The Night Shift(73)

The agent gazes at Chris. “I know you think you’re helping, Christopher, but I don’t think you’re in the best position to—”

“It’s my brother’s body you just found in an unmarked grave, so I’m in the absolute best position to say whatever I want.” He reaches out for Ella’s hand, and she takes it. “We’re leaving.”

For a moment, Ella’s back on the sidewalk near Coney Island, the last time a man took her hand in the face of a threat. But this time she’s not the one being protected.

She’s the protector.





CHAPTER 66


KELLER





Keller and Arpeggio stand under the artificial light outside a taped-off perimeter surrounding the dig site. The FBI’s Emergency Response Team members look like space travelers in their white coveralls, orange duct tape sealing the seams between the suits and their gloves and rubber boots. Keller remembers wearing a similar getup during her forensic training in Tennessee at the Body Farm. The team has set up a grid and is slowly excavating the soil, layer by layer, sifting dirt through a large, boxlike sieve for evidence.

Skeletal remains are visible now, elevated, as the ERT slowly searches the levels below.

It’s a slow process, recovering every bone fragment, every thread of clothing, every piece of trace evidence.

“I’d love to see Rusty Whitaker’s face when he learns we found his son,” Joe Arpeggio says. “He almost got a sweetheart deal.”

Keller gives him a fleeting smile. It would be much more gratifying if the remains of a young man weren’t in that hole. If she hadn’t just faced the deceased’s brother, who’s already been through so much, or Ella, whose father was one of the men who put Vince Whitaker in that hole.

“How’d you get him to crack?” Arpeggio asks.

“Who?”

“Mandy Young’s father.”

After the meeting with Rusty, something had troubled Keller: how could the old man be so confident about the precise location of his son? Vince had eluded capture for fifteen years and was likely continually on the move. So how could Rusty be so sure? More to the point, why was he willing to condition a plea deal on the authorities finding Vince first? That’s when it dawned on Keller. Rusty could only be that certain if he knew Vince wasn’t going anywhere.

Because he was dead.

That’s when the pixels from the last three days came together. Chris’s account of the last night he saw his brother. Vince in his living room with a group of men, one of them twitchy and agitated. It reminded Keller of her meeting with Mandy Young’s father at the insurance company. His demeanor and his instant refusal to speak with them. Katie McKenzie’s father had acted the same way. Two fathers refusing to help try to catch the man accused of killing their daughters. And something Candy O’Shaughnessy’s mother said came back to her. “The fathers were all macho, you know? Like they were gonna break into the jail and beat the kid up.”

Keller had decided to cut to the chase and confront Walter Young. She’d told him that Rusty Whitaker had turned on him, that they knew the fathers had killed Vince, so his only chance for leniency was to come clean. Most people don’t realize that law enforcement can lie to suspects. And Keller had no problem with this lie. Particularly because it worked. Walter Young broke down and told her everything. About three devastated fathers deciding to take justice into their own hands. They’d arrived at the house initially to give Vince a beating. Force him to confess. But soon the young man was in the trunk of Mr. Monroe’s car, the other men following him to the estate.

They brought Vince, still alive, to the garden, where they beat him bloody, never getting the confession they wanted, the confession they needed in order to avenge their sweet daughters. Mr. McKenzie had brought a gun. According to Walter Young, they each took a shot, forging a union that would ensure that they’d all go down if any of them ever revealed the secret. The only loose end was Rusty Whitaker. He’d seen them take Vince. Mr. Monroe had made a sizable payment to Whitaker to keep him quiet. Keller suspects that when they dig into Mr. Monroe’s finances, they’ll find more than one payment to Rusty Whitaker over the years.

“It didn’t take long for him to confess,” Keller says. “Walter Young knew Rusty would turn on them. He actually seemed relieved to get it off his chest. He’s been carrying this around for fifteen years. They all carried it. Ella’s father killed himself in this very garden.”

Arpeggio nods.

Keller looks around. None of the other agents are within earshot. It’s a good time to ask Arpeggio about his relationship with the McKenzie family. She checks her phone to see if Atticus has found any connections between Arpeggio and the Dairy Creamery victims. He texted her earlier that he was chasing a lead:

Might have found something, going to check, call me when you have time.



Her calls have gone straight to Atticus’s voice mail. She considers calling again now, but decides it’s time to confront Arpeggio.

“They’ve arrested Katie McKenzie’s father.”

Arpeggio offers no reaction.

“How do you feel about that?” Keller asks.

Arpeggio narrows his eyes. “Feel about what?”

“Having your old friend’s husband arrested for murder.”