‘Okay, Mr Murphy. I need you to tell me about Louise Mason.’
It was 12 October and Travis was in Johnny Murphy’s house on 81st Street. Murphy nodded in response, but didn’t seem to know where to start.
‘It’s a nice place you got here,’ Travis said, looking around the living room. He’d told a white lie: the house was okay, nothing special. He was just trying to get Murphy to settle and engage.
‘Thank you,’ Murphy responded politely, looking up from his lap.
‘Have you lived here long?’
‘Yeah, this is where we all grew up.’ He glanced around the room, then turned to Travis again. ‘My dad was a cop, like you.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. The 68th Precinct on 65th Street.’
‘I didn’t know that.’
Murphy nodded. Travis made a mental note to follow up on that, just in case there was anything worth exploring, then checked the camera to make sure Murphy was correctly framed. In the corner was a date-stamp.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Are we all set?’
Murphy nodded again.
‘Mr Murphy, can you confirm for the camera that you’re happy to be recorded?’ Murphy said he was, and told Travis to call him Johnny. ‘I appreciate that, Johnny. Okay, let’s kick this off properly, shall we? How did you meet Louise Mason?’
‘Through a mutual friend.’
‘Who was the friend?’
‘Her name’s Kirsty Cohen.’ Murphy glanced between Travis and the camera, as if unsure for a moment where to look, and Travis wondered if it was a shift of discomfort, an attempt to conceal something. ‘Actually,’ Murphy continued, ‘maybe “mutual friend” is a bit of a stretch. She used to come to the house a lot at one time because she and my sister were at college together, studying to become doctors. So that was how I got to know Kirsty. She moved up to Baltimore after that, to medical school there, and Bek went to NYU, and whenever Kirsty comes back to the city, Bek and she meet up, and sometimes she’ll drop by the house.’ He stopped, frowned, as if he were confused. ‘I don’t know, I guess we are friends, but she’s definitely more Bek’s friend.’
‘Bek is your sister?’
‘Yes, sorry. Rebekah, with a k and an h.’
‘So it was Rebekah and Kirsty who set you up with Louise?’
‘More Kirsty. She’s quite social – she goes to a lot of parties, society stuff, so she knows a lot of people, and somewhere along the line, I guess she met Louise. Bek said she and Kirsty spoke at the end of August, and Kirsty mentioned to Bek that she had a friend called Louise she wished she could set up with someone.’
‘And Rebekah suggested you?’
Murphy nodded. ‘She gave Kirsty my number. I guess Bek thought we might be a good fit.’
‘Why would she think that?’
‘Louise is an artist. I’m a writer.’ But then Murphy paused, his head dropping slightly. ‘Well, I’d like to be a writer,’ he admitted. ‘I suppose that’s more honest.’
‘You work in an electronics store, right?’
He nodded, seeming disappointed that Travis had brought him back down to earth. He glanced into the camera. ‘We just sounded pretty similar. We were the same sort of age. When Bek found a picture of Louise online, I thought she was really pretty, and although I didn’t really know her work, I soon found out she was this successful artist. Actually, I was surprised she’d even consider dating someone like me – but, in the end, I figured what do I have to lose?’
‘When was your first date?’
‘Uh, first week of September, I think.’
‘And where did you go?’
‘She only lived five miles from here, in Park Slope, so we went to an Italian place she suggested on Fifth Avenue. It was nice. We had a good time.’
‘What happened after that?’
Travis watched as Murphy tried to recall: he had a quiet demeanour, spoke softly, seemed nervous – the last didn’t raise any alarms for now, because Travis had long since accepted being put in front of a camera might create a certain level of anxiety with some interviewees. But the benefits outweighed the losses: nervousness wasn’t the same as evasiveness, and so far Murphy’s responses felt benign.
Travis repeated the question. ‘So what happened after?’
‘We texted a few times, and spoke on the phone,’ Murphy said – and Travis quickly referred to the cellphone records he’d pulled for Louise; it tallied – ‘then we went out again the next week for another meal.’
‘And after that?’
‘We went out a third time on the weekend that followed. This time we went to an exhibition at the Guggenheim,’ Murphy said, ‘about the golden age of Hollywood. “Hollywood Babylon”. It was brilliant.’
‘So everything went all right?’
‘From my side, it went great.’
‘From hers?’
Murphy shrugged. ‘I didn’t get any sense it didn’t. I mean, if it had been a total disaster she never would have invited me to that fundraiser.’ Travis checked his notes again: the exhibition had been on Saturday, 18 September. The fundraiser – and their fourth date – had been the following Thursday, the twenty-third. Murphy rubbed at his eyes, disguising his face for a moment, and it was the first time that Travis didn’t have a clear view of his expression. ‘I picked her up and drove us both to the hotel, and then I got a call on my cell.’
‘From who?’
‘The next-door neighbour of a friend of mine,’ he said. ‘Noella.’
Travis asked for her full name and contact details, and then – watching Murphy more closely now – said, ‘What did her next-door neighbour want?’
‘He said Noella had been rushed into the ER.’
‘Why?’
‘Stomach pain. Suspected appendicitis.’
‘So this neighbour called you?’ Travis asked.
‘Noella’s boyfriend, Tommy, was away. The neighbour had tried Bek first, but she was bathing the girls and didn’t hear the phone – so, yes, he called me.’
‘And you decided to go?’
‘I told Louise I was really sorry, made sure she got to the hotel safely – and then I headed back to Brooklyn. Noe had gone to the ER at Langone.’
‘Did you speak to Louise again that night?’
‘No.’
‘Just a text?’
‘Yes,’ Murphy said. ‘After the doctor said Noe was going to be okay, I went outside and sent Louise a message to tell her I was sorry for running out on her like that. When I didn’t hear back from her …’ He faded out, his face carrying the rest of that sentence: I guess we know why. ‘I tried texting her again the next day, and again didn’t hear back, then called her and left a voicemail. When I still didn’t hear from her, I just … I figured …’ A shrug of the shoulders.
‘You figured she didn’t want to see you again?’
‘Yes,’ Murphy responded, his eyes back on his lap, the camera recording the top of his head. He laced his fingers together. ‘I just assumed that, when I dropped her at the hotel and left her like I did, I’d really upset her.’
‘Okay,’ Travis said, and paused, watching Murphy. Murphy didn’t move, just stared into space. It was a look Travis had seen a million times in interview rooms: he was remembering something. Travis just had to work out whether it was something he’d already admitted to – or something he’d held back. ‘You got anything else you want to tell me about, Johnny?’
Murphy looked up, his expression harder to pick now, and shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he said softly.
But was there something?
‘You sure?’
‘Yes,’ Murphy said.
Travis eyed him for a moment longer, then broke into a smile. ‘Well, okay,’ he said, ‘then I think we’re done here.’ But he didn’t get up from his seat, just remained still for a moment, pretending to make some notes. It was an old-school tactic: prolonging the silence, making it uncomfortable so a suspect would start speaking just to fill the quiet, and – flustered, made to feel awkward – say something they hadn’t planned to. Travis was absolutely convinced that Murphy – introverted and modest as he appeared to be – would be someone who hated the unease of a situation like that.
But he was wrong.
Murphy just sat there quietly, saying nothing and staring at Travis, until eventually Travis had no choice but to call time on the interview.