He had been through Michaela’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy, Marcus’s ongoing bitterness over losing Gemma to his older brother, and Muriel’s year-long absence to “find herself.”

Of everything he had read so far, the idea of staid, stuffy Muriel taking off for adventures in parts unknown was the most fascinating. True, twenty years ago Muriel had been a much younger woman, and presumably she had not been quite so entrenched in her garden club and charity work. Even so.

She’s the worst possible influence on Mike.The more she nags, the more Mike is determined to do the absolute opposite.Ireally thought we were making progress, but it’s all unraveling.

Gemma’s journals were a dream come true for a biographer or historian. She was not only frank, she often explained context, almost as though she had anticipated her journal being used one day as a guidebook for a stranger working his way through the intricacies of the Arlington family’s relationships.

And not just the Arlingtons’ family relationships.

Poor Pierce. Brian loves him so. Pierce puts up with it with mostly good grace when Brian follows him around like a puppy. Brian is so cute when Pierce deigns to notice him. So is Pierce for that matter. He’s such a serious boy and he’s so embarrassed and self-conscious beneath that barrage of adoration. Brian is always trying to climb into his lap or hug him or drag him off to play. Pierce turns so red even his ears get pink.

Brian seems so grown up compared to Chloe, but when I see him next to Pierce I realize how little he really is.Ihope they all grow up to be wonderful friends...

* * *

Griff woke much later to find the pink-and-blue globe lamp still shining brightly in the otherwise dusky room. The phone was ringing.

The sound was jarring and unfamiliar. Not his cell, he realized groggily. The jangle came from downstairs. It had to be the old wall phone that connected the guest cottage to the main house.

The brass bells on the phone continued to shrill through the dark cottage.

He put Gemma’s journal aside, shoved back the blankets, and stumbled downstairs. He didn’t know where the lights were and he stubbed his toe on one of the footstools, and then banged his ankle against a table leg before he got to the phone.

Griff fumbled the hand piece off its rest. “Hello?”

At first he thought it was a child crying on the other end. His scalp prickled in horror. Then he realized it was an adult voice mimicking a child’s. That was worse.

The crying stopped and a sing-song voice came on the line. “You better go home, Mr. Hadley,” the puppet voice said. “You better go home while you still can!”

Chapter Twelve

Through the bulletproof windows Griff could see great, gleaming spools of razor wire and fencing. Beyond the tall fence was “the yard” flanked by cell blocks and guard towers.

Johnson was still speaking. He had a soft, pleasant voice, which was surprisingly soothing. Griff had asked him, “What do you think happened to Brian?” and Johnson had been talking ever since. Talking but not saying much.

“They never found a body, right? The kid’s still alive.”

“They never found Jimmy Hoffa either,” Griff said. “But I don’t think anyone believes he’s alive.”

“Shit no, Hoffa’s dead. But nobody had any reason to kill Brian. He’s out there somewhere.”

If only that was true. If only it was that simple. No one had any reason to kill the Lindbergh baby either. No one had any reason—good reason—to kill any child, but children died all the time. Sometimes by accident, which was what Griff thought it must have been in this case, because Johnson was a gentle giant of a man. His curly hair was gray now. His eyes were soft and dark as molasses.

Then Griff remembered that the first time Johnson had been incarcerated was for attempted armed robbery.

“They’d have found him if he was dead,” Johnson repeated. “You never saw so many police as they had looking for that little kid.”

Because of its grim history, Sing Sing had been renamed Ossining Correctional Facility in 1970, but the name hadn’t stuck. You couldn’t fight a past like that one, and the prison was now known as Sing Sing Correctional Facility. By any name it was a maximum security prison incarcerating roughly two thousand very bad people.

Griff had never been inside a prison before. Jails, yes, but prison—let alone a legendary maximum security prison, was a different thing. Not that Johnson seemed unduly dangerous or the guards unduly intimidating. It wasn’t like Griff feared a prison break was imminent. No, it was that this interview with Odell Johnson was supposed to provide the core of his book. He had one shot at getting this right, and Johnson was not helping.

It had not been easy to get permission to interview Johnson. True, it wasn’t as tough as it would have been in 1892 when prisoners were allowed two annual visits from family only. Johnson was willing to be interviewed, but previous attempts by other media personnel had been blocked by the Arlington family who objected to the “exploitation or commercialization” of their tragedy; proof that the Arlingtons were still very influential people. The fact that the Arlingtons—Jarrett Arlington at least—had given the venture his blessing was the only reason Griff had finally been granted access.

Outside the window he watched a small bird start to land on the coil of barbed wire, have second thoughts, and fly away again.

“Is it true you had a relationship with Michaela Arlington?” Griff asked, cutting off Johnson’s theory that Brian was waiting for the right moment to let the world know he was still alive.

Johnson stopped talking. He looked startled and then he laughed. “Man, that chick was crazy.”

“How crazy?” asked Griff.

“Wild. Always trying to prove how bad she was.” Johnson shook his head. “That’s all it was for her. Trying to show her daddy how bad she was.”

“How bad was she?”

Johnson chuckled. “Not as bad as she wished she was.”

“You said it wasn’t serious for her. Was it serious for you?”

“Naw. I was just having some fun.”

No, it wasn’t going well. In his fantasies, Griff had imagined Johnson being coaxed into breaking his silence and spilling the whole sad story. Clearly that wasn’t going to happen.

“Did you like working for the Arlingtons?”

“That was the happiest I ever been,” Johnson said solemnly. “See, I wouldn’t have done anything to wreck that.”

“When did you get the idea to write the ransom letter?”

“That morning,” Johnson said. “It was on the radio about how they couldn’t find the boy, but there hadn’t been any demand for ransom, so they were sure it was an accident.” Johnson gave another of those warm chuckles, and this time Griff’s scalp crawled. “So I wrote a letter and I pretended to be the kidnapper.”

“You didn’t think that was kind of a cruel thing to do?”

“No. I wasn’t a kidnapper,” Johnson pointed out, as though this was the point.

But then again maybe it was the point.

“I was in too big a hurry and I blew it,” Johnson said. “I should have hidden that money somewhere else. But I was afraid if there was a real kidnapper, he’d get in there first. So I rushed it. You have to have a plan. I didn’t have one.”

“Yeah, that was too bad,” Griff said absently. He was running out of questions.

His gaze circled the shabby visitors’ room. Were the walls faded green or dirty beige? If it was hard to imagine living like the Arlingtons, it was even harder to imagine living like this. Not a moment of privacy or independence. Nothing of beauty. Nothing to inspire. The ceiling was low, hung with fluorescent strips. The faded, slightly curling posters on the wall warned against a variety of evils—too little too late.