Page 28

LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS

By late afternoon, Poppy’s standing at the door of a well-maintained home in Maywood, a nice neighborhood in Kansas City.

The door opens and a kid examines her for a moment. He’s eleven or twelve with olive skin and dark hair that touches his shoulders. The message pinned this address for the podcaster’s studio, but this is someone’s house. Maybe the studio is in the basement.

“Hi, is your dad home?”

The kid scrunches his face. “I don’t have a dad.”

Poppy is taken aback. She glances at the numbers on the exterior of the house to make sure she’s at the right place: This is it. Maybe it was a crank tip after all. “I’m sorry, I’m looking for Ziggy de la Cruz.”

“That’s me.”

Oh. “You’re the host of the Treehouse podcast?”

He nods.

“I’m with the sheriff’s office. You sent a note to our tip line…”

The kid’s eyes light up. He opens the door, motions for Poppy to come inside.

The place is nice. A great room has a massive stone fireplace, exposed wood beams on the ceiling.

A woman, about forty or so, appears. Ziggy’s mom, presumably. Poppy feels the need to explain why she’s there, visiting a little kid. Ziggy’s mom shows no concern, like this is the most normal thing in the world. “Can I get you a water or something to drink?”

“I’m great, thanks. You’ve got quite the son,” Poppy says.

Ziggy’s mom issues a knowing nod.

“Come back to my studio,” Ziggy says.

He leads her to a room that looks like a miniature radio studio. It has a rack of equipment with blinking lights, a table, headsets, and two microphones with those foam heads.

“Would you be willing to talk on the record?” Ziggy asks.

“I’m sorry, I’d have to get permission.” Poppy smiles. “You wouldn’t want to get me fired, would you?”

Ziggy shakes his head. He looks disappointed.

“You said you had some new evidence.”

Ziggy stares at her a long beat. “Have you listened to my show before?”

“I’m afraid not,” Poppy says. “I haven’t really listened to any podcasts.”

“Not really doing your research.” He isn’t trying to be insulting. Just observing the truth in the way only a kid can.

“I suppose you’re right,” she admits. “I started at the sheriff’s office this week. On my first day, they found Alison Lane’s car, so I haven’t had much time to—”

“Her father’s car,” he corrects.

“Right. They found her father’s car. And I’ve been struggling to keep up with everything.”

Ziggy sits, nods, like he hears her but doesn’t approve of her excuse.

She takes a seat herself. “How long have you had the podcast?”

“Four years.”

This surprises her even more. “So you started a true crime podcast when you were…”

“Eight,” he says. “But I don’t get the attention like the other young podcasters. I’m not doing ‘kid’ content.” He makes air quotes with his fingers. “The others do cutesy content and people eat it up. I’m trying to solve murders.” He seems incredulous.

“How’d you get interested in true crime?”

“My dad was murdered.”

Oof.Poppy doesn’t know how to respond. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. My mom won’t confirm this, but my research on his case led me to believe he wasn’t a nice man.”

Poppy doesn’t respond. “So you’ve been doing true crime for four years?”

He nods. “Helped solve three cold cases.”

“That’s impressive.”

Ziggy rolls his eyes like he doesn’t like the flattery, though Poppy isn’t trying to flatter.

He turns, taps on a computer keyboard. The printer in the corner of the room hums, like he’s printing something for her.

“I contacted your office several times and told them that I didn’t think MRK abducted Alison Lane.”

The hairs on Poppy’s neck rise, though she’s not sure why. “Why do you say that?”

“It never added up. MRK’s last victim before Alison Lane was one hundred miles away. He was making his way down Highway 100 along the river. Why would he backtrack to Leavenworth?”

“Maybe to throw the authorities off his trail?”

Ziggy shakes his head. “And Benedict Cromwell is from New York City. His dad was an investment banker. He never learned to drive. Didn’t have a driver’s license. He used car services. When he was on the run, he was always on foot. Hitchhiked. Took buses. He never took a victim’s car before.”

Poppy shrugs. She doesn’t say so, but that’s hardly exculpatory.

“And the DNA they found, that’s what always bugged me, so I looked into it.”

Now he’s got her attention. “What do you mean?”

“So, Benedict Cromwell’s arrested, his stuff taken in. They run everything through the wringer and don’t find any DNA from unknown victims. Then, a month later, they mysteriously find Alison Lane’s hair on his sleeping bag?”

“It happens.”

Ziggy shakes his head. “Well, I did a state FOIA request to get the report. It took me nearly a year, but they finally sent me the file.”

Poppy doesn’t understand.

Ziggy explains, “Government records are available to the public unless there’s a good reason to keep them confidential. Freedom of Information Act or sunshine laws. When the sheriff announced what they’d found on the sleeping bag, the reports became fair game, particularly after Cromwell was murdered and the investigation closed. But it still took forever.”

Poppy regards him, waits for him to continue.

Ziggy leans back, reaches to the printer, retrieves the sheaf of papers. “They found a hair on Cromwell’s sleeping bag. They needed something to compare it with. Your office got hold of one of Alison’s hairbrushes from her family or a friend or something, they never said.”

Poppy hasn’t studied the DNA test in the file closely. But she recalls that both samples—the one they found and the one they used to compare—came from Alison’s hair.

“So I got the tests from the hair they found and the brush they used to compare it. And guess what?”

“What?”

Ziggy hands her the printouts. “Professor Palumbo at Wash U has helped me with forensics over the years. She used the latest DNA techniques and found something not in the report.”

Clearly, this kid is a better investigator than Poppy is. She reads the printout, a report on Washington University in St. Louis letterhead:

Our opinion, based on a reasonable degree of scientific certainty, is that the hair collected from Benedict Cromwell’s sleeping bag and the hair used to compare the sample came from the same hairbrush.

Poppy feels her heart drop. There’s a lot of technical jargon on how they were able to determine that the strand found on the sleeping bag, which supposedly came from Ali’s head years before, and the comparison strand came from the same brush.

“So you’re saying…”

“That the evidence on the sleeping bag was planted. It was taken there and put on the sleeping bag.”

“By who?”

Ziggy raises his brows. He has a baby face, but right now he looks like a seasoned college professor.

“Well, who had the hairbrush?”

Poppy’s office. That’s who. “Why would anyone…?”

Ziggy shrugs again. “Someone wanted the world to think MRK killed Alison for some reason.”

“But why would someone want to blame MRK for Alison’s murder?” Poppy asks.

“My guess: to protect whoever really took her.”

“And who would that be?”

Ziggy looks at her, exasperated. “You need to listen to Episode Eighteen.”