You Deserve to Know

Chapter 32

32

THIS PAST SPRING

The news that Michael Finch and Scott Crowder were the same person was a hard secret to keep.

But Lisa had no one with whom to share this juicy little tidbit of knowledge. Twice, in the days after her phone conversation with Arlette Fagin from Mad River High School, she almost blurted it out. Once when she and Marcus were watching a movie on their couch the following Saturday, and then a few days later while on a call with a client. The woman was a stay-at-home mom struggling with whether to go back to work or not. She had been a frustrating client for Lisa because she never took any of her advice, never did any of the homework Lisa assigned, hadn’t even taken the Myers-Briggs personality test Lisa had emailed her, although Lisa was sure the woman was an INFP. She was a classic Pisces—spiritual and artistic but bad with setting boundaries. Lisa had been talking to her about gut instinct, one of her favorite topics. She was trying to come up with a recent example of following her intuition and found herself almost telling this woman about her hunt for the truth about Scott. She managed to steer the conversation away at the last minute, but she surprised herself with how tempted she had been to spill every detail.

She knew she couldn’t share what she’d learned about Scott, not even to a client who didn’t know the players, and not even if she changed the names. All she knew at this point was she possessed incendiary information, even if she wasn’t sure why. Her research on Michael Finch was fruitless. He did not exist. Rather, many Michael Finches existed—a screenwriter, a makeup artist, a YouTuber, a constitutional lawyer—but not her Michael Finch. She had better luck with Dexter Kohl. She found his name and a picture of a goofy-looking teen with long curly hair and sleepy eyes on a Humboldt County website for missing persons. There were dozens of people listed—men and women of all ages. But Michael Finch wasn’t one of them. She suspected that Dexter being listed and not Michael indicated something important.

The following Wednesday, Lisa was in the snack section of Whole Foods loading up on chips and kettle corn for Kai when her phone rang. She recognized the area code, 707, as belonging to Humboldt County, the same area code Arlette Fagin had called from.

“Hello,” she answered.

“Is this Lisa Greco-King?”

“Yes, it is.” She could barely hear the woman over the din of the supermarket.

“I got your number from Arlette Fagin. At the high school?” The woman’s voice was weak, and she coughed a few times before continuing. “We have a friend in common, and Arlette told him about your interest in the case of the two boys that went missing twenty-eight years ago. I hope it’s all right that I’m calling you.”

“Of course.” Lisa stepped away from her full cart, leaving it in the snack aisle, and walked right out of the store. She could barely hear the woman, so she headed to her car for privacy and quiet.

“She said you were looking into the disappearance?” The woman sounded hopeful but hesitant. “And that you may have found one of the boys?”

“Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Lisa said, closing the car door. “But I have a lead. Do you mind my asking who you are, and how you are connected to this case?”

There was enough of a pause that Lisa thought they might have been cut off. But then the woman spoke.

“I’m Dexter Kohl’s mother.”

The words hit Lisa hard. In all her plotting against Scott, she never really thought about the two boys who had gone missing in California and the pain their families might have experienced, or still be going through. What she was doing had broader implications. This woman was looking for her son and, because of Lisa’s snooping, thought she might have a lead. But instead of making Lisa cautious, the thought of being at the center of this drama excited her. She might be the one to help this woman answer a decades-old mystery. Hero might be too strong a word, but Lisa imagined the gratitude this woman would bestow upon her if she accomplished what law enforcement had failed to do for twenty-eight years. “I am afraid I don’t have any information about your son. I don’t know what Arlette told you, but it’s the other boy, Michael Finch, that I might have some information about.”

“Oh, she told me that. I need to find Michael. He knows where Dexter is.” The woman coughed again. “Sorry, I have the emphysema. I don’t know how much longer I have, and I want to see justice done. I need to talk to Michael. I believe he knows where Dex is at. You see, my son isn’t missing, not really.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I think Dex is dead, buried somewhere up on that mountain. And I think Michael Finch killed him.”

Lisa sank back in her leather seat as it all clicked into place. She felt a euphoria, the kind she hadn’t felt since she went skydiving for her twenty-first birthday. The high from having jumped out of a plane and floated among the clouds had lasted days. That same rush filled her now. Scott Crowder—who everyone thought was an upstanding family man, biotech entrepreneur, soccer coach, and all-around great guy—was a fraud. A criminal. A killer.

And she alone had the power to expose him. He could change his name, finesse his history, but he couldn’t outrun his past. She was the one calling the shots now. “Please, tell me everything.”

Lisa sat in her car and listened to the woman lay out her story. In the fall of their senior year, the boys had embarked on a weekend camping trip. Both were experienced hikers, but the day they were supposed to return, neither came home. Their car was found at the base of the trail, but no trace of the boys. A few weeks later, a hunter found a bloody shirt a few miles from the trailhead. The blood belonged to Dexter. But there were no bodies. They had simply vanished.

Only, the woman said, a few months after the boys disappeared, she saw Michael Finch. She was sure of it.

“It was the end of the year. Often, I would go up to where Dex and Michael had set up camp and leave flowers. Sometimes I would go up and search the ground as if I might find something the police had overlooked. Then one day—it was cold, I remember, snow was on the ground—I saw Michael. I called his name and he ran. I tried to go after him but I lost him.”

“Did you go to the police?”

“They were of no help. They thought I was seeing things, a grief-stricken mother. They went through the motions, talking to his mom, that lowlife boyfriend of hers, his friends. They never turned up anything. But I intend to find the truth, even if that means upsetting a few apple carts.”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Lisa said. “I think that I can be of some help in finding justice for you.”