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“It’s been twenty years, man. A lot has changed. Everything’s more sophisticated. DNA testing, cameras, digital files. Guys who’ve been locked up for years are finally free because of new testing. Criminals are located the same way, if their DNA is found in the system. Old camera footage is enhanced. Cameras themselves or microphones are tiny and can pick up sounds and images from incredible distances, digital files are added to or changed electronically . . . well, you know. I can go on and on.”
“So what do you want?”
“Your expertise,” Tate said.
Connell was unique in his knowledge, all of which he’d absorbed like a sponge, from working in stores selling electronic equipment all through college to being a communications specialist for a cable company and expanding his own company specializing in cyber security.
Connell’s eyes narrowed as they turned back along the slope, heading downward. “I told you—”
“I know, I know. Look, Jonas McIntyre is out of prison on a technicality.”
“I read.”
“Then you know,” Tate said. “He swears he didn’t kill anyone, but we all know cons all claim their innocence. Now we—you—have the chance to prove what really went down that night.”
“By hacking? Breaking the law?”
“Think of it as serving humanity or justice or just your own curiosity. You’ve always said you wanted to know what really happened that night. Now’s your chance to find out.”
Connell thought about it as they stopped at the viewpoint again. He stared at the frigid water tumbling over the stony edge of the falls, at the geysers of spray creating an icy mist that filled the air with prisms of light refracting and reflecting from the sun’s wintery rays.
“The McIntyre Massacre is the worst crime that happened around here in years. In decades. And there’s always been this air of mystery around it. Of evil. Even when Jonas McIntyre was locked away, there were so many unanswered questions. Five people died that night, including my old man. Maybe six, as no one knows what happened to Marlie Robinson. She could be long dead. Probably is. But double-check with her father, Walter Robinson, if you can find him. The last time I checked, he lived at the coast. Seaside. Moved there sometime after Jonas’s trial.”
“Okay,” Connell said. “Will do.”
“And what about the other people who’d been at the house that night? Her boyfriend—Chad Atwater? See if you can find him.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
Tate said, “What I know is that he moved away about two years after the tragedy.” He glanced up, met Connell’s gaze. “The press wouldn’t let up on him.”
“Meaning you?”
“Meaning the press in general, I was still a kid.” Tate thought about all the people who’d been close to the family. “Another person to look into is Silas Dean, he was Sam Senior’s business partner. They’d met in the military, I think, and then formed a partnership that lasted a lot of years before it went south. Dean had been at the house earlier in the day. They got into it. A big argument over some kind of land development. Silas wanted to buy the property and Sam Senior was dead set against it. So they had it out that day.”
“On Christmas Eve?” Connell asked.
“Yeah, earlier in the day, and Silas Dean has a temper. Some domestic abuse charges were filed six months earlier. By his wife. At the time they were rumored to be on-again, off-again.”
Connell’s eyebrows shot up.
“The case never went to trial.”
“Why not? Why did his wife back down?”
Tate felt his lips twist. “Same old story. He apologized. Swore he’d never raise his hand to her again. It was an accident. He’d had too much to drink . . .”
“She might know something,” Connell theorized, nodding to himself, as if turning over the suspects and witnesses in his mind, people who may have forgotten what they had seen or heard. A person who had lied.
“The exes of the victims, too. Word was that neither of Sam Senior’s previous wives—he had two—were thrilled with him taking up with Zelda. The same is true of Zelda’s first husband.”
“Robinson.”
“Yeah, Marlie and Donner’s father. He’d gotten into it with Zelda earlier in the day.” Tate was on a roll now, remembering all the people who were players in the tragedy that had become the McIntyre Massacre. “And don’t forget Zelda’s sister, Faiza, and her boyfriend . . . his name is . . .” He snapped his fingers to remind himself. “Roger Sweeney! That’s it! A musician. Plays in some kind of band that does gigs on the West Coast, I think. Dear old Auntie Faiza and her deadbeat boyfriend didn’t waste any time moving into her dead sister’s mansion. According to rumor she was always jealous of her sister and especially her money.”
Connell was watching him, about to say something, but held his tongue as Tate ranted on, his voice loud enough to be heard over the roar of the falls. “Then there were the people who kept up the place. Samuel McIntyre had groundskeepers and maids and a chef on his payroll, though none of them were at the ‘mountain cabin’ that night.” He made air quotes with his fingers as the “cabin” was a mansion by anyone’s standards. “They could have seen something or overheard a conversation or been confided in.”
“But they were all interviewed by the police.”