report for Zoe is about to be released. All of Herron Mills is watching.
Martina fidgets with her phone, shoots Aster a quick text.
You OK?
It joins the chain of five others Martina has sent her best friend today. They’re all unread. Martina last heard from Aster early this morning; she was in the car with her parents, on their way to meet with someone from the medical examiner’s office. Martina thought she might get the news straight from Aster, but she didn’t come to school today, and she’s been silent since this morning’s text: Autopsy results are in. We have to drive all the way to Hauppauge. I feel sick and Mom literally threw up before we got in the car. IDK if I can handle this.
Whatever the report said, Zoe is still dead. It’s not a good day.
Still, Martina curls her hands into fists beneath her thighs, keeps her eyes trained on the screen as the local newscaster, a brightly rouged woman with a frosty blond bob seated behind a desk in the NBC New York newsroom, opens the segment.
“Breaking news in Suffolk County tonight. Autopsy results were released this morning to George and Joan Spanos, parents of Zoe Spanos, who disappeared on her way to a house party in the Long Island village of Herron Mills last New Year’s Eve. The missing girl’s body was found submerged in a small boat in Parrish Lake last month, just over two miles from her home. Channel Four has the latest.”
The words NEW INFORMATION flash in silver block letters across the screen as the newscaster introduces a young reporter with a thin smile and wire-rimmed glasses to match standing inside the busy front hall of an administrative building somewhere in Suffolk County. On the couch beside Martina, Mami clasps and unclasps her hands in her lap.
“Thanks, Cady. What we know right now is that autopsy results were released to the victim’s family earlier today, but they have not yet been made public. We’re expecting a representative from the medical examiner’s office to give a statement shortly.”
The camera cuts to a wooden podium in a room not quite as packed with reporters as Martina would have hoped. Across the front of the microphone-studded podium hangs a gold and black seal with the figure of an ox surrounded by the words SUFFOLK COUNTY SEAL * NEW YORK * FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE. Above it hangs a cardboard identification card for Daniel Medina, Supervisor, Medical Forensic Investigations.
The Jenkins women grit their teeth through three local news stories until Daniel Medina is ready to speak. When he comes to the podium, he has a prepared statement in hand. Martina leans toward the screen as he rustles the papers before him. Mami raises one hand to her lips.
Daniel tells the room that the forensic medical investigators and pathologists could not determine a cause of death due to the advanced state of decomposition in which Zoe’s body was found. Hot bile floods the back of Martina’s throat, and Mami whimpers, clasps her hands in her lap. But what they can confirm is shocking: Zoe Spanos did not have any broken bones when she died. Which means Anna’s story about Zoe falling to her death from the third floor balcony of Windermere?
Impossible.
Martina’s pulse begins to race.
* * *
Martina fidgets in her desk chair in the back of the chemistry lab, which Miss Fox-Rigg has kindly agreed to let her use for her interview. The interview. She can’t be home for this, can’t risk Mami walking through the door while she’s recording. While she’s supposed to be at an SAT study session she’s currently blowing off. Besides, the lab has the best acoustics. For the next hour, it’s all hers.
She checks her phone, again. 3:56. In four minutes, she’ll put through the call to Pathways. She wonders how much Anna knows, how much she’s been told. She has to know at least as much as has been made public over the last forty-eight hours. Her lawyers would be keeping her up to speed. In the past day, Anna’s mother has hired two more, a real legal team. It’s been all over the news.
Martina pulls up Pathways in her contacts and presses the green call button on her phone. Her recording equipment is all set to go. She’s ready.
“Martina?”
“Anna, hi.”
“Before we start, can you do me a favor? They monitor everything we do online here, and there’s an address I need you to look up for me. …” Anna’s voice trails off.