Page 136 of After Anna

“No, who?”

“Anna—the imposter Anna, that is—made a friend at Lower Merion named Samantha Silas. Her mother spoke to me at the end of the funeral.” Maggie tried to think back. “She told me that Samantha ran away after Anna was murdered because she was so upset, and that she had run away before.”

“For real?”

“Yes.” Maggie felt her chest tighten, making a connection. “Anna’s only friend at high school, Samantha, runs away? And before that, Anna’s only friend at Congreve, Jamie, runs away? And now Anna, the real Anna, my daughter, is missing? Doesn’t that seem coincidental to you?”

“It does. I mean, what are the odds?” Kathy’s eyes rounded.

“I think that’s definitely something we should tell them. Ellen said they called the police, and we should lay it all out for them.”

“Yes, it gives them a place to start their investigation.”

“Yep.” Maggie bore down, steering through the rain. “It worries me though. I hate to think that Anna is missing. What’s happening with these girls?”

“We’re not cops.”

“No, but we’re moms on a mission.” Maggie looked over with a tense smile, and Kathy smiled back, equally tense.

“What happens to Noah, if this is true? He was convicted of killing Anna, but Anna isn’t dead.”

“I was wondering about that too. I don’t know what it means, legally. They don’t just let him go. I mean, that girl was murdered.” Maggie gripped the steering wheel. She glanced in the backseat to make sure Caleb wasn’t listening, and he was still ear-plugged into the video game. “Kathy, do me a favor, get my phone out of my purse, look up Neil Seligman, and call him? He’s one of the criminal lawyers I know from work. He might have the answer.”

“I’ll do it, you drive.” Kathy started digging in her purse, found the phone, and pressed in Neil’s number. “Got it.”

“Put him on speaker, okay?” Maggie drove while Kathy switched the phone to speaker, and it rang twice.

Neil picked up. “Hello?”

“Neil, this is Maggie Ippoliti. Got a minute?”

“Of course. I was thinking of you, reading about your husband’s conviction. This must be a very difficult time for you.”

“Yes it is, thank you. Do you have a minute to talk?”

“Of course.”

“Neil, I’m in a car with my best friend Kathy, and I have a question for you about my husband. Can I speak to you confidentially, as an attorney?”

“Certainly.”

“There’s been a surprising development in his case, and I’d like to get your opinion.” Maggie launched into the story about the phone call from Congreve and learning that the girl whom Noah had been convicted of killing wasn’t Anna. Caleb kept playing his video game, and they sped past billboards on the way to the airport. Trucks and vans sprayed water and road salt.

“So what do you think, Neil?” Maggie asked, when she was finished.

“Noah doesn’t get out of jail free. The fact that he was convicted of killing someone—let’s call her Jane Doe, but she was in reality, Susan Smith—is not relevant to his conviction, if the only new fact is just a mistaken identity.”

“I figured.” Maggie felt a pang.

“Under the doctrine of transferred intent, the intent to murder may be transferred where the person who was actually killed was not the intended victim. Think of it like a situation where someone shot at another person’s head with the intent to kill him, and that person ducked, and a third person was killed. You follow?”

“Yes,” Maggie and Kathy answered in unison.

“It’s still first-degree murder, despite the fact that the shooter did not intend to kill that person. The same would be true if someone put poison in someone’s coffee cup with the intent to kill that person, and a third person drank the coffee and died.”

“I understand.” Maggie saw they were closing in on the airport.

“So Noah is still guilty of first-degree murder. It’s not legally relevant if he was mistaken about the identity of the person he killed. Now, where the mistaken-identity issue could be helpful is if Noah can present substantial evidence that the person thought to be Jane Doe was actually killed by someone who wanted to kill Susan Smith and that person knew Jane Doe was Susan Smith. However, it would require evidence and not just speculation.”