by D. J. Palmer
Without hesitation, Navarro locked eyes on Mitch before sending a punch to his face that came with such speed and ferocity as to be completely unavoidable. The closed-fisted strike connected hard with Mitch’s nose. He heard a crack and felt a stab of pain that turned his vision white.
Blood poured out of his broken nose like a pipe had burst in his head. His brain rattled violently in his skull, leaving him dizzy, his vision blurred, eyes watering. It was no use trying to stay upright. Mitch went down to his knees with a thud, but his body continued to block Navarro’s way out. With effort and determination, he tried to stand, but did so with all the grace of a prizefighter failing the ten count.
Navarro effortlessly shoved Mitch aside, but before he could take another step toward freedom, a blur of motion behind Navarro’s head caught Mitch’s eye. He saw it a moment before impact, a silver streak cutting through the air at an incredibly high rate of speed.
An instant later, Mitch heard something hard, something metallic, smack into the side of Navarro’s head with a satisfying thwack. It wasn’t until the man went down to the ground beside Mitch that he realized it had been Annie’s belt buckle that had felled him. Standing in the aisle was Annie herself, holding her leather belt like she was gripping the butt end of a whip in her hand. A large silver-and-gold-toned buckle, decorated with the scales of justice, dangled from the end of her belt, swaying back and forth, looking as heavy and lethal as a medieval mace.
Annie gave Navarro a second strike with the buckle to the back of his head for good measure as he tried to get up. Behind them, Jack came over the top of the gallery rows, leaping each with a hurdler’s grace. When he got close enough, he dove with his arms outstretched onto Navarro’s back. Momentum drove them both hard to the ground, Jack landing on top. He kept Navarro pinned until two guards came to pry them apart.
“He assaulted this man,” Annie told one of the guards, pointing first to Navarro then to Mitch and his bloody nose. “I saw it happen.”
The court officers seemed a bit uncertain as to what to do given Navarro’s status. Luckily Navarro was too dazed, perhaps concussed, to offer any defense. Mitch was ready to make his case, but he didn’t have to, because he heard Judge Lockhart’s booming voice over the courtroom speakers.
“Do not let Attorney Greg Navarro leave this courtroom. I want that man under arrest for contempt of court! And God help us all, that’s just the start.”
Three courtroom officers joined together to wrench Navarro’s hands unceremoniously behind his back. Mitch was thinking of Penny and Grace when he heard the click of the handcuffs being locked into place. He smiled a big, toothy grin as Navarro was brought to his feet and hauled away. Through it all, bloodied and battered, Mitch’s smile never faded.
CHAPTER 55
GRACE WAS BACK IN Detective Jay Allio’s office, at his invitation, to get an update on the case against Greg Navarro.
The big man looked out of sorts to Grace, baggy-eyed in a wrinkled shirt, but it was not surprising. Greg Navarro must have been keeping him and lots of detectives quite busy.
After Grace declined his offer of something to eat or drink, he started things off, appropriately enough, with an inquiry about Penny.
“She’s doing great,” Grace said. “Thank you for asking. It’s good to have her home.”
It had been a relatively peaceful time since Penny’s homecoming a week ago. Ruth Whitmore came with Mitch, and she brought a jade plant as a gift for Penny, along with an invitation to the Massachusetts State House. Whitmore got what she had wanted—so much attention for Edgewater that the governor had no choice but to increase funding for the failing institution. The governor himself had requested a meet and greet with the star patient to show the public how much he truly cared.
“That man has less class than an empty schoolhouse,” Whitmore quipped to Grace at Penny’s party. “But I feel obligated to give him his photo op, so I deeply appreciate your willingness to participate.”
“Since it was Eve most of the time, Penny doesn’t really remember much about Edgewater,” Grace told Whitmore that day, “but she wants to help the patients who are there; she feels a kinship. If it takes meeting the governor to secure your funding, she’s happy to oblige.”
There were plenty of tears and hugs that day, and lots of photos taken, including one of Penny, Mitch, and Grace. One photo Annie took had a streak of light near Penny’s head. Annie remarked with a sad smile: “I bet you anything that’s Arthur.”
The most important thing was that Penny was home, safe and sound, where she belonged. She was back in her room, sleeping in her bed—one that didn’t have a hiding place under the box spring.
Now that the party was past and the family had had time to settle into a new normal, there were other matters to address. She was curious to know what Allio had to share.
“Seven more women have come forward to accuse Navarro of using threats and coercion in exchange for sex. This guy was a piece of work. Word is he got shoved out of the public defender’s office because of whispers. If it happened a few years later, he’d have been all swept up in the Me Too movement. Instead, it was Navarro who got swept under the rug. But I wanted you to hear it from me—the DNA test came back. Greg Navarro is your daughter’s biological father.”
“Thank you. I knew it, but it’s good to have confirmation.”
“Grand jury has indicted him on first-degree murder charges. You’re not going to have to worry about him ever again. He’s going away forever.”
“I’ll be happy to see him go,” said Grace.
“Forensically speaking, this guy knew his business. I guess you get enough cons off the hook, you pick up a few tips and tricks along the way. Wasn’t quite as good with the digital footprint.”
“How so?”
“Those messages Rachel sent Penny? Navarro sent them from a dummy account he made.”
Grace had suspected as much, but it still felt like a fresh betrayal to think that this monster, this monster with no conscience, had manipulated her daughter.
“Surprise, surprise, our forensics team found inconsistencies after examining Rachel’s laptop and couldn’t find any digital communication between Penny and Rachel. It was an inconsistency Navarro was told about in the discovery materials, not a case-breaking bit of evidence, lots of explanations for it, but I guess now we all know why he told you the opposite, and why it wasn’t part of Penny’s defense.”
“I’m sure he wishes Dr. Dennis Palumbo never quit his job.”
“I’d say you probably owe Dr. McHugh a debt of gratitude.”
“Do you know how Navarro learned about Penny?”
“Two theories,” said Allio. “As a public defender, he probably got wind of the pending case of two teen girls up on murder charges. He may have seen the backstory and put it together. Or, more likely, he came across the post Penny made after her arrest, the one that went viral. Either way, he found his biological daughter and when he decided he had to kill Rachel he had someone who could take the fall for his crime.”
Navarro’s machinations proved so devious they left Grace both horrified and awestruck.
“So when Penny got to the apartment … where was Rachel?”
“We think she was already dead,” Allio said. “Our working theory is that Navarro lured Penny to Rachel’s house using those Facebook messages sent from his phony account. He greeted Penny inside the home, maybe pretended to be someone in Rachel’s life. Imagine him saying something like, ‘Rachel’s in the bathroom. She’ll be out in a minute. She’s so excited to meet you. Can I get you something to drink?’
“That drink came with a tranquilizer. Roofies, GBH—plenty of options, according to Navarro’s Internet search history, which we got from his service provider thanks to a warrant. Guess he wanted to make sure Penny was completely immobilized while he cleaned up his crime scene, so he bound her wrists with rope. His one big mistake.”
“Roofies … GBH … but he ordered a toxicology scre
en and—” Grace caught and corrected herself. “He said he ordered a tox screen, but he didn’t.”
“And the prosecutor didn’t order one either. Why bother? They had their case in the bag.”
“Wasn’t Navarro worried about Penny remembering him?”
“He knew how we, the police, would take that … she’s covered in blood, alone in the apartment, and she’s got some story about a mystery man there. We’d do a lot of head nodding, and not a lot of digging. As for remembering her father … assume he wore some disguise in case she somehow recalled that face. She was so little when she last saw him, and with aging … it’s unlikely she would.”
“She had some memories of that time.”
“Common in trauma,” Allio said. “Certain things stick. It’s a field of constant discovery for the forensic psychologists we work with. No matter what she recalled, Navarro knew she wouldn’t be the most credible eyewitness. He covered her in Rachel’s blood when she was passed out—went for the dramatic, because he knew how a jury would see it. They’d be hard-pressed to believe any other story than a crazed girl snapping in a moment of murderous rage.”
“That son of a bitch,” Grace said under her breath.
“Oh, that wasn’t all. We found several notes in his home, written in blue crayon.”
“Darla,” Grace said. “Of course he wrote those notes.” Bitterness rose up Grace’s throat. “I had told Navarro about my scary encounter with Darla at Edgewater and he remembered her from his time at the public defender’s office. He must have arranged a meeting with Darla that none of us knew about. Who knows what enticement he used, but he’d have had an in with her nonetheless, and he knew about Penny and her drawing. I remember now … it was Navarro who led us to believe that Penny may have written the note herself. He was trying to make sure there was a plausible explanation for the attack so we didn’t go looking very hard for one.”
“What he knew was that Dr. Mitch was scratching in the right spot and he tried to end it.”
“I think he tried to end me, too,” Grace said. “Remember we talked about Vince Rapino?”
“Sure.”
“He told me Rapino was under investigation for a counterfeit auto parts scam he’s running.”
Allio looked surprised. “Yeah … well, I can neither confirm or deny that.”
Grace took that to mean: bingo. Navarro hadn’t been lying about that, at least.
“I thought Vince was Penny’s birth father because of his past with Rachel, so Navarro, instead of helping us get his DNA, he gave us information about Rapino that he knew we might use, which we did. When we couldn’t get the DNA, we threatened him with a court order to give it up—and dropped plenty of hints that it could lead to a bigger investigation.”
“Yeah, with a guy like Vince Rapino, that’s like picking up a rattlesnake by its tail. You’re going to get bit.”
Grace didn’t tell him that she did.
“Why did Rachel die? What was his motive?”
“Don’t like blaming the victim in these matters, but I think Rachel may have played a role. We found some pretty hard evidence to suggest she was blackmailing Navarro, and we think it might have been to help out Vince.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rachel came back from Rhode Island, for whatever reason. Fizzled-out romance, change of scenery, we don’t know. We do know that she and Vince started it up again at Lucky Dog. He got her a place to live and things were good for a time I guess, but he wanted money to get some new parts pipeline up and running. Illegal shit. We’re looking into it. Anyway, Rachel wasn’t shy about trying to get her man some cash. She went right to Banco de Navarro. We’ve got the correspondence to prove it. Now the Me Too movement was coming back for Navarro, and Rachel had the goods. A paternity test would screw him, expose his whole sordid history. He knew it. But instead of giving up the green, he came up with another way of dealing with it.”
“I’d say.”
“But a guy like Navarro … he couldn’t stomach having a potential murder charge over his head. So he picked your daughter to be his out. He made sure he’d get on this case somehow, smear any attorney you hired if you didn’t pick him at the outset, offer you a huge discount on his fee. One way or another, he was going to be Penny’s lawyer so he could control every bit of the case.”
“Yeah, he hit my car intentionally so I’d have his card,” Grace said again.
Grace told Allio about the fender bender that got her Navarro’s apology and business card.
“He became a regular at my restaurant. Ingratiated himself with me and my family. He knew I’d call.”
“Devious bastard,” Allio said.
Navarro may have been a bastard, but Rachel was not. Grace thought of Rachel and how readily she’d condemned her. She didn’t abandon her child. She saw the anchor pendant necklace near the door and believed her daughter had run outside to get away, so she did the same. Later on, when news broke of a little girl found in the park, Rachel had made the painful decision to put her child’s interests ahead of her own. She willingly gave up her parental rights in exchange for leniency from the courts, allowing her to live the life she wished, drugs and all, while Isabella would be safe, cared for—and most importantly, kept far away from Greg Navarro forever.
Grace had a thought that perhaps the anchor pendant she saw around Vince Rapino’s neck had been a gift from Rachel. Probably was, she decided. She could see Rachel equating that symbol not with Navarro, but with her daughter, with love.
Allio looked a bit uncomfortable shifting in his seat.
“I guess now I should tell you about your son, Ryan.”
CHAPTER 56
I HAVEN’T SHOWN ANYTHING I’ve written to my film professor. That was our deal. But I think it’s come together well, and now I’m at one of the final scenes of my movie—our movie, Penny.
Scene Heading: INT. Our House—Night
We were all gathered around the kitchen table like one big happy family. But there was a drumbeat of tension in the air. Something big was about to go down, but I think only Mom and Ryan were in on it.
“Ryan, it’s time to tell Penny what you told me and the police,” Mom said. Ryan had on his Big Frank’s polo shirt, but unlike the cheery, embroidered man spinning a stitched pizza on his extended finger, his face was downcast and serious.
“I’ve been spying on you,” he said. “I put a key logger on your computer and got access to your Facebook, your e-mail, everything that you were doing online.”
He didn’t confess his sins to me, but to you, Penny. You looked utterly shattered, as if Ryan had reached across the table to slap you in the face.
You were Penny again. There’d been no trace of Eve since you got out of Edgewater. I guess she’d done her job and finished it admirably. She had protected you when you needed it most. You have no memory of Isabella or what happened in the courtroom; how you yourself took down the man who had tried to destroy your life. But in Ryan’s moment of confession and cleansing, I swear I saw a flicker, a hint in the eyes and shoulders, of Eve’s return.
But it was you, Penny, not Eve, who responded to Ryan in your sweet, quiet voice. “Why would you spy on me?”
Ryan lowered his head. “Because I wanted to get you on something, get you in trouble, like you got in trouble before with Maria. Everyone keeps secrets, and I figured since there were more of you, there would be more secrets.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was angry at you,” Ryan said, sounding deeply remorseful. “I was angry from the moment you moved in with us, got all the attention after your diagnosis—you know, stupid kid jealousy. When Dad died and I didn’t think you did enough to help save him … then…” He took in a shaky breath, unable to get out the words. “From that moment on, I didn’t just dislike you … I hated you.”
I’ll never forget how your face crumpled as tears flooded your eyes. “I should have called nine-one-one,” you said, your voice breaking. Tears
poured into Ryan’s eyes as well. “I knew he was dead, but still, I should have called. I remember calling his name, checking his pulse, listening for a heartbeat, but he was gone. I don’t remember anything after. For all I know, I could have switched to Isabella, and she didn’t know what to do.”
“The doctors said it wouldn’t have made a difference.”
Mom felt she needed to remind everyone that no one at the table was at fault.
“I know,” Ryan said. “I just didn’t want to believe it … I needed someone to blame because I missed Dad, and you were there with him. All of my earlier resentments got this new energy, and I put all the blame on you, and that wasn’t fair. I’m not proud of what I’ve done.” He shut his eyes tightly, turning his head because he couldn’t stand to face her.
“I don’t have a real memory of seeing someone outside Rachel’s window, Eve did, but somehow I knew it had happened,” Penny said, putting it together now. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Ryan lowered his head. “I’d make these regular checks on your stuff online,” he said. “That’s how I knew you were back in contact with your birth mother, or at least that’s who I thought it was. So I followed you to Rachel’s house, and I watched you go inside. I brought my camera to take pictures and show Mom, because that kind of secret and betrayal would hurt. And I wanted to hurt you. The curtains were closed, so I stayed outside waiting for my good shot.
“I didn’t think you had done anything like what happened. But before I heard the police sirens, I saw Navarro leave the apartment. It was dark, and I didn’t get a great look at his face, but now, looking back, knowing what I know, it was him, I’m sure of it. I just didn’t put it together before. I saw him stuffing something into his jacket pocket, and I guess, thinking back, it could have been rope. Navarro must have called nine-one-one, tapped on the phone instead of speaking to the dispatch operator, and then he left the house, knowing the police would trace the call.