The Justice Project

by Michael Betcherman

  “You can start with this one,” Matt said, handing her the box for the previous week.

  The Sentinel concentrated on local news, so it didn’t take Matt long to go through each issue. He was skimming through the March 18 edition—a drunken snowplow operator, ribbon-cutting ceremonies at a day care, and the sighting of a flock of Canada geese—when Sonya gasped. “Oh my god.”

  Matt got up and peered over Sonya’s shoulder. An article dated March 14—two weeks before the murders—was on the screen.

  COOLEY PARK HOME INVASION VICTIM IN HOSPITAL AFTER STABBING

  Snowden police are searching for a suspect after a Cooley Park man was stabbed yesterday afternoon. Fifty-seven-year-old Edgar Willows is in serious but stable condition at Snowden General Hospital. Mr. Willows told police he was attacked when he came home from work. He was unable to provide a description of his assailant.

  It’s the third home invasion in Cooley Park in as many weeks. Police believe the same person is responsible for all three crimes. “The break-ins were similar in nature,” Police Chief Norm Crosby said. “This suggests they were committed by the same person.” Chief Crosby refused to elaborate for fear of jeopardizing the investigation.

  Mayor Edward Jenkins has promised to put additional police officers in the area until the perpetrator has been apprehended. “Chief Crosby has briefed me on these robberies,” the mayor said. “I will be recommending that council grant the funds necessary to comply with his request.”

  Residents are advised to keep their doors and windows locked at all times.

  Matt and Sonya looked at each other, disbelief giving way to excitement. Had they just found the key to getting Ray out of jail?

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “There might be something here,” Jesse said Monday morning when Matt and Sonya showed him the article in the Sentinel. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There would have to have been something unusual about those three burglaries to make the police think they were all committed by the same person, and there’s nothing about the break-in at the Richardsons’ that strikes me as out of the ordinary. Somebody kicked in the back door and grabbed things that would be easy to sell. Your standard break-and-enter.

  “We need to find out if anything about these break-ins connects them to the one at the Richardsons’. I have a friend in the police department. I’ll give him a call and see if we can get a look at the case reports.”

  Matt tried to concentrate on his work, but his ears perked up every time the phone rang. The call finally came in just before noon.

  “Detective Charney has the files. He’ll meet you at the front desk,” Jesse announced when he hung up.

  Matt and Sonya jumped to their feet. Fifteen minutes later they stepped into the new headquarters of the Snowden Police Department, a modern two-story building across from city hall. Several workmen in overalls were bustling around, in the midst of what was obviously a major renovation.

  Detective Charney was a burly man with a thick mustache and a gruff, no-nonsense manner. “This was supposed to be finished a month ago,” he growled as he sidestepped two workers carrying a ladder. He ushered Matt and Sonya into an unused office on the main floor and handed Matt three dusty file folders, each labeled with the date and address of the break-in.

  “It took me a while to dig these out of storage,” he said. “We just moved all the old files over here from the Dungeon”—that was the local nickname for the ancient stone building that had previously housed the police department—“and they haven’t been organized yet.”

  “Do you know why the police thought these three break-ins were committed by the same person?” Matt asked.

  Charney shook his head. “Before my time.”

  “Can we make copies?” Sonya asked.

  “Absolutely not,” he said firmly. “I shouldn’t even be showing these to you. I’m only doing it as a favor to Jesse. You can make notes, but no copies. Bring them back to me when you’re done. I’m in the office across the hall.”

  Matt handed a file to Sonya and took one for himself. His was about a break-in on February 28—a month before the murders—that had taken place three blocks south of the Richardsons’ house. According to the police report, Al and Evelyn Wells discovered the break-in when they came home from a shopping trip. The thief had entered through a window at the rear of their house. Evelyn’s jewelry was stolen, along with the sterling silver cutlery she had inherited from her mother.

  A break-in at the back of the house. The theft of items easy to carry and easy to sell. Your standard break-and-enter, as Jesse would have said.

  Matt moved on to the next report. As soon as he read it, his heart started racing.

  On the night of the robbery, Evelyn Wells had called the police and told them that when she was cleaning up the kitchen, she discovered a bottle of beer that neither she nor Al had drunk. She said the robber must have left it behind.

  Matt leafed through the crime-scene photos until he found one of the kitchen. The sink and counters were full of unwashed dishes. And sitting in the middle of all those dirty dishes was a bottle of Rolling Rock beer. Oh my god! Matt’s heart kicked into overdrive. It can’t be a coincidence.

  “You’re not going to believe this,” Sonya said. She looked up from the file she was reading.

  “Let me guess. The robber left behind a bottle of Rolling Rock.”

  “You too?” she asked, incredulous.

  Matt nodded. He opened the third file. This time the Rolling Rock was in the living room, on a side table beside a couch in front of the TV. He passed the photo to Sonya.

  Matt and Sonya exchanged astonished looks. The man who’d committed these burglaries had killed Walter and Gwen. There could be no doubt.

  “We have to find out who this guy is,” Sonya said.

  “How are we going to do that?”

  “Maybe…” Sonya hesitated.

  “Maybe what?”

  “These break-ins happened before Walter and Gwen were murdered. Maybe he broke into other houses afterward.”

  “And maybe he got caught,” Matt said, completing her thought.

  “Let’s go see Charney.”

  “We should make notes before we give the files back.”

  “Or we could just do this.” Sonya took her cell phone out of her purse, turned on her camera and positioned it over a page from the file.

  “Charney said we couldn’t make copies.”

  “You must have misunderstood.”

  “I guess I did,” Matt said.

  He stood watch by the door while Sonya snapped away.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Where are the rest of the files stored?” Sonya asked Detective Charney after she had returned the ones he’d given them.

  “In the basement. Why?” He put the returned files in a dented cardboard storage box.

  “We want to take a look at them to see if—”

  “You can’t go through our files.” Charney snorted as if he’d never heard anything so ridiculous. “Not without a court order.” He looked pointedly at the door.

  “How long does it take to get a court order?” Matt asked Sonya as they walked away. He had to speak loudly to make himself heard over the whine of an electric drill.

  “It doesn’t matter. Jesse will never go for it,” Sonya said dejectedly. “He has to keep Ray’s case off the books until the Justice Project takes it on officially. Remember?”

  It was a total bummer. The evidence they’d discovered was compelling, more than compelling, but the Justice Project wouldn’t have the money to take on new cases until after the fundraiser, and with so many cases on the waiting list there was no guarantee Ray’s would make the cut. It can’t end like this, Matt thought. It just can’t.

  He stopped in front of the staircase that led to the basement.

  “Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Sonya said. Matt grinned. “This is insane,” she said. Matt grinned again.

  They made
sure nobody was paying attention to them and then hurried down the stairs into a deserted corridor lined with unpainted drywall. Paint cans were stacked on the concrete floor. A number of rooms led off the corridor. Sonya opened the door to the first room. It was the janitor’s supply closet. Matt was about to try the door to the next room when footsteps clomped down the staircase toward them. Sonya raced back to the supply closet. She held the door open for Matt, who hurried in after her.

  The door swung shut. They held their breath. The footsteps approached, then stopped.

  “How many cans do we need?” a man asked.

  “Two eggshell and two semigloss.”

  Moments later the footsteps receded up the stairs. Matt exhaled in relief.

  “Put this on.” Sonya handed Matt a pair of blue coveralls and took a pair for herself. After they put them on, Sonya handed Matt a broom, filled a bucket with water and grabbed a mop.

  There were six more rooms to check out, but they were all locked. Matt and Sonya were standing at the end of the hallway, wondering what to do next, when footsteps again sounded on the stairs. A cop was coming their way, carrying the dented cardboard box with the burglary files. Matt started sweeping the floor, while Sonya mopped behind him. They kept their heads down.

  “Afternoon,” the cop said as he passed by.

  “Afternoon,” Matt responded, without looking up. The cop unlocked the door at the end of the corridor and stepped inside. The door slowly closed behind him.

  A moment later the cop came out of the room empty handed and headed for the stairs. The door started to swing shut. At the last second Matt stuck the handle of his broom between the door and the frame.

  The cop didn’t break stride. As soon as he disappeared from sight, Matt and Sonya hurried into the storage room. Matt turned on the light. Charney hadn’t been joking. The room was a mess. Dozens of identical cardboard boxes were piled haphazardly on the floor.

  “Is this trespassing?” Matt asked. Trespassing was a misdemeanor, a minor crime, he recalled from law class. The worst that could happen was they’d get fined.

  “It’s not trespassing,” Sonya said. “It’s breaking and entering.”

  That was a felony, a serious crime. Matt tried not to think about what the punishment for that was.

  It took twenty minutes to find the boxes for the year in which the Richardsons were murdered. Matt took the box for April. Sonya started with May.

  It was slow going. Two hours later Matt was halfway through the October files and ready to give up. If the Richardsons’ killer hadn’t broken into a house in the seven months after the murders, he had either moved away, chosen another line of work or decided not to push his luck.

  “Bingo,” Sonya said suddenly, slapping down a photo. It showed a bottle of Rolling Rock on a kitchen counter. A second photo followed a moment later—a mug shot of a man with a shaved head and a cross earring. “His name’s Harold Holt. He broke into a house on Brunswick Court in November. The police caught him just as he was leaving.”

  Matt’s body tingled with excitement, as if he’d just thrown a game-winning touchdown pass.

  “We did it. We really did it!” Sonya exclaimed, flinging her arms around Matt.

  “Unreal. Unfreaking real.”

  A key turned in the lock of the door. They froze on the spot. There was nowhere to hide. Matt knew he had the same panicked look on his face that he saw on Sonya’s.

  A telephone rang in the hallway. A muffled voice answered it. Matt stared fearfully at the door. A second passed. And then another. And another. He crept toward the door and leaned an ear against it. Nothing. He opened the door a crack. The hallway was empty. He gave Sonya the thumbs-up. She took out her phone, quickly photographed the documents in Harold Holt’s file and put the file back in the box.

  Five minutes later the coveralls and cleaning supplies were back in place, and Matt and Sonya were heading to the front door of the police station.

  “I’ve never been so scared,” Sonya said.

  “Me neither.”

  “What are you still doing here?” a gruff voice asked.

  Matt turned. Detective Charney glared at him. “U-uh…” Matt stuttered.

  “We came back because I thought I’d forgotten my cell phone,” Sonya said without missing a beat. “It was in my purse all along.” She shook her head, as if amazed she could have been such a ditz.

  Charney looked at her skeptically, then shook his head and walked away.

  “That was smooth,” Matt said when they were outside. “You’re going to be a great lawyer.”

  “You’re the one who suspected the first three break-ins might be connected to the murders. That was really smart.”

  “Yeah, but if you hadn’t asked Ella how she was able to see Walter and Gwen arrive, we would never have learned about the break-ins in the first place. And we wouldn’t even be on the case if you hadn’t persuaded Jesse to let us look into it.”

  “I was surprised he agreed.”

  “Are you kidding? He didn’t stand a chance against you.”

  “We make a pretty good team,” Sonya said.

  “It hurts to say that, doesn’t it?”

  “Kills.”

  “Tell me the truth,” Matt said after they got into Sonya’s car. “Did you really believe we’d prove Ray was innocent?”

  “Never doubted it for a minute,” she said with a smile. She pulled out of the parking lot and turned left.

  “Where are you going? The office is in the other direction.”

  “We’re not going to the office. We’re going to Jolene’s.”

  Jolene was eating her lunch when they arrived with the good news. It took a few seconds to sink in, and then twenty-one years of accumulated stress seemed to flow out of her face.

  “The beer always bothered me,” Jolene said when she regained her equilibrium. “Walter was a wine drinker. He hardly ever drank beer.” Then she asked the million-dollar question. “When is Ray getting out of jail?”

  THIRTY

  Matt executed a flip turn and sprinted to the other end of the pool, pushing himself to the limit. He checked his watch. Forty laps in twenty-one minutes, shattering his previous personal best. He felt like he could swim another forty laps, even though he’d barely slept the night before. He’d been too excited after finding out about Harold Holt, and he was still pumped.

  He was toweling off when a gaggle of chattering seven-year-olds wearing Snowden Adventure Camp T-shirts came into the pool, followed by their counselor. It was Caitlyn, the girl he’d wimped out on at the sandwich shop. She was even cuter than he remembered. Her staff T-shirt was knotted at the waist, revealing a flat midriff with a rose tattoo. She led her campers to the side of the pool, where the lifeguard gave them their instructions. A little girl with pigtails tugged at Caitlyn’s shirt, demanding that she hold her hand.

  After the campers were in the water, Matt slung his towel over his shoulders and swayed across the tiled floor toward Caitlyn, fighting off the instinct to escape into the locker room. He flashed on an image of the seals he’d seen at Marineland, flopping across the tiled floor after they got out of the water.

  “Hey, Matt.”

  At least she remembers my name. “Hey, Caitlyn. How’s camp?”

  “Still haven’t lost anyone. ”

  Matt laughed. “I haven’t seen you guys here before.”

  “We’ll be coming here every Tuesday from now on. How’s it going at the Justice Project?”

  “Fantastic. We’ve been working on the case of this guy who’s been in jail for twenty-one years, and yesterday we found evidence that proves he’s innocent.”

  “That’s amazing. I’d love to hear about it.”

  That was all the encouragement he needed. He was about to ask Caitlyn if she wanted to grab a coffee after work when the girl with the pigtails shrieked. “Look at me, Caitlyn. Look at me.” She was standing in the shallow end, pulling her arms through the water. “I’m swimming. I’m swimmi
ng.”

  “You’re doing great, Ashley,” Caitlyn said. “Now put your head underwater and blow bubbles like I showed you last time.”

  Ashley lowered her head toward the water. She got it to within six inches and then started crying inconsolably.

  “I haven’t lost anybody, but I might drown this one,” Caitlyn jokingly whispered as she slipped into the water.

  Matt laughed. “If you need an alibi, let me know.”

  “I just might take you up on that.”

  Matt waited for a few moments, but when it became clear Ashley wasn’t going to calm down any time soon, he headed for the locker room. He wondered if he’d misread the signs. Maybe Caitlyn was just being polite. When he got to the door, he looked back toward the pool. Caitlyn was talking to Ashley, who nodded solemnly and then, theatrically summoning up her courage, put her head completely underwater. She held it there for half a second before coming up for air, a look of pride on her face. Caitlyn gave her a high five and then turned her attention to one of her other charges.

  “Look at me. Look at me!” Ashley shrieked again.

  Matt caught Caitlyn’s eye as she turned back toward the little girl. He spread his fingers out in a semicircular shape and lowered his hand, as if he were pushing Ashley’s head underwater. Caitlyn gave him two thumbs up, followed by a warm smile and a goodbye wave.

  No, he said to himself. He wasn’t misreading the signs. But he’d have to wait until next Tuesday to find out for sure.

  “You did what?” Angela exclaimed, incredulous, when Matt and Sonya told her and Jesse how they got their hands on Harold Holt’s file. “Do you realize that’s breaking and entering?”

  “You’re kidding,” Sonya said, pretending to be shocked.

  “Detective Charney refused to let you see the files,” Angela pointed out. “You had no right to be in the storage room.”

  “Isn’t that trespassing?” Sonya asked.

  “Not if you intended to commit a crime,” Jesse said. “Like stealing something that doesn’t belong to you.” He sounded disapproving, but Matt could tell his heart wasn’t in it. His heart was with Ray, 100 percent. “What’s done is done,” he said, confirming Matt’s suspicion. “We’re going to have to prove that Holt drank the Rolling Rock found at the Richardsons’. Was the bottle tested for fingerprints?”