Keller drained the rest of her glass.

“Do you think there’s a connection with the father’s accounting firm?” Bob asked as he poured her a refill.

Keller’s money-laundering investigation into Marconi LLP was the only reason she’d been dragged into this mess with the Pines.

“I doubt it. Evan Pine wasn’t a big player at the firm. He was only on my interview list because he’d been fired,” Keller said. Fired employees were always the most willing to dish dirt.

“It’s a big coincidence, though,” Bob said. “The firm is in bed with the cartel, and the family dies in Mexico.”

“That’s what Fisher said, but it’s a stretch. He’s just using the connection to get us involved with a high-profile case, curry favor with State and headquarters.”

“So you think it was just an accident?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Excerpt From

A Violent Nature

Season 1/Episode 3

“You Fucking Idiots”

BLACK SCREEN

The sound of a murmuring crowd is broken by THE JUDGE’S voice announcing the jury has reached a verdict. FADE IN ON:

INT. COURTROOM VIDEO FOOTAGE

The judge reads the verdict, and the spectator section is a mix of cheers and sobbing. The judge calls for order, when a man rises. He’s pointing angrily at the judge, then the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, his finger landing on the jury box.

EVAN PINE

You fucking idiots! Shame on you, shame on all of you.

JUDGE

Order! I will not have outbursts in this courtroom.

EVAN

He’s innocent. You fools. You fucking idiots!

TWO SECURITY OFFICERS confront Evan Pine, a struggle ensues, and he’s dragged from the courtroom.

EVAN

He’s innocent. My son is innocent!

CHAPTER 8

EVAN PINE

BEFORE

Evan examined the wild-eyed man with curiosity. With the wrinkled shirt and unruly hair, the man looked like one of those homeless street preachers who hold Mass outside the subway. Or an angry cable news pundit on a bender.

“With the advent of DNA,” the man ranted, “we learned something that people still just don’t seem to get: we lock up a shocking number of innocents. And you know what? About a quarter of them confessed. So when people say innocent people don’t confess to crimes they didn’t commit, well, it’s horseshit. And teenagers falsely confess at rates much higher than adults. They just tell the police what they want to hear. One study of people exonerated through DNA found that forty percent were kids who falsely confessed.…”

Evan clicked the mouse on his laptop and paused Netflix. Horseshit. It wasn’t a word he’d normally use. But there Evan was, for twenty million viewers to see. He’d once made the mistake of reading the comments section on one of the forums for the documentary.

The father has lost his shit.

He’s so devastated, he can’t see straight.

Free Danny Pine!

Boo fucking hoo, I hope his son rots for what he did to that poor girl.

Off-camera, the documentary filmmakers, Judy and Ira Adler, were quietly stoking Evan’s flame. They meant well, the Adlers. They believed Danny was innocent. But in the aftermath, Evan couldn’t help being angry with them. For exploiting their private lives for public entertainment. For getting his hopes up. He clicked the mouse, and his face was animated again.

A voice spoke from off-screen—Judy’s. “But if Danny wasn’t involved, how did he know that Charlotte’s head had been crushed with a rock?”

“He didn’t know anything,” Evan replied, angry at the question. “Those two cops, they fed him all the details. Watch the tape, for Christ’s sake.”

The screen jumped to the now infamous interrogation video. It showed Danny with his head down on the table in the windowless interview room. The cops had picked him up at the house early that morning. Evan had been out of town for work. Liv had been running errands, and had missed the calls from Maggie.

The burly cop, Detective Ron Sampson, slammed his open hand on the table, making a loud smack. Danny jolted up, his face puffy and tear-soaked.

The other cop, Wendy White, with her frizzy hair and circa-1985 bangs, said, “Just tell us what you did, and we’ll work this out. You can go home.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Stop lying!” Sampson said, his voice showing the frustration of several hours of interrogation. Evan felt a sting of guilt that no one—not Evan, not Liv, not a lawyer—had been there to help his son. Danny had turned eighteen just two weeks before. Technically an adult, so the cops didn’t need to notify his parents. Still, if Evan had caught a different flight and not been in the air, or if Liv had just been home and … Evan stopped himself, deciding not to go down that road again.

Sampson continued playing bad cop: “We have your prints on the rock.” A lie.

White: “Just tell us the truth and we can get you home. We can talk to your mom and dad and get this sorted out. I’m sure it wasn’t something you planned.”

Danny shook his head.

Sampson: “Let’s just lock him up now. I’m sure his cellies will have a good ol’ time with a firm young man like him.”

White: “No, not yet,” she said in a soft tone. “Just tell us the truth, Danny, and we’ll get you home.”

Exhausted and tearful, Danny finally said it: “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” White said.

“I did it.”

“Did what?” Sampson said. He put a reassuring hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Tell us what you did to Charlotte.”

“I hurt her with a rock.”

“Good job,” White said. “What’d you do with the rock?”

“I, ah, threw it at her.” It came out more like a question.

“You know you couldn’t throw a rock that big, Danny,” Sampson said, yanking his hand from Danny’s shoulder. “I’m done,” the cop said, standing, the chair scraping loudly against the linoleum floor. He made a show of pulling out handcuffs.

“What’d you do with the heavy rock?” White continued, her voice urgent, like she was trying to head off her partner.

Danny shook his head, said something indiscernible.

“You already told us you did it, and we have the proof. The only thing that’ll help is if you tell us what you did to her head.”

Danny swallowed. “I hit her with the rock.”

“Where did you hit her?” Sampson said, sitting down again.

“Her head.”

“Good boy,” White said. “You’re doing great.”

“How many times did you hit her with the rock?” Sampson continued.

“Once.”

“Stop lying, Danny,” Sampson said, “we have the proof.”

“Just tell the truth and we’ll work this out, we can get you out of here,” White said. “One hit wouldn’t cause her head to smash in like that.”

Danny gulped down a sob.

“Just tell the truth,” White said.

“Two times.”

“No,” Sampson said.

“Three,” Danny replied.

“Okay, good job Danny, you’re doing great,” White said. “Now why did you do it? Was it because you’d had a fight at the party?”

He nodded, his eyes on the floor.

“Great job, Danny.”

“And you then used the wheelbarrow and took her to the creek.”

Danny put his head on the table. “Okay.”

The two cops looked at each other, and Sampson gave White a tiny nod. They had what they needed.

Danny lifted his head and looked at both of the detectives. In a quiet voice, he said, “Can I go home now?”

* * *

Evan stabbed the laptop keyboard with his finger, shutting down Netflix. No matter how many times he watched the video, his blood always flowed hot, his fists clenched. He remembered Danny crying when Evan finally got to the station house. No sound was more heartbreaking than your child sobbing. Danny was shell-shocked, asking when he could go home, worried because he had a school project due on Monday.

Evan clutched the bottle on the counter and poured himself a large glass of Scotch. It worked as well as—no, better than—his therapy session earlier that day.

The house was quiet. Liv and Tommy were in Nebraska, seeing to Liv’s father. He’d been causing problems at the nursing home again, and Liv needed to convince them not to kick him out. Maggie was staying the night with a friend. If there was ever a good time, it was now.

At the kitchen counter, the lights dimmed and shades drawn, he clicked the mouse again and opened the banking site to the savings account. Less than two thousand dollars. The checking was no better. And the mortgage was due in a week. He’d managed to conceal his deception—the tens of thousands he’d spent on lawyers and investigators for Danny. But the reckoning was coming. He imagined Liv seeing the statement for the first time. Evan telling her he’d been fired, that he’d been pretending to go to work.