The Murder House Read online

  I step onto the dark hardwood floor and look around the room. Gold wallpaper is everywhere. Against one wall is a king-sized canopy bed with thick purple curtains and sturdy bedposts. The bed is dressed in a purple comforter and ruffle with velvet pillows, some of which are still on the bed, some of which lie on the floor. The dark wood dresser holds two pewter statuettes that were probably bookends for the thick volumes of short stories that also now lie on the floor. The statuettes, as well as an antique brass alarm clock, are knocked to the side on the dresser.

  Opposite the bed, made of wood that matches the dresser, is a giant armoire. And in the far corner of the room, south of the armoire and west of the dresser, is the bathroom.

  I remove copies of the crime-scene photos I xeroxed from the file. Zachary Stern was found lying facedown on the floor, his head turned to the right toward the door, his feet pointed toward the bed. Beneath him was a pool of blood and other bodily excrement from the horrific stab wound to his midsection. Several of his fingers were crushed as well. Melanie Phillips was found by the armoire opposite the bed, the back of her right hand touching the armoire’s leg; she was lying on her stomach like Zach, her head to the left, her eyes open and her mouth frozen in a tiny o. She was stabbed more than a dozen times, in the breasts and torso and then in the face, neck, back, arms, and legs.

  Now back to the scene. The comforter on the bed has been pulled back on the left side, showing a large blood pool where Zach was first stabbed while lying in bed. There is blood spatter on the wall behind the bed, and a thick sea of blood embedded in the floor where he died. There is blood spatter on the armoire and all over the nearby floor where Melanie lay as she died.

  Two more facts: Judging from the fresh semen found inside Melanie and on Zach’s genitalia, it seems clear that the two of them had had sexual intercourse not long before they were killed. And as of now, barring DNA testing that is still pending, there is no physical evidence putting Noah Walker in this house—no fingerprints, no carpet fibers, no shoe or boot prints.

  And now the theory the STPD and the district attorney are running with: Noah was obsessed with Melanie. He somehow learned of her affair with Zach and followed her here. We don’t know how he got in. The front door should have been locked, and no damage was done to it. In any event, he lay in wait until they had completed their sexual intercourse, when they were relaxed, when their guard was down, to spring into the room.

  Noah surprised Zach in bed, plunging his knife into Zach’s chest and dragging the blade downward, causing a vertical cut of roughly five inches, tearing open the esophagus and stomach. At this point, Melanie, who was in the bathroom cleaning up, came out. Noah subdued her by the dresser, knocking over the books and alarm clock and stabbing her multiple times in the breasts and torso before throwing her to the floor by the armoire, where he continued to stab her from behind, slicing her cheek and ear and neck and then her back, arms, and legs. He then returned to Zach and threw him out of the bed and onto the floor, stomping on and crushing some of Zach’s fingers in a blind rage.

  I move to the corner beyond where Zach’s body was found and squat down, trying to get the angle right and using the photos to make sure I’m accurate. Where Zach would have been lying on the floor, with his head to the right, his sight line travels beyond the edge of the bed to the armoire. I repeat the same exercise from Melanie’s vantage point and get the same line of vision, from the opposite end.

  I remove my compact from my purse and squat down by the leg of the armoire that Melanie’s right hand touched. I curl the compact under the armoire and around the leg so I can see the back of it. As I thought, the wood is abraded—scraped and cut.

  Ten minutes later, I’m walking on Ocean Drive toward Main Street, on my cell phone with Uncle Lang. “Melanie Phillips was handcuffed to the armoire’s leg,” I say. “He made her watch the whole thing. This wasn’t an act of blind rage, Chief. This was a calculated, well-executed act of sadism.”

  7

  I GET back to my car and drive to see the chief, who is away from the office this afternoon (don’t ever tell him he has the day off, because he’ll spend a half hour explaining that the chief of police never has a day off). My uncle lives on North Sea Road in a three-bedroom cottage set back from the road and flanked with well-manicured shrubbery that always reminds me of a defensive military formation.

  The front door is unlocked and open. It smells like it always smells in here, musty guy scent: dirty socks and body odor combined with the latest fast-food takeout he ate. A bachelor pad, ever since Aunt Chloe left him two years ago.

  On my way to the back porch, I detour to the kitchen, open his fridge, and peer inside. Cartons of Chinese takeout, half a Subway sandwich in its wrapping, a twelve-pack of Budweiser with three cans remaining, a long stick of summer sausage, a pizza box shoved in the back. Oh, yes, and then a tall plastic container of sliced fruit that’s packed to the rim, and a batch of veggie lasagna, still in the shrink-wrapped casserole dish, with only one square cut out of the corner.

  I find Uncle Lang out back, sitting in a chair overlooking his lawn, a water sprinkler doing its thing, the air steamy as a sauna. Lang is wearing a button-down shirt and slacks and decent loafers. I’d forgotten he had that fund-raiser earlier today.

  “Heya, missy,” he says to me. His eyes are small and red. The glass of gin in his hand isn’t his first of the day. He probably drank gin at the fund-raiser and pretended it was ice water.

  I kiss his forehead and sit in the chair on the other side of the small glass table, the one holding the bottle of Beefeater.

  “You haven’t touched the fruit I cut up for you,” I say. “And the veggie lasagna? What’s the deal there? You preserving it for posterity?”

  He sips his gin. “I don’t like spinach. I told you that.”

  “Yeah?” I turn to him. “And what’s your excuse for the fruit?”

  He waves me off. “I don’t know, it’s…mushy.”

  “It’s pineapple and melon and cantaloupe. You like them.”

  “Well, it’s mushy.”

  “That’s because you let it sit there for a week. I cut it up a week ago and you didn’t touch it. Not one piece.” I whack the back of my hand against his shoulder.

  “Ow. Don’t hit me.”

  “I’ll hit you if I want to hit you. You’re like a child. You’re like a little kid. That spinach lasagna is delicious.”

  “Then you eat it.”

  “Hopeless,” I say. “You’re hopeless. You know your doctor’s appointment is next week. You think Dr. Childress is going to say, ‘Congratulations, Chief, a month of eating meatball sandwiches and fried chicken and French fries did the trick—your cholesterol has plummeted!’”

  Lang pushes the empty second glass over toward me and gives me a crosswise look. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing, missy.”

  “I’m looking out for the well-being of my only living family.”

  “No, you’re deflecting. You call me up and tell me you’ve been to the crime scene, which you know you’re not supposed to do, since this isn’t your case, so you try to put me on the defensive about my eating habits.”

  I pour myself a glass of gin. One won’t kill me. “Ten gets you twenty that the abrasions on the armoire leg came from a handcuff. He made each of them watch the other die,” I say. “He immobilized Zach and he handcuffed Melanie to the armoire. He made them watch each other bleed out.”

  “Jenna—”

  “This guy knew what he was doing,” I say. “He stabbed Zach in a place where he wouldn’t die instantly. I mean, he could have sunk that knife into his heart, or slit his throat. Instead, he stabbed him in a place that would cause incredible pain and a slow death. And when Zach made any feeble attempt to raise himself up, he stomped on his hands. And he did the same thing to Melanie. Every time she tried to move, he stabbed her. She kicked her legs, and he stabbed her in the calf. She raised her free arm, and he stabbed her in the triceps—”<
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  “Jenna—”

  “These were sadistic, brutal torture-murders,” I say, “not crimes of passion committed by a jealous lover.”

  “Crimes of passion can be sadistic, Jen—”

  “Do you really think if Noah was in love with Melanie, he’d watch Zach have sex with her first? Why wouldn’t he rush in while they were in the heat of it?”

  “Hey!” the chief shouts. “Do I get a word in here? I’ve heard enough. There is protocol, and there is a chain of command, and nobody breaches that in Southampton. If you think just because you’re my niece—”

  “Of course I don’t think that. And I’m just trying to help—”

  “You’re not helping. You’re not helping at all!” The chief coughs into his fist, his face turning red. He needs to take better care of himself. I can make all the heart-healthy meals the culinary world has to offer, but I can’t make him eat them. I can tell him to walk a couple of miles a few times a week, but I can’t walk them for him.

  He ignores every bit of advice I give him. He openly defies me on a daily basis. So why do I love this grouchy old man so much?

  “Why am I not helping?” I ask.

  Lang polishes off his glass of gin and composes himself. “Because Noah Walker confessed,” he says.

  I draw back. “He…confessed?”

  “Ah, the hotshot from NYPD doesn’t have all the answers, does she?” Lang pours himself another inch of gin. “He confessed this morning. So don’t you go writing up a report that I’ll have to show a defense lawyer. Not when this thing is tied up in a bow.”

  “Noah confessed,” I mumble, raising the glass to my lips. “I’ll be damned.”

  “Noah Walker is guilty, and Noah Walker confessed,” he says. “So do me a favor and move along.”

  8

  THE DIVE Bar is aptly named, dark in every way, from the dim lighting to the oak furnishings, with the Yankees on the big screen, mirrors behind the bar sponsored by various breweries, and nothing but some fried appetizers on the menu for those who dare eat. But the people are friendly and laid-back. It’s a place to disappear, and disappearing sounds good to me at the moment. It started as a glass of wine, and then it became three, and I’m thinking it’s five now. Once I started, I couldn’t think of a good reason to stop.

  This place is locals only—tradesmen and laborers and the occasional cop—which I prefer, because it’s high season in the Hamptons and all the money’s in town. Not that I don’t enjoy seeing men with cardigans tied around their necks and women with so much work done on their faces that they’ve begun to resemble the Joker. Just not on my day off. And not after the day I’ve had, making a jerk out of myself in front of my uncle, the guy who gave me a second chance.

  I should stop drinking. My thoughts are swimming and my mood is darkening. I’m still not sure I made the right move, coming to the Hamptons. I could have found something else to do in Manhattan, or I could have tried to find another big city and start over, even if I had to start at the bottom rung again on patrol. But my uncle the chief made me an offer, and nobody else was knocking down my door.

  “Shit,” I say, the word slow and heavy on my tongue. I check my watch, and it’s nearing six o’clock in the evening. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and my stomach is hollowed out and churning. (Some might argue that’s an apt summary of my life, too.)

  “Whatever, man. Whatever! You know I’m good for it! How long I been comin’ here?”

  The small outburst comes from the guy at the end of the bar, whom I’ve managed not to notice since I’ve been here. Or maybe he just arrived. My brain isn’t hitting on all cylinders right now.

  He’s dressed the same way he was today at Melanie Phillips’s funeral, a dark T-shirt that I might otherwise use to wipe my kitchen counter, a green ball cap turned backward, his long, strawlike hair popping out on both sides and covering his ears.

  “Jerry,” I say to the bartender. That’s a good bartender name, Jerry. “Put his beer on my tab.”

  Jerry, a portly guy with a big round head and a green apron, gives me a crosswise look. I nod and he shrugs, pulling on the lever to fill Aiden Willis’s mug with a Budweiser he couldn’t afford.

  Aiden’s deep-set eyes move in my direction. He doesn’t say anything. There may be a glint of recognition, if he noticed me at the cemetery. My biggest flaw as a cop is my bright-red hair. When I was undercover for a year and a half and didn’t want to be memorable, I dyed it black.

  I go back to my Pinot, trying to remind myself that I’m off duty but wondering if Aiden the cemetery caretaker will come over. When I glance back up a few minutes later, Aiden is still looking at me, his beer untouched. He doesn’t acknowledge me in any way, just stares with those raccoon eyes. But even his stare isn’t really a stare. His eyes move about, wandering aimlessly, always returning to me but never staying on me.

  My cell phone buzzes, a text message. Ten mins away. R U at home?, the message reads. My hesitation to respond surprises me, but there it is. Always trust your gut, my father used to say. Sometimes it’s all you have.

  Well, Pop, I had a gut feeling about Noah Walker, and look where that got me.

  I type in the address of the bar and hit Send. I look back to the corner of the bar, where Aiden’s mug remains full of beer, but Aiden himself is gone.

  I’m into my next glass, which now puts me at about five too many, if anyone’s counting, when the door of the place pops open and a lot of people’s chins rise. I don’t even need to turn around to know it’s Matty, who would stick out in this place like an oil stain on cotton. A moment later, an arm comes over my shoulder and playfully around my neck. His cologne greets me next, before his face is against mine. This is where I’m supposed to swoon with unbridled delight.

  “Hey, gorgeous. What’s with the depressing-bar thing?”

  Matty Queenan is a Wall Street investor with a job I can’t really describe because I’ve never really understood all the financial hocus-pocus these guys pull. All I really understand is that it’s a game without rules: You pick a winner for your clients, then bet on them to lose behind their backs, and if everything goes to shit, the little guy will get screwed but the government will bail you out.

  “Want a drink?” I ask Matty.

  “Here? No. Let’s go someplace decent.”

  I look at Jerry, who pretends he didn’t hear what Matty just said.

  “Seriously, Murphy. This place is a dump. I’m going to need a tetanus shot—”

  “Keep your voice down.” I’m standing now, whispering harshly in his ear. “People can hear you. You’re being rude.”

  He takes me by the arm, but I pull away. “Jerry,” I say, “I apologize for my rude friend, and please buy everyone a round on me.” I slap a fifty on the bar, having already paid for my other drinks, and get some applause for the gesture along with some hard stares in my boyfriend’s direction.

  I hear my cell phone ring in my purse, but I’m too hacked off to do anything but storm out of the place, Matty not far behind.

  9

  “WHAT’S WITH the asshole routine?” I say to Matty as soon as I’m back in the sweltering heat outside.

  “What’s with being half in the bag before I show up? What’s with hanging out in a seedy dive like that?”

  I turn to look at my boyfriend of eleven months, the first two of which we spent together when I lived in the city, the last nine of which have been long-distance. I probably am a little tipsier than I should be, but he didn’t even call and let me know he was coming until a few hours ago, when he was already on his way. That’s Matty for you, always on his own schedule, just assuming I’ll drop everything and jump into his arms when he shows up.

  Okay, to be fair, it’s not like I was working on my doctoral thesis or trying to end world hunger when he called.

  I turn back to him. Matty looks like a Wall Street guy even when he dresses down, in an Armani sport coat, silk shirt, and expensive trousers, with Ferraga
mo shoes that would consume an entire paycheck of mine, his long hair slicked back. He’s got the looks, no doubt. His confidence, more than anything, drew me to him when we met—guess where—at a bar in Midtown.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” he says, moving to me. “I like you when you’re tipsy.”

  I push his hands away. “Those people in there are nice folks. You insulted them.”

  He thinks for a moment, then puts a hand on his chest. “Then I will march back in there and give a bar-wide apology. Will that make Jenna happy?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, instead raising his arm and checking his watch. “I just decided something,” he says.

  I guess I’m supposed to ask what. A few one-liners leap to mind.

  “I just decided that this place is bad for you. You don’t belong here. Just seeing you in the bar seals it. You need the city, kiddo. This place is depressing you.”

  “Manhattan would depress me,” I say, even though in some ways, there’s no place I’d rather be. There’s no place like it in the world. But I got to know it through a cop’s eyes, and seeing it otherwise now would be like a cruel joke every day.

  “Well, we need to figure something out,” he says as we reach his Beemer, fire-engine red with a beige interior. “This commute is a bitch.”

  “It’ll be better after Labor Day, when the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts take off.”

  “Talk about depressing,” he says as he uses his remote to pop the locks. “Summer’s the only time this place is interesting. Hey,” he says as I open the passenger door.

  “Hey what?”

  He nods at me. “Are you going to change? We’re going to Quist.”