CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The coffee shop was on Grove Avenue, small and independently owned.
It was at least thirty years old and had absorbed the smell of the house brew over all of that time.
Kate had suggested it specifically because it was nowhere near the field office and nobody they worked with was likely to walk through the door.
She had texted Sloane the day before, keeping it casual, just an invitation for coffee away from the office if she was interested.
Sloane had responded in under a minute with an enthusiasm that told Kate everything she needed to know about how the post-case decompression had been going.
It had been nearly a week since they’d brought Ruth Calder in and Kate was still slightly haunted by that split second where she was sure Calder’s knife had gone into Sloane’s chest.
But today, Calder was not what Kate wanted to discuss. There was something else that was on her mind… something she felt she needed to share with Sloane if they were going to keep working together.
They got to the shop within a few minutes of each other. Sloane was already at a corner table with her coat still on when Kate came through the door. Kate was pleased to see that Sloane looked well—that she had been sleeping rather well.
Kate ordered at the counter and brought her cup to the table and sat down.
They talked for a few minutes about nothing consequential: how Diane Marsh was doing, the question of what charges Richard Hale would ultimately face, whether Sloane had any plans before the next case came in.
Sloane asked about Allen and Michael, asking insightful questions about wat pregnancy had been ;like at Kate’s age, as well as some of the minor media attention it had garnered.
It was easy conversation, the kind that forges friendships and breaks whatever ice might be remaining between two people. Kate let it run its natural course before she set her cup down and shifted slightly in her chair. She had to get this out now, or it was going to keep eating at her.
"I need to tell you something," she said. "It's not related to the Calder case. It's something I've been sitting on for a few weeks and I think it's time I share it with you."
Sloane looked at her, curious. "Okay."
Kate had thought about how to begin this more than once over the past several days, and had decided that the only way was straight through it. She’d start from the beginning, without editorializing until Sloane had the full picture.
"A few days ago," she said, "I went to see a man named Harold Ryan, currently in prison.
He's been incarcerated for eleven years, convicted of the murder of a man named Dennis Coyle.
"The case was considered straightforward at the time.
Ryan had a history with the victim, there was circumstantial evidence placing him near the scene, and the evidence against him was substantial enough that the jury convicted in under four hours.
" Kate wrapped both hands around her cup.
"He's been maintaining his innocence ever since. And honestly, I’m starting to believe him.”
Sloane looked at her steadily. "What changed?"
"You did," Kate said. "When you told me about that Rizzo character a few weeks ago, something about it sounded familiar.
So, I started digging." She hated that it was so hard to get this out. She didn’t know if it was simply admitting to what might be a very large mistake or how it would connect both their past careers in a strange and unexpected way.
"The Coyle murder occurred four years before your undercover operation.
Four years before anyone in law enforcement had formally identified Rizzo or catalogued his method.
But when I pulled the Coyle crime scene photographs and put them next to everything you'd described, the signature was there.
Not a perfect match, but close enough that I couldn't explain it away. "
Sloane was quiet for long enough that Kate measured it as she waited for her to say something. When she remained quiet, Kate did her best to go on.
"Ryan's alibi was never fully broken," Kate continued.
"The prosecution worked around it. And there was a revised ME report submitted six weeks after the trial that narrowed the time of death in a way that, combined with what we now know about Rizzo, creates a very different picture.
" She looked at Sloane directly. "The revised report was never disclosed to the defense. "
"What's the current status?" Sloane said.
"Ryan is still inside. His appeals have all failed because nobody has ever brought this specific angle to the table. It's not fast and it isn't simple and there is a very real chance it goes nowhere. I want you to know that going in."
“Going in?”
“Yeah. If… if I made a mistake eleven years ago with Ryan and I now go to the courts and the prison system to have him released… I’ll need you there to back up what we know about Rizzo.”
“God, Kate. This is huge. And if he is innocent, that means we may have to look into Rizzo as the killer. Is that right?”
Kate nodded.
“But, Kate. Rizzo is dead.”
“I know. And that makes it stickier. I sent a man to prison for eleven years while the man that should be there is already dead. And it makes me wonder if whoever killed Rizzo also framed Ryan.”
Neither of them said anything for a moment after that. Kate looked at her coffee and Sloane looked at hers as they tried to settle on what, exactly, they had just stepped into. Sloane's expression did not change, but something behind it went very still.
"Would you mind walking me though the moving pieces of it all?”
Kate nodded, thinking of how it had felt to revisit all of this when she had been going through the material for her memoirs.
"Ryan was convicted of the murder of Dennis Coyle.
The case was considered straightforward at the time.
Ryan had a financial dispute with Coyle that had turned bitter, there was circumstantial evidence placing him near the scene, and a timeline the defense never managed to break convincingly.
The jury convicted in under four hours. He's maintained his innocence at every appeal since.
“Then, when you told me about Rizzo a few weeks ago, something about it sounded familiar.
So, I went back to the Coyle crime scene photographs.
The signature was there. Not identical, but close enough that I couldn't explain it away.
The Coyle murder happened four years before your operation.
Four years before anyone had formally identified Rizzo or catalogued his method.
Which means nobody at the time would have known what they were looking at. "
"What about the alibi? You said it was sort of worked around?”
"It was never broken, exactly. It was characterized as partial.
He said he was at his brother's house in Roanoke the entire weekend.
His brother confirmed it, his sister-in-law confirmed it, there were gas station receipts and security camera footage.
The jury looked past all of it. And the case has been sealed ever since. "
"Why did you feel the need to go see him?”
"I needed to look at him before I brought it to anyone." She paused and wondered if there was some better way to phrase that but decided to leave it be for now. "He didn't perform innocence, Sloane. He was just tired. Twelve years of tired."
She watched Sloane sit with the full weight of it, and she could see the younger agent fitting each piece against the others and testing the joints.
After a few seconds, her expression had settled into a focused, inward quality that Kate recognized because she had seen it several times now, always at the moment when something that had seemed complicated became suddenly, irreversibly clear.
"If you ask me," Sloane said, “it’s sort of cool that these two bits of our history are linked up like this. I hate that you’re struggling with the possibility of Ryan being imprisoned wrongly, but… you know what I mean.”
Kate nodded and said, “Yes, I know what you mean.”
"What does moving forward actually look like?" Sloane said. "Formally, I mean. This isn't our case. Ryan isn't our case. There's no active federal nexus yet."
"Not yet," Kate said. "But Rizzo's signature connecting to the Coyle murder gives us a predicate, if we can build it properly.
Ryan has been filing appeals for twelve years with nothing new to give anyone.
This would be something new." She looked at Sloane, feeling almost guilty that she was now dragging this promising young agent into what could very well be a very dark patch of her past. "It's not fast and it isn't simple and there is a very real chance it goes nowhere. I want you to know that going in."
Sloane looked at her across the table, smiling. "I'm in," she said. "All of it. However long it takes."
She said it without decoration, and Kate’s heart warmed even more to her in that moment. No hesitation, no doubts. She’d simply asked several questions as she would about any other case and now, despite the years between this conversation and the initial case, Sloane wanted to be a part of it.
Neither of them said anything for a moment after that. Kate looked at her coffee and Sloane looked at hers, but when their eyes finally met again, they were both reflecting the other’s mood: excitement and a bit of fear.
Yet somehow, they both smiled through it.