by Marti Green
“Anyone in particular who had a crush on her?”
Ross shook his head.
Tommy asked a few more questions, then left. He drove up to Stone Ridge, went through the same round of questions with the two women who’d been part of that group, and got the same answers. If Kelly had been on someone’s most-wanted list—whether for hate or love—he’d been pretty adept at keeping it to himself.
Dani had expected to prep Derek Whitman the day before Osgood’s retrial, but she was here in Georgia and so decided to take care of that now. The trial was only a week away. She doubted Whitman would forget what they’d go over in that time. She’d called his cell number and arranged to meet him after he returned from work.
“I’m not really comfortable with this,” Whitman said once they were settled in his living room.
“You only have to tell the truth.”
“Greg was my friend. I don’t want him to get in trouble.”
“And what if your friend murdered Kelly Braden and got away with it because you lied for him?”
“He didn’t do that.”
“Maybe not. But you lied to the police, and now you need to set it right.”
Whitman fidgeted in his seat, averting Dani’s gaze.
Dani could hear the sounds of children shouting at one another coming from upstairs. “Your kids?”
“Yep. It’s their crazy time. Homework is done, and they’re overtired, so they go at each other.” He turned toward the stairs to the second floor and called out, “Keep it down up there!”
“Kelly was someone’s child.”
Whitman ran his hands though what remained of his hair and sighed. “I’ll tell the truth. Go ahead.”
Dani spent the next half hour going through his testimony, not just listening to his answers but watching his body language, giving pointers now and then. She then switched to the prosecutor’s role, peppering him with questions she thought he’d be asked.
Just as they were finishing up, Maisie Whitman came down the stairs, a frown on her face. “I could use some help up there,” she said to her husband.
Dani stood up. “I’m leaving now. Thanks for letting me take up Derek’s time. I know how hectic bedtime can be.”
“Well,” said Maisie, “he travels so often for business. I’m used to handling it on my own, but when he’s here, I could use a break.”
“I understand completely.”
Whitman walked Dani to the door. Just before stepping outside, she asked, “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m an accountant. I work for a company that sends me out to different businesses to audit their books. We cover the Southeast—North Carolina to Florida, and west to Kentucky and Tennessee. It’s hard for my wife, handling the kids alone. She works as well—in marketing—so when I’m away, she doesn’t get any downtime.”
“Sounds like you’re an understanding husband. That’s half the battle.”
“I try to be.”
Dani thanked him, then left. He’d been shaky at first, but in the end, she thought he’d make a fine witness.
CHAPTER
35
Think, Tommy admonished himself at his desk in HIPP’s office. You’re missing something.
He kept going back over the same suspects, but he wasn’t getting any closer. Before he’d left Stone Ridge, he’d stopped back at the police station and gone over Kelly’s murder file once more, this time looking for something that could tie in to the murder of Alison Grant. He’d found nothing.
If his instinct was right, whoever murdered Kelly had killed Alison as well. That meant he had to have been in Stone Ridge twenty-two years ago, and in Atlanta now. He pulled out his interview notes. Bonetti still worked as an itinerant handyman, traveling where needed. Asheville was only three and a half hours from Alison’s home. He could easily have gotten there, then home before his wife even noticed him gone. Or, he could have said he was going out on the road to scare up some work and been gone for days, even a week.
Greg Johnson was more of a stretch, living in Massachusetts, but he worked as an executive for a large insurance firm, with responsibility for the East Coast. It wouldn’t be so hard for him to arrange a business trip to Atlanta.
Tommy picked up his phone and dialed his hacker contact. “Can you track someone’s credit-card purchases?” he asked.
“Sure. Whose do you need?”
Tommy gave him Johnson’s and Bonetti’s names, then the five days leading up to Alison’s murder. “I just want to see if either of them was nearby during that week.”
“No problem. I’ll get right on it.”
Tommy had hoped to expand his search beyond those two, but so far, none of Kelly’s friends had given him any leads. He had to go with what he had and hope something would pop up.
“Greg, it’s Derek.”
“Wow, haven’t heard from you in ages. How’s it going?”
“Fine. Listen, I want to give you a heads-up. I’m going to be testifying in Jack Osgood’s new trial. I don’t want to, but I have no choice.”
“Yeah? About what?”
“About my alibi for you.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“I had to tell Osgood’s attorney the time I really got back to the room.”
“Why’s that?”
“She was going to check with others at the party. Someone might have remembered, and then I’d be caught in a lie. It wouldn’t look good.”
“You know I had nothing to do with Kelly’s murder.”
“Sure. I guess Osgood’s attorney wants to create some doubt, you know, to get Osgood off.”
“Well, thanks for letting me know.”
There was a coldness to Johnson’s voice, but Whitman couldn’t blame him. He said good-bye and hung up, and hoped that he wasn’t going to end up hurting Johnson. Even though they were no longer in touch, they’d once been close friends, and Whitman was certain he didn’t deserve to have a finger pointed at him as a killer.
Dani had spent the day on the telephone prepping the remaining witnesses for Osgood’s trial. She arrived home in time to greet Jonah as he got off the school bus, then spent an hour playing with him and Ruth before she started to prepare dinner.
Cooking was a shared responsibility between Doug and her, and sometimes even Katie, when both were late getting home. As she was about to take what she needed from the refrigerator, Dani glanced over at the kitchen table, where Katie had left the day’s mail. She picked up the pile and began to leaf through it, sorting the bills from the junk mail, when she stopped and stared at the envelope in her hand. It was addressed to Doug, and the return address was Stanford Law School. Job offer or polite rejection? she wondered, anxious to know which. Doug wasn’t due to return home for another hour, at least. Should she open it? It’s what she wanted to do. Her finger hovered over the back of the envelope; then she placed it under the flap, ready to slide it open. She stopped. It was Doug’s right to learn the verdict. Instead, she turned to the refrigerator and took out the package of chicken cutlets.
As soon as Doug got home, Dani handed him the envelope without saying a word. He hung up his coat first, then took Dani’s hand and led her into the living room. When both were seated, he opened the envelope and slid out the single sheet of paper. He read it silently, then looked up at Dani.
“They’ve offered me the dean’s position, beginning in August.”
Dani sighed deeply. “What are you going to do?”
“It’s a big raise. Very big. I want to accept it.”
“And me? The kids?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I want you to come with me. I want the kids with me. But if you really don’t want to leave, I can fly home every other weekend. And maybe once a month, you and the kids can go there. Spend the year getting a feel for the place, maybe checking out schools for Jonah, trying out nannies for Ruth.”
“And what about my work?”
“There’s an innocence
project just a half hour away, at the law school at Santa Clara University. They may have an opening. Or, I could start an innocence-project clinic at Stanford, and you could head it.”
“You haven’t even accepted the position, and you already assume nepotism would go unnoticed?”
Doug’s face reddened slightly. “Actually, I’d already discussed that possibility with the president. He had no problem with it.”
Dani leaned back into the soft cushion of their worn couch. She loved this house. She loved her job. Yet, this was clearly important to Doug. Of course, it would be. Maybe having a long-distance marriage wasn’t a bad idea. Maybe during that time, she’d find a great school for Jonah, a great nanny for Ruth, great doctors for both, a great job for herself. Maybe during that time, Doug would find that he hated being dean, that he hated being away from New York.
“I’ll think about it,” she said, then returned to the kitchen to set the table.
CHAPTER
36
Dani was back at Gwinnett County Superior Court, ready for the retrial of Jack Osgood in the murder of Kelly Braden. Hanging over the proceeding was the new charge of murder. Dani had spent the morning arguing before Judge Beiles that the prosecution should be barred from making any mention of Osgood’s arrest in connection with the Alison Grant murder. The prosecutor, Gary Luckman, had argued the reverse. “It’s highly relevant,” he’d insisted over and over. “The same MO and identical bite marks.”
“That might suggest the same person committed both crimes,” Dani had retorted. “It doesn’t mean that person is Jack Osgood. An arrest is not a conviction.”
Eventually, Dani had prevailed. Osgood would be retried solely on the murder of Kelly Braden, without any mention of Alison Grant. If they were successful, he’d still face trial for Grant’s murder. Unless, before then, they somehow, miraculously, uncovered the real killer. And Dani was convinced that wasn’t Osgood.
She made a halfhearted motion to move the trial even farther away from Atlanta than Gwinnett County, to avoid jurors who’d read about Osgood’s new arrest. She knew she was unlikely to succeed, and as expected, the judge turned her down. It meant she’d need to be extra careful to find jurors who were unaware of Alison Grant’s murder.
The rest of that day and the next, Dani picked a jury. Seven women and five men—a good mix, she thought. Women would be more sympathetic to Osgood’s intellectual limitations.
On the third day, the trial began. Jack Osgood sat by her side, dressed in a neat suit and tie. Amy Shore was in the gallery, along with Doris Waring, the resident at the facility who had befriended Osgood.
It was the first time Dani had met Amy in person, and she’d thanked her profusely for taking Jack in.
“Now that I know him,” Amy said, “I can’t believe he’d ever hurt anyone. It infuriates me that he was picked up for another murder.”
Doris had remained seated and hadn’t said a word, but Dani could see tears in her eyes.
After opening statements, Luckman began with Captain Ed Cannon. He described the steps taken by the police that led to the arrest of Osgood, emphasizing the bat with Lisa Hicks’s blood and Jack Osgood’s initials. He skimmed over Hicks’s identification of Osgood. Luckman already knew that would be challenged. He made no mention of the bite mark on Braden’s arm—Judge Beiles had already ruled that she wouldn’t allow any expert testimony on its source.
When he finished, Dani stood. “Your Honor, I’d like to reserve my cross of this witness for my direct case.”
“Okay.”
Luckman called next the medical examiner. His testimony was straightforward—Kelly Braden’s cause of death was asphyxiation as a result of strangulation. The doctor testified that based on the marks around Braden’s neck, the killer was a man with large hands. Dani had no questions for him.
Next, Luckman had a crime-scene technician testify as to the examination of the premises, as well as the site where Braden’s body was found. On cross-examination, Dani had only one question. “You testified that the perpetrator climbed a ladder placed on the outside of the house to reach the second story. How high was the climb on the ladder?”
“About nine feet.”
Luckman followed up with a DNA technician, who testified that the blood found on Osgood’s bat belonged to Lisa Hicks. When it was Dani’s turn, she asked, “Did you find any fingerprints on the bat?”
“No. It was wiped clean of prints. But there were traces of blood that remained.”
“So, can you say with any certainty that it was Jack Osgood holding the bat when it was used to hit Lisa?”
“No, I guess not.”
Luckman called several residents of the neighborhood where Osgood lived. Two had been children at the time of the murder; two had been older. Each testified that they’d been afraid of Osgood, that he’d walk down the street swinging his bat, staring at them with a face that was frightening. Dani asked each one if Osgood had ever harmed, or attempted to harm, them or anyone they knew. Each said no.
When Dani finished her cross of those witnesses, Judge Beiles said, “This seems like a good time to break for the day. We’ll begin again tomorrow at nine thirty.” She gave the jurors instructions not to discuss the case with anyone, and not to watch any newscasts of the trial or read any newspapers about it.
Dani returned to her hotel and changed into jogging clothes, then headed to the gym. She was in luck—there was one open treadmill. She stepped on it, did some light stretching, then set it to 6.0—a nice, easy pace. As she settled into her run, she freed her mind of all else but this trial. She felt comfortable that the prosecution didn’t have enough evidence to prove Osgood’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. And, without a conviction in this case, Osgood’s arrest in Grant’s murder was shaky. Still, juries were unpredictable. They wanted justice for the victim. If she couldn’t hand them someone else who killed these women, they might decide, even without more evidence, that Osgood was guilty.
Tommy was still in the office when his hacker source called him with results. “Got something good for me?”
“Something good, and something surprising.”
“Spill.”
“The only credit cards Bonetti uses are for gas, but it seems he was in North Carolina the whole time. But, keep in mind, it’s only about three and a half hours from there to Atlanta. Less, if he drives fast.”
“How about Johnson?”
“According to his credit-card charges, Johnson was on a weeklong trip through North and South Carolina and Georgia when Grant was killed. On the night she died, he stayed at a hotel in Augusta, Georgia. It’s a little more than a two-hour drive from there to Atlanta.”
“So, either could have killed her.”
“I don’t think so. Here’s the surprising thing. I decided to check state-police databases for similar unsolved murders. I found two—both teenage girls, taken from their homes in the middle of the night, both strangled but not raped. Here’s the kicker—both had bite marks on their upper arms. One in Clemson, South Carolina; the other in Madison, Florida.”
“My God!”
“One was six months after Osgood’s arrest. He hadn’t been convicted yet but was incarcerated. The other was five years later. Bonetti was already serving time for rape then.”
Tommy was a black-and-white kind of man. He didn’t like gray. And he didn’t like helping guilty people go free. After he’d heard from Osgood about his fear of ladders, he’d been pretty sure he was innocent. Now, he was certain.
Halfway through her sixty-minute run, Dani’s cell phone rang. She picked it up to check who was calling—if it was Doug, she always took the call—and saw it was Tommy. She slowed the treadmill to 4.0, then pressed “Answer.”
“What’s up?”
“You sitting down?”
“Nope. On the treadmill.”
“I think you need to stop.”
Dani slowed it down gradually until it came to a halt. “Okay, I’m off.”
&nb
sp; Tommy filled her in on his conversation with the hacker.
A surge of adrenaline rushed through Dani. “You have to go down there right away. Talk to the police who investigated the cases. This could push away any lingering doubt in the jurors’ minds. We need them to send someone to testify about those cases.”
“I’ll see if there are any flights down tonight. If not, I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”
“Good. And Tommy?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know how you’re getting your information, and I don’t want to know. But I wonder if there’s a way for you to find out where Greg Johnson was when those other two women were murdered.”
“I’m already on it.”
CHAPTER
37
Before court started the next morning, Dani called Meghan Milgram, the psychologist who’d testified that Osgood was intellectually disabled. When she answered, Dani asked, “What can you tell me about serial killers?”
“A lot. Can you narrow down your question?”
“I think whoever killed Kelly Braden has killed three other teenage girls. Kelly was the first, so I think it’s possibly someone who maybe lived in Stone Ridge, someone who knew her. I’m hoping you can tell me if there’s a specific personality profile that fits a serial killer.”
“It’s not so simple. Do you have time to come in and talk to me?”
“I’m in court today, on Osgood’s retrial. Can we meet for dinner tonight?”
“Sure.”
They set up a place and time, and then Dani headed into the courtroom.
Osgood was brought in from the holding cell, once again dressed in a suit and tie. And, once again, Amy Shore and Doris Waring were in the gallery. A few rows in front of them sat Kelly’s parents, Susan and Carl Braden, along with her brother, Adam. After the judge was seated, the jurors filed in. When everyone was seated, Judge Beiles asked Luckman if he had any more witnesses.
“Just one. I call Lisa Hicks Montague to the stand.”