“Yes, that was the assessment of the crime scene and the prosecution’s argument.”
“Why did she leave the knife?” Avery asked. “If Victoria was setting things up to look like suicide, why would she leave a knife with her fingerprints next to the safe?”
“She panicked,” Walt said with certainty. “Maybe she assumed it would be linked to Cameron. It came from his own kitchen. If we’re arguing that she was thinking logically at this point, we’d also ask why she would leave a wineglass with her fingerprints on the nightstand. Or her urine in the toilet. But we never claimed she did any of this perfectly. Quite the contrary. Victoria Ford was very bad at murder. At least, she was at covering it up.”
Avery continued to shuffle through the photos. She lifted the image of Cameron Young’s bloated body hanging in the backyard.
“Victoria weighed one hundred twenty pounds. The argument was that she dragged a dead man who weighed a hundred pounds more than her across the bedroom, lifted him up, and dropped him over a four-foot balcony. Not an easy task.”
“But not impossible. Especially for someone supercharged with adrenaline.”
Avery watched Walt as he spoke. She thought there was something about his tone, or in his demeanor, that suggested he was less convinced with the case and its conclusions today than perhaps he had been twenty years ago. She doubted that it was her first few questions that caused his skepticism, and Avery wondered if there was something else he knew about the case.
She pointed at the box. “Let’s go through the rest of it.”
CHAPTER 38
Manhattan, NY Saturday, July 3, 2021
IT WAS AFTER 9:00 P.M. WHEN THEY DECIDED TO TAKE A BREAK. AVERY’S eyes were burning and a dull headache had formed at the base of her skull from reading through so many documents, police reports, and interview transcripts. They rode the elevator to the lobby and pushed through the revolving doors into the evening warmth. Neither had eaten lunch so they headed to Public House where they sat at the bar and ordered burgers and beers. Saturday night and the place was empty.
“Have you ever seen the city like this?” Walt asked.
“Never. I’ve heard stories about how empty it gets over the Fourth. Some of my friends used to love to stick around while everyone else flooded out of the city. When I was a kid I spent my summers in Wisconsin.”
“Wisconsin?”
“Yeah. My parents sent me to camp each summer. Eight weeks of sailing camp in northern Wisconsin. So as a kid, I was always gone over the Fourth. When I was older we used to go . . .” Avery caught herself, her two worlds colliding again. “We had a house in the Hamptons. We always spent the Fourth of July there.”
“Your parents?”
Avery nodded.
“Do they still have it?” Walt asked. “I mean, if you have access to a house in the Hamptons it begs the question why you’re spending the weekend with me.”
Avery smiled. “I’m working. But, no, that house is, uh . . . long gone.”
Avery didn’t mention that the “house” was a ten-thousand-square-foot mansion on the beach, and that it was not “gone” as much as confiscated by the government, like every other piece of property her family had owned. She also skipped the fact that her mother was dead, her father was a crook, and that her time in New York this summer had much greater repercussions than shedding light on Victoria Ford’s guilt or innocence. Just life’s little details, Avery thought as she sipped her beer. The minor things she kept to herself when meeting new people.
Their burgers arrived. Between bites, Walt asked her, “Spending every summer in Wisconsin . . . was that a drag as a kid?”
“Just the opposite. They were the best times of my life. The sailing school was well known and prestigious. Still is today. At least it is within the small, cultish group of people who want to drill the art of sailing into their children from the time they’re old enough to walk. The wait list is years long, literally. Some of my parents’ friends jumped onto the list as soon as their kids were born. No kidding. It was the only way to get a spot. That, or your parents had a lot of money and a lot of clout.”
“Your parents had that?”
Avery shrugged. “Something like that. But however they managed to get me there, those summers were special. For me and my brother. God, he loved that place.”
Memories of Christopher momentarily distracted her. After a stretch of silence, she realized Walt was staring at her, waiting for her to continue.
“It’s right on the lake. The camp. Kids from around the country went there to learn to sail. A couple kids from England, too. I used to love their accents. When I was a kid I dreamed of moving to London just so I could talk like them. It was strange, the friends I made. We’d see each other only in the summers and never talk for the rest of the year. But as soon as the school year ended, all I wanted to do was get to Sister Bay. And when my sailing friends and I reunited each summer, it was like we were never apart. Camp kids have that sort of bond.”
“You stayed the entire summer?”
“Eight weeks. Every summer.”
“What, did you sleep in tents?”
Avery laughed. “You’re not a camp kid, are you?”
Walt shook his head. “My summers consisted of baseball in the streets of Queens. Sending me off to camp would have been like a prison sentence.”
“Only camp kids understand. No, we did not sleep in tents. We stayed in cabins, complete with bathrooms and even toilets. Yes, Wisconsin has such luxuries as running water and indoor plumbing.”
Walt opened his palms. “I’m not ripping on Wisconsin. I just don’t know anything about summer camps.”
“I’m just giving you a hard time. But the camp really did have these great big, beautiful cabins. A dozen of them—real Northwood Wisconsin log cabins where all the students stayed. Six to a cabin. Some wild things happened in those cabins.”
“I can only imagine. Through high school you did this?”
“Through college, too. I went back as an instructor.”
“Do you still sail?”
“All the time. I have a small Catalina in LA. I try to get out on the water”—Avery’s voice trailed off as her mind flashed back to the crime scene photos—“once a week.”
“What’s wrong?” Walt asked.
Avery shook her head, put her burger down, and took a sip of beer. She pointed at Walt’s glass.
“Finish that up. We need to go back to your hotel. I need to look at the crime scene photos again.”
CHAPTER 39
Manhattan, NY Saturday, July 3, 2021
THEY HURRIED BACK THROUGH THE EMPTY STREETS. AVERY WAS SILENT as she stood next to Walt in the elevator. When he opened the door to his suite, she walked over to the desk and sat down. She pulled the photos in front of her again and paged through them until she found the ones she needed, positioning them side by side on the surface of the desk.
“Look here.”
Walt leaned over her shoulder. “What am I looking at?”
“See this knot?” Avery asked, pointing to the knotted rope attached to the leg of the safe. “And these?” She pointed to the knots tied around Cameron Young’s wrists.