Cash shifted in his chair. “I mean, she wasn’t mad or anything. She liked it.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No, but she didn’t stop it.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Trent said, fingers raised in a pair of air quotes. “But ‘not stopping it’ doesn’t mean it was consensual.”
“You think I raped her?” Cash said, his voice rising an octave. “You don’t understand. It wasn’t like that. Sydney and I were close. She was mature for her age.”
Trent went back to the story. “Did you both go to the meet after that?”
“Of course,” Cash said.
“Did the two of you discuss what happened?”
“No. I mean right after it happened, I said I was sorry, and she said don’t worry about it, but we didn’t talk about it again. I—I didn’t see much of her after that, at least, not alone.”
“Do you think she was avoiding you?”
“No. I don’t know. She came to practices and meets. She always had a smile. She seemed fine.”
“But she didn’t talk to you?”
Cash hung his head again, as if realizing for the first time that his encounter with Sydney wasn’t as two-sided as he’d always believed.
“Did you try to talk to her?” Trent asked.
“I wanted to, but there was never a good time. And then she was dead.”
“Then she was dead,” Trent repeated in a low voice. “That’s an interesting choice of words.”
Cash’s expression tightened, the lines around his mouth deepening. “You people,” he said. “You’re obsessed. You’ve been trying to pin Sydney’s murder on me for fourteen years. I didn’t do it!”
Trent leaned back in his chair, a practiced look of surprise on his face. “Pin it on you? Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know.”
“Okay, well let me tell you what I know. I know that you, an older, married man, a teacher, a coach, a trusted mentor, had sex with seventeen-year-old Sydney Adams in your home. I know that there’s a good probability that it wasn’t consensual. I know that a few weeks later, Sydney Adams was murdered while out for her nightly jog. I know that everyone close to her, present company included, knew the jogging path she took six days a week. I know that after the two of you had sex, Sydney stopped talking to you. I know that you have no alibi for the night of Sydney’s murder. I know that a few hours ago, your wife found hidden in your home the jewelry that Sydney Adams was wearing the night she was killed. That’s what I know.”
“It wasn’t me,” Cash insisted.
Beside Jocelyn, Knox said, “That’s what all the killers say.”
“How’d the jewelry get into your house, Cash?” Trent asked.
“I don’t know!”
“How do you explain it?”
“I can’t, okay? I can’t.”
“There’s only one explanation, Mr. Rigo. You know it and I know it.”
“My wife—” Cash began but faltered.
Trent laughed. “Your wife? You think your wife put it there? You think your wife hollowed out a compartment in the back of the frame and hid it there for fourteen years? Is your wife a good carpenter? Does she do a little light carpentry on the side? How’d your wife get the jewelry?” He wiggled his eyebrows at Cash and went on without letting the man speak. “Unlike you, she has an alibi for the night Sydney died. Ninety people saw her at the Home and School meeting, at the exact same time that Sydney was gunned down in Fairmount Park. We have her on tape at that meeting.”
Cash shook his head back and forth like a metronome as Trent spoke. “You don’t understand.”
Trent stood up and rifled through the file he’d brought in. He pulled out color crime scene photos and tossed them onto the table. They fanned out before Cash, eclipsing the flirty photo from earlier. “You think your wife would do this?”
“Oh my God,” Cash said, his voice so high it sounded like a woman’s. He seemed genuinely shocked. “Sydney!”
Jocelyn felt a tickle at the back of her neck, like fingers walking over her skin. “Knox,” she said. “What if—”
Trent’s voice cut her off. “What is it that your wife said to you before you left today? Huh? What did she say?”
“She said to do the right thing,” Cash responded, his voice suddenly flat, devoid of emotion. Resigned.
“Do the right thing!” Trent boomed. “Tell the truth, Cash. Or are you gonna put her through it too? You gonna bring her into this nightmare too? Don’t you think she’s been through enough?”
Cash’s shoulders rounded. “Yeah,” he said. “She has.” He looked up at Trent. The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Jocelyn could hear the tick of a clock, the whir of Knox’s O2 tank, and the wheeze of his breath. Then Cash said, “What do I have to do? How do I do this?”
“Just tell the truth,” Trent said.
Cash sat up straighter. He placed his palms on his knees. His voice was strong and firm as he said, “I killed Sydney Adams.”
It was like all the air was sucked out of the room. For several seconds, she didn’t hear Knox wheezing. She looked over at him. He was still alive, staring at the screen. Then, as Trent began taking Cash through the particulars of Sydney’s murder, Knox stood up and, without a word, left the room.
Chapter 35
1996
Cash didn’t know that Francine’s niece was a virgin until it was too late. Afterward, the girl bled all over Francine’s parents’ couch. It was all over him, too. On his shorts and in his pubic hair. He stood over her, swearing. “What the fuck?”
Elise lay there in her skin-tight, hot pink tank top, naked from the waist down, her eyes huge, her mouth shaped like an O, staring in horror at the mess between her legs. It was at that exact moment that Francine walked in. She was supposed to be out at a pre-wedding brunch with her family. They were getting married in three days. They were staying with her folks until after the wedding. Francine’s brother, his wife, and their fourteen-year-old daughter had flown in from California for the ceremony.
Cash had worked early that morning for his old landscaping company. He was trying to come up with some extra cash for their honeymoon. He’d come back and found Elise sprawled on the couch, watching SpongeBob. She told him she’d feigned illness to get out of going to “that stupid brunch.” They’d talked and joked like they always did. She flirted with him like she always did—making him coffee and prancing around in shorts so short and tight that he could see the outline of the cleft between her legs. He never understood why her parents let her dress that way. He knew she did it on purpose. He’d been watching her all week. How could he not? That morning they’d been alone for the first time with no chance of being interrupted, and things had gotten out of hand. She felt twice as good as he thought she would, but he wasn’t prepared for the blood.
Then there was Francine.
She stood in the living room doorway, purse dangling from her shoulder, her face hardening into angry lines.
“Fran,” he said.
“What have you done?” she shrieked.
“Fran, I’m sorry,” he said, reaching down for his shorts so he could pull them up and cover himself.
She strode over to him and slapped him hard across the face, whipping his head to the side. His brain felt rattled. He put a hand to his cheek and stared at her, paralyzed. He’d never seen her like this.