Twenty Years Later(34)

“Would you allow me to look around your home?”

“My lawyer would tell me to let you look anywhere you wish, but would insist on a search warrant.”

Walt removed a slip of paper from his folder. “I’d never ask without one.”

“Look for whatever you want, Detective. Go through my drawers and take samples of my underwear, or whatever perverted thing you have on your mind.”

Walt continued undeterred. “We found blood, urine, and fingerprints in the bedroom of your Catskills home. It will be important to know which ones belong to you, as I’m sure your fingerprints will be found in the bedroom of the home you own. Are you willing to provide fingerprint samples and allow my technicians to swab your cheek for DNA analysis?”

“Am I a suspect in my husband’s murder, Detective Jenkins?”

Walt pursed his lips and opened his palms. “I’m collecting information at this point, Mrs. Young. With any homicide, I ask for samples from the spouse. It’s just part of the process.”

“You look like you just graduated high school. How many homicides could you possibly have worked before this one?”

Walt kept a stoic expression on his face and did not indulge her with an answer.

Tessa finally nodded. “Of course. I’ll give you whatever you need.”

“I’ll arrange it for this afternoon.”

She nodded. Walt went back to his notepad.

“When you say you and your husband were trying to make your marriage work, what does that mean?”

“It means we were trying not to get a divorce.”

Walt waited.

“I’m pregnant,” Tessa finally said, as if admitting to a crime. “We thought if we had a child together, it would fix things. At least that’s what I thought.”

Walt closed his eyes a moment. He had perhaps pushed too hard. Still, he noted her pregnancy in his book and then stood.

“I’m sorry to make you talk about all this. I’m just trying to figure out who killed your husband.”

Tessa put a hand over her forehead, as if fighting off a migraine. Walt’s phone rang. It was headquarters calling.

“Excuse me,” he said, as he turned and answered. “Jenkins.”

“Hey, Walt, it’s Ken Schuster.”

Schuster was the lead crime scene technician assigned to the Young case.

“What’s happening, Ken?”

“I was categorizing evidence we collected from the Catskills mansion. There’s something here you need to see.”

Walt walked out of the kitchen, through the hallway, and into the foyer where his conversation wouldn’t be overheard.

“I’m at the Youngs’ residence now, speaking with the wife. I’m about to search the property.”

“You’re going to want to see this. Stat.”

“What is it?”

“We found a thumb drive in the desk drawer of the office. There’s a video on it.”

“What sort of video?”

“Ah, well . . . it looks like a homemade sex tape.”

Walt glanced back into the kitchen. His mind flashed back to moments earlier when Tessa Young described her and her husband’s separate work spaces. The studio was His. The office in the main house was Hers.

“Who’s on the video?”

“Cameron Young and a woman.”

Walt lowered his voice further. “His wife?”

“Nope.”

“I’ll be right there.”



Walt raced back to the BCI headquarters after his brief interview with Tessa Young and an even shorter search of her home. Now he sat in front of the iMac with Ken Schuster and watched the footage unfold on the monitor. Cameron Young was naked and in a compromised position, bent over an apparatus Walt recognized from his late night research.

“I mean, look at this shit. What the hell is that thing?” Ken asked.

“A spanking horse,” Walt said matter-of-factly. “Or sometimes referred to as a boarding horse.”

Ken slowly turned away from the monitor and gave Walt a sideways glance.

“Research,” Walt said, pointing at the screen to get Ken’s gaze off him.

When a participant lay facedown on the apparatus, it exposed one’s buttocks to maximum punishment or pleasure. The video played for nearly one minute, Cameron Young’s backside on full display. Walt recognized the background in the video and realized it had been filmed in Cameron Young’s writing studio, although the shot was somewhat off center. It looked as though the camera had shifted and now the action took place to the left side of the screen.

“Anything on here other than this guy’s ass?”

Ken pointed at the timer on the bottom right of the screen and raised three fingers to start the countdown. Three, two, one. As soon as Ken lowered his third finger, a loud smack came from the computer speakers. Walt startled, nearly as much as Cameron Young’s body recoiled, as the multi-threaded whip lashed across his buttocks. The smacking noise came again with a second lashing.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Oh, it’s wild stuff all right,” Ken said.

The thwack came a third time.

“I don’t think I can watch this,” Walt said.

“You’d better.”