Noel Covington entered the interrogation room alone.
It was cleaner and neater than the ones he had visited over the course of his career, although this one, with its white-panelled walls and yellowed overhead fluorescents, was a bit smaller than the normal 8 × 10 construction, giving the room a boxy and slightly claustrophobic feel. He found the three standard folding chairs, but he needed only two. Bradley wouldn’t be joining him. No one would.
Noel had conducted a number of successful interrogations – conversations, as he liked to think of them. He moved the chair out from behind the table and slid it to the corner, so he could be seated next to the subject, which eliminated the psychological belief that the table was a shield or a barrier, which encouraged lying. You always wanted to have full view of the subject’s upper and lower body movements, both of which were critical for interpreting non-verbal behaviour.
Noel, wanting to feel comfortable and to appear confident, turned his chair so it was facing the door. He had another reason for doing this: he didn’t want Bradley to see the letter Karen Decker had written to him.
It was written in blue ink, on white college-ruled paper torn from a spiral loose-leaf notebook, and stored inside a clear plastic protector. The fingerprints the lab had pulled from the paper all belonged to Karen Decker. She was going by the name of Melissa French now, and she was living in Fort Jefferson, Montana. The name and return address were written on a legal-size envelope, which was stored inside its own clear plastic protector in the file.
Noel had read the letter countless times during the past month. He read it again now to punish himself.
Noel,
AA has taught me the importance of taking a personal inventory and accepting responsibility for my actions. Jesus Christ, my personal Lord and Saviour and guide these last seven years, has taught me the importance of forgiveness, especially when it comes to forgiving myself.
I know you’ve heard me say the AA speech before, too many times, so if the words sound hollow I don’t blame you (or Vivian, let’s not forget her) for feeling that way. I know the two of you will always see me as the pain-in-the-ass girl who kept crying wolf. Not only is that a fair description, it’s a hundred per cent true.
Before you continue reading, know this: I’ve been clean and sober coming up on seven years. I take my meds every single day, and I haven’t gotten into a lick of trouble since we last saw each other. Please keep that in mind when you hear what I’m about to say. That’s all I’m asking. Please keep an open mind and heart this one last time, okay?
Ready?
I’ve found the Red Ryder.
DO NOT put the letter down.
And please don’t throw the letter away.
PLEASE.
Just stay with me for a moment and hear me out, PLEASE, I’m BEGGING you.
Have I said these words before about the Red Ryder? Yes. Too many times. I’ve lost count, as I’m sure you have. All I ask is that you examine the evidence I’ve included and you’ll see I’m right this time – you’ll know I’m right.
I’m not giving you my phone number because I want to share this great moment in person with you and only you. No Vivian. Please respect my wishes on this. It’s not because of what she said the last time the three of us were together (although I still consider what she said to be unusually cruel, even for her). It’s because you’re the only person I trust, and because I want to share this moment with you.
You’ll find my house key taped inside the gas grille on my back porch.
And Noel?
I’m finally free.
God Bless,
Karen
The evidence Karen included was tucked inside a clear sandwich bag: a 5 × 6 piece of white scrap paper stained by coffee, cooking grease and ketchup. It had been previously crumbled into a ball before Karen (at least he assumed it was Karen) had retrieved and cleaned it up and smoothed the paper flat.
Fortunately, she hadn’t touched the scrap paper with her bare hands: not a single one of her prints was found anywhere on it. Unfortunately, she had most likely used a paper towel, tissue or towel to blot away the ketchup and coffee. That, and smoothing out the paper, had turned the partial latent fingerprints and palm print to dreck – or, as the co-head of the Bureau’s Latent Prints Lab, Jackson Cooper, had told him, the prints were possibly dreck right from the start.
Cooper had decided not to use ninhydrin, the standard chemical for lifting latent prints from paper, but rather a new method recently developed by Israeli scientists: the use of gold particles that strictly adhered to paper instead of the amino acids left by sweat. When the silver-treated developer was applied, the paper turned black and the fingerprints stood out in relief as a high-contrast white.
The latent fingerprints on Karen’s piece of scrap paper, six in total, were of good to very good quality. But not a single one came back with a likely match inside the Federal database. Disappointing, absolutely, but not totally unexpected as the Red Ryder hadn’t left any fingerprints at any of the crime scenes or on any of the thirteen Halloween cards and pieces of clothing he had mailed to the San Francisco Chronicle over a five-year period in the late seventies.
The only piece of evidence the killer had left behind was a palm print on the receiver of a payphone in Vallejo, California, 2.6 miles away from where he had shot Karen Decker and her family in the summer of 1978. The Red Ryder had used the payphone to call 911 to report the shooting. The detective who had pulled the wet palm print from the receiver was wanted at another job that night and had to work quickly, using a hot light and blow-drying to accelerate the process. The palm print, fortunately, was solid.
The palm print left on the crumpled piece of paper was, for all intents and purposes, useless. Cooper had found two possible points of identification that matched it to the Red Ryder’s palm print. There was no way a judge would ever sign off on a search warrant because the comparison would never hold up in court.
Noel had better luck with the lab’s ‘Questioned Documents’ section.
The scrap paper contained a handwritten list in black ballpoint of grocery items: kale, apples, raspberries, eggs, Nutella, doughnuts. Two other items were written and circled at the bottom: Preparation H haemorrhoid cream and Just For Men hair colouring. After comparing the Halloween cards with the list, ‘Questioned Documents’ confirmed that they had all been written by the same person, in all likelihood the Red Ryder.
‘Questioned Documents’ also confirmed Karen Decker had written the letter to Noel. He had asked the unit to examine the handwriting because he hadn’t heard from Karen for almost seven years. No one had. He thought she was dead – had finally killed herself and done it someplace where her body would never be found. To punish Vivian.
And me, Noel thought. I played a part in this too.