Page 34

“What do we know?” she started. “On the morning of the murders, Adam Huntsinger was seen talking to Madison at the pond around eleven o’clock.

Cigarette butts at the scene matched Adam’s and Madison’s DNA.

Adam’s fingerprints and DNA were on the inside of the Ziploc bag of pot that was found in Madison’s pocket, as well as on the bag of pot located in Cheyenne’s lockbox.

His father’s Jetta had scuffs on the left front bumper consistent with hitting the bicycle tire.

The charm from Cheyenne’s broken necklace was found outside his basement apartment with Adam’s fingerprints.

There were guns in the house consistent with the gun used to murder Cheyenne.

Impressions taken from the soccer pitch and from the backroad are consistent with the brand and type of tire that’s standard on the year and class of Walton Huntsinger’s Jetta.

Prints from size eleven work boots were found on the backroad, the soccer pitch, and at the pond.

Adam Huntsinger wore a size eleven boot. ”

Emmy waited for Cole.

He said, “On that same night, Barbara Jericho was a twenty-two-year-old exotic dancer working in a club outside of Macon. She met a customer who offered to drive her to Savannah to watch the fireworks. Later the next morning, she was found by a Candler sheriff’s deputy, wandering the streets of Metter over a hundred miles away.

She told him that she’d been sexually assaulted.

She was driven to the hospital where a rape kit was performed.

Fast forward to last year. Jericho was listening to the Misguided Angel podcast. She started looking at photos online and recognized Adam Huntsinger as the man who’d attacked her.

She contacted the Candler sheriff’s office and found out that the rape kit had never been processed.

After some back and forth, they got the GBI to process the kit and the DNA was matched to Adam Huntsinger.

The rape gave him an alibi for the night of the kidnapping and murder.

He was freed from death row two days ago.

He’s on bail pending trial on the rape charge. ”

Emmy asked him, “What do we think we know?”

Cole’s tongue darted out the same way it had when he was eight and thought he was being clever. “You guys still think that Adam Huntsinger is guilty.”

“Okay.” Emmy glanced at her father for support, but his expression was as stony as his silence. She told Cole, “Tap the weak spots.”

“I mean …” Cole shrugged, but he’d practically memorized every word of Jack’s podcast. “Adam said his fingerprints were on the necklace because Madison asked him to fix it for Cheyenne. She could’ve dropped the chain on the backroad on her way to buy pot from him at Millie’s pond.

You never found the murder weapon. You never found Cheyenne’s flip phone with her initials scratched onto the case.

There was no DNA matching the victims inside the Jetta.

The plastic tarp the divers found at the bottom of the pond could’ve been used to line the trunk, but it didn’t have any DNA or fingerprints on it.

What you just said about the tires and the boot prints and the scuff mark on the front bumper—there’s a lot of consistent with s and not a lot of matched exactly s. ”

Emmy asked, “They teach you at the academy that every piece of evidence always comes up one hundred percent?”

“They taught me that DNA is the gold standard.”

“How long can DNA stay inside of a woman’s reproductive tract?”

Cole shrugged again, but said, “Up to five days.”

“So, it’s possible that Adam had unprotected sex with Barbara Jericho up to five days before she was attacked. It’s possible that her real attacker wore a condom. It’s possible that by her own admission, Barbara being high as a kite during the assault means that she was confused about timing.”

Cole didn’t shrug, but he had a faint wisp of a grin. “You didn’t buy that logic on that rape case last year.”

“I didn’t hold two dead children in my arms last year.”

Emmy saw him flinch. She wasn’t going to take back her words.

She was his chief deputy right now, not his mother.

“I attended the autopsies. Cheyenne was beaten and shot in the head. The bones of Madison’s hands and feet were systematically broken, probably with a hammer.

Adam kept her alive anywhere between twelve to eighteen hours.

She couldn’t fight back. She couldn’t make a run for it. ”

“But you never found the hammer, either.”

“Explain to me what the term preponderance of evidence means.”

Cole bristled, but still answered, “That something is true more likely than not.”

“And what does beyond a reasonable doubt mean?”

“That there’s no other reasonable explanation for the evidence presented.”

“Tell me a more likely explanation than Adam Huntsinger is the murderer. And don’t go by Jack’s stupid podcast. He was talking out of his ass ninety-nine percent of the time.

Dale Loudermilk didn’t drive a Jetta. He drove a Ford truck and his wife drove an Audi.

He doesn’t wear a size eleven boot. His DNA isn’t anywhere on anything having to do with the girls. ”

“Dale borrowed his wife’s Audi all the time,” Cole said. “He was seen washing it out with bleach eight hours after the kidnapping.”

“Seven hours after, and no one ever claimed that the girls were never in the Audi. Dale admitted to it in the first interview. During the trial, Adam’s lawyer cross-examined Ruth Baker on the stand.

She testified that she’d allowed Dale to drive Cheyenne home.

Hannah said the same thing about Madison. ”

Cole didn’t back down. “What about the money and the hard drugs?”

“Great question,” Emmy said. “It’s curious that none of the grown men who were paying a fifteen-year-old girl for sex and supplying her with coke to sell ever came forward.”

He snorted in frustration. “Alma Huntsinger testified that she scuffed the left bumper on the Jetta back when she was still able to drive.”

“Alma Huntsinger was trying to keep her son off death row. The jury sat through three weeks of testimony and saw all the evidence and found him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Emmy gave Cole one of his own shrugs back. “Weigh it out for me, pal. What other explanation is more reasonable?”

Cole held up his hands in surrender. “Whatever you say, chief.”

Emmy heard another car in the driveway. She looked out of the window and saw Tommy’s blue Honda nosing into its usual space under the magnolia. She heard him whistling as he walked toward the kitchen door. Emmy checked the time. Her brother was going to be late to school.

“Cole,” Gerald said, “need a minute with your mother.”

“Yes, boss.”

Emmy waited until he’d left. “I don’t need a lecture, Dad. I know I’m being too hard on him, but he thinks he knows everything, and he doesn’t. His DFR is more WTF.”

“Okay,” Gerald said. “What’s the plan?”

Again, she was relieved to fall back into work.

“We need to pay Adam Huntsinger a visit. Millie says she’s been getting phone calls, people burning hot to do something stupid.

The online chatter isn’t great, either. I don’t know if it’s just idiots blowing smoke, but Walton’s in his seventies and Alma can’t see two feet in front of her. We have a duty to warn.”

Gerald didn’t acknowledge anything she’d said. He only repeated, “What’s the plan?”

The knot twisted inside her stomach again, but for an entirely different reason. “My plan is to do my job as chief deputy as best as I can.”

“And then?”

Emmy shrugged as flippantly as Cole. “Dad, the Houston County sheriff made it to ninety-one when he finally retired. You’re not running and gunning.

You’re using your brain to lead the force.

You still have the confidence of the county.

They’ll vote for you as long as you run. There’s no reason to—”

“There’s a reason.”

Emmy smoothed together her lips.

He said, “You should run.”

“It’s almost half-seven. The only thing I’m running is to work.” She stood up from her chair. “I’ve got too much on my plate right now to take on trouble. You need a ride?”

“Nope,” he said. “Talk it out.”

“Dad—”

Gerald held her in his gaze like a tractor beam pulling her toward the chair.

Emmy let out a long, frustrated sigh as she sat back down. They had started to do this when they were alone in his office, just the two of them, the people who never talked to anybody would talk to each other.

She tried, “Cole’s just spinning his wheels. I keep telling him to move out. He doesn’t need to be tied to his mother. He needs to get on with his life.”

“Set an example,” Gerald said. “Run for sheriff.”

“Dad.” She tried to think of a way to deflect him, but the words spilled out on their own. “I’m already losing Mom. The thought of losing you …”

“Still here.”

“But I need you here.” She put her hand to her chest, indicating not just her heart, but the chief deputy star that her father had pinned on her shirt when Virgil Ingram had retired. “I love you, Dad.”

“I love you, too, baby. But change doesn’t stop just ’cause you’re standing still. It’s gonna happen. You know that as well as me. Turn it into a good thing. Fresh blood. New ideas. Computers. Internet. Podcasts. Snapchat. Tic Tac.”

Emmy laughed. “Now you’re just listing things you hate.”

“Doesn’t make me wrong.”

“I don’t want it, Dad. I don’t know how to run a campaign. I don’t know how I could possibly ever replace you.”

“Somebody will,” he said. “Eventually.”

“Hey-hey-hey!” Tommy rapped his knuckles on the door as he sauntered into the office. He was filled with the relentless positivity of a teacher close to retirement. “What’s up, family?”

Emmy forced a smile. “Are you ever not a dork?”

“Are you ever not a brat?” Tommy’s hand rested on her shoulder. He wasn’t fooled. “Everything okay, kid?”