body in that closet. I was about to call the cops, but before I could, they showed up at my door with guns. I freaked and wouldn’t let them in.”
“And took a shot at them,” I point out.
“They pulled out guns first… I wasn’t even sure they were cops. They could have been the guys that killed Troy. Even when I figured out who they were, I was afraid they’d come in shooting. Hey, man… I wasn’t trying to hit them. I just figured if they found the body like that, they’d think I did it. Which they did.” He sees the look on my face and moans. “Man, I know it was stupid. I just freaked, that’s all.”
Kenny doesn’t know what brought the police to the Upper Saddle River home, but he believed from their attitude that they were there to arrest him. I’ll find that out soon enough, so I use our remaining time to ask him about his relationship with Preston.
“I met him when we were in high school,” he says. “One of those sports magazines did an all-American high school team, and they brought everybody to New York and put us up in a hotel for the weekend. I think he was from Pennsylvania or Ohio or something…”
“But you’ve never had an argument with him? There is no motive that the prosecution might come up with for your killing him?”
He shakes his head vigorously, the most animated I’ve seen him. “No way, man. You gotta believe me. Why would I kill him? It don’t make any sense.”
The guard comes to take him back to his cell, and I see a quick flash of shock in Kenny’s eyes, as if he thought this meeting could last forever. I tell him that I will get to work finding out whatever I can and that the next time I will see him is at the arraignment.
For now I’m far from sure I believe in his innocence. But I’m not sure that I don’t.
LAURIE’S FLIGHT IS more than an hour late because of heavy thunderstorms in the area. They are my favorite kind of storms, the ones where the skies get pitch-black in late afternoon on a hot summer day, and then the water comes bursting out, bouncing off the street as it lands. Eat your heart out, Los Angeles.
I stand with a bunch of people in the Newark Airport baggage claim waiting for the passengers. Laurie walks in the middle of a group of about twenty; she couldn’t stand out more clearly if she were wearing a halo. I have an urge to nudge the guy next to me and say, “I don’t know who you’re waiting for, loser, but that one is mine.” It’s an urge I stifle.
I’m not big on airport arrival hugs, but Laurie gives me a big one, and I accept it graciously. I ask, “How was your flight?”—a witty line I picked up from our LA driver. Laurie shares my general disdain for chitchat, so by the time we’re in the car, she’s questioning me about the recent events.
“Are you going to take the case?” This is the key question for her, since as my main investigator it will determine how she spends the next few months of her life.
“I don’t know; I haven’t heard the evidence yet.”
“I’m not saying he’s guilty,” she says, “but they wouldn’t go after a high-profile guy like that unless they felt they had a strong case. And he didn’t help himself by turning his house into the Alamo.”
What she’s saying is certainly true. On the other hand, “Willie says he’s innocent.”
“Willie might be slightly biased,” she points out. She’s referring to both the fact that Schilling is his friend and also the fact that Willie himself is a walking example of a law enforcement mistake. As a wrongly convicted man Willie has less than full confidence in the justice system.
Laurie has other questions, and almost on cue, Kevin calls me on my cell phone with some of the answers. None of it is good. At the arraignment on Monday morning Schilling is to be charged with first-degree murder. To make matters worse, Dylan Campbell has been assigned to prosecute the case. Dylan is difficult and obnoxious, which would be okay if he weren’t also tough and smart.
And Dylan will have a more personal incentive to win. Last year Laurie was herself on trial for the murder of a Paterson Police lieutenant, her boss in the days that she