Think Twice

Myron looked over at Win. Win smiled and arched an eyebrow. The man loved his gadgets.

Esperanza quickly mirrored her tablet to the television so they could all view the files on the big screen.

“Okay, so here’s what I put together from what PT told you,” she began. “We already know about Jordan Kravat in Las Vegas. And we have the Callisters in New York. Adding to that” — she clicked the pad and a new slide appeared — “PT told you about Tracy Keating. I got this off her LinkedIn page.”

A photograph appeared of a woman with curly blonde hair and dark glasses and the kind of smile that hit every part of her face and made you want to smile back.

“Tracy Keating was allegedly killed in Marshfield, Massachusetts, by a stalking ex, a guy named Robert Lestrano. She was in the process of getting a restraining order. PT already filled you in on some of this, but I was able to make up pretty extensive files on these three cases — Kravat, Callister, Keating. Win, you may be happy to know your pal Taft Buckingham’s kid was helpful in putting this together for me.”

“I’m ecstatic,” Win said. “Enthralled even.”

“Super. So next we dug a little deeper to unearth the other cases. PT mentioned an online abuser getting murdered by a brother. I think we found the case.” Esperanza tapped the iPad and a man’s face appeared. “The murder victim was Walter Stone. Age fifty-seven, two grown kids, a wife. Spent most of his days abusively trolling online and really went hard after a woman named Amy Howell. She lives in Oregon.”

Myron read the file. “Sheesh, this guy was pretty sick.”

“You have no idea what we see at the law firm,” Esperanza said. “People spiral. They’d never act this way in person. But online? Not to get too deep into it, but social media wants eyeballs. Period, the end. The best way to get that? Divide people. Make them angry. Turn them into extremists.”

“Not unlike cable news,” Myron said.

“Exactly. Fear and divisiveness offer engagement. Agreement and moderation do not. Anyway, here is the evidence against Howell’s brother Edward Pascoe.”

Myron read down the list. “Car spotted, CCTV of the car by a water reservoir, murder weapon found there... It’s a lot.”

“Yes. The cops consider it open and shut. Two things in Pascoe’s favor though. One, his wife was home that night. She said that her husband never left the house, but she also admitted that she was up in the bedroom and that he was downstairs watching television. The DA claimed that — one — she’s the wife, she could be lying to protect her husband, and — two — he could have sneaked out without her knowing. The wife testified that the second was impossible, that they have alarms on the house and every time the door opens it pings, but of course, the DA will argue that those can be easily switched off. I have all the details on the case, but let’s move on for the moment.”

She touched the iPad.

“PT also told you about a father-son murder in Austin, Texas. What’s interesting is, it really wasn’t hard for me to figure out the cases from what he told you. We think murders are common, but these kinds are pretty rare. I literally just put in my search engine ‘father son tech executive murdered in Austin’ and the right case came up.”

The screen filled with crime scene photos and articles.

“From what we can tell, the murdered father was a rich guy, his son a ne’er-do-well. A few months before the murder, the father — Philip Barry — disowned the son, Dan. In return for what the son saw as a huge betrayal, the police theory goes, Dan Barry killed his father with a knife. The police got an anonymous call purportedly from a neighbor about a man screaming for his life. They went to the house. The front door was open. They found the dead dad in the kitchen, throat slit. They found the son upstairs still asleep. A bloody knife was under his bed. There were also blood traces on the clothes and sheets, on the stairway, on the path from the kitchen to the son’s room. DNA would show they all belonged to the victim. Only one set of fingerprints on the knife — you guessed it, the son’s.”

“Dumbest killer in history,” Win said.

“There were plenty of drugs in his system. The police theory was old-school — he was hopped up on coke, remembered how he’d been disinherited, killed the dad, and probably didn’t even realize it.”

“Still,” Myron said. “An easy conviction.”

“To be fair, the son’s attorney offered an alternative theory — someone broke into the house while the son was sleeping, killed the dad, planted the knife upstairs, and then called the police anonymously. He pointed out that when the police called, no neighbors admitted making the call and none heard a scream. The call came from an untraceable line.”

“So maybe the killer made the call,” Myron said.

“Yes.”

“That didn’t fly in court?” Win asked.

“It didn’t fly enough. Dan Barry was hardly a sympathetic witness. He had a record, including vehicular manslaughter. He killed someone in a DUI.”

“Did the police look into that?” Myron asked.

“What do you mean?”