Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
NOAH
The next morning, I’m in the kitchen with Daisy, Caden, and Isla having coffee before court.
“How are we all feeling?” Daisy asks, her gaze flitting from me to her brother. “Von’s pretty great, right?”
“She really nailed Mike Cochran to the wall,” Isla observes.
I crack a small grin. “Yeah, she did.” I hope she can do the same to the sheriff today.
At that moment, Von hurries in, a strange look on her face.
She whispers so quietly in my ear I almost don’t hear her. “Dad knows.” Before I have a chance to ask what she’s talking about, Russell himself appears in the doorway.
“Noah,” he says, beckoning me out into the hall. I stand, confused, and walk out of the kitchen.
Russell looms in front of me, his black eyes flashing. “So,” he says. “You and Siobhan.”
I stare at him in shock. “I…how… ”
“Security cameras, Noah. I know she disarmed the alarm system last night.”
I gape at him, dumbfounded. My first instinct is to feel like an utter idiot—of course there are cameras at all the entrances to the mansion. My next instinct is to protect Von, but protect her from what? What’s the right move here? I don’t want to deny my relationship with her.
But Russell doesn’t seem to need any explanation from me.
He grips my shoulder in an iron grasp. “If you hurt her, I will destroy you.”
“Right,” I say, my knees going weak.
He gives me a sharp pat on the arm. “Good luck today.”
He stalks off down the hall and Von comes scurrying out. “You okay?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, bemused.
“What did he say?”
“Oh, you know. Threatened my life if I ever hurt you. Typical dad stuff.”
Von’s mouth curves up on one side. “Seriously?”
“Don’t look so happy about it,” I say, and she laughs.
Caden and Isla come out into the hall.
“What did Dad want?” Caden asks.
“Just wishing me luck,” I say.
“We better get going,” Von says. I feel a strange sense of buoyancy as we head to the courthouse that not even the reporters’ shouted questions can dampen.
Russell approves of me and Von being together. Someone from the family knows about us. And today, Von is going to take on the sheriff. There’s a natural lightness in my step as I enter the courtroom, and Grayson notices.
“Don’t you look like the cat who ate the canary,” he says before the bailiff calls the room to order.
The second day of my trial begins with Wilbur calling Sheriff Briggs to the stand. My pulse kicks up a notch as I watch him take the oath. I expect him to look different somehow—as if his guilt would cling to his clothes or color the lines of his face. But he’s still the same paunchy, weathered man with graying hair who trained me, who mentored me. I feel revulsion creep up my throat like bile. He betrayed me and everything the badge stands for.
Wilbur stands. “Please state your name for the jury.”
The sheriff turns to the twelve men and women in the jury box. “John Briggs. I’m the sheriff of Magnolia Bay County.”
“And how long have you held that position?”
“Twenty-one years.”
“Sheriff, at what time did you arrive at Everton Estate on the morning of June twenty-second?”
“We received a 911 call from Russell Everton at six forty-two am,” the sheriff says. “I immediately set out for the estate and dispatched several other officers and an ambulance to the scene, as well as calling in all reinforcements. I arrived around six fifty-five am.”
“That’s quite a prompt response time.”
The sheriff puffs out his chest. “At the MBSD, every call gets responded to as quickly as possible.”
“And what happened next?”
“We discovered Marion Everton, in her pottery shed in the backyard. She was deceased. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to her chest.”
“Did you make any other assessments?”
“We secured the crime scene and immediately interviewed the Everton family members. We discovered that Caden Everton was not on the premises. I knew Noah Patterson was close friends with him, so I called Noah to see if he could locate Caden and bring him back to the house.”
“And how did Noah sound when you called him?”
The sheriff’s eyes flicker to me briefly. “He sounded upset.”
I grit my teeth so hard I think they might crack. I did not sound upset. I was confused as to why the sheriff was calling me so early on a Sunday.
“Upset how?”
“A little out of breath,” the sheriff says. “Alert. A little panicky. I remember because I thought it strange. Everyone had been at the anniversary gala the night before, but Noah seemed like he had been awake for some time.”
“Like maybe he had just been performing some activity that would cause him to be out of breath?”
“Yes.”
“Like murdering Marion Everton?”
“Objection,” Von calls.
“Sustained,” the judge says. I guess there’s only so much partisanship Judge Warner is willing to show. Wilbur walks the sheriff through the rest of that morning, the basics of the investigation, eliminating the family members until Caden was the only one left, but even he had an alibi. Then he gets into the way the investigation fizzled out quickly.
“We had no leads,” the sheriff says. “Nothing definitive to go on, except that we suspected the perpetrator had used the secret entrance in the garden to access the backyard. Of course, this made us suspect that it was someone close to the family, with knowledge of the house.”
I glance at Von, who’s scribbling on her notepad. We are both well aware that the sheriff had been insisting it was some random drifter at the time. But no mention is being made of that now.
“Let’s skip ahead,” Wilbur says. “To the day you received yet another call from the Everton mansion.”
“Yes, over the summer, Noah Patterson called me to tell me that Caden Everton had found letters in a desk drawer of a study in the house.”
“Noah called you? Caden didn’t call you himself?”
The sheriff shakes his head. “He trusted Noah. He was deceived by him, like we all were. ”
I have to resist the urge to look behind me and see how Caden feels about the sheriff’s categorization.
“Objection,” Von says. “Your honor, please instruct the witness to stick to the facts. As a law enforcement officer, I would think he’d know the rules of testimony.”
The judge hesitates. “Sustained.”
“The defense asks for his statement to be stricken from the record,” Von adds.
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Judge Warner says. “Sheriff, from now on, only testify to the facts, please.”
“Of course. My apologies, your honor,” the sheriff says.
Wilbur holds up the stalker’s typed protestations of love. “And these are the letters you took from Everton Estate that day, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
Wilbur projects the letters one by one up onto a screen. I can feel everyone in the gallery leaning forward to read them. This is sensational stuff, after all—love letters from a murderer. But I keep my eyes on the man in the witness box. If I’m right, the sheriff himself wrote those letters. I study his face, trying to find any trace of guilt or discomfort at having them read by a bunch of strangers. I try to imagine him actually writing them, his obsession growing day by day. It’s just so hard to picture. It flips everything I thought I knew about this man on its head.
The sheriff looks at each letter in turn as it’s presented with no discernible reaction.
“What did you think when you saw these?” Wilbur asks.
“I thought that Marion had a stalker and that this was the person who killed her.”
“Did you have any idea who this stalker might be?”
There’s the faintest thread of tension in the sheriff’s jaw, and he shifts almost imperceptibly in his chair. “Not at that time, no.”
“And did you come to have an opinion about the author of these letters later? ”
“I did, yes.”
“And when was that?”
“When a bullet casing was found at the crime scene with Noah Patterson’s fingerprint on it,” the sheriff declares, like this is an episode of Perry Mason and he’s just revealed the real killer.
I see the jurors looking intrigued, glancing at me with suspicion. One leans forward in her chair, and another writes something down on his notepad. That damned shell casing. But the sheriff took my gun! I want to shout.
“Thank you,” Wilbur says dramatically. “No further questions.”
Von takes a moment, scribbling something on her notepad. The pause is noticeable. I bet this is a tactic. Make the sheriff wait. Finally, she looks up. “Sheriff, do you recall what you told my family on the morning of my mother’s murder?”
The sheriff looks at her sternly. “I said a lot of things that morning.”
“Do you recall telling us that this murder was committed by some random drifter, a thief motivated by greed?”
“That might have been a theory, yes.”
Von raises one slender eyebrow. “ Might have been? Sheriff, I remind you, you are under oath. And I can bring up each of my siblings to testify as to what you said to us that morning.”
The sheriff clears his throat. “Yes, I did think robbery was the most likely motive at first.”
“And then you suspected my brother, Caden?”
“Only for a short period of time. Before he was alibied by Isla Davenport.”
“And then, as you say, the case went cold?”
“Yes.”
“You never suspected Noah at all?”
The sheriff purses his lips. “There was no reason to at that time.”
Von glances at the jury. “Right. There was no reason to.” She stands and walks around the defense table then leans against it. “And once those letters were found, did you suspect him then?”
“No. The letters were unsigned.”
“So it was only when a bullet casing was discovered with Mr. Patterson’s print on it that you suspected he was the murderer?”
“Of course. That’s hard evidence,” the sheriff points out.
“Tell me, did you find Mr. Patterson’s prints in the pottery shed itself?”
“No,” the sheriff admits.
“On the doorknob?”
“No.”
“On the letters?”
The sheriff frowns. “No.”
“Did you find his DNA at the scene?”
“There was no DNA except Marion’s,” the sheriff says gruffly.
“So there’s zero hard evidence linking Mr. Patterson to this crime except one fingerprint on one shell casing,” she says.
“That’s correct.”
“And this shell casing, you suspect it was fired from his gun?”
“Of course. It was the same caliber. Everything matched to him.”
Von glances at me and I shiver with anticipation. She takes a few steps forward. “Sheriff Briggs, Mr. Patterson was only a deputy in training at the time of the murder, is that correct?”
The sheriff looks wary. “Yes.”
“He did not have an assigned duty weapon?”
The sheriff hesitates. “He did not have a duty weapon, no. But he was assigned a weapon to use for firearms training.”
“Right,” Von says, coming back to pretend to check her notes. “A Glock 22, is that correct?”
“Yes. It uses 9mm bullets—like I said, the same caliber as the casing recovered with his fingerprint at the scene.” The sheriff is starting to look more confident.
“I see,” Von says. “So the assumption you and your investigators have made is that he used his own weapon—this training weapon—loaded with his own hand, thereby leaving the print on the casing…he used that weapon to shoot Marion Everton?”
“Yes,” the sheriff says triumphantly.
Von paces toward the jury box, then pivots back to the sheriff. “This gun Mr. Patterson had been assigned for firearms training, did he keep it at his home?”
My fingers twitch. She’s about to hit him with the logbook. I glance back to the gallery and see Stan has come to watch the testimony today, his brows pinched together, his arms folded across his chest.
“No,” the sheriff says. “It was kept in a lockbox at the shooting range.”
“A public range?”
“It is open to the public, yes.”
“So anyone could have had access to this weapon?”
“I don’t know about anyone ,” the sheriff says brusquely. There’s her opening and I see Von pounce. She stalks back toward the defense table as Grayson smoothly hands her the logbook.
“Your honor, I enter defense exhibit five. May I approach the witness?” The judge nods. “Sheriff, do you recognize this?”
The sheriff frowns. “It looks like an entry log for Bayside Shooting Range.”
“This is the range where you train recruits?”
“Yes.”
“This is the range where Mr. Patterson’s gun was kept?”
The sheriff starts to look nervous. “Yes.”
Von opens the book and flips to the correct page. “Sheriff, can you read the date at the top of this page for the jury?”
“June twenty-first.”
“The day before Marion Everton was murdered.”
“Yes.”
“So, your theory is that Mr. Patterson used his own gun to commit the murder. Which means he would have needed to procure it from the range where, as you testified, it was kept. Tell me, at what time did Mr. Patterson sign in on this entry log?”
The sheriff’s eyes skim down the list. They widen for the briefest moment when, I assume, he sees his own name.
He looks up at Von, his face tight. “It appears he wasn’t there that day.”
There are some whispers in the gallery and the judge bangs his gavel. “Silence,” he warns.
“You do not see his name anywhere, correct?”
The sheriff grinds his teeth. “That’s right.”
“Sheriff, could you read the names that are on that entry log? The names of the people who were at the shooting range that day?”
The sheriff’s eyes flicker to Wilbur, then down at the book. A dull red flush starts to creep up the back of his neck. Wilbur is frowning, looking back and forth between the sheriff and the book in his hands.
“Joe Wilson,” the sheriff reads. “Dave Falco. Michelle Martinez…” He reads seven other names then hesitates. Von is ready.
“Is that all, Sheriff?”
The sheriff clears his throat. “John Briggs.”
This time, louder whispers erupt in the gallery. Wilbur leaps to his feet. “Objection, your honor! How dare the defense make accusations without evidence.”
Von raises an eyebrow. “I am not accusing anyone of anything, Mr. Jenkins. I am merely pointing out that there were a number of people who had access to the murder weapon the day before the shooting. And that Mr. Patterson does not appear to be one of them.”
I see some of the jurors’ eyes widen slightly, while others scribble in their notebooks. The sheriff looks thunderstruck.
“Noah Patterson had motive, means, and opportunity,” he insists, fuming. “He knew about the garden entrance. He was writing her letters.”
Von looks at him like a parent trying to maintain patience with a belligerent toddler. “Sheriff, we have been over this. There were many people who knew about that entrance. There is not a shred of evidence that Mr. Patterson wrote those letters. And this logbook casts doubt on the idea that he was anywhere near the murder weapon on the weekend of the murder.”
“Objection,” Wilbur says again. “She’s testifying, your honor.”
“Is there a question in there, Miss Everton?” the judge asks.
“Apologies, your honor,” Von says. “Thank you, Sheriff. No further questions.”
I want to punch the air and cry victory. Von really nailed him to the wall. I glance at her to see her reaction, but of course, her expression is professional and neutral. Grayson writes something on his notepad, and she glances at it and nods. She was beyond magnificent on that cross examination—she cut right through the sheriff’s bluster to get to the heart of the matter.
It's exhilarating. But it also makes me sad. Because I used to be on the other side of the aisle—I used to believe in the righteousness of the prosecution and the officers upholding the law. Now I don’t know what to believe. But I don’t think I can go back to being a cop after all this is over.
The sheriff is dismissed, and the line of experts begins. The coroner takes the jury through Marion’s autopsy and the crime scene photographs are projected on the screen where the letters once were. Von grips the arms of her chair so hard her knuckles turn white. I chance a glance behind me and see Caden, sitting stone-faced beside his father, Isla leaning into him. Finn and Alistair wear matching expressions of horror. Daisy is openly crying. I turn back. Hearing the bleak details of Marion’s death, seeing those photographs, I can sense the shift in the jury. The pity for her—which is turning to suspicion of me.
Then Wilbur calls a few of my fellow officers to the stand, to repeat the sheriff’s claims. Von is as cutting as ever, but a bunch of my former colleagues testifying against me is not a good look. Derek is not called, so I guess the sheriff realized he couldn’t be browbeaten. Good old Derek. I hope he doesn’t face consequences for sticking by me. Then Wilbur calls his final witness—the fingerprint tech from the FBI lab. He’s very impressive as he explains how he used this technology to lift the print, after so many years, from the metal surface of the casing. Juries love this stuff, ever since the CSI era. Like the sheriff said, it’s hard evidence. Proof I was at the crime scene.
By the time Wilbur wraps up his case, even the jurors who seemed on my side earlier look at me with uncertainty. The judge adjourns until tomorrow, when Von will start presenting our case
The high I had felt after the sheriff’s testimony is fading.
Without Patrick as my alibi witness, what other real evidence do we have?