“Who sent you the serial killer novel?”
“I don’t know. I was critiquing manuscripts for money. Even with my salary from the Academy I was barely getting by. This one came anonymously through the mail, with a cash payment. There was a post office box for the return address. I saw the potential immediately. The writing was crude but there was such power in it. Now I know why. It was reaclass="underline" the horror, the reactions of the victims and the killer, the writer had experienced them.”
“The author was bound to read your novel. Didn’t you think he would recognize it?”
“I didn’t care. I was at rock bottom. And I figured I’d win any lawsuit. I was going to destroy his manuscript when I was done, and I was the famous writer. I thought I was dealing with a nobody.”
“Why didn’t you tell anybody that you didn’t write the book after you were arrested?”
“I tried once. Right before I testified, I told my lawyer that I’d stolen the idea for the book. He told me that no one would believe me. He was right. The manuscript was next to my computer. My handwritten notes were all over it. My name was on every page of my manuscript.”
“What happened in the boathouse?” Ashley asked quietly.
Maxfield kept staring at the floor. He said nothing.
“What does it matter now?” Ashley asked. “You’re already sentenced to death. It can’t get any worse.”
“You’ve got a point there. You certainly do.”
He ran a hand across his face. “I didn’t kill your mother. Terri was dead when I walked into the boathouse.”
“Go on.”
“I was almost there when I heard the first scream. I froze. That scream was terrible. It paralyzed me.”
Ashley knew exactly what he meant.
“When she screamed again I went to the boathouse.”
“Did you see Randy Coleman running away?”
Maxfield shook his head. “I made that up.”
Ashley looked shocked. “If the police believed you, Coleman could have been tried for murder.”
Maxfield’s features hardened. “He deserved to be. He tried to kill you in the parking lot at Sunny Rest. I didn’t lie about that. And he murdered Terri when he was trying to kill his wife.”
“But you didn’t see him at the boathouse?”
“No. He was probably hiding inside and got away when I chased you.”
“What really happened in there?”
“When I came in, Casey was kneeling over Terri. The knife was on the floor next to her. She grabbed it and jumped up. Then she screamed ‘Murderer,’ and ran at me. She looked terrified. She thought that I had killed Terri. She tried to stab me. It happened so fast that I didn’t think. I hit her on the jaw. She flew back and cracked her head on that oak column. The sound was sickening. I knew she was badly hurt as soon as I heard it. I was going to check on her when it dawned on me that Terri’s killer might still be in the boathouse. There hadn’t been that much time between hearing the second scream and my entering, and I hadn’t seen anyone go out the front door. Casey dropped the knife when I hit her. I picked it up for protection. A second later, I saw you at the window. I wanted to tell you that I was innocent but you took off before I could get close enough to say anything.” He looked away. “When it dawned on me that you’d tell the police that I killed Terri and attacked Casey I panicked and ran.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone what happened, later?”
“Who would believe me after you told the police what you saw and I took off?”
Ashley smiled confidently. “I do, Mr. Maxfield, and I’m going to make other people believe you. I know who killed my parents.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
It takes forty-five minutes to drive from Salem to Portland, and Ashley was thinking all the way. Joshua Maxfield had filled in most of the blanks, but one question still nagged at her. By the time she left the freeway, she thought she knew how to answer it.
Jerry was waiting for her in a dark booth in the rear of Huber’s, where they had arranged to meet for a late lunch.
“Well?” he asked as soon as she sat down.
“He didn’t kill them,” Ashley answered, “and I know who did.”
Ashley spent the rest of their lunch explaining her theory to Jerry. He played devil’s advocate, but she beat back all his arguments. When she had finished her presentation, Jerry sat back and thought. She watched him expectantly. Finally, he shook his head.
“My God, Ashley, I think you’re right.”
Ashley let out a pent-up breath. She had worried that Jerry would not agree with her or that he would find some flaw in her reasoning. It meant so much that he was on her side.
“One thing bothers me, though,” Jerry continued. “If you’re right, the murders in your house weren’t random. How did he know that you’re Casey’s daughter? That didn’t become common knowledge until the guardianship hearing.”
The question seemed to bother Ashley.
“Remember when we were in court for the hearing, the week I came back to Portland?”
“Sure.”
“You wanted to get the file on my adoption from the firm that represented Henry Van Meter. What happened?”
“Monte Jefferson couldn’t find it.”
“Why?”
“He thought it had been misfiled or thrown away by mistake. It’s over twenty years old. It happens.”
“What if the file wasn’t lost? What if it was stolen?”
The import of her question suddenly struck Jerry and he turned pale as he realized why Ashley was so upset. Jerry’s face crumpled.
“Once he found your file he had the names of everyone who knew that you were Casey’s daughter, including my father’s name.”
Ashley reached across the table and held Jerry’s hands. “He won’t get away with it. We’ll get him. He’ll pay. But we need proof. So, tell me, where did they store my file?”
Elite Storage owned a 186,000-square-foot warehouse in an industrial park in North Portland. Wide, metal overhead doors opened onto loading docks at set intervals around the building. Jerry and Ashley drove past several moving trucks parked at the loading bays. The office was located in the northeast corner of the warehouse. A balding, middle-aged man in a plaid shirt and khakis was doing paperwork when Ashley and Jerry walked in. A sign on his desk identified him as Raymond Wehrman.
“Help you?” he asked.
“I’m Jerry Philips, Mr. Wehrman. My dad was Ken Philips. You store our old law office files.”
“If you say so. We handle about seventy percent of the law offices in town.”
“I’m not surprised that the name doesn’t ring bells. My dad passed away and I’m a one-man outfit now. But you store Brucher, Platt and Heinecken’s files, don’t you?”
“Oh, yeah. That’s a big firm. I recognize that name.”
“This is Ashley Spencer. The Brucher firm handled her adoption twenty-four years ago. I’ve been representing her in a probate matter and we needed to see the file.” Jerry handed the man the document Judge Gish had signed ordering Miles’s attorney to hand over Ashley’s file. After Wehrman read the order he looked up. “Why are you here? Doesn’t the firm’s lawyer have to give you the file?”
“Yes, but he told us that the file is missing.”
“From our warehouse?”
“Yes. We were wondering if you could try to find it. It’s very important.”
“Even if it’s there, I can’t give it to you. I can only give it to a lawyer from the Brucher firm.”
“That’s okay,” Ashley said. “We just want to know if it’s here.”
The man checked his watch then looked at the piles of paper that covered his desk. He stood up.
“Let’s go see what I can find. I’ve been sitting behind this desk all day and I can use a break.”
Wehrman led Jerry and Ashley down endless rows of twelve-foot-high shelves illuminated by overhead fluorescent lighting until they arrived at the shelves rented by the Brucher firm. Wehrman pulled over a ladder and climbed up to the shelf that should have held the file with the record of Ashley’s adoption. After several minutes, he slid the ladder to another section. Finally, he gave up and climbed down.