Poisonous: A Novel (16 page)

A knock at her door made Max jump. She stretched and her back cracked. Two hours had passed with her hunched over her boards and reading David’s findings; it was nearly midnight. She glanced through the security hole and saw David.

She opened the door. “I’m sorry I walked out,” she said.

He held up a small bag. “I brought dessert.”

“You were at the restaurant for the last two hours?”

“I went to high school with the bartender. Didn’t realize it until I was leaving and he flagged me down. We had a chat.”

Chat?
David wasn’t someone who chatted.

He stepped inside and looked at her workspace. “You’ve been busy.”

“You’re right.”

“Can I get that in writing?” He smiled.

Chatting. Smiling. Joking. “What did you do with my dark, brooding friend I had dinner with?”

David shook his head, still smiling. “Charlie is renting a car at the airport so I don’t have to pick him up. He’ll be here at eleven tomorrow morning.”

“I’ll be meeting with Paula Wallace then. Let’s go to the Brock house at nine. And, if we have time, I want to talk to Bailey Fairstein’s mother. Bailey will be in school, but her mother will have some of the information I want.”

“Are you certain you want to do this?”

“Yes. I need to understand how all the pieces fit.”

Max walked over to her timeline. “I need to confirm, but after the civil suit was filed, there was a six-week window of cyber silence.” She pulled out David’s notes. “You wrote that the alias she used was created with one of Ivy’s e-mails. We need to triple-check that she didn’t create additional accounts.”

Max stepped back and looked at the board she’d created. Gestured toward the photo of Travis Whitman allegedly smoking dope.

“Ivy resumed her bad habits after her six-week silence. She didn’t learn from Heather’s tragedy.”

“Six weeks hardly seems long enough for a punishment.” David nodded to the bag. “Eat your dessert, go to bed. We’ll leave at eight thirty.”

“I’m meeting Austin and Tommy for breakfast at seven in Corte Madera, then I want to check in with Detective Martin.”

“We’ll leave at quarter to seven.”

“Thanks, David. For understanding about tonight—I don’t know why I got so emotional about this case.”

“It’s what you pay me for.”

He walked out.

Pay him for? Is that all it was?

She tried to sleep, but it eluded her until well after two in the morning.

Chapter Fourteen

WEDNESDAY

David dropped Max off at the diner where she was to meet Austin and Tommy for breakfast. He thought it would be less intimidating for the boys if Max met with them alone.

“You? Intimidating?” Max said with mock surprise.

“How many hours?”

She had no idea what he meant.

“Sleep, Maxine.”

“Enough.”

He didn’t smile, but didn’t comment again. She was irritated that David was watching her so closely, but instead of arguing with him, she got out of the car.

She walked into the restaurant and looked around. The boys weren’t there. If Austin bailed on her, she’d track him down at school. She wasn’t in the mood to be manipulated by a thirteen-year-old.

The waitress sat her in a corner booth where she had a view of the door. Max ordered coffee and a muffin. She was done with her second cup before the boys showed up—twenty minutes late.

Austin looked exactly the same as the day before—defiant, angry, a slight swagger in his step. Tommy was nervous. He kept looking around as if he shouldn’t be here. She raised her hand. Tommy smiled and waved. Austin didn’t. They slid into the booth across from her.

“Thank you for meeting with me,” she said.

“I don’t know why we have to do this,” Austin said. “Emma said you know what you’re doing.”

“Yes, I do,” she said.

The waitress came over and Max told the boys to order something. Tommy ordered bacon and eggs; Austin ordered nothing.

When she left, Max said, “I’ve already made progress on the investigation. I met with the detective, I spoke to Ivy’s ex-boyfriend, and I’m bringing in a private forensics team to reexamine the evidence using state-of-the art technology. But it’s important to me to make sure you both understand this process.”

They stared at her, waiting. Tommy openly curious; Austin openly suspicious.

“I will do everything I can to find out what happened to your sister. But sometimes, even if we know the truth, we can’t prove it.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Austin said. “All we need is to know what happened.”

“Even if we do know what happened, that might not change your situation.”

“Of course it will,” Austin said. “All we need is to prove to my stupid mother that Tommy didn’t do anything to Ivy.”

“You shouldn’t say stupid,” Tommy said. “That’s not nice.”

Austin’s mouth twisted, but then he relaxed. Interesting. Max had seen a bit of that yesterday when Austin was with his stepbrother. He controlled his irritation and anger much better with the older boy. It was a sign of maturity that Max hadn’t expected.

“There’s also the chance I may not be able to find out what happened,” Max said.

The waitress came with Tommy’s breakfast and a refill of Max’s coffee. She put the bill facedown on the table and walked away.

“You have to,” Tommy said, his lip trembling.

“I will work hard to find out exactly what happened to Ivy,” Max said. “I promise you that. I will leave no stone unturned.”

“I don’t understand what that means,” Tommy said.

Austin rolled his eyes. “It means she’ll try her best but no promises.”

The sarcasm was lost on Tommy. “You
will
try your best?” he asked Max.

“Yes, and my best is better than most people.” She caught Austin’s eye. “I told you from the beginning that cold cases aren’t easy. There’s a reason the police couldn’t solve this murder fourteen months ago. There may not be enough evidence to arrest someone. There may not be enough evidence for the police to get a warrant. But I follow different rules. I can push and pull and talk to whomever I want. I don’t have to get a warrant to ask questions.”

“But you’re really saying don’t get our hopes up that you’ll be able to do anything,” Austin said.

“Don’t get your hopes up that my investigation will lead to the arrest and prosecution of Ivy’s killer.”

“I don’t care about that!” Austin exclaimed.

“I do,” Tommy said. “Bad people have to go to jail. They might hurt someone else.”

“That’s right, Tommy.”

Tommy seemed pleased that he’d said something she agreed with, and he began to eat.

Max watched the boys as she sipped her coffee. Austin pulled out an algebra book from his backpack and quickly did homework that should have been done the night before. He didn’t seem to stumble over the problems. As she watched, he purposefully erased three answers and wrote down the incorrect solution. Twenty problems, three wrong, gave him a B.

Why would he do that? Math wasn’t Max’s best subject in school, but she’d gone through pre-calculus with a B-plus. Austin had all the questions right the first time.

He caught her staring at him. He stuck his homework back into his backpack. It had taken him all of ten minutes to do the work.

He was a smart kid. Too smart.

“You don’t want to stand out,” she said.

“We gotta go, Tommy,” Austin said. He stood up and put his backpack over one shoulder.

Tommy looked at his watch. “Thank you for breakfast, Ms. Revere.”

“You are welcome. I told you to call me Max.”

He smiled as he slid out of the booth and carefully put his backpack over both shoulders. “If you can’t find out what happened, I don’t think anybody can. Thank you for trying.”

She watched them leave the restaurant. They unlocked their bikes and rode off together.

Dammit, she had to prove who killed Ivy Lake. They deserved to know the truth.

Tommy deserved a chance to get his life back.

*   *   *

On the drive from the restaurant to the police station, Max again attempted to reach Bailey Fairstein’s mother. It was eight in the morning and still the woman didn’t answer.

“After we talk to Grace, let’s pay Mrs. Fairstein a visit,” she said to David. “I don’t like when people avoid my calls.”

They walked into the police station at eight fifteen. Detective Grace Martin had evidently just arrived in the building—Max caught her in the lobby with an oversized purse, gym bag, and file folders. Grace gave her a narrow glance, acting far less conciliatory than she had on Monday. Max introduced David, then asked, “Do you have a few minutes?”

At first she thought Grace was going to decline, then the cop motioned for them to follow her to her cubicle. “My boss is not keen on bringing in an outside forensics team.” Grace dumped her stuff on her desk and motioned them to the same conference room that she and Max had used before. “You can do what you want, but I can’t share anything that hasn’t already been made public.” She closed the door and stood, hands on her hips.

“Yesterday, you indicated that—”

“Obviously, things change,” Grace snapped.

Max wasn’t going to be deterred. “NCFI has an exemplary reputation.”

“You, however, do not. The chief is not a fan of yours, to say the least.”

Max bit back a comment that wouldn’t have helped her or Grace resolve this. Graham was doing her a huge favor shifting things around so he could be here this afternoon. His insight would be invaluable, and being an outsider might bring another perspective. “Graham will expect to speak with you,” she said coolly. “I hope that won’t be a problem.”

“So they are coming?”

“Graham and probably one of his techs,” Max said. “He wants to look at the autopsy report, photographs, and the evidence log.”

“The autopsy report is public information—I’ll send you a copy. Photographs—that’s not going to happen.”

“How do we make it happen?”

“You’re talking about our case files. It’s an open investigation and therefore some of the information we don’t release publicly. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.”

“This isn’t public. I won’t use anything without explicit permission.”

David raised an eyebrow. Yes, Max was desperate. She would make any promise to get Graham the information he needed.

“I’ll see what I can do, but don’t hold your breath, especially now that you’re working with Lorenzo. I was already raked over the coals for talking to you on Monday, especially in light of what that creep wrote.”

Max froze. “What did Lorenzo write?”

“On his blog, posted first thing this morning.” Now Max could just about see the steam coming out of Grace’s ears. “I was unlucky enough to see it before my first cup of coffee.”

David already had his phone out. He pulled up Lorenzo’s blog and handed the phone to Max.

CONTROVERSIAL REPORTER MAXINE REVERE IN CORTE MADERA

Television personality, author of four true crime books, Revere seeks to find a “killer” in fourteen-month-old Ivy Lake death investigation

Sixteen-year-old Ivy Lake died when she fell from a cliff at the preserve off the main fire road in the hills of Corte Madera in the early morning hours of July 4 last year. Though there were no obvious signs of murder or a struggle at the scene, and the coroner listed the death as “undetermined,” the CMPA consider Lake’s death a homicide and have kept the case open.

Lake was the subject of a civil suit brought by the family of Heather Brock, who committed suicide six months previous after being bullied for months online and in person by Lake. Lake posted humiliating and embarrassing photos and information about Brock on her blog and in social media, where their high school peers joined in the harassment. For details on the civil suit, which was dropped by the Brock family shortly after Lake’s death, go to the blog archives.

The police interviewed more than a dozen people as possible suspects in Lake’s death, but never charged anyone with a crime. It has long been the opinion of this reporter that Lake accidentally fell to her death, but the police refused to back down after they used extensive resources to track down an alleged killer. Ivy Lake was a privileged girl from a wealthy family who have the contacts and resources to make the police jump when they say jump. If Lake was from Greenbrae, would CMPA have responded with the same resources? Little evidence, no obvious sign of foul play, and no official determination of homicide?

Maxine Revere, the host of a monthly crime show on the cable station NET, arrived in Corte Madera Monday. According to sources at CMPA, Revere spent more than an hour with Grace Martin, the lead detective in the Ivy Lake investigation. Revere said, “I’m confident of the CMPA’s opinion that Ivy Lake was murdered, and I hope to give the family closure by finding out who killed Ivy.”

Which makes me wonder, did CMPA share information with Ms. Revere that wasn’t made public? If it wasn’t made public, why not?

According to high school history teacher George Fong, Ms. Revere spoke to Ivy’s intellectually disabled stepbrother, Tommy Wallace, yesterday afternoon. “Ms. Revere has a reputation for being a bully and I worried that she would push Tommy to say something that could then be taken out of context. Who’s protecting his rights?”

When Fong went to approach them, he saw Tommy leaving with his brother and Revere leaving with an unidentified girl.

“I had Ivy in my freshman geography class,” Fong said. “I’m heartbroken she died, but I question the integrity of any reporter who would exploit a family’s pain simply because events prior to her death seem scandalous.” Revere indicated that she would be talking to everyone the police spoke to, in the hopes of retracing Ivy’s steps the night she died. “There are nearly three hours missing in the timeline,” Revere said. “Where was she? What was she doing? These are questions that need to be answered because they could very well lead to her killer.”

Three hours missing? That’s news. Why didn’t the police investigate where Lake was prior to her death? What haven’t they told the public? Could they be covering up their own mistakes—like spending scarce resources on a wild-goose chase?