“What does he look like?”
“Average size. Average build. Young. White. Dark hair.”
“That’s kind of broad. Can you be more specific? Anything unique about him? A scar or a birthmark? A tattoo? The color of his eyes.”
“His jacket,” Randall said. “He always wears a long black coat that has a giant hood attached. The edge of the hood is lined with fur. Covers his entire face, like he’s trying to hide. He’s always wearing that coat with the hood up. But I’ve seen him without the hood. I know what he looks like.”
“Yeah, average size and average build.”
Randall nodded.
“A man with a large hood? You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Adler shook her head and sighed, tossing her pen onto the table and folding her arms across her chest. “You know this all sounds like it’s straight out of a movie, right? Pretty tough to swallow.”
“What?”
“I mean, if a stranger came into my life out of nowhere and knew all these things about me and my dead wife, the very first thing I would’ve done was go to the police. No, scratch that. The first thing I would’ve done was suspect him of my wife’s murder, and then I’d go to the police. You’re a smart guy. Educated. A professor. Why would you only be telling us about this guy now?”
“Because I was trying to hide the truth about who I am. I knew that if I told you about Sam, I’d have to tell you everything. But now you already know, so there’s no reason to keep it a secret any longer.” The pain in Randall’s head was overwhelming. He squinted to narrow his vision. When he spoke, the words sounded hollow, like he was in a tunnel or a cave. “He threatened me. Told me he’d hurt me and those around me if I went to the police.”
“Of course he did.”
“Watch the attitude,” Sydney barked. “We’re cooperating here.”
“Your client is feeding me a bunch of crap to save his own skin. Come on, Mr. Windsor. You’re too good an attorney and get paid way too much to be expected to believe this.”
“It’s the truth,” Randall whispered, the pain completely overtaking him now. He could smell the dampness of Gary’s basement. The roughness of the foundation wall. “It’s the goddamn truth.”
“Then I suggest you make bail, and the next time you see this Sam, try and get a print. Take a picture. Maybe a video of your encounter on your phone. Come back to me with proof of a hooded, all-knowing, dangerous stranger, and I’ll drop the charges. Deal?”
Sydney’s face turned red. “This sarcasm is unprofessional. We’re talking about a serious matter here.”
Adler looked at him. “Let’s recap. Aside from these new revelations we discovered today about your client’s real identity, I have your client on video at Hooper Landsky’s parking garage the day Mr. Landsky disappeared, and Hooper’s keys in your client’s garage. The probable murder weapon and his wife’s car computer were buried in his yard. He’s also in possession of his wife’s cell phone, which we’re now holding as evidence. How would he have her phone if she drove from the Bear Mountain Inn off the Goat Trail?”
“Sam gave me the phone,” Randall muttered.
“The affair,” Adler continued, ignoring Randall as she spoke to Sidney, “the divorce, and the money are all motives. And now we have a new motive, given his real identity. But suddenly he has this story about a mysterious hooded visitor the day after he knows I saw such a person when I was run off the road by a maroon Subaru Legacy?” She turned and looked at Randall. “You sure you want to go with that? You had the keys, after all.”
“I didn’t know you were run off the road,” Randall said, his voice barely audible. “I’m telling you the truth.”
“This is my client’s official statement,” Sidney barked.
“It’s a bunch of garbage,” Adler shouted. “And I’m taking him down.”
The last thing Randall remembered was the sound of the interrogation-room door opening and a voice in the background as a trooper pulled his arms behind him and cuffs were tightened around his wrists.
“Dr. Feder, my name is Mark Peters. I’m a deputy district attorney for Westchester County . . .”
Randall started to scream. He couldn’t help it. And somewhere in the background, behind the pain and the panic and the noise and the screaming, he heard his lawyer objecting to the charges.
Then came blackness.
39
Susan and Tommy spent the rest of the afternoon filing their arrest report and processing the evidence they’d found on the Brocks’ property. It would take Forensics a few days to get back to them with anything from the field hockey stick, and the tech team needed some time to analyze the car’s computer.
The Cortlandt barracks was too small to house a jail cell, so they transported Randall to the Hawthorne headquarters. Neither she nor Tommy escorted Randall for processing, but they got word when everything was done, and Susan was sent his booking photo via email for her file. He’d be placed before a judge in the morning and would likely make bail by lunch. That’s just how these things worked for those who had money and influence.
When Susan got home, Casey and Tim came running down the hall as usual, arms outstretched, straddling the edge between balance and calamity as only children could do.
“Mommy!”
“Hi, Mommy!”
She dropped her bag and knelt down just as the twins made impact with hugs that almost knocked her off her feet. This was always the highlight of her homecoming. No matter how bad a day she was having or how crappy the world made her feel, coming home to those sweet little arms wrapping around her always made her feel better.
“Mommy, Grandma got the decorations out of the attic, and we decorated the whole house!” Tim cried, jumping and spinning.
Casey twisted her mother’s hair in her small hands, nodding. “We still need a tree, though. We need to decorate a tree.”
Susan stood up. “We’ll get a tree tomorrow. I promise. We’ll bring it home and decorate it, and we’ll put on Christmas songs and bake cookies, okay?”
“Yes!” Casey replied, hopping up with her hands raised.
“Yes!” Tim cried, mimicking his sister.
Susan stepped to the side, realizing she’d been blocking Tommy from coming all the way in the house. “Did you guys say hello to Tommy?”
“Hi, Tommy!”
“Hi, Tommy! We decorated. Come see!”
Tim grabbed Tommy by the hand and dragged him into the living room to show him the lights and the garland and the small Christmas village they’d set up on a side table. He was most proud of the snowflakes they’d made by folding construction paper and cutting shapes with their safety scissors. Casey then took over and brought Tommy to the train set they’d built to go around the tree as well as the stockings they’d hung over the fireplace. Tommy took it all in stride, oohing and aahing as he went. He was a champ, even though Susan could tell he wasn’t used to being around kids. She left him and slipped into the kitchen, where her mother was loading the dishwasher.
“Mom, you can leave that. I’ll do it. You’ve done enough today. You certainly didn’t have to go into the attic for those decorations.”
Her mother didn’t turn around. “Can’t have Christmas without Christmas decorations,” she said. “And with this case you got going on, I had to make sure my babies had a house full of spirit.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, sweetie.” Beatrice faced her daughter and shook her head. “You look tired.”
“I am. But mostly I’m feeling guilty about missing all this holiday stuff with the kids. I should be here with them to go to their pageants and hang the decorations. I’m their mother. I should be the one sharing these memories with them instead of being stuck at work.”
Beatrice walked across the kitchen and hugged her. “You’ll get there,” she said. “The twins will be getting involved in more things as they get older. You’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you. What I do with t
hem takes nothing away from what an amazing mother you are. When Eric left, you kept this family together. No blame. No feeling sorry for yourself. You never let Casey and Tim feel anything but love for their father. I admire that, and I love you, sweetie. But more importantly, your kids love you. We’ll figure it out on the fly. That’s what we do best.”
Susan smiled and let herself fall into her mother’s embrace. “Thanks, Mom. I needed to hear that.”
Tommy came into the kitchen dragging the twins, one on each leg. “Great job with the decorations, Mrs. Adler.”
Beatrice let go of Susan and closed the dishwasher. “Thank you, dear. We had meatloaf tonight, if you two are hungry.”
“I’ll get it,” Susan said. “We’re going to work on the case for a little while. You go rest. You spent the day climbing into the attic and decorating. You need to relax. You’re spending the night, right?”
“Yes. It’s a little late to go back home now.”
“Good. Then I need you with your feet up watching TV ASAP. That’s an order.”
Beatrice saluted her daughter. “Yes, ma’am.”
“How’re my chickens?”
“All accounted for.” Beatrice got the dishwasher running and folded the towel she’d been holding across the edge of the sink. “Before I get ready for bed, I’m going to get these beauties in their pajamas.”
Susan walked over to Tommy and peeled the twins off his legs. “You heard the boss. PJ time.” She watched her mother chase them upstairs and heard the patter of footsteps running about from room to room.
“They crack me up,” Tommy said when they were alone.
“You’re good with them,” Susan replied. “I appreciate it.”
He took his usual spot against the counter by the stove. “That was something today.”
“It sure was.”
“I can’t believe we found all that in his yard. I mean, you’d think he’d toss that stuff in the river or bury everything deep in the mountains or something. He buried it right on his own property.”
“Could’ve been a brilliant move.” Susan hopped up on the counter next to Tommy and sat. “If the grass grew back, no one would ever suspect he’d have evidence like that in his yard. They’d think exactly what you just said. That the evidence was discarded far away. Instead, he kept it close. Maybe as a reminder or maybe because he was trying the old hide-in-plain-sight thing. Probably would’ve pulled it off if you weren’t walking back there.”
“And all that Gary Anderson and William Feder stuff. What was that?”
Susan shrugged. “Survival, I guess. He couldn’t live being the man that came out of that basement, so he took on a new identity in order to get on with his life. But it also gives him an additional motive for killing Amanda. He admitted she found out about his secret. I’m guessing he flipped and killed her. Crime of passion.”
“Maybe she confronted him after her ceremony.”
“And then he had to make it look like an accident.”
She hopped down from the counter and opened the refrigerator. “You buying this Sam thing?” she asked.
“Not really. I said it was the husband from the get-go. I’m sticking with that. What about you?”
“Not likely, but we still have to check it out. If Sydney brings it up at the hearing or trial, the first thing the judge will ask is if we’ve investigated that possibility. We need to be ready, which means we need to investigate. I tried not to let it show, but when Randall mentioned this guy always wears a hood, it caught me off guard.” She grabbed two beers and handed one to Tommy, then went back for the tray of meatloaf. “The car that drove me off the road last night? Driver was wearing a hood. A big one. Just like how Randall described it. I saw him outside the car in the barracks parking lot first. Same guy. Had to be.”
Tommy took his beer and twisted it open. “So either that was Randall driving Hooper’s car, or maybe Sam is real.”
“Or maybe Sam and Hooper Landsky are working together. Maybe this is all about blackmail. They want money.”
“Okay, where do we start?”
Susan walked into the hall to get her bag. “We start with the profile Randall gave us of Sam and go from there. This case has legs. We can’t let it run away from us.”
40
Randall let the hot water singe his skin as he stood motionless in the shower, unable to do anything but replay his life over the last twenty-four hours. He’d sat in that small cell, scared and alone, having been arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, with evidence that overwhelmingly pointed to him. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to convince anyone—the police, his friends, the university, a jury—that he had nothing to do with Amanda’s death. The police had discovered too much.
The cell had been stifling. He spent his time pacing in tight circles and sitting on the steel bed, which instantly hurt his lower back. It wasn’t long before fear turned to confusion. He tried to recall the exact steps he’d taken to get himself in the situation and couldn’t quite connect the dots. He’d never asked for any of what had happened to him. He’d never wanted Gary Anderson. He’d never asked to have his life destroyed. He’d tried to be the best man he could in his new life, yet death still managed to find him.
At some point during the night, Randall had heard the sound of chains on bars in another cell and had been instantly transported back to Gary’s basement. He could hear Gary’s wife, Rose, crying, and his daughter, Lily, pleading for her life. He could smell the dampness again, the mold, the perspiration, the blood, the piss.
When Sidney Windsor had returned in the morning to go through the procedure for when they were placed before the judge, he’d found Randall curled up on his metal bed, crying and drooling and mumbling incoherently, reliving his subterranean life with the Andersons, the world around him having dimmed to nothing more than a dull gray. It had taken Sidney half an hour to coax Randall back to reality, and with the help of two Xanax and a decent enough breakfast, he’d been able to stand in front of a judge, nod, answer yes-or-no questions, and remain still until bail was set at two million dollars. He was a free man by noon.
The water was scalding, but Randall didn’t mind. His skin reddened as the steam overtook the rest of the bathroom. He needed to burn off the filth of the cell along with the memories that came with it. He needed to feel clean again, like himself. Human. Somewhere in the distance, he heard banging. It took him a minute to figure out what it was.
Pound!
Pound!
Pound!
The door. Someone was at the door.
Randall was content to let them knock until they wore themselves down and left. He closed his eyes and winced as the water burned him. It felt glorious.
Glass shattered in the foyer downstairs.
He opened his eyes and quickly turned off the water, grabbing a towel that was hanging outside the shower door. He wrapped the towel around his waist and made his way from the bathroom through his bedroom and out into the hallway.
Footsteps crunched the broken glass below.
“Randall!”
Randall climbed halfway down the stairs. Sam was waiting for him at the bottom landing. Glass shards were scattered across the foyer. He had broken the side window next to the door and unlocked the dead bolt from there.
“Go away,” Randall shouted, his voice trembling. “I told the police everything. They know who I am. They know the truth. You can’t threaten me or blackmail me anymore. I have nothing left. You’re done.”
Sam placed a boot on the first step. “You’re wrong. They know a truth. They don’t know your truths.”
“Get out of my house!” Randall cried. “Leave, or I’m going to call the police!”
“Yes, call the police,” Sam growled. “You told them about your real identity. And about me. So call them. We can talk about so much more.”
“I need you to—”
“I don’t care what you need!” Sam’s voice exploded like thunder in a hurricane. “Did you
think I cared about your identity? This is so much bigger than that. This is about the truth. The real truth. Your real truths. And we’re not done. I warned you not to go to the police. I told you I would destroy your life and the lives of everyone you hold close if you went to the police. Was I not clear about that? This is between you and me. This is our journey.”
Randall backed up a few more stairs. “I’m not talking to you anymore!”
“I showed you her secrets. Her truths. I showed you the person she really was. She found out who you were and was going to leave you with nothing. I stopped it. I saved you!”
“How? How did you save me?”
“You know how.” Sam began matching steps with Randall, climbing up after him.
“You killed Amanda.”
“Not me. Us.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We killed Amanda. Together.”
“No.” Randall shook his head, backing up the stairs. “I had nothing to do with what happened to Amanda. You’re nuts! I wasn’t even there!”
“Your brother. Rose and Lily Anderson. And now Amanda.”
“Shut up.”
“You know what it’s like to take lives.”
“Shut up!”
“You know what it’s like to feel a person take their final breath. How they look at you just when they realize that dying is imminent. No more panic or fear. Just resignation. There’s a certain calm that comes over them. You’ve seen it. We both have.”
“Stop talking!”
“You killed them all.”
With unadulterated panic overtaking him, Randall ran back down the stairs and threw himself at Sam, knocking them both down the first few steps. When they landed, Sam planted his elbow in Randall’s ribs to stop the momentum. He regained his balance and, in a flash of movement, punched Randall in his right temple, sending him rolling down the rest of the stairs and onto the floor. He was over Randall in seconds, punching him a second time, knocking a tooth loose.
“Tell me your truths.”
I Know Everything Page 18