You’re damn right—forgive my language. I’ve known Danny’s mother since high school. And I knew Charlotte. After my wife passed, I used to eat at the diner a few times a week where she worked. My son went to school with all these kids. And it offends me that the prosecutor had a report about an unknown man at the party that night, and a separate report about eerily similar crimes in a neighboring state, and he doesn’t give this stuff to the defense. That’s not how a fair system operates.

INTERVIEWER (O.S.)

You believe the Unknown Partygoer and the Smasher are the same person?

NOAH

To paraphrase my son: “Duh.”

CHAPTER 28

OLIVIA PINE

BEFORE

Liv forced down another sip of the awful convenience store coffee as she parked at the lot next to the city center in Lincoln.

She made her way up the steps to the State Capitol building, through security, and to the elevators leading to the interior offices of the ornate structure. She recalled making this same journey two years ago, just after the documentary came out. Back then she’d come to see if Noah could convince Governor Turner—a toad-faced sycophant who’d been in office for three decades—to support Danny’s petition for a pardon. A long shot, yes. But Noah had played an important role in ‘A Violent Nature’: the crusading politician out for justice. His handsome face was interspersed throughout the ten episodes. The documentarians were particularly fond of filming Noah driving from his home in Adair to the capital as he waxed poetic about criminal justice reform. His defense of Danny and condemnation of the system that convicted him were eloquent.

It didn’t hurt that Noah was from Adair. He’d been the mayor before his election to lieutenant governor. His son was a classmate of Danny’s. But most of all, he had a very personal connection to that ugly night: Noah’s son had thrown the house party where Charlotte was last seen alive. Most politicians would have tried to distance themselves from the case, but Noah owned it. Liv never knew if it was out of loyalty to her, or guilt about the party where Danny had consumed so much alcohol that he couldn’t remember anything about that night.

The documentary made Noah an internet heartthrob, the dashing widower-politician trying to free an innocent man. Women of a certain age made suggestive comments about him on Facebook. He’d participated in a speaking tour about the problem of wrongful convictions. He was even invited on Bill Maher and some of the political shows, a rarity for the lieutenant governor of a flyover state.

Liv walked into Noah’s office. The receptionist, a pretty woman in her twenties, greeted her with a plastic smile.

“Hi,” Liv said, “I’m Olivia Pine. I’m hoping to get a moment with Lieutenant Governor Brawn.”