“I knew him.”
Nora said, “Where is the phone?”
Evan looked at the recorder.
“I want a deal.”
“You don’t get one before I know if you’re telling the truth.”
“You find the phone, you’ll know.”
“Where?”
Evan swallowed.
“Bunker Hill parking service corridor. The old maintenance room under the law library annex. There’s a gray electrical cabinet on the west wall. Bottom panel is loose. Phone is behind it, wrapped in a microfiber cloth.”
Nora stared at him.
That was too specific to ignore.
“How do you know?”
“Because I put it there.”
The room went quiet.
Evan did not look proud.
He did not look ashamed enough either.
“Mercer gave it to me after she was dead,” he said. “He told me if police found it, they’d twist the messages and charge me anyway. He said I was already the perfect suspect. He said the only way to survive was to let him control the defense from the beginning.”
Nora’s voice stayed low.
“You hid evidence from a murder victim’s phone.”
“Yes.”
“Then sat through trial while her mother listened to people call her daughter confused and reckless.”
Evan’s face tightened.
“You think I don’t know what I did?”
“I think you know exactly what you did. I’m trying to figure out whether you know what he did.”
Evan leaned forward.
“Find the phone.”
They did.
Not immediately. Nothing in real investigations happens with the speed people expect from television. Nora had to call James Keller. Keller had to contact a judge. Officers had to secure the location. A warrant had to be prepared, reviewed, and signed under emergency grounds because evidence might be at risk now that the accusation had become public. The maintenance corridor belonged to a county building adjacent to the courthouse complex, a place full of pipes, old storage lockers, janitorial closets, and locked electrical cabinets.
At 6:12 p.m., three hours after the verdict, a crime scene technician removed the bottom panel of a gray cabinet on the west wall.
Behind it was a bundle wrapped in a gray microfiber cloth.
Inside was Mia Langford’s phone.
Nora stood in the corridor and looked at it without touching.
Fourteen months.
Seven weeks of trial.
A not guilty verdict.
A mother broken in public.
And the missing piece had been less than half a mile from the courtroom the entire time.
“Bag it,” she said.
Her voice sounded calm.
It was not.
Grant Mercer was still at the courthouse when Nora returned.
Not because he had agreed to stay, but because his attempt to leave had become tangled in the fact that half the press corps was still outside and his own client’s accusation had turned into breaking news. His phone would not stop ringing. His associates wanted instructions. His publicist wanted a statement. His wife wanted to know what was happening. Grant wanted the room to understand that he was not a suspect simply because a man he had just saved decided to have a public breakdown.
When Nora entered the security room, Grant stood.
“Detective Vance,” he said. “I assume this performance has gone far enough.”
She closed the door.
“Sit down.”
“I will not.”
“Then stand.”
Grant looked at her carefully.
Something in her tone made him reassess.
“I have nothing to say without counsel.”
“That’s your right.”
“Good. Then we’re done.”
“No,” Nora said. “We found the phone.”
For the first time, Grant Mercer did not respond quickly.
It was less than a second.
But Nora saw it.
The mind behind the face missing a step.
“What phone?” he asked.
Nora almost admired the discipline.
“Mia Langford’s.”
Grant’s eyes did not move from hers.
“That would appear to raise questions for your acquitted suspect, not for me.”