Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
NOAH
Crap.
I knew this was coming. Pop and I were talking it over last night.
I’ll have to come clean about where I was that morning. The problem is the truth kind of makes me look like a stalker.
Not of Marion—god, no. This has nothing to do with her murder. It’s just…not a good look. And something I never thought I’d have to talk about.
Especially not with Von.
And by the way she’s looking at me, she knows I’m hiding something. But, ever the professional, Von presses the record button on her phone, stating her name and the date. “Interview one with Noah Patterson,” she says, then looks at me expectantly.
I rub my eyes and lean back in the chair. “Okay,” I say quietly.
“Let’s begin with the night of the party,” she says. “What time did you arrive? ”
I relax a fraction, glad I have some time to ramp up to my confession.
“A little after seven pm.”
“And did you have any interactions with my mother at the event?”
“I said hello. Congratulated her on throwing another great party.” Marion’s parties were legendary. “I wasn’t doing anything that would come across as stalking her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“If that was what I was asking, I would have asked it,” Von says impatiently. “What else did these interactions entail?”
I sigh and rub my forehead. “I don’t know,” I say. “It was five years ago. I remember seeing her in the receiving line. She talked to me and the sheriff for a bit at one point. I saw her in the dining room when they brought the desserts out. But the thing I remember most about the party wasn’t your mom. It was talking to Caden about Isla.”
Von raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”
“What? He’s my best friend. It’s part of my job description to give him relationship advice.”
“That’s not particularly helpful.”
“Sorry,” I snap. “I didn’t realize I was going to be charged with Marion’s murder five years down the line.”
Von bristles. “Well?” she says.
“Well what?”
She grits her teeth. “I said every detail, no matter how small.”
“You want to know about the advice I gave Caden?”
She sighs heavily. “No, I do not want to know about my brother’s love life. But I need to know every detail you remember from that party. And the two appear to have a joining line, so let’s get it over with, shall we?”
I guess I can appreciate how thorough she’s being. “Caden wanted to ask Isla out and your dad was being an asshole about it. Telling him he had to get married before he could take over the company, which is insane, but also par for the course with your dad.” I wait for Von to snap at me for insulting her father, but she doesn’t react. “I told him to get Russell out of his head for one damn minute and do the thing he’d been talking about for nearly a year.”
That seems to take Von by surprise.
“He liked her for that long?” she asks, then shakes her head. “Never mind. After you and Caden finished your Gossip Girl session, what else do you remember?”
“Well, I do seem to remember seeing you,” I point out.
She rolls her eyes. “Yes. What else?”
I struggle to bring the images of the party up in my mind. They’re faded and worn, with blank spots in places. It hadn’t occurred to me to try and remember that night—we never suspected the murderer was at the party. “I know I hung out with Franco Amercini a bit.”
“Who?” Von asks, prepping her pen against the legal pad.
“He runs Osteria Fortuna. The Italian restaurant in town,” I add when Von looks blank.
“Right,” she says, her pen scratching against the paper.
“And I talked to Charlotte.” The pen scratches again. “Von.” She looks up. “You know Charlotte. Right?”
“Sure,” she says dismissively. “Isla told me about her.”
“Oh my fucking god, Von. The two of you were in the same class together all through elementary school.”
She huffs. “Do you remember everyone you went to elementary school with?”
“Yes,” I retort. “I’m still friends with most of them.”
Or at least, I was. Silence wraps around me, thick and uncomfortable. Have I lost all my friends now? Will anyone in town ever speak to me again, or see me as anything but a man accused of murder? I picture Cody’s face, and Mike’s, as they left the courtroom. Judging me. Suspicious. But there were people there on my side too. I have to hold onto that .
Von clears her throat. “Moving on. You talked to…” She checks her notes. “Franco, and Charlotte.”
“And some of the deputies. And my friends—Jake, Cody, Linda May, Emily, Mike…”
Von looks exasperated. “Do you have a yearbook or something? I need faces for these names.”
“If you spent ten minutes in town, you’d see them all.”
Von mutters something under her breath. “Okay, so your friends Jake and Mike?—”
“Mike’s not really a friend,” I interject. “He’s kind of the town troublemaker.”
Von’s head whips up. “Troublemaker how? Are you saying he could be a suspect?”
I frown. “Mike? Stalking your mom? I don’t think so. He mostly gets drunk and does dumb shit, like starting fights or knocking Mrs. Greerson’s trash cans over. I can’t imagine him writing those letters, using words like eternal love and all that. Plus, your mom was so much older—if Mike was going to be obsessed with someone, I would think it would be someone our own age. We were all in our mid-twenties then and your mom was in her fifties.”
“Plenty of younger men find older women attractive,” Von points out.
“Sure, I guess.” I don’t want to fight with her on this, but Mike is one of those guys who had posters of women in bikinis suggestively sprawled out on hot rods in his room when we were teens. Marion Everton was not his type.
I see Von write Mike? on her notepad and wonder if maybe I’m wrong. What do I know? It feels like the world I’d been so sure of is slowly unraveling.
“Did Isla tell you about?—”
“Mom confronting the stalker at the party?” Von says. “Yeah.”
We both pause for a moment. I wonder if Von is thinking the same thing I am. Wishing Marion had just told someone about this guy. There were cops at that party. The sheriff could have done something.
“And you didn’t hear anything?” Von presses. “Or see anyone acting strangely?”
“Everyone was pretty drunk by that point,” I say.
“Including you?”
I shake my head. “I drove so I stopped drinking a couple hours before I left. I was training to be a deputy then and I kept a pretty rigid schedule. Plus, I wanted to get home to Pop.”
“What time did you leave the party?”
“I think a little after eleven thirty.”
“And how long was the drive back to your house?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes. I got home, took Penny out, brushed my teeth and went to bed.”
“Okay,” Von says, and my pulse kicks up a notch. “Now let’s talk about the morning she died.”
I knew we’d get here eventually but I still haven’t decided what exactly to say to Von about it.
“What time did you wake up that morning?” Von asks.
“Five am,” I say.
She raises an eyebrow. “That’s early.”
“I told you. I was training to be a deputy. I knew I would be working graveyard shifts. I was constantly pushing myself, acclimating to lack of sleep, that sort of thing. Usually, I’d wake up and go for a run.”
Her eyes narrow. “Usually.”
I shift in my chair and Penny gives my knee a comforting lick. Pop told me to tell the truth. Which, I mean, obviously. I just wish it wasn’t Von I was telling the truth to. I don’t want to see that judgy look on her face.
Besides, I’m not sure anyone saw me outside that bar. So even if I do tell her the truth, I don’t know how that will be helpful.
But I’m not a liar. So I may as well get this over with.
Suddenly, I’m spared from answering by the arrival of the Asian man I saw in the courtroom yesterday. He’s impeccably dressed once again, in a dark blue suit and peach colored tie, and he steps out onto the deck then turns back to where Pop is standing.
“Thank you, Mr. Patterson,” he says.
“Can I get you a coffee, Mr. Ling?” Pop asks as he places a mug with the words #1 Grandpa on it in front of Von.
“That would be great,” the young man says with a Cheshire Cat smile. Pop disappears back inside, and the man turns to me. “God, it’s a fucking nightmare outside your house. Reporters everywhere. Hi. I’m Grayson Ling.”
He extends his hand and I shake it.
“Noah Patterson,” I say.
“Obviously.” He glances at Von. “Does he know about the papers?”
Von shrugs.
“What about the papers?” I ask. I couldn’t bring myself to look this morning when Pop was reading them. I imagined it would be a lot of shouting headlines that I’m guilty.
Grayson flips open a copy of the New York Post tucked under his arm. The photograph is of me and Daisy, as she took my hand before she left the courtroom. The headline screams: Love Behind Bars: Socialite Falls for her Mother’s Murderer?
My stomach drops into my knees. “What the…”
“I told you,” Von says, “don’t look at anyone. Don’t talk to anyone. Otherwise, this happens.”
“What do we do about it?” I demand, my breath coming too quickly. My head spins. Daisy? First, I’m meant to be stalking Marion and now I’m romantically connected to Daisy ? She’s like my little sister! I put my hand on Penny’s head to steady myself and she whines and licks my knee again.
“Calm down,” Grayson says. “Von, we need to release a statement. Like, yesterday. Before this gets out of hand and becomes the narrative. ”
“I know,” Von says. “Let me call Alistair.”
She stands and grabs her phone. Grayson glances at the paw prints on her skirt.
“I love this new look,” he says dryly. “Very canine chic.”
“Right,” she says. “I’ll tell Al to bring me a new outfit.” Then she vanishes inside the house.
Grayson takes Von’s seat and studies me for a moment. Penny leans her head against my thigh. I like having her here. She’s keeping me sane.
“So,” Grayson says. “Did you do it?”
I’m shocked by his bluntness. “No. But I assume everyone you represent says that.”
His mouth twitches. “She’s an excellent lawyer, you know. You’re lucky to have her on your side.”
“Lucky is about the last thing I feel right now,” I growl.
Grayson shrugs and delicately picks at his cuticles. “Fair enough. But if I were you, I’d be grateful to have her in my corner. She’s a tiger in the courtroom.”
That’s easy to believe. Even seeing Von at the arraignment was enough to show me she’s got the chops. There was something utterly compelling about her fierceness, the way she stood up to Judge Warner, the passion in her voice as she defended me. I feel an odd tightening in my stomach at the memory.
Then Von appears in the doorway. “Alistair is on his way over. He’s very good at this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?” I demand.
“Press conferences,” Grayson says.
I leap up from my chair and Penny startles. “You want me to go talk to those people outside? Are you insane?”
Von levels me with a look. “No. I will be doing the talking. What is rule number one, Noah? What have I kept telling you?”
“Don’t talk to anyone,” I grumble.
“Don’t talk to anyone,” she repeats.