“Okay, then,” Grace said shakily. “Good. That sounds really good.” Conversations about money and her concerns over how she’d pay for Navarro’s fees could wait. “I guess though, well, there’s something you should know about Penny before we speak to her. She’s … been arrested before.”
If the reveal were at all concerning, it did not register on Navarro’s face.
“Okay, but is it relevant to these charges? Otherwise—”
Grace cut him off quickly.
“It think it’s pretty relevant,” she said. “A few years back, when Penny was only in ninth grade, she exchanged messages with a friend from town. A girl named Maria Descenza, who, like my daughter, has some mental health troubles.”
“What kind of messages?” asked Navarro.
“They were dark, violent fantasies. Murder fantasies. Worse—dismemberment. It was all awful.” She took a deep breath, then dove in. “They were really graphic and quite unsettling to read.”
Grace didn’t bother to share the weighty guilt she still felt for not keeping closer tabs on what her daughter did online. But did every parent read each text, track down every secret place kids went to hide private correspondences? True, she had more responsibility than most parents, given her daughter’s illness, but still, Penny was a teen and entitled to some privacy.
“The girls wrote about how to commit the perfect murder, the methods of killing, all of it described in gruesome detail, the weapons they’d use, how they’d get away with it, that sort of thing, and they kept their exchanges hidden using Snapchat, Kik, and some vault app called KMSS—that stands for Keep My Secrets Safe.”
“If it was so secret, how’d they get caught?” Navarro asked.
“Maria accidently sent a Snapchat message—a hit list the girls had made of potential targets—to the wrong person, another classmate at school. That girl shared it with her mother, who called the police.”
“Naming specific targets is going to get you in a lot of trouble with the law no matter your age.”
“Exactly. The police had no problem getting warrants to search the girls’ phones and they found all the other messages, all the details.”
“So was the charge attempted first or second degree murder?”
“Yes,” said Grace, pleased to see Navarro had no trouble pinpointing what law they’d violated. “Second degree was the initial charge, got plea-bargained down to reckless endangerment, but that’s not what’s most relevant here, I think. The potential targets on that hit list included my son Ryan, who had a difficult relationship with his sister for reasons we don’t have to get into right now, and also … Rachel Boyd.”
Navarro blanched, and his Adam’s apple jumped as he took a gulp of air.
“Rachel, the victim? Your daughter previously threatened the victim’s life?”
Grace nodded grimly.
“Oh wow,” he said, scratching at a spot on his scalp while reining in a grimace. “That’s not great news for us,” he said, a dip in his voice. He took a quiet moment to collect his thoughts, and Grace could almost see him get centered again.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s good information to have, and let’s leave it at that. We’re not going to focus on it right now. First thing I need to do is speak with Penny—alone. This is an attorney/client room, no recording devices, no cameras. The officer outside can take you to another room while Penny and I converse. Then I’ll come get you after we’re through.”
“Another room? No,” Grace said forcefully. “That’s not happening. I need to see my daughter. I need to be in here when you talk to her.”
Navarro took in Grace’s demand with a tight-lipped expression, but he didn’t look like he was about to acquiesce.
“Grace, I understand your desire here,” he answered calmly. “But I don’t want you to become a witness. I have no idea what’s going to happen or what she might say. I have attorney-client privilege with Penny because she’s my client, but you’re not, so that privilege doesn’t extend to you. It’s possible you could be asked to testify against your daughter in court. It’s too great a risk.”
“That’s my problem, not yours,” Grace said, having no second thoughts about her stance. “She might be your client, but she’s my daughter and I need to lay eyes on her. Either I stay in here with you, or I’m getting myself another lawyer.”