Chapter 34
“No,” Katy said.
It was just the two of us. I showed up at the jail just after midnight. In eight hours, her final day of trial would begin. By this time tomorrow, it was possible she’d know her fate.
We sat in the lawyer’s interview room. It felt like a dungeon with a single overhead light burning above us. Outside, two bleary-eyed deputies stood guard. Katy herself had to be woken out of a dead sleep to come down here.
She had a hopeful look in her eyes as I showed her a photograph I’d taken of the loose brick and hidden metal key box.
“I swear,” she said. “I’ve never seen that before. I never knew it was back there.”
“You’re absolutely sure,” I said. “Tom didn’t mention it in passing? In case you got locked out? In case he did?”
“Cass, no. Why would I lie about something like that? It would have been the first thing I told the police. It would have been the first thing I told you.”
She was right. And it was a huge fact in her favor.
“But you said there wasn’t a key inside it,” she said. “How does that help me?”
“I think it doesn’t matter,” I said. “It might even be better that there wasn’t a key inside of it. Because that begs the question. What happened to it? Who has it now?”
“But what if Tom didn’t even know about it?”
It was a possibility. Tom had only owned the home for four years. There was a chance the key box had been hidden behind that fake brick years before, its owner long since having moved. And yet, it seemed like the kind of thing the seller would have disclosed.
“You let me worry about that,” I said.
“Will it help?” she asked.
“If Eric found this, then Detective DePaul should have found it. So yes, it could help.”
“But it would help a lot more if you could prove what happened to the key.”
“It’s not nothing, Katy.”
“Please don’t tell me to hang in there,” she said.
“I know what’s going to happen tomorrow.
Lissa is going to tell everybody what I said.
She’s going to make it sound like I was giving her a motive for murder.
Please tell me you’ll be there. I don’t care what happened with Joe or what your reasons are.
I need you. Even if you don’t feel like you can participate in the actual trial.
I want you in that room with me, Cass. Even if I don’t have the right to ask. ”
“No,” I said. “You have the right. I’ll be there, Katy.”
She reached for me, grabbing my hands as if they were a lifeline. I wished I could tell her all this would matter. It should. It was the most concrete lead we’d found. But it still didn’t answer the most basic question the jury would have had.
What was Katy doing holding that knife? And if someone had used this missing key, why wasn’t there any other proof of them being there?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
Katy trembled. It took a moment for her to let go of me. I hated leaving her alone tonight. I also knew this could all be an act. I still had the same questions the jury did.
I went to the office. Eric and Jeanie were waiting for me. None of us would get any sleep anyway. We had a strategy to plan.
I relayed my conversation with Katy.
“She raises a pretty good point,” Jeanie said. “There’s absolutely no reason why she wouldn’t have told us about that key box right off the bat unless she didn’t know about it.”
“DePaul should have found it,” Eric said.
“I told Katy that, too.”
“And we’ll tell the jury,” Jeanie said. “It’s gold, Cass. It’s reasonable doubt.”
“Is it?” I asked.
The front door opened. Emma walked into Jeanie’s office wearing sweatpants and a faded tee shirt. She held a four-slot cup holder with extra-large coffee cups.
“I figured you could use these,” she said.
“Emma,” I said. “You don’t have to …”
“I want to,” she answered. “I knew you’d all be here. I want to help. And I can. I’m the one who found Maisy for you, remember?”
Eric didn’t hesitate. He took the coffees and passed them out. “You might as well brew some here too,” he said.
Emma gave him a quick salute and left for the kitchen.
“How do we prove Tom put a key in that box?” Jeanie asked.
“We can’t,” I said. “We can only prove that he might have. Eric, we’re putting you on the stand.
We have the photos. You’re not officially a cop, but you can prove chain of custody for the key box.
You can tell them what you found and how you found it.
We attack the thoroughness of Sharon’s crime scene investigation. It’s big.”
“As far as Katy knows,” Jeanie said. “Tom never used that spare key.”
“She doesn’t know anything. And she’s not testifying. All we have to do is prove the possibility. Put it in the jury’s mind that there could have been a way for someone other than Katy to get into that house without breaking in.”
“If Katy’s innocent,” Eric said. “Then somebody had to have known about that key. I don’t believe it was just there for years without anyone knowing. That brick had been moved. I noticed it in the pitch dark with a flashlight. In broad daylight, it should have been obvious.”
I had the crime scene photos spread out on the table in the corner. DePaul’s team had taken very little from the back porch. Most were focused on the sliding door, not the surrounding brick. There wasn’t a single one depicting the area where Eric had found the key box.
“Who else besides Tom and Katy would have needed access to the house?”
“Jenna,” I said.
“But she testified she never had access beyond the garage code,” Eric said. “And she wouldn’t have needed it.”
I tried to play Jenna’s testimony back in my mind.
I’d asked her about alternate access. She had a ready, plausible answer.
The most likely reason for a garage door malfunction would have been a power outage.
But if that had happened, she wouldn’t have been able to work inside anyway.
She needed electricity to do her job just like the automatic garage door did.
“She had an alibi,” I said. “She was at the vet clinic until five thirty that morning. That’s provable. They have overnight caretakers who can corroborate that. Then we’ve got her on video arriving at Tom and Katy’s just before six.”
“And like you said, she had the garage code. Even if she had access to that missing key, she wouldn’t have needed to use it.”
“A neighbor?” Emma said as she rejoined us. “I gave a spare key to my condo to a friend of mine who lives two units over. She gave me hers too. I’ve let maintenance people in for her and she has for me.”
“It’s worth an ask,” Jeanie said.
“The police already asked them that,” I said. I had DePaul’s report in front of me. Neighbors on all sides of the Loomis house were asked if they knew of any other access to Tom’s house. None did.
I needed to be on my feet. To move. Who would have that key? “It might just be enough for reasonable doubt to prove it might have existed. But if I could show who had actual knowledge of it …”
“You can’t even prove Tom had knowledge of it,” Emma said. “I’m sorry. You know that’s what Addison Quick will say in closing.”
I walked from one end of the room to the other. The others watched me wear a path into Jeanie’s plush carpet.
“It would benefit Katy to know,” I said. “But she didn’t. We know that. The only other person it would benefit to know is Jenna Rodney.”
“Who has the tightest alibi of all,” Jeanie said. “And no motive to kill Tom Loomis. She already had full access to that house. She knew where he kept everything. If she had wanted to steal something, she’d have just taken it. Plus, what motive would she have to kill Tom?”
“And we know she didn’t,” Eric said. “It would have been impossible unless she snuck into the house while Katy was sleeping. Slit Tom’s throat.
Went to work at the animal hospital, went about her business as usual, then came back to work for Tom as normal.
It makes no sense. And it isn’t supported by the physical evidence or the time of death window Trainor testified to. ”
Jeanie’s words struck me. She knew where Tom kept everything. If she had wanted to steal something, she would have just taken it. I tried to replay everything she said to me on the stand. Was there something? Some slip? Some hole in her testimony I hadn’t caught?
I stopped pacing. “What do we really know about her?”
“What do you mean?” Jeanie asked.
“Jenna Rodney. Nothing was stolen from the house. But what if that’s because there wasn’t time?”
Eric furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“Jenna knew Tom and Katy’s schedule. She knew where Tom kept everything of value. She knew when the house would be empty every day. What if she told someone else so they could gain access to the house when nobody was home?”
“Had this been a burglary,” Eric said, “that’s the first person I’d have questioned. But nothing was stolen, Cass. Besides, Katy and Tom were home. If that was the scheme, why not wait until later in the day after they left for work to pull it off?”
“Four years,” I said. “Jenna worked for Tom for four years. She knew every inch of the house. Even before Katy did. I want to know more about Jenna.”
I sat down and pulled out my phone. Jenna Rodney wasn’t the most common of names. It was easy to find her social media profiles. Unfortunately, they were all set to private.
“What are you thinking?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Jenna had an alibi. And if she’d wanted to steal from Tom, she had ample opportunity over the years. If that was the motive, why now? Had anyone new come into her life? Was she in new financial difficulty of her own?”
Emma sat down beside me and opened her own social media apps. She searched for Jenna’s profiles.
“We have a friend in common,” she said. “One of my law school classmates. Hold on a second.”
Emma excused herself and left the room.
“It’s a stretch,” Jeanie said. “None of this will prove who killed Tom even if you’re right.”