Wilson Shepherd lived in Garden City—a workaday Savannah suburb filled with sprawling half-acre plots with small, weathered houses.
Shepherd’s house was just as Jerrod Scott had described, a small blue one-story, with peeling paint and a crooked mailbox out front that looked like someone had backed into it.
When Harper parked at the curb, the late-morning air was warm and thick as soup. Some kids were playing football down the road, shouting orders to one another and cheering. Otherwise, it was quiet.
The walkway to the house was cracked but the lawn was neatly trimmed.
When she rang the bell, the door opened so quickly she took a step back in surprise.
Shepherd was about five foot ten, with light brown skin and a round face. He wore a blue Nike T-shirt with loose khaki shorts.
He looked so different from the man she’d seen arrested and released from jail last week, he might have been his brother.
His eyes were clear and focused. He looked drawn but not unstable as he studied her with some suspicion.
“Wilson, I’m Harper McClain,” she said, when he didn’t speak. “Jerrod Scott told me you were willing to talk.”
He didn’t move or speak for so long, she began to fear he might send her away.
Then, with clear reluctance, he opened the door wider.
“I guess you better come in.”
Inside, the house was much like the outside—a bit shabby, in need of a lick of paint, but very clean. The faded linoleum floors shone in the entrance hall. Not a speck of dust besmirched the coffee table in the living room he led her into.
The OCD part of Harper recognized a fellow neat freak.
They sat across from each other on black, fake-leather sofas.
Wilson seemed anxious, his hands knotted above his knees.
“Can I get you a drink?” he asked, hopefully. “Coffee?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” She wanted him looking at her, not doing something to distract himself. She needed to assess him. “I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me. I know this must be difficult. I’m sure Mr. Scott told you why I’m here. I need to talk to you about Naomi.”
His only reaction to his dead girlfriend’s name was a kind of withdrawal—he seemed to curl up. Like someone who’d been punched so often he no longer really felt the blow.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she added, belatedly.
There was a pause.
“You’re the first person to say that to me.” He was soft-spoken, his voice deep but very quiet. “Right now the only person who doesn’t think I killed her is Jerrod Scott.”
“That’s why I’m here.” She kept her expression open, approachable. “I know you’ve answered a lot of questions for the police. I need to ask you a few more to make sure I understand.”
She pulled a digital recorder out of her bag. “Would you mind if I recorded this?”
He leaned back on the sofa, studying her from beneath lowered brows.
“That’s fine. I have nothing to hide.”
Harper set the small silver recorder on the coffee table between them, its red light glowing. She didn’t usually use one for face-to-face interviews, but she didn’t want to spend this interview looking down at her notepad. She wanted to observe him.
“Tell me about you and Naomi. When did you get together?”
“At school.”
“She had a part-time job looking out for kids from difficult backgrounds,” Harper pressed. “Is that how you met?”
“Yes. I’m the first person in my family to go to college. My father works in maintenance at an office building in Atlanta. My mother works at a hotel. They were so proud…”
His voice trembled and he looked away.
“They were so proud of me,” he said after a second, “when I got into college, and then when I was accepted to law school. It was like they’d achieved something themselves, you know?”
His eyes searched her face for understanding. Harper’s background wasn’t the same as his, but she’d put herself through the first couple of years of college. She knew how hard it was. Filling out your own financial aid forms. Choosing your books, courses, and dorm all alone.
“Naomi helped you.”
He nodded. “She was one of the first people I met at school. She walked me through the first couple of weeks, making sure I got a good start. But it was more than that. We hung out after class, talking, for hours.” His face lightened at the memory. “One day, I noticed how much I looked forward to seeing her. And I told her that. We became friends. It wasn’t a job then for her—it was fun. I got into law school the year after she did.” He turned his hands over. “After that, we started seeing each other more seriously.”
“Were you aware she’d had a relationship with a student named Peyton Anderson?” she asked.
His expression darkened.
“I read your article about the restraining orders in the paper this morning. You made it sound bad. But not nearly as bad as it was.”
“How bad was it?”
“I know how you’re going to take this,” he said. “But I believe he’s insane. The things he did to her…”
“What did you mean when you said you knew how I would take this?” she asked.
He gave her a knowing look. “I’m a law student. I know when a murder suspect tells you someone else is dangerous, you think he’s trying to put the blame on that guy to save himself. But all I can tell you is—Peyton Anderson is dangerous.”
“Was Naomi afraid of him?” she asked.
“Hell yes, she was.” For the first time, he showed real animation, sitting forward on the sofa, talking fast. “He showed up in her living room, uninvited, when she got out of the shower. He told her he’d kill one of us if she didn’t break up with me. He threatened her openly.”
“Why didn’t she tell her dad how bad it was?”
“She didn’t want to upset him. She thought she could handle it.” His throat worked.
“Then she got shot and the police said it was me.”
So far, Harper was impressed. He seemed candid and sad. But she was also aware that he had legal training. It would be foolish to take him at face value.
She decided to press a little harder—see what happened.
“People who know you and Naomi say you were having trouble—maybe breaking up,” she said. “That would be motive, as far as the police are concerned.”
A long moment passed before he replied.
“We were both law students—that’s a lot of work all on its own. We both have jobs—I work afternoons until eight o’clock. Naomi’s job kept her out most nights until nearly three in the morning. Sometimes days would go by when we only saw each other in class. It was hard, I’m not going to lie to you. But we weren’t breaking up. We were trying to find a way. Naomi … she was looking for another job with better hours.” He blinked hard. “I knew we were going to be fine. Because she was all that mattered to me.”
“Let’s talk about that,” she said. “What can you tell me about the night Naomi died?”
He took a deep breath.
“I had a paper to write for one of my classes. Naomi had to work late, so we decided she’d come over here after she got through at the bar. I finished at about eleven, then I watched some television. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I knew the phone was ringing.”
Up until this point, he had talked quickly. Reciting facts he’d obviously been asked to explain many times. Now, his words came slower, getting harder to say.
“It was Naomi’s dad. He said something happened to her. That was when I found out.”
“And nobody knew you were home?” Harper pushed back. “You didn’t talk to anyone?”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“You want to know something funny? The only person who can back up my alibi is Naomi. She knew where I was. I texted her.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his phone, then touched the screen, opening his texts, and held it out to her.
“See for yourself.”
Harper took the phone.
He’d opened it to a text conversation, dated the day of the murder. The name at the top was Naomi.
At 11:26 that night, Wilson had written, I’m done working. What time are you getting off?
Naomi had replied three minutes later: 2:30. It’s quiet, though. Maybe I’ll get out early. How’d it go?
Wilson: Meh.
Naomi: ☺ Meh for you is an A+ for anyone else. Are you at home?
Wilson: Yeah, gonna watch the news and crash.
Naomi: Jealous. Sleep tight. See you tomorrow.
It was the last thing she’d written.
After that there was nothing until a series of plaintive texts from Wilson written later that night, after her father called.
They were messages written by someone who desperately didn’t want to believe.
4:12 A.M., Wilson: Nay, where are you? Your daddy says something happened. Tell me he’s wrong.
4:15 A.M., Wilson: Baby, please answer.
4:23 A.M., Wilson: I love you.
It was painful to read. When Harper handed the phone back, he closed the screen without looking at it.
“I don’t know how to make you understand.” His voice was uneven. “I didn’t kill her. I wanted to marry her. I still want to marry her. I don’t understand how she’s not … Excuse me.”
Standing abruptly, he left the room.
The house was small; Harper could hear Wilson in the next room, blowing his nose.
When he returned, his eyes were red. He held a tissue in one hand.
“You sure you don’t want a cup of coffee?”
He needed something to do or he would fall apart in front of her.
“Sure,” she said. “I like it black.”
Wilson Shepherd’s kitchen was bigger than Harper expected, given the modest size of the house. It had space for a table, which he used as a work area. His laptop sat on one side, next to a neat stack of papers.
She leaned against the counter, watching as he scooped coffee into the coffeemaker. She’d carried the recorder with her, and set it down just out of his view. It would be good if he could forget it was there.
“This is a nice place,” she said, looking around. “How long have you lived here?”
“Six months.” He poured water into the reservoir and flipped the switch. The machine whirred into life, and the rich scent of coffee filled the air. Wilson’s back was to Harper when he spoke again. “Naomi was supposed to move in with me in a couple of months. When she stopped working nights.”
Pulling two clean, white mugs from the cupboard, he arranged them on the counter with a sugar jar and creamer.
“Garden City might not be much, but you can rent a whole house for nothing out here. I thought we could live here until we graduated, and then find a place in town.”
As he told her of their now impossible plans, his expression was bleak.
“Wilson,” she said, “you seem like a smart guy. A trustworthy guy. But, the other night when you were arrested, you were waving a gun at the police. Why did you do that?”
He froze, hands hovering above the mugs.
“I hardly remember that whole day,” he said, softly. “I knew the police were looking for me, and I knew they wanted to blame me. But all I could think about was Naomi, and what happened. It tore me up thinking about it. I knew they’d look at my background—the things I did when I was a kid—and they’d blame it on me. If they did that, the killer would get away.” He met her eyes with sudden directness. “If the police have someone to pin a murder on—especially a young black man—they wash their hands of the truth, you know that, right? I mean with your job. You have to know.”
Harper couldn’t argue with him. After all, Daltrey and Blazer had made it clear they wanted it to be him.
It would make their lives so easy.
“So you ran,” she said, leading him back to the story. “Where were you going? They caught you on the edge of town.”
He sighed. “I don’t know. I didn’t have a plan. I was going crazy. And I know that makes no sense. But, I was in pain. I lost it.”
“What about the gun?”
He gave a bitter smile.
“You’ll never believe the truth.”
She didn’t blink. “Try me.”
“I bought that for Naomi. To protect herself. Because she was scared. But she wouldn’t take it. Said guns didn’t make anyone safer.” He gave her a tortured look. “Can you believe it? The police arrested me with the gun I wanted my dead girlfriend to use to stay safe.”
The coffeemaker had finished now, and Harper could hear herself breathe in the sudden silence.
“Wilson,” she said, “who do you think killed Naomi?”
He didn’t hesitate.
“I think Peyton Anderson killed her. I think he’s unstable and I think his father is covering it up for him. And I don’t believe the police will ever, in one hundred years, arrest him.”
In that instant, Harper decided she agreed with him.
To disguise this, she reached for the carafe, pouring coffee into both of their cups.
“The police say he has an alibi,” she told him. “That he couldn’t have done it.”
“Oh yeah?” He didn’t sound convinced. “That guy is made of money. He could pay people to say whatever he wants. Guys like him? They get away with murder.”
She couldn’t blame him for sounding bitter. But she knew the police would never have accepted Anderson’s word. They’d have wanted proof, regardless of who his dad was.
And if she was going to challenge that alibi, she was going to need proof of her own.
She turned to Wilson. “If you really are telling the truth—if it wasn’t you who killed Naomi—then help me prove it.”
His face lit up. “What can I do to help?”
“I need you to tell me everything you can remember about Peyton and Naomi. And I need evidence. If you can find any emails she sent you about him, send those to me. Texts. Everything. I need it all.” She gave him a warning look. “Don’t alter anything. And no lies. I need complete truth or we’ll both be in trouble.”
As he listened to her, a tear slipped down his cheek. He swiped it away.
“Please believe me, Miss McClain,” he pleaded. “I’m no killer. And my family … They need to know it wasn’t me.”
He drew a shaky breath.
“I’ll get you everything I can.”