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 screen 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.”