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Back The Dead Husband Save as PDF
Contents ( 85)
  3. Contents
  4. Part I
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Part II
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-One
  37. Thirty-Two
  38. Thirty-Three
  39. Thirty-Four
  40. Thirty-Five
  41. Thirty-Six
  42. Thirty-Seven
  43. Thirty-Eight
  44. Thirty-Nine
  45. Forty
  46. Forty-One
  47. Forty-Two
  48. Forty-Three
  49. Part III
  50. Forty-Four
  51. Forty-Five
  52. Forty-Six
  53. Forty-Seven
  54. Forty-Eight
  55. Forty-Nine
  56. Fifty
  57. Fifty-One
  58. Fifty-Two
  59. Fifty-Three
  60. Fifty-Four
  61. Fifty-Five
  62. Fifty-Six
  63. Fifty-Seven
  64. Fifty-Eight
  65. Fifty-Nine
  66. Sixty
  67. Sixty-One
  68. Sixty-Two
  69. Sixty-Three
  70. Sixty-Four
  71. Sixty-Five
  72. Sixty-Six
  73. Sixty-Seven
  74. Sixty-Eight
  75. Sixty-Nine
  76. Seventy
  77. Seventy-One
  78. Seventy-Two
  79. One
  80. Two
  81. Reading Group Guide
  82. A Conversation with the Author
  83. Acknowledgments
  84. About the Author

November 3

That was it. For some reason, the transcript just ended with Cora going to the kitchen and getting some water while Detective Patterson and Logan Yates discussed house projects. Maybe the battery died on the recorder. Perhaps Logan Yates used his power of persuasion to keep the rest of the conversation off the record. Whatever the reason, Colin felt like he’d read the first half of a mystery story and was denied the satisfaction of an ending.

But what he had read pulsed tiny bursts of electricity through his skin. To a lay person, the transcript was dull. But to Colin, someone who’d become increasingly intrigued with the Yates family history, it was like unveiling an entombed artifact, one that would surely provide clues about who these people were.

The first thing to hit Colin was the odd fact that he and Detective Michael Patterson each conducted interviews of the separate Yates sisters twenty-two years apart in the Bury family home. That itself didn’t yield any new information, but what were the odds? They’d both sat in the living room and asked the women about their involvement with a potential crime.

Of course, it was clear Cora Yates wasn’t a suspect, just a witness. Patterson outright stated that, and there was nothing in the transcript to infer otherwise.

What had struck Colin as a red flag was how quickly Cora stopped the interview and left the room within just minutes. Patterson would have made sure the interviewee was comfortable when they began, likely suggesting she get something to eat or drink. Anything to relax her. So Cora leaving the room to get a drink was clearly a chance to regroup. And it came right after Patterson asked her what she and Caleb Benner had discussed.

No one would likely ever know the answer to that. Cora was probably the only person still alive who could say. But through his conversation with Chief Sike from the Bury PD and after reading the transcripts from some of the other kids at the party that night, Colin had pieced together the last known hours of Caleb Benner’s contact with anyone.

Caleb Benner, sixteen, was one of eighteen kids to show up at Ron Finch’s house for an impromptu Friday-night party. Finch’s parents were only out for dinner and a game night with friends, so all the kids knew the party was going to start and end early, and Finch had enlisted Caleb’s help in cleaning up any trace of the party before the parents came home. But Caleb had started drinking, and Finch said he knew early on he couldn’t rely on him to help, so he asked another friend instead.

After a few drinks, Caleb apparently told his friend Rick Mastington he wanted to try to get alone with Cora. That he was attracted to her and thought she felt the same way. Mastington didn’t think Cora and Caleb knew each other well and figured it was the alcohol talking. But sure enough, Mastington (and others) witnessed Caleb walk up to Cora, pull her away from the friends she was talking to, and lean in as they had a private, side conversation. This lasted until just before 8:00 p.m., at which point Caleb abruptly left the party alone. In his interview, Mastington told the police that wasn’t necessarily unusual. Caleb was known to be aloof and often would break away from a group to be alone. Mastington figured he’d struck out with Cora and left the party sulking.