Cuddy: You didn’t give me much choice. The subpoena said show up and give a DNA sample, or be held in contempt. I’m requesting a lawyer, Detective.
Howard: Yeah, sorry, kiddo, you’re not entitled to a lawyer for this part. It’s not an interrogation, just a simple cheek swab. Noninvasive. Your dad gave his permission in writing.
Cuddy: I told you before, my father is not sophisticated enough to look out for my interests in this situation. He’s kneejerk pro–law enforcement. The cops are always right in his book. If you want my DNA, he assumes I did something that I ought to be punished for. Do you understand? He’s not about to help me.
Howard: Do I hear you saying that you didn’t do anything terrible?
Cuddy: I didn’t kill Bel Enright, that’s for sure.
Howard: But you were in the woods that night.
Cuddy: Don’t you have to tell me I have the right to remain silent before you ask me something like that?
Howard: You’re not in custody, Zach, so—no. But if it makes you feel better, I’ll read you your rights.
Cuddy: No, thanks.
Howard: I’ll be up front with you. I have information that you sustained a cut to your hand in the woods the night of Bel’s murder, and I’m investigating that to prove your whereabouts at the time of Bel’s death.
Cuddy: Rose Enright tell you that?
Howard: You know I can’t confirm or deny witness identity.
Cuddy: God, what a bitch. I covered for her, too.
Howard: Covered how?
Cuddy: I could’ve said she was there. But I didn’t. I told you about that thug Brandon Flynn instead. He is a thug. Did you interview him, like I said?
Howard: You just admitted to obstruction of justice, Zach, you realize that?
Cuddy: Lucky for me, you never read me my rights.
Howard: You’re a little too smart for your own good. Ready to confess?
Cuddy: Confess to what? I didn’t do anything. I’m innocent. I actually had feelings for Bel. I would never hurt her.
Howard. All right, then. If you’re innocent, this swab will exonerate you.
Cuddy: Oh, really? How is it going to do that?
Howard: By not matching the samples. The person who murdered Bel left forensic material in and on her body.
[PAUSE]
Howard: Are you okay?
Cuddy: Forensic material. What kind of material? Was it—semen?
Howard: Is there something you need to tell me, Zach?
58
Rose!
Sarah startled awake in a hospital bed with an IV in her arm, and Rose Enright’s name on her lips.
But why? There was something she was supposed to do. What was it? She’d already spoken to the detective. She had relayed the message. Zach Cuddy was in the woods that night. She’d fulfilled her promise to Rose.
No. It was something else.
She looked around and realized she was not in the Odell Infirmary. A buzzer hung from a cord at the head of her bed. She pressed it repeatedly until a nurse came, but it was a male nurse, with a mustache, wearing scrubs and Crocs. Nobody she recognized.
“Is Kim here?” she asked.
“I don’t know any Kim, ma’am. Is there something you need?”
“Where am I?”
“County Hospital, receiving intravenous fluids. That virus going around the school is so bad, the infirmary is full, so they brought you here.”
She remembered two men, a stretcher. And Heath.
Heath.
She’d told Heath that Rose had regained her memory. She’d made a graph of the sounds from the woods, and Heath had found it. He’d asked her about it, yelled at her, in a rage. Heath knew what Rose had seen, what she’d heard.
“Where is my husband?”
“Sorry, I really don’t know. I only came on duty fifteen minutes ago.”
“I need to get out.”
“Do you need the bathroom?”
“No. I need to leave here, right away. There’s something important I have to do.”
“You’re not leaving till the doctor clears you. Dehydration is no joke. If you don’t follow instructions, you’ll relapse. So, please, calm down, and rest.”
He left.
Sarah took in her surroundings. She was alone in this room, wearing a hospital gown. She didn’t see a clock, didn’t have her phone, and there was no landline visible in the room. Based on the weak light filtering through the window blinds, it might be early morning or late afternoon. She had no idea what day it was, and she was worried for Rose’s safety. Why? There was a nagging twinge in the back of her mind, a memory that she needed to bring forward. It had to do with the apartment in Moreland, and the detective.
The detective, looking in the dishwasher.
The murder weapon was a kitchen knife, with a ten-inch blade, Henckels, to be exact, she’d said. Sarah owned a set of Henckels knives, received years ago as a wedding gift. They lived on the counter beside the sink. Melissa Howard had been looking right at them when she made that comment. Later, Sarah had stood in that same spot by the sink, at the height of her fever, staring at the knife block, feeling like something was wrong—off, missing. She closed her eyes and visualized.
Sarah gasped. The slot farthest to the left had been empty.
She hadn’t been able to process it then, to realize the significance of what was right before her eyes. Normally, that slot held a ten-inch chef’s knife. It was gone. That’s why the detective had looked in the dishwasher. When she saw that the slot was empty, she went looking for the knife. But she wouldn’t’ve found it. The Donovans owned few precious things; the ones they did own were tenderly cared for. Heath, even more than Sarah, would never in a million years put the good knives in the dishwasher. If that knife was gone from its slot, then it wasn’t in the apartment.
Had their wedding gift been used to end Bel Enright’s life? The idea was awful in itself. Even if a complete stranger had stolen that knife and used it to murder a young girl, that would be devastating. It took her fogged mind a moment to take the next terrible step. If the knife was used to kill Bel, then she had to grapple with who had used it.
Two people had access to Sarah’s kitchen, other than herself. Rose. And Heath.
Rose had unfettered access to that knife only when she babysat for the children, which she hadn’t done for probably two weeks, prior to Bel’s death. Rose would have had to plan far in advance to steal the knife, and count on Sarah not figuring out that it was missing. The fact was, it hadn’t been missing—not for long anyway, or Sarah would have noticed.
That left Heath. Her husband. The man she’d loved since they were practically children, as young as Rose and Bel were now.
As young as Bel had been.
Could the man that Sarah loved, the man she’d stood by through highs and lows, the man who slept beside her every night, who adored their children and quoted poetry and made a fuss over her birthday, could that man be capable of such evil? Did Heath take a wedding gift from their kitchen, the kitchen where they ate breakfast with their children every morning, and smuggle it out to the woods, intending to commit murder? To kill a student, a young girl in his charge, to keep her quiet about their sexual affair? And having intended such a thing, did he carry it out? Did he have it in him to plunge a knife into that girl’s body until her blood ran out into the snow? Until the life left her, and she was dead?
Sarah thought about the plain facts. The evidence seen with her own eyes, heard with her own ears. The intimate phone call at Thanksgiving. The photograph of Heath making love to a young woman. His mysterious absences at critical times. The dog going crazy the night Bel was murdered. The late-night laundry. The smell of bleach. And now, the missing knife, and the smudges of blood on the bathtub. She thought about the lies she’d told herself so she could continue believing in her husband. In his fidelity, his basic goodness. But that was ridiculously simplistic. No person was all good or all bad. Heath least of all. He was ca
pable of deceit, as Sarah well knew. He’d deceived her before, about a matter of great importance. And as loving as he could be, as adoring a husband and father, he could never see past himself, or get out of his own way. He was profoundly selfish.
Selfish enough to murder his young lover, in order to silence her, to further his own ambition?
If the answer to that was yes, then Sarah was complicit in Bel’s murder. She didn’t know how to live with that, but it would be true. She could have outed Heath, revealed his affair, destroyed his career, and prevented him from being in a position to do harm. Instead, she had worked diligently to explain away every damning fact. Her need to believe in him had taken priority over protecting a young woman’s life.
Could that happen again? If Heath murdered Bel, it wasn’t much of a leap to thinking he might seek to silence Rose in the same way. That would also be Sarah’s fault, even more directly. Sarah had told Heath about Rose regaining her memory. She’d drawn a timeline, written Heath’s name on it, shown him exactly how Rose could implicate him. If Rose was in danger now, it was Sarah’s absolute duty to protect her, to warn her.
Sarah lay there and stared at the IV in her arm. The intravenous fluids were holding off the worst symptoms of the virus, but she felt ragged and exposed, like her nerves were on the outside of her body. She couldn’t imagine standing up, let alone getting to the infirmary to warn Rose. But Rose’s life could be at stake. She had to take action.
That nurse would never let Sarah leave here without a fight. She’d have to sneak out.
With her fingernails, Sarah carefully pried the adhesive tape from around the catheter at the crook of her elbow. A light bruise surrounded the site where the needle penetrated her skin. Just looking at it made her dizzy and nauseous, but waiting wouldn’t make this any easier. She grabbed a Kleenex from the box on the bedside stand, and gently tugged on the catheter. It didn’t budge, so she pulled harder, crying out in pain as she yanked it from her arm. She clamped down with the Kleenex, which swiftly turned red. She lay back on the bed to collect herself and wait for the bleeding to stop.
She found her clothes and shoes in a plastic bag that hung from the foot of her bed, and dressed as quickly as her clumsy, unresponsive fingers and limbs would allow. She searched the room, but her coat, wallet and phone were nowhere to be found. It was snowing outside the window, and she was fifteen minutes by car from Odell. But taxis idled in the turnaround area. There wasn’t a moment to waste. If the nurse caught her, he’d stop her from leaving, and she would lose her chance to warn Rose. She cracked the door, peeked into the hall. It was empty, and she headed for the stairs.
59
Transcript of Witness Interview conducted by Detective Melissa Howard, Odell NH, PD, with Ms. Kimberly Kowalski, head nurse, Odell Academy Infirmary.
Howard: Okay, I got the recorder going now. This is Detective Melissa Howard. I was here on another matter, when I was approached by Nurse Kowalski, who asked to file a report about a disturbance in Rose Enright’s room last night. Ma’am, can you repeat what you just told me?
Kowalski: Okay, this was maybe ten, ten-thirty last night, and the girl wrecked her room. I’m reporting this because I would appreciate her being removed from this facility ASAP.
Howard: From the beginning, please. Just the facts. What you heard, what you saw.
Kowalski: Okay. I was the only person on duty. I worked a double shift yesterday because we’ve got four nurses out with the flu. I’d been on since eight a.m., on my feet the whole time. So, I took a little lie-down in the only empty room in the house, which happens to be at the far end of the hall next to Rose Enright’s room. We purposely have her isolated down there, under lock and key, given the, uh, situation and all. You know, I keep asking when she will be removed from my facility because I’m not equipped to handle this. She’s medically cleared to go at this point. For the life of me, I don’t understand why she’s still here.
Howard: Why is she still here?
Kowalski: You tell me. We’re waiting for charges to be filed.
Howard: Look, ma’am, no warrant has been filed. We can’t make you keep her here if that’s not medically necessary. You can discharge her whenever you like. Just give us a heads-up, so we can keep track of where she goes in case we do decide to arrest her.
Kowalski: Where does she go? Back to the dorm? I mean, this girl’s a murderer.
Howard: Maybe, maybe not. Just so you know, we have not made a determination yet as to who committed this murder. So, when it comes time to release Rose, I assume you’ll call her family.
Kowalski: I doubt they want her. The grandma was in here yesterday, upset out of her mind. The one granddaughter, stabbing the other. Terrible thing.
Howard: Right. So. Back to the details. Ten, ten-thirty last night. You’re sleeping. What happened?
Kowalski: Not sleeping. Maybe I dozed off for a minute.
Howard: Okay, dozing. Then what?
Kowalski: I heard a commotion.
Howard: Can you be more specific?
Kowalski: A crashing sound. Like, someone was tearing up the place. I got up out of bed to investigate. Maybe it took me a minute or so before I found my shoes and my glasses. Then I went out to the hall, and I saw the door to Rose’s room was open.
Howard: Open all the way, or—?
Kowalski: No, like, a few inches. But that door’s kept locked, so it scared me to see that. Rose scares me. I didn’t know what I would find when I went in there.
Howard: Did you call Odell Security?
Kowalski: No, I didn’t. I was in too much of a hurry. See, if that girl did something—suicide, violence, whatever—because I made a mistake and left her door unlocked, that comes back on me. I didn’t have time to wait for security to show up. I just went charging in there.
Howard: You’re saying, you left the door unlocked.
Kowalski: No. I’m saying I’m very careful, and I remember locking it.
Howard: How did the door wind up open then?
Kowalski: Rose found a way to open it herself. Has to be.
Howard: Okay. What happened when you went in there?
Kowalski: I found the room a disaster, and Rose fast asleep in her bed.
Howard: Disaster, you say. Can you be more specific?
Kowalski: The IV pole tipped over. The water jug and cup on the floor with water everywhere. The covers kicked off. Pillow over her face—
Howard: Pillow over her face? You didn’t mention that before.
Kowalski: I was just getting to it—
Howard: Was she all right?
Kowalski: Yes, she’s fine. I woke her up to make sure. And honestly, to ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, wrecking the place. She claimed a man broke in and tried to kill her.
Howard: What? Why didn’t you tell me that immediately?
Kowalski: Because it’s not true. It’s impossible. Maybe it’s possible I left Rose’s door unlocked, through an oversight. Very remote possibility. But there is no way some outsider got in there.
Howard: Outsider? Why not someone from Odell? Surely people have keys.
Kowalski: The doctors and nurses do. You’re not gonna convince me that one of them attacked Rose Enright.
Howard: I’m not saying that. What about Odell faculty? Any of them have master keys?
Kowalski: I have no idea. Security could probably help you out with that.
Howard: I’m not supposed to interview Rose, so I have to rely on you. Tell me exactly what she said. There was a man in her room? How did he get in? Could she describe him? What did he do? Did he say anything?
Kowalski: I didn’t ask her a lot of questions because I didn’t believe what she was telling me. Long story short, she wakes up, there’s a guy in her room, and he tries to smother her. She fights him off, which is what caused the ruckus, and he splits before she can get a look at him.
Howard: He tried to smother her?
Kowalski: Yep, and then he punched her. She c
laims. Which, I will admit, she does have a mark on her face. But she could’ve done that to herself. You’re looking at me funny. I’m telling you, there’s no way for anybody to get in. The infirmary has two entrances. The back entrance is always locked. The front entrance is locked after five p.m., and it was locked last night. I was the only person on duty after four p.m. Anybody who got in, I had to buzz them in. We had two students admitted, and a few more kids in and out for meds. But everybody who wasn’t admitted was gone by eight o’clock. Nope. Didn’t happen.
Howard: Unless they did so without your knowing.
Kowalski: Whatever. I said what I think. Anyways, Detective?
Howard: Yes?
Kowalski: This girl is a problem. I want her out of here. You’re telling me I don’t have to keep her, I’m calling her grandmother to have her discharged. Wait, where are you going?
Howard: I need to talk with my partner. Something’s going on here that we need to get a handle on. Don’t release Rose without telling me first.
60
The door to Rose’s room was ajar. That nurse had left it unlocked. Rose could hear them just outside in the hallway, talking about her, playing with her fate like she was a toy. Her grandmother, the lawyer and the nurse, who made no secret of disliking Rose, hating her even, because she believed Rose had murdered her own sister. The nurse could’ve stopped the real killer, when he came to Rose’s room last night, if she’d had an open mind, and paid attention. But she was lazy as well as blind. People saw what they wanted to. The nurse accused Rose of punching her own face, wrecking her own room. She wouldn’t believe in Heath Donovan’s guilt even if she’d personally witnessed him standing over Rose’s bed, smothering her with that pillow.
“I want her out by the end of today,” the nurse was saying. “There is no medical reason for us to keep her, and I’m full to bursting with flu patients. I need that bed.”
“The police will have something to say about that. They don’t want her out on the street,” Warren Adams said.
“This isn’t a jail, Mr. Adams. If the police want to arrest her, they can be my guest. But if she’s medically cleared to go, she’s not staying here. I’m discharging her.”
She Was the Quiet One Page 29