The Murder House Read online

  Noah walks around the Aston Martin to stand between the headlights and Paige, a protective gesture.

  “Well, shit, timing sure is everything, isn’t it?” says Detective Isaac Marks, getting out of his vehicle. “Another case of coitus interruptus.”

  “What do you want now?” Noah’s hands curl into fists. He moves toward Isaac.

  “Easy, son, easy.”

  Son. Noah’s always hated how cops talk to him, the condescension. But especially from Isaac Marks, who was the same year as him at Bridgehampton, and their history—and now he’s calling Noah son. What a difference a badge can make.

  “Just stop right there, Noah. I wouldn’t want to interpret your movements as a threat. Then I’d have to violate you, wouldn’t I? Send you right back where you came from.” Isaac nods in Paige’s direction. “Of course, I could violate you right now for public indecency.”

  Noah, fuming, stands his ground. How much he’d love to wipe that smirk off Isaac’s face. But that would be giving the cop exactly what he wants, to haul Noah back to Riverhead.

  “Who’s your friend?” asks Isaac, moving around Noah, shining his Maglite in Paige’s direction. “Is that the same little honey from when we busted you?”

  What an asshole. He knows very well it’s Paige. This whole thing is because of Paige. It has to be. This has to be John Sulzman’s doing.

  “What do you want, Isaac?”

  “That’s Detective Marks to you.”

  “This is harassment!” Paige shouts. “We’re not hurting anybody, we’re not doing anything indecent at all! The only indecency here is the police harassing an innocent man. Don’t you have anything better to do with your time, Detective?”

  “Lady, let me give you a piece of advice,” says Isaac. “I know it’s fun to slum it once in a while and fuck the hired help, but your stallion here, turns out he’s a vicious killer. Now, I don’t know how in glorious hell he came up with the cash to bond himself out, but you better believe we’re going to watch every move he makes, and we’re not going to let him be alone with another woman after what he did to that waitress—”

  “I don’t know what’s going on here,” Paige says, frustration overtaking her composure. “But Noah is innocent, and it would be nice if the police department spent its time searching for a killer instead of following around someone who’s out on bail.”

  “You’re a real feisty one, lady, you know that?” Isaac shows her his teeth. “All the same, if we see you two together again, Noah gets violated and heads back to jail.” He turns to Noah. “That simple enough for you to understand, Mr. Walker? See, lady, Noah here, he didn’t do so well in school—”

  “Oh, you want to talk about school?” Noah approaches Isaac. For a moment, it’s like they’re back on the playground, two kids, not a cop and an accused felon. “You want to talk about old times, Isaac? Because I’ve got a lot of stories. You wanna tell her how you got your nick—”

  “That’s enough, boy.” Isaac raises a finger. “One more word, and it’s back to Riverhead. Your choice.”

  Noah sucks in a breath. There’s nothing he can say.

  “There, that’s better,” says Isaac. “Mrs. Sulzman, you should be getting along now. Say good-bye to the Hamptons until next summer. Noah, he’ll be at Sing Sing by then, but I’m sure you can find another boy toy, some gutter cleaner to pass the time.”

  With that, Paige breaks down, into tears and gasping breaths. Isaac swings his SUV in a three-point turn and drives away.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll think of something,” Noah says, holding Paige, touching her wet face. “I’ll think of something.”

  And then, just like that, like the snap of a finger, he does.

  14

  NO, PLEASE don’t make me, I don’t wanna—

  Childish giggles, pressure on my throat, darkness, then light—

  A bird, an angry bird with a hooked nose, standing upright—

  Please don’t make me—

  I wake with a gasp, my head coming off the pillow, sucking in air, the sounds of giggling and desperate cries slowly fading, the pressure removed from my chest, hands no longer gripping my throat.

  “Shit.” My breathing finally slows. The clock says it’s two minutes to seven. Who needs an alarm clock when you have nightmares every day?

  I grab my iPhone and scroll through photos, spotting the picture I took of that little monument on the lawn at 7 Ocean Drive, that gray-and-black bird with the hooked beak and long tail feather. Yep, that was it, the same one from the nightmare. Great.

  I shower, eat some toast and fruit, and chug two glasses of water to work off my hangover, courtesy of the two bottles of wine Matty and I had last night as a send-off, my last night of forced vacation before I resume my job. Matty is long gone, having left my apartment around five this morning to head back to Manhattan; I have a brief memory of his aftershave and a kiss good-bye.

  I go to work for the first time in thirty days. I feel like a tourist stepping onto foreign soil, the uncertainty of it all, especially of the reception I’ll get from the natives when I show my face.

  The Southampton Town Police substation in Bridgehampton is not exactly an intimidating place, nestled in the corner of an outdoor shopping mall called Bridgehampton Commons off Main Street, filled with chain shops like the Gap, Staples, Panera, a King Kullen grocery store, Victoria’s Secret, and yes, a Dunkin’ Donuts (I know, the jokes write themselves). The black patrol vehicles park in the south corner next to a row of tall recycling bins for clothes and shoes.

  I park my beater in the back and walk into the substation, my bag over my shoulder and a general wariness in my gut. I get some mock applause from a couple of detectives who welcome me back after my one-month vacation. Isaac Marks isn’t there, the weasel. He probably has his nose up the chief’s ass right now.

  Somebody tidied up my desk during my absence. Not that there’s much to it, other than a photograph of my parents, and one of my brother, Ryan. There was a particularly nice shot of the entire family with Uncle Langdon and Aunt Chloe at Coney Island that I used to have on my desk at the NYPD, but I didn’t want to emphasize the familial relationship here, with my uncle being the top dog. There’s some resentment already, some whispers of nepotism about my hiring, though nobody could accuse the chief of favoritism after my suspension.

  “Chief wants to see you, Murph.” One of the administrative assistants, Margaret, drops a bunch of papers on my desk, mail and assorted paperwork.

  “The chief’s here?” Lang doesn’t usually spend time at the substation, generally working out of headquarters on Old Riverhead Road.

  When I enter his office, he seems to be expecting me, wiggling his fingers for me to come in and pointing to the seat opposite the desk while he finishes up a phone call. He finishes barking out directions to one of his deputies before hanging up and looking me over, a hand straying over his mouth.

  “Sit,” he says.

  “I’m fine standing.”

  He folds his hands together. “When an uncle tells his niece to sit, she can say she’s fine standing. But when the chief tells one of his detectives to sit, she sits. And right now, Detective, I’m your chief.”

  I look away, biting my tongue. He’s right. Whatever else, he’s right about this.

  I take a seat.

  “At least you didn’t quit,” he says. “I thought you might.”

  I toss my shoulders, like the statement is irrelevant. I’m not going to quit. That’s the one thing I learned from the month I spent in Matty’s condo in Greenwich Village, dining out and going for long runs, sleeping in and watching old movies, catching some theater and Yankees games. I love living in Manhattan, but I love being a cop more. And if I lose this job with the STPD, nobody will ever give me another chance.

  Lang riffles through some paper on his desk. “There’s a joint task force tracking heroin coming out of Montauk. You’re joining it today.”

  My mouth comes open, but I don’t spe
ak. Look, it’s not like I’m too good to work narcotics. My last assignment with the NYPD was working undercover on a major heroin ring. But I volunteered for that, because undercover work was a new challenge, and I’d come from Robbery-Homicide. Your basic narcotics task force—that’s below my experience level. It’s a clear step backward. And the chief, my dearest uncle, would know that better than anybody.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. “Anything else?”

  “That’s it.”

  I nod and push myself from the chair. When I reach the doorway, he calls out to me. I turn back and look at him.

  “I’m having a salad for lunch today,” he says. “And I’ve been walking a mile and a half every day for the last two weeks.”

  I don’t smile. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction. “Why would a detective care what her chief has for lunch? Or what his exercise regimen is?”

  He winks at me without smiling. “You’re still my favorite niece.”

  I’m his only niece. But I won’t take the bait.

  “Don’t worry, your favorite niece still loves you,” I say. “But your favorite detective still thinks you’re a horse’s ass.”

  15

  “THE SUPREME Court of Suffolk County is back in session,” calls the bailiff. “People versus Noah Lee Walker.”

  Noah shakes his head quietly. He hates it when they announce the case name. It’s hard to feel like you have a fighting chance when it’s the entire State of New York against you. And his full name—nobody’s ever called him Noah Lee. It makes him sound like a presidential assassin or a mass murderer.

  He’s probably starting to look like one, too. In the three months since his arrest, Noah has not cut his hair, which was on the longer side to begin with. Now it falls in waves around his unshaven face. USA Today was the first to use the nickname Surfer Jesus, but now even the Times and Nancy Grace have adopted it.

  “Mr. Akers?” The judge, an intimidating, steely-faced, silver-haired man named Robert Barnett, looks over his glasses at the prosecutor, Assistant District Attorney Sebastian Akers. Akers is a tall man with thick dark hair and the clean-cut good looks of a varsity quarterback or presidential candidate. But it’s not just his looks; his presence, too, the confidence, the performance adrenaline; he’s a man who seems to grow a few inches, whose voice lowers an octave, as he stands before a courtroom bursting at the seams with spectators and reporters.

  “May it please the court,” Akers says, buttoning his suit coat and positioning himself before the jury box. Fifteen sets of eyes—twelve jurors and three alternates—are fixed on the prosecutor. “Melanie Phillips was one of ours, born and raised in Bridgehampton. She didn’t graduate at the top of her class and she hadn’t yet attended college. But she had dreams. At age twenty, she worked day shifts at a seafood hut and took drama classes at night to realize that dream, the dream of becoming an actress. It may have been unrealistic. Sometimes dreams are. But this is America, and we all have the right to pursue our dreams, don’t we? But Melanie—Melanie never got that chance. Her life, her dreams were cut short when she was brutally murdered, stabbed and slashed over and over again in a rental house by the beach three months ago.”

  Akers sits on that thought a moment, shaking his head with sadness. “Zachary Stern,” he says, and the jurors pop to attention again. “Long time ago, Zach had the same dream. He was an actor. Never made it big, but did it for years, a few commercials here, a couple of television appearances there. And when he finally realized that being a movie star wasn’t in the cards for him, he decided to help other people fulfill their dreams. He became an agent, one of the most successful in Hollywood. And one day, while vacationing in the Hamptons, he met Melanie Phillips. He was going to sign her. Would he have made Melanie famous? Maybe. But we’ll never know. Because Zach was murdered along with Melanie.”

  Akers turns sideways, so that the jurors can clearly see Noah at the defense table. Akers turns his head toward Noah and raises his arm. “That man, Noah Lee Walker,” says Akers, jabbing his finger at him, “savagely killed Melanie Phillips and Zach Stern in a fit of rage, in the most brutal of ways. He sliced them open and left them for dead.”

  Noah shakes his head and locks eyes with the jurors. His defense lawyer said not to respond, to look composed and dignified, but he can’t listen to that accusation without responding.

  “It was a crime of passion, a crime of rage,” says Akers. “A crime of jealousy. You see, Noah Walker was in love with Melanie. He didn’t want to lose her to Zach Stern or to Hollywood. No, if you try to leave Noah Walker, this is the price you pay.”

  Akers nods to his assistant, who pushes a button. Noah’s lawyer had argued desperately to keep this out of the trial, but the judge ruled against him.

  The slide show that pops on the screen shows crime-scene photographs of Melanie, close-ups and full-body shots, her vacant eyes staring into space, her mouth barely open, a dozen cuts from a knife, some of them deeper, some superficial. The photos of Zach Stern aren’t much better, perhaps less graphic but still horrific. The jury recoils at them, audibly gasping and murmuring.

  Then the screen goes blank. Akers walks over to the witness stand. “You will hear from people who knew Melanie and Noah. They will sit in this chair and they will tell you about that relationship. They will tell you about Noah’s obsession. They will tell you that Noah couldn’t bear the thought of losing Melanie, that he was insane with jealousy.” Akers walks over to the evidence table and lifts a bag. “You will hear expert testimony that this knife was stained with the blood of Zach and Melanie. And you will hear from Chief of Police Langdon James that he found this knife under a heating duct in Noah Walker’s kitchen floor, along with a charm necklace that Melanie had worn around her neck every day of her life since she was six years old.”

  Akers takes a moment, waiting for his conclusion.

  “And you will hear something else from Chief James. You will hear testimony that Noah Walker confessed to these murders, that when his guard was down, he admitted killing Melanie and Zach and explained exactly how he did it.”

  Akers turns again and points at Noah. “We will prove all of this to you, ladies and gentlemen, that much I promise you. And when this trial is over, we will ask you to give Melanie and Zach the only thing that you can give them now: justice. We will ask you to return two verdicts of guilty of murder in the first degree against Noah Lee Walker.”

  In ten minutes, Akers has summarized the whole thing in a way that makes Noah look obviously guilty. Akers has horrified them with the gruesome photos and appealed to their sympathy with the talk of Hollywood dreams dashed. Hell, he’s even made that bloodsucker Zach Stern sound like a swell guy.

  Noah sees it in the jurors’ eyes, the way they follow the prosecutor as he returns to the defense table, the way they stare in Noah’s direction with contempt.

  He’s going to need a miracle.

  16

  “REMY HANDLEMAN,” the bailiff calls out into the hallway, summoning the prosecution’s first witness.

  Remy Handleman enters the courtroom and takes the witness stand. He is wearing a suit, but not one that he’s worn before. The jacket hangs limp over his shoulders and the collar is too wide. Remy’s probably never worn a suit in his life.

  After he takes his oath, he runs a hand over his oily hair and fidgets in his chair, his hands likewise unable to find a comfortable place to rest. The behavior of a liar, a bad one, at least.

  “Mr. Handleman,” says the prosecutor, buttoning his coat at the podium, “is your appearance here today pursuant to a subpoena?”

  “My appear—” Remy looks down at himself. “Somebody said I should wear a suit. Is that what you mean?”

  Despite his predicament, Noah can’t help but feel for Remy, who’s too dim to understand why everyone’s chuckling in the courtroom. Remy first came to Bridgehampton when Noah was a seventh grader. He was one of those needy kids who wanted everyone to like him and could never understand when they
didn’t, and never stopped trying. Noah tried to befriend him, even defended him a couple of times from playground beatings, but Remy never quite fit in. He smoked a lot of weed and sold some, too. He was known to the STPD long before they first busted him selling Oxy behind a diner off the turnpike about four years ago.

  “Mr. Handleman, were you acquainted with the deceased, Melanie Phillips?”

  “Yeah, I knew Melanie. I go into Tasty’s for steamers, maybe a couple times a week.”

  “Tasty’s was the restaurant where Melanie waitressed?”

  “Uh-huh, yes.”

  “Take us back to the first weekend of June this year, Mr. Handleman,” says the prosecutor, Akers. “Thursday, June second. Did you go into Tasty’s that day?”

  “Yeah, I did. I had lunch there.”

  “Who waited on you that day?”

  “Melanie did.”

  “Did you see the defendant there on that day, at that time?”

  “Yeah.” Remy nods at Noah. “Noah was there. He was, like, like following her around.”

  “Melanie was doing her waitressing duties, and Noah was following her around?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you hear them speak?”

  “Yeah. Melanie was like, ‘Leave me alone.’ And Noah was like, ‘Give me another chance, I love you,’ stuff like that.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Akers nods with grave importance, as if the witness has just said something brilliant. Remy is anything but. But he’s not so stupid that he couldn’t recognize a deal when it was offered to him. Three months ago, the STPD busted him for the second time for selling Oxy, and the second bust was likely to mean serious prison time. It was awfully convenient, then, that he just happened to have information that would help the STPD solve one of the biggest murders the region had ever seen. Suddenly an eight-year sentence is pleaded down to twenty months, all because of his testimony today, his assistance in a high-profile double-murder trial.