The Murder House Read online

  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.”

  “Noah didn’t confess to Dio Cornwall,” Murphy says. “I talked to Dio after I found this letter on my uncle’s computer. Chief James told him he would get a better sentence if he lied about Noah confessing to him—and a worse sentence if he didn’t. He gave Dio information so Dio could tell a convincing lie to the prosecutors. Everything my uncle admitted to in this letter, Dio confirmed to me.”

  “I see.” Brody nods. “And what about Noah’s so-called confession to the chief himself?”

  “It never happened.” Murphy shakes her head. “He lied to everyone about that. He lied to his lieutenants. He lied to prosecutors. He…”

  She pauses, clears her throat, the first sign of any emotion at all from her.

  “He lied to me,” she says.

  A thrill courses through Noah, tears filling his eyes. He wouldn’t let himself believe it. This roller coaster, this sensation of free-falling through the air, this entire terrifying journey through a system with murky rules and mysterious procedures—he’s never been able to trust it. Not even coming here today. He wouldn’t allow his hopes to rise, only to crash to the ground again.

  But now. Now it’s happening.

  “If I may ask, Detective,” says Brody. “Why did you come forward? This man was your uncle. You could have easily brushed this aside.”

  Jenna Murphy, eyes cast downward, shakes her head. “Because it’s not supposed to be like this,” she says. “It’s supposed to be about justice, not winning. Because deep down, even my uncle understood that, which is why he wrote that letter.”

  Noah begins to tremble uncontrollably, the tears streaming down his face. So many times he gave up hope, so often he wanted to die. He thinks of Paige, who can’t be here to see this, and squeezes his eyes shut, crying harder than he ever remembers crying.

  His lawyer’s arm comes around him, while Noah hears the voice of the prosecutor, Sebastian Akers, reminding the court that the prosecution, through Detective Murphy, brought this information to light, that the prosecutor is just as concerned with the proper administration of justice as anyone.

  And then someone else is talking. The judge, the Honorable Robert Barnett, known as one of the county’s toughest judges.

  “Listen, Noah,” his lawyer whispers to him.

  Noah raises his eyes, his vision blurred by the tears, the catch in his throat leaving him speechless.

  “Based on the material that’s been submitted to the court, as well as the testimony today,” says the judge, “and the lack of any objection from the State, there is only one conclusion this court can reach. The defendant has been the victim of a blatant miscarriage of justice. The defendant’s Article 440 motion is well taken.”

  The judge removes his glasses and looks at Noah, pausing first, considering his next words.

  “Mr. Walker, the State of New York owes you an apology. You have spent nearly a year of your life under this cloud. And I understand you have suffered greatly while incarcerated—incarcerated for a crime that, it is now clear to me, you did not commit. I only hope that you won’t let this ordeal consume you with bitterness and anger, that you can find something positive out of this experience. If I could give you back the last year of your life, I would. But I can’t. All I can do now is find, as a matter of law, that your convictions cannot stand.”

  Noah, emotionally overloaded, shaking, manages to nod in response.

  “The defendant’s motion is granted,” says the judge, banging the gavel. “The defendant’s convictions for the murders of Melanie Phillips and Zachary Stern are hereby vacated. The defendant shall be discharged from custody immediately.”

  44

  THE GATE opens, and Noah Walker strides through it, looking around as if he’s entering a new world. It may feel that way to him. Prison, from my experience on the other side of the bars, at least, is a universe unto itself, especially for the lifers. The loss of hope is a powerful toxin, like being dead while alive.

  I’ve sent a lot of people to Sing Sing, murderers and rapists and even some drug dealers, but there’s nothing fun about doing it. If I could run the world, I’d find another way to treat most of these criminals—most of them, not all of them—but we find widespread solutions to widespread problems in this country, so we just build big prisons and stick everyone inside them and, for the most part, forget about them once they’re gone.

  Noah stops short when his eyes come to rest on me where I’m leaning against my car. He looks different—not just the short prison haircut, which makes him look younger, but also something in his eyes, more relaxed, even refreshed.

  “They said I had a ride,” he says.

  “That’s me.”

  He looks at me, considering.

  “Don’t look so happy,” I say.

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “Hey, I’m not putting a gun to your head.”

  “No, you did that once already.” He has a small bag with him, things he brought into the prison. He walks over and gets into the car.

  I walk around to the other side and climb in. My ten-year-old Chevy isn’t exactly a limousine, but it beats the hell out of a prison transport bus.

  “Your own personal copy,” I say, dropping a New York Post on his lap, the front-page headline NEW YORK OWES YOU AN APOLOGY—quoting the judge—with the text underneath, Officer’s Emotional Testimony Clears “Surfer Jesus” of Murder Charges.

  Noah reads a little of the article, then exhales and gazes out the window. “I didn’t think your testimony was emotional,” he says. “I couldn’t tell how you felt.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  He looks over at me but doesn’t say anything. Pure heat radiates off him, the source of which I can’t place. Maybe anger, aggression, bottled-up rage. I kick on the air-conditioning. Must be the unseasonably warm March weather. That must be it. Yeah.

  Not a word passes between us as I turn onto the Long Island Expressway. I focus on the road and flip through the radio channels; no kind of music seems right, so I go to talk radio, all about spring training for the Yankees and Mets. It’s been so warm in New York this March, I’m not sure the Yankees even needed to travel to Tampa to practice.

  All the while, Noah says nothing, just stares at me. Once again, I turn the AC down—or up, whatever, I make it colder—and pull my shirt off my sticky chest. Something flutters through me, some sense of foreboding, danger, anxiety.

  “You wanna stop staring at me?” I say.

  “Are you gonna arrest me?”

  I look over at him, his prison haircut—high and tight—accentuating his thick neck and shoulders, concealed previously by his long hair. The beard is gone, too, but he hasn’t shaved in a couple of days.

  “You’re sweating,” he says.

  “No, I’m not.”

  “My mistake.” But he’s still turned toward me, as if, at any moment, he might lunge at me or something. That wouldn’
t be a smart move for a guy who’s finally tasting freedom again. But maybe he likes doing that, living on the edge, pushing his luck. Or maybe he just wants to make me nervous.

  We drive like that for a while. I turn up the radio, as if hearing the speculation over Mariano Rivera—will 2012 be his last year?—at a higher volume will somehow shield me from Noah’s stare.

  As we’re driving through Queens, he breaks the silence.

  “Do you expect me to thank you?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t need your gratitude.”

  “Good. Because you don’t have it. You lied at the trial. You’re the reason I got locked up to begin with.”

  I whip the car to the right, swerving across a lane of traffic, just making the exit for Little Neck Parkway. I find a small park by Horace Harding and pull the car over.

  “Get out,” I say as I push the car door open. I walk into the park and wait for him to meet me there. He walks toward me briskly. For a moment, I think he’s not going to stop, that he’s going to knock right into me, or put his hands on my throat. He stops just short of me, close enough that I can see a tiny nick above his lip, that I can smell him, that prison smell of sweat and rage.

  “Did you kill them?” I ask.

  His eyes narrow and his head tilts slightly, like he doesn’t get the question.

  “You have double jeopardy now,” I say. “No one can ever prosecute you again for Melanie and Zach. So now it’s just you and me. Did you kill them?”

  He smiles, bemused. “You gotta be kidding.”

  “You were framed, yes, but that doesn’t mean you’re innocent. Lang thought you were guilty. He just didn’t think he could prove it. You can frame a guilty—”

  “No,” he spits. “I didn’t kill them.”

  My heart banging against my chest, choking my throat, my hands balling into fists, I ask my next question. “What about my uncle?”

  He shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable.”

  “Tell me,” I say.

  He regards me for a moment. He takes another step forward, leaning into me so close, it’s as if he’s about to make a pass at me. I hold my breath and steel myself.

  “I…don’t think I have double jeopardy for that murder, now do I, Detective?”

  “You might as well,” I say. “You’re a media darling. We’d look vindictive if we prosecuted you again. Sebastian Akers would sooner swallow his own tongue. So what’s it gonna be, cowboy?”

  His nose almost touching mine, his breath on my face, his eyes searching mine, that heat radiating off him. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll answer your question.”

  His face moves around mine, his razor stubble against my cheek, his lips touching my ear.

  “I didn’t kill your uncle,” he whispers. He draws back, turns, and walks to the car.

  45

  WHEN I arrive at work the next morning, I get a lot of stares, a lot of whispers as I pass. These days at Southampton Town Police Department, I’m about as welcome as a venereal disease. I’ve given the department a black eye. Oh, there are probably a few people who would admit, if pressed, that I did the right thing, that I prevented a miscarriage of justice, even if I had to tarnish the department, and the memory of a beloved chief, in the process.

  But most people just seem to remember that last part—that I’ve brought shame on the department, that I crossed the thin blue line.

  “Chief wants to see you,” says one of the assistants, passing me.

  More good news: My old partner, Isaac Marks, is now running the show. The town supervisor took the Acting off his title two weeks ago, making Isaac the new, permanent chief. You might think I’d benefit from that, that my former partner would look kindly on me, but you’d be wrong. Isaac was at Noah Walker’s house during the search, when my uncle planted the incriminating evidence, and since my testimony, Isaac has had to answer questions from reporters and the town supervisor. He’s denied any wrongdoing, of course—he had no idea, he says, that Lang planted the knife and necklace—but nobody is completely convinced, so he’s beginning his tenure under a dark cloud—thanks to me!

  He should feel lucky they gave him the job before all of this came out about Lang; if the decision were made today, he surely wouldn’t have received the promotion.

  But when I walk into his office, Isaac doesn’t look like he feels lucky.

  “Morning,” I say.

  “Sit, Murphy.” He throws something across the desk. A folder full of something, with the words SAFE IN SCHOOL INITIATIVE across the top. I have a pretty good idea what’s coming.

  “After that school shooting in Ohio in February,” he says, “the school board here has been anxious to review the safety procedures for the school. Evacuation, prevention, that kind of thing. You’re going to run it. You’ll be reassigned to Bridgehampton School for a couple of months. It’s all in the folder.”

  I stare at the folder in my hand, dumbfounded. This is not an assignment for a veteran detective. Both of us know it. Isaac can’t fire me, because I’m too protected right now—the media would pick up on it, and it would look like exactly what it was, that the STPD was retaliating against me for coming forward with the evidence against Lang—but there are other ways to punish a rogue cop like me, the best of which is to give me shitty assignments, to bore me to death until I quit in disgust.

  “Isaac,” I say.

  “What did you call me?” His head snaps up.

  “I’m sorry, Chief—Chief, I’ve been doing some looking into the murders at 7 Ocean Drive, now that they’re ‘unsolved’ again—”

  “They’re not unsolved. We know who killed them. We let the killer walk free, didn’t we, Detective?” A bit of color to those plump cheeks of his.

  “I…understand,” I say. “Could I just tell you what I’m thinking?”

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Murphy. I can’t wait.” He throws up his hand, like he’d rather have a needle stuck in his eye, and leans back in his chair.

  “Besides those murders, there’s my uncle’s murder. And that murder that you and I were looking at, the prostitute in the woods, impaled on the tree stump.”

  “Yeah?” He scratches his neck. “So?”

  “Well, all four of these have one thing in common—they resulted in slow, torturous deaths,” I say. “But especially my uncle and the prostitute in the woods. Both of them were impaled. I think that could have meaning. I think they’re connected.”

  “Noah Walker killed Zach and Melanie. He probably killed Lang, too, but now that you’ve gone and made Noah untouchable, you couldn’t get the DA to prosecute him if God came down from heaven and declared Noah guilty. And the prostitute? Who the fuck knows who killed her? Let Sag Harbor worry about that.”

  Just another hooker adiosed in the Hamptons, Uncle Lang had said.

  “I don’t want you investigating those murders,” Isaac says. “I want you at the school. Effective immediately. If you go near those cases, you’ll be disciplined. That’s all.” He flicks his hand at me, a shooing gesture.

  Looks like I’m going to have to eat this shit for a while. I return to my desk and start to gather my things.

  A woman’s voice calls out to me. I turn and see a uniform, a rookie, the only female patrol officer working Bridgehampton, all of six weeks on the force.

  “Haven’t had the chance to introduce myself,” she says. “Officer Ricketts.”

  We shake hands. Ricketts is probably in her midtwenties but looks more like she’s in her midteens, big wondering eyes and cropped blond hair.

  “Nice to meet you, Ricketts. Call me Murphy. Let me know if I can ever help.”

  “Well,” she says as I begin to turn away from her.

  “Well, what?”

  “I was wondering if I could be any help to you,” she says. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’d like the chance to work with you.”

  I remember being that young, being green, being a woman on a male-dominated force. Being hungry. Looking for a chan
ce to prove myself.

  And, actually, there is something….

  “This would have to be on your own time,” I say. “Off the record.”

  “Sure, no problem,” she says, not hiding her eagerness.

  Well, what the hell? “Okay, Ricketts,” I say. “Get me a list of all unsolved murders on the South Shore over the last decade. Focus on victims of knife attacks, or some spearing instrument.”

  “Knife…or spearing,” she repeats, writing it down on a note-pad.

  “Stabbed, impaled, sliced, diced, whatever,” I say. “This guy likes to cut people.”

  46

  WHEN I enter Bridgehampton School, red brick and white pillars on Main Street—Montauk Highway, if you prefer—I am directed to the school principal, a woman named Paulina Jacoby. She looks like a school principal, conservatively dressed, her gray hair neatly combed, a humorless way about her. Her office is simply decorated, with a nice view of the massive school grounds to the south. Behind her, yearbooks going back to the seventies line an entire bookcase.

  We spend a few minutes with small talk—they had a good relationship with the former chief, she tells me; she knows I’m his niece, pretty much everybody knows that by now. “We were…pleasantly surprised to hear from Chief Marks,” she says.

  Chief Marks. It will take a long time before I’m used to hearing that.

  “But we’re always happy to hear from the STPD. There is no such thing as a school that has too much security.”

  True—but what she’s saying is, we called her, not the other way around. That isn’t surprising. Isaac was trying to find the least desirable assignment he possibly could for me, without being too obvious about it. If he assigned me to parking meter duty, it would be blatantly clear that he was punishing me. A school assignment is just perfect, from his perspective. Who can be against school security in this day and age? But that doesn’t change the fact that this is an assignment for a much younger cop than me. He’s a devious one, Isaac, that little fuck.