Twelve-year-old MAGGIE PINE sits behind a cluttered desk. File boxes and mountains of papers fill the space. In the background stands a homemade crime wall, complete with red string zigzagging from newspaper clippings to photographs to other clues mounted on the board by pushpins. Maggie wears a T-shirt with the picture of a horse on it, metallic braces on her teeth.

MAGGIE

My brother Matt loves movies and watches, like, a trillion. So one night my best friend was sleeping over and we were spying on him, like we always do, and I saw part of this movie, I don’t remember the name of it, where these lawyers, like, saved the day by digging through boxes at the clerk’s office. So it gave me the idea.

C.U. on Maggie’s hands digging through a box. She retrieves a sheaf of papers. She’s beaming, proud of the find.

MAGGIE

So when we went back to Nebraska to visit my grandpa one time, I went to the county clerk and told her I was doing a school project—it wasn’t a lie; Mrs. Melhoose said I could—and the clerk let me dig through the old case files. And I found this.

INT. STUDIO

EVAN PINE sits on a stool, the background dark.

EVAN

Maggie brings me copies of notes from a couple of police interviews. One about a suspicious man at the house party that night, the last place Charlotte was seen alive. The other, a tip from an anonymous caller who said Charlotte’s murder looked a lot like two others in Kansas. After Danny went to prison, several other girls in Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri were killed in the same way: their heads smashed in with large rocks.

INSERT – NEWSPAPER HEADLINE

“Break in the Smasher Case: Plainville Man Arrested for String of Grisly Murders.”

EVAN

The prosecution failed to turn over the reports. If we could’ve looked into the Smasher back then, we might not be here right now. The failure to give Danny’s lawyer the reports broke the law; they’re required to turn over exculpatory evidence. And we got our first big break for seeking post-conviction relief.

INT. PINE FAMILY HOME – HOME OFFICE

Evan and Maggie sit at the desk together studying the case file.

EVAN (V.O.)

From then on it’s been Magpie and me. Holmes and Watson, though I’m not sure who’s Holmes and who’s Watson.

CHAPTER 12

MAGGIE PINE

BEFORE

“Your boyfriend’s here.” Harper moved her eyebrows up and down.

Maggie had already seen Eric at the doorway to the high school’s tutoring center. She rolled her eyes. “Cut it out.”

“Seriously, he’s into you. He only comes on the days you’re here. Like, he’s literally, almost, like, stalking you.”