowing who.”
Max tensed. She and Nick had talked briefly about William last night, but they hadn’t resolved anything. She remained silent for now, figuring Nick would bring it up if he thought it was important for Carson to know.
But Nick didn’t say anything.
Carson continued. “We interviewed O’Neal and he said he’d been home alone all night. Saturday night? Eighteen-year-old high school senior home alone? Beck didn’t buy it. But there was no forensic evidence to tie O’Neal to the crime, and the coroner’s report was very … vague.”
“Vague?” Nick asked. “How so?”
“The coroner determined that the victim had sex the night she was killed, but sexual assault was inconclusive. It was combined with the other evidence—of manual strangulation—to come up with the theory that she was raped and strangled, possibly accidentally. After the anonymous tip that O’Neal’s car had been spotted at the school the night of the murder, Beck went hard at him. He even posited the theory that O’Neal accidentally strangled her during sex games. Beck just wanted a confession. The DA even offered O’Neal a plea agreement of manslaughter, but O’Neal never waffled. He said he was home, and only that witness put him at the school. If that person had come forward and testified, the jury could have gone the other way, but O’Neal’s lawyer was good. He showed enough reasonable doubt. The case was all built on circumstantial evidence and theories. All the people who testified were young, they testified to O’Neal having a history of fighting, breaking up, getting back together with the victim. One of the victim’s close friends testified that the victim and the suspect had rough sex frequently. No one could confirm that he was, in fact, at home.”
“Did you believe that Kevin was guilty?” Max asked.
Carson didn’t say anything for a moment. “I didn’t believe he was innocent, but I was never convinced of his guilt. It all fit—do you know how many cases I’ve worked where an ex-boyfriend goes after his ex-girlfriend? How many domestic violence situations came across my desk? I’m just glad I found my wife forty-two years ago, before I became old and jaded.”
The waiter delivered their food and after he left, Nick asked, “Were there any other suspects you looked at?”
Carson shook his head. “Not seriously. We wanted to find the guy who she allegedly was seeing after she split with O’Neal, but no one came forward, and we had no forensic evidence. Her clubhouse, where she spent a lot of time, had prints from a dozen or more people. All her friends who admitted being in the clubhouse the week before she was killed consented to being printed—we did it primarily to match them up, and if a print ended up somewhere it shouldn’t have been, we’d have a suspect. There were no unaccounted for fingerprints in her clubhouse. We also printed her bedroom and all the doors of her house. One problem, though—”
“Atherton PD.”
“I swear, I wanted to fire them all. Half of them searched without gloves. Half of them trampled the area between the Ames house and the school. There’s a gate that passed through between the two properties. It was open, but we don’t know if the killer opened it or if one of the police opened it. We don’t know if the victim was killed in her clubhouse, the main house, and then brought to the pool, or if she was killed in the pool house. We had a theory, which we gave in court, but it was just a theory. A half-dozen other theories could have worked. The one we went with was that O’Neal found out that the victim was seeing someone else; he went to her clubhouse to confront her. She fled, through the gate to the pool house at the school, to hide from him. He tracked her down, attacked her, and when he realized he killed her, he pushed her into the pool and fled.”
“And I always said,” Max said, “that Kevin would never have done it.”
“So you did. You were the only one, other than his mother. But juries don’t listen to the parents of the accused.” Carson assessed her.
“Kevin knew Lindy was cheating on him when he broke up with her.”
“But,” Carson countered, “according to statements, he didn’t know who it was, and was obsessed with finding out.”
“He wanted to know.” She glanced at Nick. She saw in his expression that he was thinking about William—so was she.
Carson said, “You grew up the way I thought you would.”
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment.”
“It is. You were unusually self-confident when you were eighteen. Very self-aware. You didn’t let the prosecutor under your skin.”
“If I told you that Kevin lied about his alibi, and I could prove he was nowhere near Lindy’s house or the school the night she died, what would you say?”
“I’d say either you fabricated evidence, or the killer called in the anonymous tip.”
Max told him about Olivia Langstrom and what she’d said about the night Lindy died. “Kevin told me this the day the jury came back divided. I haven’t spoken to him since then. I told Detective Beck, and he didn’t believe me, but he questioned Olivia and she denied it.”
Carson frowned “I never knew that.”
“When I asked Olivia, she admitted to it. She lied because Beck questioned her in front of her abusive father.”
“Why didn’t she come forward?”
“She claimed she was scared of her father. Kevin said he was innocent and therefore didn’t need Olivia’s alibi. But the trial and the weight of the hung jury killed him. He left me a letter and confessed to his suicide. He also said he was dying. Proof should be in the autopsy report, which I don’t have.”