Page 59 of Girl, Entangled

‘I heard about something in Rock Creek Park, but that’s all.’

‘Yes, that was one of them, and I’m going to give you the names of the victims. Billy Hayes and Jennifer Darling.’

Hoy’s face did the work before his mouth caught up. The color that had come back into it on the sofa drained out again. ‘Yes. I know both of them. Does this have something to do with… the Thomas Greaves case?’

There it was. He’d got there on his own.

‘Tell me about the Greaves case,’ Ella said.

‘Tell you what about it? It was the biggest thing I ever worked on. The only big thing, depending on how you count it.’ He rubbed a thumb along his eyebrow. ‘I wasn’t lead. I want to be clear about that. I was second chair on the defense. David Bertram was lead and I did the legwork nobody else wanted. But I was in that courtroom every day for weeks, and yes, I knew Hayes and I knew Darling, and now you’re standing in my living room telling me they’re both dead, and there’s a man’s head on my porch, and you’re asking me about the one case that ties the three of us together. So you’ll forgive me for putting it together quicker than you’d like.’

‘You’re not in danger. That head on your doorstep was a gift from the killer.’

‘Are you kidding? A gift?’

‘Yes. I assume the lead lawyer wasn’t as passionate about the case as you?’

‘Nowhere near.’

‘Then that’s why this killer focused on you. He believes Thomas Greaves was wronged and he’s enacting revenge on the people who wronged him. What do you know about Billy Hayes? I can’t find any mention of him in the official documents.’

‘Well, you wouldn’t, because it wasn’t relevant. Hayes was a witness for us, briefly. Or he was supposed to be. Hayes was the first man the police looked at for Mary Monroe. They had him in twice before they ever heard the name Thomas Greaves. The forensic evidence pointed towards Greaves, but we wanted to put Hayes on the stand to muddy the waters, to show the jury the police had been wrong once already, so why not twice? Hayes didn’t want to do it. He was terrified of it. In the end we didn’t call him.’

‘And Darling?’

‘Councilwoman Darling lobbied the US Attorney to take the case federally. She wanted the death penalty on the table and Maryland didn’t have it. Without her, Tommy gets life. With her, Tommy gets the needle.’

‘And Thomas Greaves himself. You must have gotten to know him well. Tell me about him.’

‘Ah, Tommy. Big Greaves. He was genuinely one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. A gentle giant, you might say. I had all the time in the world for him. He was naïve enough to think it would all work out in his favor, so that was why he was made an example of.’

Ella asked, ‘How do you mean?’

‘Miss Dark, do you know the Greaves case? The real case?’

She thought she did, but she guessed she was about to get an education from an insider. ‘Enlighten me.’

‘Well, the prosecution’s smoking gun was that some of Mary Monroe’s remains were wrapped in a tarp that came from Thomas Greaves’s shed. Add that to the fact that Greaves was a giant with crazy strength and that he ran a scout club on the field Mary’s remains were discovered in and they had enough evidence to secure a conviction.’

‘All of that seems flimsy.’

‘Very much so. The judge didn’t seem to care that the tarp could have been stolen, or the fact that Thomas Greaves had absolutely no idea who Mary Monroe was. The only connection they had was that they both worked a medieval faire once.’

Medieval faire.

Where Billy Hayes was hanged.

‘Seriously?’

‘Yup, and eyewitnesses also placed Billy Hayes at the same faire, probably loading up on hot property. But it couldn’t be confirmed, and you know what they say about eyewitness accounts.’

‘They’re useless in court.’

‘Exactly, so none of that was taken into account. So they had an easy target. On paper, the fibers and the circumstantial evidence is enough to get a conviction, but I never expected the death penalty. We’ve got Darling and her big ideas to answer for that, but I guess… well, justice was served in the end.’

Ella registered the past tense. ‘Justice was served. You mean Greaves.’

‘No, I mean Darling and Hayes, and Brennan too for perpetuating the nonsense that Greaves was guilty. Thomas Greaves wasn’t guilty. He didn’t kill Mary Monroe. Billy Hayes did.’