Leaving Marcus felt like leaving someone alone for the first time after their children’s funeral. Laura told me she wanted to stay with him a while longer. Alone, she said, with a defiant lift of her chin that would tolerate no opposition. I felt the frustration of a mother who’s certain a boy will break her daughter’s heart and can’t do a damn thing to stop it. But then I figured Laura couldn’t hurt any worse than she did already, and any of these visits might be her last chance to say what was on her mind. In her heart. I told her I’d meet her in the parking lot in half an hour. An hour, she said.
Rather than just sit, I drove the car east into Sebastian and made a quick dash into one of those tourist shops that sell beach supplies, orange-flavored fudge, and refrigerator magnets shaped like dolphins and flip-flops. I bought a sun hat.
A few minutes later I was parked in front of Shayna Murry’s yard. Her studio-slash-house was right on U.S. 1, the main road, so people driving by would see it. If there were any doubts that I had the right place, I was reassured by a small wooden sign, worn to the same dull finish as the house, with the fading words MURRY CREATIONS painted on it.
The house itself was a one-story boxy thing with a metal roof, but it sat on enough property to make a small urban park. There was a stand of old oak trees behind it, and nothing for a goodly distance to the north and south. The wooden siding on the house at one time might have been painted a vivid iris; it still looked that way under the eaves, but the weather had turned most of it to bleached denim. Old Florida rusticity in spades.
What made Murry’s house more distinctive than others of its ilk was that all the windows were covered with cheap plywood. When I put on my hat (and sunglasses, too, why take a chance?) got out of the car, and approached to look around the yard, I saw the wood was warped and the nails used to fasten it to the house were rusted.
Just in case I managed to make it inside, I walked the whole perimeter of the house to see if there was a back door. It’s good to know your exit options. Nothing back there except for a small unboarded window and the dense stand of trees that began about fifteen feet out from the back wall.
Had Shayna boarded herself in during some hurricane years before and never bothered to remove the boards? Or was there another reason for the self-imposed barricade? Escape from public scrutiny? Depression? Fear? Those boards gave me more food for thought regarding Shayna Murry’s current state of mind than anything I’d heard or read so far.
Rounding the front of the house, I noticed a rusted bicycle turned into a planter leaning up against the wall. Not terribly creative, that planter. I went up the steps onto the once-white front porch and knocked on the door.
No answer. But when I stood close I could hear what sounded like a hot air balloon being filled. Awful tight space for a hot air balloon. I knocked again; still no answer.
I tried the handle on the door, a quaint metal lever that might have been part of this building from the start. You needed a key to lock it. Unlocked. I had a feeling this was a part of the world where that was not uncommon. Besides, Officer, the sign out front promised something like a gallery inside, so I felt justified opening the door and walking in.
I expected to see more items like the bike inside. The room I walked into seemed to take up most of the building. And it was filled with what an artist might find meaningful but what I, at first glance, could only see as crap.
Shayna Murry was standing in one corner of the dim room, lit up by sparks surrounding a yellow-to-blue flame. She was dressed in a flame-retardant apron and cap, with gloves and dark goggles. So intent was she, and so loud the blowtorch she held against some hulking piece of rusted metal, she didn’t hear me enter. She didn’t even hear me when I spoke her name.
I used the time to look around more carefully and saw, amidst the strips of aluminum siding, and metal objects that looked like their stop previous to this had been in a junkyard or on the side of the road, and even some dead palm fronds, some real art. Hanging on the walls were shields that somehow blended ancient Rome with early twentieth-century art nouveau, and an abstract piece that would have been an intricate brooch if it hadn’t been three feet in diameter.
The only light came from naked bulbs attached to a ceiling fan set on high. With the windows boarded, and the heat from the blowtorch, and the June temperature, and not even a window unit for air-conditioning, it was no wonder her face was running with sweat when she finally turned off the butane or propane or whatever dangerous gas she had in that thing. It made a loud pop that made me jump.
She turned to me and screamed.
“Soooorrry!” I said, raising my hand and waggling the tips of my fingers to show I was a harmless sort. “That noise scared me.”
“It’s just backfire. Not dangerous. How long have you been standing there?” Shayna asked, no longer terrified but still unnerved that she hadn’t been enough on guard. I myself would be a little less on guard when she put down the blowtorch.
“Just a few minutes,” I assured her. I gestured around the room, dropping the silly-woman shtick. “This is real art, not some dilettante artsy craftsy shit. This is intelligent.”
At that, Shayna stripped off her goggles and gloves. She was apparently used to the heat in the place, because she left on her apron. She glanced at the door as if trying to gauge whether I could block her dashing out.
“Who are you?” she asked when she saw the unlikelihood of either her escaping or me disappearing. “I mean really. And don’t bullshit me because I recognize you now even with the hat and glasses. You were at the café the other day. You might guess I’m visual that way, being an artist and all.”
I stripped off my hat and glasses in turn. I said, “Did you hear they found the Creighton children? It was on the news.”
She finally let go of the blowtorch, but that was because it slipped out of her hand and clattered to the floor. Even shocked as she was, she had the sense to turn off the gas and the oxygen tanks. Clearly this had taken her by surprise. Was it because she knew they were dead or, like Marcus, thought they were still alive?
“Are they sure?” she asked.
“There will be some confirmation testing, but yeah, it’s certain.”
Shayna looked like she was starting to ask a question, then closed her lips, and when they reopened it was to ask another. “And you’re telling me this, why?”
I knew I could get more information from her if she thought I was on her side. “Because I’ve done some investigating since I last saw you, and I think Marcus Creighton did it. A woman I’ve been dealing with on the case, Laura Coleman—have you met her?”
“She camped out on my doorstep a few times, but I wouldn’t talk to her.”
“Her. She’s pretty obsessed about this case, and I’m trying to prepare her for his death, and what I want is to find better proof of his guilt. Something that will convince her without a remaining doubt.”
Shayna appeared to be buying my story. I wiped a trickle of sweat that tickled my cheek. “And look, could we step outside to talk? It’s only ninety-five degrees out there.”
Shayna took off her apron, and we went outside to the front porch. There were no chairs out there, so we sat side by side on the top step. The offshore breeze on my face from the ocean that was only a quarter mile away made me aware of how much I’d been sweating. I wiped my palm on my jeans and offered it. Didn’t help; it was a damp handshake on both sides.
“My name is Brigid Quinn,” I said. “What did you have against Marcus?”
“Why would you say that?”
“I read your testimony.”
Shayna shook her head, the kind of gesture that indicates distaste rather than disagreement. “I was so young. So confused. The fact is, you know when they talk about being swept off your feet? I get it. It’s never happened to me before or since. I met him at a time when if I bought gas to get to the grocery store I wouldn’t have enough money to buy food when I got there. Then I meet this guy who stole my electric bill out of the mailbox so he could pay it himself. But it wasn’t even the money. Sure, he was rich and I was poor, but there were the little notes he would leave on my pillow, and the tulips … he knew I liked yellow tulips better than roses. He listened to me, and remembered little things. He was so charming, so handsome. Have you…”
I nodded. “He still is. Fifteen years on death row tells, but he’s still got it.”
“And I was the one everyone said made him do it. It was like they blamed me.”
“Is that why the boarded-up windows?”
Shayna’s face wrenched, and then she got it back under control. “What about the children? Tell me more about the bodies. Do you know how they died?”
“We will. When the police first questioned you that night about whether he’d been to see you, you didn’t know why they were asking?”
“No.” Even now there was a mix of anger and despair in her voice. “I just answered honestly, and it broke my heart when I found out. I know I didn’t sound like I still loved Marcus in court, but the prosecutor said it would be better if we slanted it that way, that he was a total creep who had taken advantage of me. He said it wouldn’t be a lie because in a way it was true.”
“How much did money have to do with it?”
“What do you mean? The fact that he had it and I didn’t? I said—”
“No. I mean the fact that he didn’t have as much money as you thought he had.”
“You think I would have thrown him under the bus for that?”
“Did he tell you he was in financial trouble?”
Shayna wasn’t sweating as much as she had been inside the studio, but she was still a little steamy. I got the feeling she was sorry she had sat down like this, and was now figuring out how to get the latest news on the Creighton kids while getting back inside the house and locking the door.
I repeated, more softly, like it was just idle conversation and I didn’t really care about the answer, “Did he tell you he was in financial trouble?”
I guess she decided it couldn’t do any harm to answer at this late date. “There was one night about six months before the … murders when we’d shared a couple bottles of wine and had sex on the beach. I asked him why we didn’t do it on his boat anymore. He said he sold the boat. Then he said, ‘I’m in one of those situations where I’m worth more dead than alive.’”
“He was talking about assets,” I prodded gently.
Shayna nodded. “That was when I found out he had borrowed money from a loan shark, and had a term life insurance policy on him and his wife, the kind that pays double for accidental death and dismemberment.”
Keeping my voice just as gentle so she wouldn’t be tipped off, I said, “Why didn’t this come up at the trial?”
Shayna jerked her head in my direction. “Wha?” she managed.
“In the court transcripts. I don’t have them with me, but it was something like, Prosecutor: Did you have any idea that Marcus Creighton was in financial trouble? You: No, I had no idea. Something like that. That’s not just about feelings, is it? That’s a statement of fact.”
Shayna paled, trying desperately to remember what she had said back then. Whether I was just lying for some purpose she couldn’t see. Stuttering a bit as she tried to get out the words, but raising her tiny chin in defiance, she said, “I don’t care what I said. Maybe I remembered it all wrong. I’m sticking by my testimony, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Marcus Creighton killed his family. And I had nothing to do with it.”
“I didn’t say you did.” I got up from the porch and dusted off the back of my jeans. I still would not reveal the cell phone evidence that was more proof of her perjury. Better save that for later. “There’s more, Shayna. I know you’re a liar. Probably not about being in love with Marcus Creighton; that sounds right. But about other things. I don’t know why you’re lying, but we’ve got better proof of it than what you just gave me. I’m here to tell you you’d be better off coming clean now than before Marcus Creighton is retried. Because then you won’t be in a position to make any deals.”
Her face was closed off. She’d had years of practice. She might process what I said later, and come around, but for now all she wanted was me gone. Yet she wanted something else even more. “Wait. You said you’d tell me about the children.”
I shrugged. “I think you already know it’s the children. And you know where we found them.”
“But I don’t!” she sobbed.
I almost believed her then. I almost felt bummed about tricking her like that, but then I thought of Marcus Creighton’s face when we forced him to acknowledge his children had been found buried in a shallow grave.
One last try. “Shayna. There’s a man who’s going to die because of you. Shortly after midnight tomorrow. Someone who genuinely loved you. We’ve got a case for appeal, but you’re the one who put the nail in his coffin, and you’re the only one who can pry it out. If you come forward now you can stop his death. Tell me what happened that night. Tell me what you’ve known all these years. I promise you it will feel good to say it.”
Shayna didn’t speak but instead started to tremble, and then started to shake. She got up off the step and, weaving like a drunk, using the doorjamb for support, went back into the house. I got up, too, and started to follow. I stopped when she reappeared, blowtorch in hand. It was on full blast.
“Get off my goddamn property,” she screamed and cried at the same time, a little spit popping in the flames.