How It Happened Read online

  It had taken them a while to reach this place. When Barrett first interviewed him, Mathias presented himself as he did to the people he worked for—polite, quiet, thoughtful. Only later did he drop a portion of the mask, and then the dialogue shifted, that practiced politeness moving toward the profane and the crude. This is what you want, right? he’d asked. This is the white-trash guy you’re looking for? He never got angry. The closer Barrett got, the more entertained Mathias seemed.

  “So what’s this latest theory?” he asked. “Cass driving the truck? That’s brilliant. I mean, I know you’re running out of ideas, but this one would seem to help me. You think I was covering for her? Sure. I run a business with fourteen employees taking care of a hundred houses, I’m making more money each year, having fewer free hours each year, climbing up while everybody else is falling back, but I’d put all that at risk for a dead crack whore. I’m, what, protecting her reputation? You nailed it. I didn’t want anyone to think poorly of Saint Cass. Nice work.”

  “What about Kimberly?” Barrett asked. “Was she ever driving the truck?”

  “Kimmy can’t drive a stick,” Mathias said.

  Mathias enjoyed floating these balloons, and they were never mistakes. He would state a fact that he knew most detectives would jump on—How do you know the truck was a stick if you supposedly were never in it?—and then, depending on his mood, he’d pretend to have no recollection of why he’d just made the statement or he’d take you for a ride.

  Barrett wasn’t going along for the ride today, though. He just nodded at Mathias as if he’d shared something profound and then said, “We’re going to have the bodies by tomorrow.”

  “I’m damn glad to hear it.”

  They stood in silence for a moment, assessing each other, before Barrett said, “Do you remember Tom Gleason?”

  “Sure. Dentist from Boston. Total prick. Paid late and never tipped. Say, you been out to the Harpoon recently?”

  “I haven’t been near the place.”

  “That’s a shame. It’s not what it used to be, but I’d think you’d want to drop in for old times’ sake. Pay your respects, that sort of thing.”

  “It’s not a cemetery or a church, Mathias.”

  “No?” Mathias frowned and wobbled his head side to side as if he didn’t entirely agree. “There aren’t many people around here who miss your grandfather, but I do. I’d love to hear what he’d have to say about your work.”

  “I’m more interested in what the jury will have to say about it.”

  “He was a foolish man when he was drunk, but he was sharp enough when he was sober.” Mathias continued as if Barrett hadn’t spoken. “He knew liars, at least. Even if he was three sheets to the wind, he’d have known better than to believe a story spun by Kimmy friggin’ Crepeaux.”

  Barrett nodded and turned to leave. “Don’t go far, Mathias. I’m going to need you soon.”

  “I haven’t run on you yet, have I? Tell your boy up the road to put the damn windows back down. It’s a hot day to watch someone from a closed-up car. I don’t want the poor bastard dying of heatstroke and adding to my body count.”

  Barrett tried not to show his frustration that the surveillance car had been made. He walked down the porch steps without comment and headed toward the street. He’d made it across the yard and back to the sidewalk when Mathias Burke called out to him.

  “Good luck, Barrett. Don’t get your feet wet.”

  Barrett didn’t give him the satisfaction of turning around, but the statement put a little hitch in his stride, and Mathias didn’t miss that.

  His low laughter chased Barrett down the street.

  8

  People have been talking about these divers all damned day,” Don Johansson said after hearing Barrett recap the encounter with Mathias Burke and that parting shot. “Word’s all over town by now. He probably got a call or a text or found it on Facebook or something. It’s no secret where we’re looking.”

  “I know it’s not,” Barrett said. “But I know we’re in the right place too.”

  “Yeah? Tell that to them.”

  Johansson waved an exasperated hand at the divers, who were cleaning their gear. It was nearing sunset. A television chopper had come and gone from Portland and most of the watchers across the way had given up. Two of the divers, exhausted, sat on the shore and swatted at mosquitoes and looked at Barrett with distaste. He didn’t blame them. It had been a long, brutal day, and they had nothing to show for it.

  “It doesn’t fit Mathias,” Johansson said. “The drugs alone, nobody believes. We’ve not interviewed a single soul who remembers him drugging or has even heard that he might.”

  “Kimberly is not lying to me.”

  “Not this time, you mean.”

  Barrett had to acknowledge that with a nod. She’d told a few stories before she got around to confessing.

  “Well, did Kimmy have a new spot for us to try?” Johansson said. “A tree to climb, maybe?”

  Barrett ignored the sarcasm and said, “Get Clyde over here, please.”

  Clyde Cohen was the warden in charge of the dive team, and he’d supervised search efforts for Jackie Pelletier and Ian Kelly since the day of their disappearance. This day, and this spot, was supposed to have been the culmination of a lot of exhausting and fruitless hours.

  “What’s up, Barrett?” Clyde asked. His face was streaked with sweat and dabs of dried blood where the mosquitoes had feasted. He had worked all day without complaint, and Barrett knew that he would work a thousand more the same way.

  “I want to drain it,” Barrett said.

  For a long time, there was no sound but the relentless droning of the mosquitoes.

  “Drain the pond?” Clyde said. His accent turned the last word to pawned. Or maybe his disbelief thickened the accent.

  “Yes.”

  Clyde blinked at him. “All due respect, but if those bodies were in that water, we’d have found them by now. It’s not deep enough or dark enough to hide them.”

  “Maybe we aren’t looking for bodies,” Barrett said. “I’m still hoping for them, but just because we haven’t found them yet doesn’t mean there’s not evidence down there. I want to see the bottom of that cove. I want to see it dry.”

  “Why?”

  “To give me an idea of how they could’ve been moved.”

  Don Johansson studied the sky. Clyde Cohen studied the ground.

  “It’s not that big a body of water,” Barrett said. “That old dam is crying for duct tape to save it already. We can breach that easily, and it ought to drain fast. The cove will, certainly. Then we’ll be able to see it clearly.”

  “We can’t just breach the dam,” Clyde said. “This state, dealing with waterfront property? You know how many regulations we’ll have to clear? Jeezum Crow, that’ll be a mess.”

  Jeezum Crow was high-bar swearing for Clyde Cohen.

  “I’ll help you clear them,” Barrett said. “I’ll get federal lawyers involved.”

  Clyde rubbed his eyes. “We’ll need an environmental-impact survey before we can so much as carry a shovel down there, let alone drive a backhoe in.”

  “Then get one,” Barrett said.

  He felt a hand on his arm, looked down, and saw that Don Johansson was tugging him away from Clyde. Away from the water’s edge. Barrett followed him, and when they were far enough up the hill not to be overheard, Johansson faced him squarely.

  “I’m sorry, Barrett,” he said. “Nobody wanted this to be true more than me. You know that. But it’s not true. Kimmy fed you—fed us—another lie. Maybe you’ll get her to the truth at some point. But this story is not worth chasing any further.”

  “She’s not lying,” Barrett said. “Those bodies were in here once. If they’re gone now, Mathias moved them. If he moved them, he probably tore up the bottom to do it. Maybe he left something down there that’ll help, something the divers can’t see. One of the pipes, a scrap of the plastic. A piece of bone.”

>   Johansson didn’t speak.

  “We’re going to drain it,” Barrett said. “And we’ll find something. I’ll stake my reputation on that, Don. I’ll stake my career on it.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to have much choice on that,” Johansson said softly.

  9

  Upon leaving the pond, Barrett, who only twenty-four hours earlier had met with the prosecutor and agreed that no arrests should be made until the bodies were located, met with her again and told her that it was time to make an arrest.

  Colleen Davis, the prosecutor, who’d been dealing with as much public pressure as the police had for failing to close this case, said she’d support bringing charges—but they’d better get something out of that pond. Otherwise it was going to amount to a short-term hold.

  Roxanne Donovan was less enthusiastic.

  “Even a half-wit defense attorney will have a field day with that Crepeaux girl,” she told him when they spoke on the phone. “You’re just teeing up an acquittal unless you have physical evidence.”

  “I’m going to get it,” he told her. “With your support, I am going to get it.”

  Roxanne was a smart, tough woman with a reputation for protecting her field agents in the face of public or political pressure—provided she believed in them.

  “You really think there’s something down there that divers can’t find?”

  “The bodies were in that pond,” Barrett said, “and that means either they still are or somebody took them out. The cove is empty, but so much of the water around that place is more like a bog or marsh. There’s also a current to it. There will be evidence down there. But I’ll tell you what else will happen if we drain it—we’ll break Mathias. When he gets his TV time in the Knox County jail, turns on the news, and sees the water level going down at that pond, he’ll feel it. He will feel it then.”

  As he explained the reasoning behind his request to drain the pond, he could hear his own bold words to Johansson going from a possibility to reality. He was staking his career on this one.

  “I don’t know if I can make that happen,” Roxanne told him. “And I definitely want another pass from the dive team before I even try. But this location better not be a complete miss, Barrett.”

  “Am I going to be fired if it is?” he asked, only half joking, and Roxanne’s response met him in tone.

  “The Bureau rarely fires agents,” she said. “We just bury them.”

  Howard Pelletier had called Barrett nineteen times since noon. Barrett had ignored the calls, waiting for the divers to make what he believed was their inevitable find. When Howard called for the twentieth time, Barrett was en route to arrest Mathias and the search had been suspended due to darkness. This time, he answered, despite every desire not to.

  “You’re going to arrest him?” Howard asked. “That’s what Colleen said.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can do that even without finding anything?”

  “The confession justifies the arrest warrant. The evidence we are going to find will do the rest.”

  “You still believe Kimmy’s story?”

  “The confession is a critical step, and I wish the evidence had confirmed it immediately, but now the prosecutor can—”

  “That’s not what I’m asking,” Howard said. “Not about next steps or the law or anything else. I’m just asking what you believe.”

  “I think that putting pressure on him is a help. I think we—”

  “Do you think he killed my daughter?” Howard screamed. The agony dragged the last word into a terrible howl: daw-tah!

  “Yes,” Barrett said. “Yes, I think he killed Jackie, and I will not rest until I prove it.”

  “But if they’re not finding anything, then Kimmy lied. She had to be lying.”

  “She wasn’t lying,” Barrett said, and he realized how badly he was slipping here, defending an absence of evidence. This was precisely the sort of poor detective work he’d spent a decade studying.

  “What I mean is, I think she told at least some of the truth,” he said, a weak qualifier.

  “Mathias knows what happened,” Howard said, and this was a marked change from yesterday’s resistance. Barrett had expected he might rejoice at the news that the pond was empty because it would keep his desperate hope alive. Instead, he’d accepted the validity of Kimberly’s story.

  Because he trusted you. Because you told him you believed in her, and he believed in you. So it better be true, damn it.

  “You get him charged with it,” Howard Pelletier said, “and you get his coward’s back up against the wall, and you’ll break the son of a bitch. I know you will.”

  “Yes,” Barrett said. “Yes, I will.”

  They arrested Mathias Burke at nine p.m. Don Johansson made the arrest, and Barrett watched from the yard. There was a camera crew on the street behind a hastily erected barrier. Mathias was soft-spoken, polite, cordial. Grim-faced but not scared. A TV reporter from Portland shouted a question at him as they crossed the yard toward Johansson’s cruiser.

  “Mathias! Any comment?”

  Johansson kept walking him forward, but Mathias turned and looked into the harsh glare of the lights without seeming bothered by them, not even squinting as they lit his face up. Verdict lights, one of Barrett’s old professors had called them.

  “I’m very sorry the Pelletier and Kelly families have to go through this,” Mathias said. “They deserve better.”

  The TV reporter shouted another question, but Mathias just lowered his head and walked on to the cruiser. Johansson opened the door, put his hand on the back of Mathias’s head to guide him into the backseat, then closed the door. He seemed more aware of the cameras than Mathias had been, or more concerned about them, at least. He kept his head down and walked around the cruiser in a hurry, and watching him, Barrett thought, He doesn’t believe we’ve got the right guy.

  Mathias refused to answer any questions about Kimberly Crepeaux’s confession, and he refused to take a polygraph. In a steady, calm voice, he repeatedly invoked his right to counsel.

  “You’ll have counsel,” Barrett said. “I’m curious about one thing, though—why haven’t you said ‘I am not guilty’ or ‘I didn’t do it’? Not one time have you said ‘I did not do it.’”

  “I’d like a lawyer now,” Mathias said.

  “I’d like an answer. Why don’t you look me in the eye and say ‘I didn’t do it’?”

  Mathias looked him in the eye and said, “Because the evidence will do that for me. Kimmy friggin’ Crepeaux, Barrett. You believed her?” He shook his head. “Good luck, man. I’m not worried. You should be.”

  That was the end of Mathias’s dialogue with police. He met with an attorney but offered no statement. To the public, there was only radio silence from the accused. Kimberly Crepeaux did issue a statement: she told the world that she stood by her confession, pledged her willingness to testify against Mathias Burke, and apologized to the families for her role in the killings.

  Though very few people would know it, Barrett was now in a familiar position—he was in Port Hope, Maine, with a firm sense of the truth and no evidence to back it up. The only difference was that this time, his own family wasn’t involved.

  10

  Rob Barrett was eight years old when he found his mother dead in the family home.

  He got off the school bus and walked through the front door, surprised that his mother wasn’t already holding it open. His grandfather had visited for the weekend but had left that morning, and Rob was eager for the restored peace that came with his grandfather’s departure. Ray Barrett carried tension through the door with each visit.

  The house was silent, and his mother did not answer his calls. He stood at the threshold uneasily and soon became aware of a single sound. A slow, steady drip. The plink of water on stone.

  He crossed through the kitchen and went to the door that led to the cellar stairs, and there the sound of the drip was louder. He opened the door and saw
his mother, her feet angled up toward him, her head pointing toward the cracked limestone floor, a slow-dripping leak from a pipe above adding water to the pool of blood below her skull.

  The police made it to the house before Rob’s father did, and the initial assessment would also be the official one: a tragic accident.

  The three floors of the home that stood aboveground were in immaculate condition, carefully restored, but that cellar hadn’t been altered since 1883 and still had rough-hewn steps, sharp edges, and dim lighting.

  And the leaking pipe, of course. That had been the problem. Or the contributing factor, as the final report labeled it, that made sense of the story. When water pooled on dark stone, trouble followed. Everyone understood that.

  Except for one person, a lieutenant with the university police who was bothered by that leaking pipe.

  When everyone else had gone, he came back. He wanted more pictures of the cellar, wanted more measurements, wanted to put bright lights on that pipe. Wanted to ask a few more questions. Barrett’s shell-shocked father welcomed him, made him coffee, and spoke with him freely. That happened twice before Barrett’s grandfather got wind of it.

  Then came the storm.

  He drove the three hours down from Port Hope rather than pick up the phone, and Rob hid upstairs and listened as his grandfather raged at his father. Don’t you know what is happening? That son of a bitch thinks you did it! That limp-dicked cop-wannabe who has probably never needed to draw his sidearm in his whole career got tired of worrying about drunk kids with fake IDs, and now he wants to solve a crime like a real cop. How do you not see that! How am I the only one who can see things in this fucking family!

  And in response, Barrett’s father’s voice would float, muted and mellow, dismissing the concern. There was nothing to be worried about, was there? Unless there had been a crime, unless someone was guilty, what on earth was there to be worried about?