Gerald said, “I keep the key to the closet hidden in the attic. Heath likes to play with my key ring. He almost got in here once. I trust Lashanda, but she can get distracted. If Heath ever saw this—I don’t want him to know. Not until he’s ready. Please, let me show you.”
Faith closed and locked the bedroom door. She took out her phone as she followed Will into the closet. She turned on the video. For the benefit of the recording, she asked, “Mr. Caterino, is it okay if I document this with my phone?”
“Yeah, sure.” Gerald started pointing, first at the photographs. “I took these the first day Beckey was in the hospital, about twelve hours after she was attacked. This incision here is from the tracheostomy. This is where her sternum was broken to save her life.” His finger moved down. “These are her X-rays. You can see the skull fracture very clearly in this one. Look at the shape of it.”
Faith zoomed in on the X-ray, which was pinned beside an older-looking crime scene photo. “Did you get copies of your daughter’s case files from Brad Stephens?”
Gerald’s mouth opened, then closed. “I got them. That’s all that matters.”
Faith let it go. He’d saved her some time, at least. She zoomed in on the witness statements, investigation notes, coroner’s reports, resuscitation notes, scene of crime diagrams.
Will had his hands in his pockets. He was leaning forward, looking at a photograph of a young woman standing near the Golden Gate Bridge. He asked, “Is this Leslie Truong?”
“I was refused access to her file because it’s still technically an open case,” Gerald said. “Her mother, Bonita, gave me that picture. We used to talk all the time. Not so much anymore. After a certain point, it just eats you up, you know? Your life gets …”
He didn’t have to finish the thought. The walls told the story of his life after Beckey’s attack.
Faith turned, working in a grid to slowly video the wall behind her. Gerald had printed out pages and pages from the internet. She saw Facebook posts, Tweets, emails. She zoomed in close to make sure she got the senders. Most of the emails were from [email protected]
She asked Gerald, “Did you get access to any of the case files from the newspaper articles?”
“I filed requests through the Freedom of Information Act, but there was nothing in the files, barely more than a few pages on each woman.” He pointed to the corresponding section of wall. “All of them were classified as accidents, the same way Beckey’s would’ve been if she hadn’t lived. Not that her life was what it was before. Not that it ever will be again.”
The desperation in his voice was like a vise closing down on the room.
Will said, “Mr. Caterino, you mailed those specific newspaper articles to Nesbitt for a reason. What made you choose them?”
“I talked to the families.” Gerald sprinted toward the back of the closet. He stood beside the filing boxes. “Look, here are my call notes. Get my notes.”
Faith swung the camera around. She wanted Gerald on the recording, too.
He said, “I made dozens of phone calls. Every time a woman was found, I tracked down the family and spoke to them. I was able to narrow down the victims to eight.”
He pointed behind Faith, but she didn’t turn. She recognized the women’s faces from the newspaper articles, but the photographs on the wall were different, more personal, the kind of thing you would keep in a frame on your desk.
Gerald pointed to each woman, calling out their names. “Joan Feeney. Bernadette Baker. Jessica Spivey. Rennie Seeger. Pia Danske. Charlene Driscoll. Deaundra Baum. Shay Van Dorne.”
Faith zoomed in on each, making certain to keep Gerald in the frame.
He pointed again, saying, “Headband. Comb. Barette. Hairband. Brush. Brush. Scrunchie. Comb.”
“Wait,” Faith said. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s what they were missing. Didn’t you look into this? Haven’t you read anything?”
“Mister—”
“No!” He yelled. “Don’t tell me to calm down. I told that fucking cop that Beckey was missing the hair clip her mother gave her. It was tortoiseshell. Beckey accidentally broke one of the teeth. She always kept it on her bedside table. The morning she went out—” he ran back across the room. “Look, it says it right here. Kayleigh Pierce, her roommate. This is her official statement.”
Faith had followed him with the camera.
“Kayleigh said that the morning Beckey was found, before that, when she was getting dressed, she said—” He was breathless. “She said …”
Faith told him, “It’s okay, Mr. Caterino. Look at me.”
He looked at her with a piercing desperation.
“Take your time. We are listening to you. We are not going anywhere.”
“Okay, okay.” He tapped his fist over his heart as he tried to steady himself. “Kayleigh said that Beckey couldn’t find her hair clip on the nightstand. It wasn’t there that morning. The nightstand is where she always left it. Even before Beckey went away to college, she left the clip on the side of her bed. She didn’t want it to get damaged, but she wanted to wear it when she needed to be close to Jill, all right?”
“Jill was her mother?”
“Yes, right.” Gerald pointed to a photograph of Beckey before the attack. She was reading in bed. Her hair was clipped back. “The hair clip was never found. The girls, Kayleigh and her roommates, they turned the dorm upside down, okay? Before the police even did their search. Not that they searched much, because at that point, they didn’t care. But the girls knew how much the hair clip meant to Beckey, so while she was in the hospital, they looked for it. And they didn’t find it. And when the cops bothered to actually investigate what happened, they didn’t find it, either.”
Faith bit the tip of her tongue. She could not believe that this was a detail Lena Adams had forgotten.
“Those cops,” Gerald said. “Tolliver, he was the worst. He came across all sympathetic, like he cared, but he just wanted to tick a box and clear this case so he could keep getting paid.”
Faith knew what a cop’s paycheck looked like. It hardly inspired motivation.
“He told me, that lying, fucking asshole told me—” Gerald cut himself off, trying to regroup. “Tolliver framed Nesbitt. I’ll tell you that. If I could prove it, I’d sue that town to the ground. You know the college paid out, right? And the county. They knew that police force was corrupt. That’s why they paid through the nose.”
Faith was suddenly glad that she was filming the man who sued police departments. She asked, “Was there a trial for damages?”
“They didn’t want a trial because they knew all the incriminating details would come out. Don’t you see? The insurance company, the town, the lawyers—even my own legal team—they were all part of the cover-up.”
In Faith’s experience, legal teams did whatever they could to get the largest payout.
Gerald said, “The county settled with me, but they wouldn’t say they did anything wrong, even though we know they did. We know they did. Thirty god damn minutes. Thirty minutes of my daughter’s life. I’m breaking that non-disclosure agreement right now. I should’ve gone on the news. I still could go. Let them try to claw the money back. I dare them.”
Faith moved her thumb to cover the microphone, even though it was too late.
Gerald told Faith, “You have a son. How are you going to feel when you send him off to college? You trust them, right? You trust the police. You trust everybody to look out for your kid, and when they don’t, you make them pay.”
Will cleared his throat. “How much did they pay?”
“Not enough.” Gerald looked around the room. His lip started to quiver. “Not fucking enough.”
His voice had raked up on the last word, cut off by a sob. He covered his mouth, trying to keep it in. Gerald lost the battle. He bent over at the waist. A distraught wail seeped from his lips. His knees gave out. He dropped to the floor. He covered his face with his hands. He started keening like a child.
Faith turned off the video. Will stopped her from going to Gerald. He found a box of Kleenex in the corner. The trashcan beside it was already overflowing.
Gerald’s head was pressed to the carpet. His sobs filled the room. Comforting him wasn’t the answer. You could not comfort hope.
Will knelt down. He offered him the Kleenex.
“I’m sorry.” Gerald took a tissue. He wiped his eyes. “This happens sometimes. I can’t stop it.”
Will helped the father stand.
Gerald blew his nose. His face was red. He was embarrassed.
Faith gave him a few more seconds before leading him back to the present. “Mr. Caterino, downstairs, when my partner told you the spinal cord damage was C5, that seemed to set you off.”
He blew his nose again, straightened his shirt.
“Beckey had a puncture.” He pointed to a black-and-white image on the wall. “I was going to take this to you downstairs, but I thought it was better to bring you up here and show you. There’s so much, and I—I don’t—”
“It’s okay,” Faith soothed. “I’m glad you allowed us to see this. It’s important that we keep all of the hard work you’ve done intact.”