THE MAN I HAD CALLED, David Rayburn, was the uncle of seventeen-year-old Amy Phyllis Rayburn, who was murdered six months before Andrea. I told him about Andrea, about Rob Westerfield’s confession to a fellow inmate in prison, about Paulie finding the locket in Rob’s car, and about its being taken from Andrea’s body.
He listened, asked questions, then said, “My brother was Phil’s father. That was Amy’s nickname in the family and among her close friends. Let me call him now and give him your number. He’ll want to talk to you.”
Then he added, “Phil was about to graduate from high school. She’d been accepted at Brown. Her boyfriend, Dan Mayotte, always swore he was innocent. Instead of going to Yale, he spent eighteen years in prison.”
Fifteen minutes later my phone rang. It was Michael Rayburn, Phil’s father. “My brother told me about your call,” he said. “I won’t try to describe my emotions or those of my wife at this moment. Dan Mayotte had been in and out of our home since he was in kindergarten; we trusted him like a son. We have had to make our peace with the death of our only child, but to think that Dan may have been wrongly convicted of her death is almost more than we can bear. I’m a lawyer, Ms. Cavanaugh. What kind of proof do you have? My brother talked about a locket.”
“Mr. Rayburn, did your daughter have a heart-shaped gold locket with blue stones or gems on the front and her initials on the back?”
“Let me put my wife on.”
From the moment she spoke I admired the composure of Phil’s mother. “Ellie, I remember when your sister died. It was only six months after we lost Phil.”
I described the locket to her.
“That has to be Phil’s locket. It was one of those inexpensive trinkets you pick up at a shopping mall. She loved that kind of jewelry and had several chains with any number of pendants she’d slip on them. She would wear two or three at the same time. I don’t know if she was wearing the locket the night she was murdered. I never missed it.”
“Do you think you might have a picture of Phil wearing it?”
“She was our only child, so we were always taking pictures of her,” Mrs. Rayburn said, and now I could hear tears in her voice. “She was fond of the locket. That’s why she had it engraved. I’m sure I can find a picture of her wearing it.”
Her husband took the phone from her. “Ellie, from what you told my brother, I understand that the convict who says he heard Westerfield confess to my daughter’s murder is missing.”
“Yes, he is.”
“I have never in my heart believed that Dan could attack Phil so violently. He wasn’t a violent person, and I know he loved her. But as I understand it, there is no hard-and-fast proof to actually tie Westerfield to Phil’s death.”
“No, there isn’t, at least not yet. Maybe it’s too soon to go to the district attorney with what I know, but if you tell me the circumstances of your daughter’s murder and why Dan Mayotte was charged and convicted, I can put it out there on the Website and see if it brings in more information. Can you do that?”
“Ellie, we’ve been living that nightmare for twenty-three years. I can tell you everything about it.”
“Believe me, I understand. The nightmare that my family endured broke up my parents’ marriage, eventually killed my mother, and has tortured me for more than twenty years. So, yes, I understand that you’re always living it.”
“I’m sure you do. Dan and Phil had quarreled and hadn’t seen each other in a week. He did tend to be jealous, and Phil had told us that the week before, when they were buying sodas and candy in the lobby before a movie, some guy started talking to her, and
Dan got angry. She never described the guy or mentioned his name.
“She and Dan didn’t speak for a week after that. Then one day she went to the local pizza parlor with some of her girlfriends. Dan came in with some of his friends and went over to Phil. They talked and I guess began to make up. Those kids were crazy about each other.
“Then Dan spotted the guy who’d been flirting with Phil in the movies. He was standing at the counter.”
“Did Dan describe him?”
“Yes. Good-looking, about twenty years old, dark blond hair. Dan said that at the refreshment stand of the movie house, he’d overheard him tell Phil that his name was Jim.”
Jim! I thought. That had to be one of the times Rob Westerfield was wearing his dark blond wig and was calling himself Jim.
“Seeing the guy there at the pizza parlor made Dan jealous all over again. He said that he accused Phil of planning to meet Jim there. She denied it and said she hadn’t even noticed he was in the place. After that, she got up and stalked out. Everyone could see that she and Dan were angry with each other.
“Phil was wearing a new jacket that night. When she was found there were traces of dog hairs on it that came from Dan’s Irish terrier. Of course she’d been in his car many times, but because that jacket was brand-new, the hairs were proof that she’d been in his car after she left the pizza parlor.”
“Did Dan deny that Phil got in his car?”
“Never. He said he persuaded her to get in and talk things over. But when he told her it was too much of a coincidence for him to believe that Jim just happened to be in the pizza parlor, she got sore at him again and got out of the car. She told him that she was going back to her friends and for him to get lost. According to him, she slammed the car door and started to walk from the parking lot, heading back to the restaurant. Dan admitted he was furious and said that he gunned the engine and took off.
“Phil never made it to the restaurant. When it started to get late and she hadn’t come home, we called the friends she’d gone out with.”
Mother and Daddy called Andrea’s friends. . . .
“They told us she was with Dan. At first we were relieved, of course. We thought the world of him and were glad they’d made up. But hours passed, and when he finally did get home, Dan claimed that he’d left Phil in the parking lot and she was going back to the restaurant. The next day her body was found.”
Michael Rayburn’s voice broke. “She died of multiple fractures of the skull. Her face wasn’t recognizable.”
I beat Phil to death, and it felt good.
“Dan admitted that he’d been angry and upset after she got out of his car. He said he drove around for an hour or so, then parked near the lake and just sat there for a long time. But he had no one to back up his story. No one had seen him, and Phil’s body was found in a wooded area about a mile from the lake.”
“Didn’t anyone else see Jim at the pizza parlor?”
“People said they remembered a guy there with dark blond hair. But he apparently didn’t talk to anybody, and nobody noticed when he left. Dan was convicted and sent to prison. It broke his mother’s heart. She’d raised him alone, and, sadly, she died much too young and never lived to see him paroled.”
My mother died much too young as well, I thought.
“Where is Dan now?” I asked.
“He got his college degree in prison instead of at Yale. I’ve heard he works as a counselor to former inmates. I never in my heart really believed he could do that to Phil. If it turns out that your theory is right, then I owe him a profound apology.”
Rob Westerfield owes him a lot more than an apology, I thought. He owes him eighteen years—and the life he should have lived.
“When are you going to put this on your Website, Ellie?” Michael Rayburn asked.
“As soon as I can write it. That should take about an hour.”
“Then I won’t keep you. We’ll be looking for it. Let me know if any new information comes in.”
* * *
I KNEW that I was already in jeopardy from the Westerfields and that by mounting this new assault I was being downright reckless. I didn’t care.
When I thought of all the victims Rob Westerfield had claimed, I became enraged.
Phil, an only child.
Dan, his life destroyed.
The Rayburns.
Dan’s mother.
Rob’s grandmother.
Our family.
I started Phil’s story with the headline: “WESTCHESTER DISTRICT ATTORNEY, TAKE NOTE!”
My fingers flew over the keyboard. At nine o’clock it was finished. I read it over once and, with grim satisfaction, sent it to the Website.
I knew I had to clear out of the inn. I closed the computer, packed in five minutes, and went downstairs.
I was at the desk, paying my bill, when my cell phone rang.
I thought it might be Marcus Longo, but it was a woman with a Hispanic accent who responded to my quick greeting.
“Ms. Cavanaugh?”
“Yes.”
“I have been watching your Website. My name is Rosita Juarez. I was housekeeper for Rob Westerfield’s parents from the time he was ten years old until he went to prison. He is a very bad person.”
I gripped the phone and pressed it closer to my ear. This woman had been the housekeeper at the time Rob committed both murders! What did she know? She sounded frightened. Don’t let her hang up, I prayed.
I tried to make my voice sound calm. “Yes, Rob is a very bad person, Rosita.”
“He looked down on me. He made fun of the way I talk. He was always nasty and rude to me. That’s why I want to help you.”
“How can you help me, Rosita?”
“You are right. Rob used to wear a blond wig. When he put it on, he would say to me, “My name is Jim, Rosita. That shouldn’t be too hard even for you to remember.”
“You saw him put on the wig?”
“I have the wig.” There was sly triumph in the woman’s voice. “His mother used to get very upset when he wore the wig and called himself Jim, and one day she threw it in the garbage. I don’t know why I did it, but I took it out and brought it home. I knew it was expensive, and I thought maybe I could sell it. But I put it in a box in the closet and forgot all about it until you wrote about it on your Website.”
“I’d like to have that wig, Rosita. I’ll be glad to buy it from you.”
“No, you don’t have to buy it. Will it help to make people believe that he killed that girl, Phil?”
“I believe it would. Where do you live, Rosita?”
“In Phillipstown.”
Phillipstown was actually part of Cold Spring, not more than ten miles away.
“Rosita, may I come and get the wig from you now?”
“I’m not sure.”
She was starting to sound worried.
“Why not, Rosita?”
“Because my apartment is in a two-story house, and my landlady sees everything. I don’t want anyone to see you here. I am afraid of Rob Westerfield.”
For the moment all I cared about was getting my hands on the wig. Later, if Rob was put on trial for Phil’s death, I would try to persuade Rosita to be a witness.
Before I could try to convince her, she volunteered, “I live only a few minutes from the Phillipstown Hotel. If you want, I could drive there and meet you at the back entrance.”
“I can be there in twenty minutes,” I said. “No, make it half an hour.”
“I will be there. Will the wig help to put Rob in jail?”
“I’m sure it will.”
“Good!”
I could hear the satisfaction in Rosita’s voice. She had found a way to get back at the nasty teenager whose insults she had endured for nearly a decade.
I rushed to finish paying my bill and quickly put my bags in the car.
Six minutes later I was on my way to acquire the tangible proof that Rob Westerfield had owned and worn a dark blond wig.
I was hoping that samples of Rob’s DNA would still be lingering within it. That would be definitive proof that the wig had belonged to him.