Page 114 of The Summer that Changed Everything
“Not yet, but Dad gave his DNA to that genealogical site, remember? That’s what made it easy to trace the DNA in that sink to you.”
“Like they did with the Golden State Killer.”
There was a fatalistic tone to his voice. “Yes.”
He swore. “I was afraid that would happen one day.”
Was that an admission? “Why, Houston?” Ford asked. “You had everything. You didn’t need to steal from anyone. And you sure as hell didn’t need to hurt people who couldn’t even fight back.”
“It wasn’t me, man! It was Kevin!”
Ford shoved the chair back as he came to his feet. “What’d you say?”
“I said it was Claxton! We were hanging out, bored and looking for some fun, and he told me about this really cool baseball card collection his father had been shown when he went over to unplug the Matteos’ sink. Kevin’s always been crazy about baseball. He wanted to get those cards, said they weren’t doing that old man any good.”
Kevin was the son of a plumber, hadn’t enjoyed the same affluence Ford and Houston had. He’d been a talented athlete, though, and that had put him in good stead with the popular crowd. “He was already a police officer by then!” Ford said in amazement.
“He’d just gotten on the force, but he said it’d be so easy to get that collection—we could just walk in and take it. He said he’d been keeping an eye on the old couple’s trailer and knew they were out of town. I just went with him, Ford. I had nothing else to do with what happened, I swear!”
Ford gripped his phone that much tighter. “Then why wasyourblood in the sink?”
“Because I tried to intervene! When the old folks walked out of the back end of the trailer, surprising us, Kevin went off on them. I tried to stop him, but he pushed me so hard I fell, and the corner of the table took a chunk out of my arm. I just wanted to get the hell out of there, but Kevin wouldn’t stop hitting those poor people with the hammer we took out of their own shed to help us break in. He just kept yelling that they’d seen his face. His father would find out, he’d lose his job, everything. It happened so fast. All I did was wash off my arm, grab a paper towel and run out of there. He did the rest, I swear.”
Ford sank back into the seat and propped his head up with a fist to his forehead, staring down at nothing but wood grain on the desktop. “Why didn’t you say something? Why would you ever let another man take the fall? Mygirlfriend’s father?”
“Because you don’t narc on a friend, man. And I didn’t want to get into trouble! I mean... I certainly thought about it. Iwantedto come forward, but Kevin said I’d be prosecuted right along with him even though I didn’t do it. He said he’d make sure of it. Then Mick McBride strangled that girl—or I thought he did—so it wasn’t as if an innocent man would be going to prison. It felt like we had an out for a night that shouldn’t have happened to begin with.”
“So youhaveheard that it wasn’t Mick McBride who killed Aurora.”
“Just recently. But it’s been so long since the murders now. What happened happened, Ford. That dude wasn’t up to much anyway!”
“Are you saying you’ve accomplished more?”
“You arrogant ass!” he said.
“I’m just finally speaking the truth instead of praising you for nothing like Mom does.” Suddenly he remembered the fact that Houston had been hanging out with Claxton again. “You came to North Hampton Beach to make sure I didn’t discover your dirty little secret, didn’t you? You and Kevin Claxton havebeen doing everything you can to keep the truth from coming out. He’s the one who broke into the cottage, because he was trying to scare Lucy away.”
“I don’t know. It’s not like he’d admit that to me. All I can tell you is thatIdidn’t hurt anyone,” Houston insisted. “I didn’t steal anything, either. I just went with him that night. That’s it. And when everything went wrong, I ran out of there.”
“You didn’t stop him, and you didn’t get help.”
“I tried to stop him. That’s how I got hurt! And I was nineteen, Ford. I didn’t know what to do.”
“So you protected a murderer? How didReggieget hold of that baseball card collection?”
A tortured sigh came through the phone. “Kevin told me he threw it in the dumpster behind the school. He wasn’t even sure why he took it after what happened. He’d come there to get it, so he just grabbed it when he left. That’s what he said. He told me he didn’t want it all to be for nothing. But then he realized he couldn’t hang on to it, and he couldn’t sell it, either—couldn’t do anything that might lead back to him. So he threw it away, and I don’t know what happened to it from there.”
Someone must’ve found it and traded it to Reggie for a set of tires.
Ford rubbed his temples. He believed Houston wasn’t the one who’d harmed those people. He even believed it hadn’t been Houston’s idea to break in. Houston was lazy and weak and did some stupid things, but he’d never been angry or violent.
Still, he’d been there, part of the whole mess...
“Shit,” Ford muttered.Heheld the key to Mick McBride’s release—to what Lucy wanted more than anything else in the world—but to get it for her he’d have to give up his brother.
31
Lucy called Lester Friedman almost every day of the following week with a different idea each time on how they might be able to track down a match for the DNA that’d been found in the Matteos’ sink. She’d told him she wanted to get a sample from all the people who’d lived in the trailer park at the time, if she could find them. Chances were good it was someone who’d lived there; that was how the perpetrator had known about the baseball card collection and that the Matteos were supposed to be out of town.
