I shrugged. “I don’t know. The Ficcos were rich even when I was here, so someone that grew up filthy rich could potentially view other people as expendable, and Anderson does have that prior rape allegation . . . but this is just blind violence. Fury and hatred. The defense will argue that this kind of fury would’ve expressed itself between the boys and Patty before this, but I didn’t see anything in the file to indicate they didn’t get along. In fact there was that statement from Patty’s father that Patty liked Anderson and Steven. They probably liked her, too. Why kill her like that just for fun?”

“There’s evidence Anderson was out of his mind on drugs that night. People do all sorts of insane things in that state of mind.”

“Yeah, but Steven was there, too, and he wasn’t high. So to buy your theory, the jury’s gotta believe that they killed someone they’ve known almost their whole life for fun—and after being seen with her by witnesses. And then they just handed us their convictions on a silver platter.” I shook my head. “It’s too easy, and when it’s too easy, something else is going on.”

“You haven’t watched the confession yet.”

I nodded. “True, but I’ll bet you anything it’s not much of a confession. I mean, probably enough for a jury, but, I’m telling you, the defense will argue this was personal. Someone was either hurt by Patty or scared about something she knew and wanted to send a message to others that know it, too. Could also be just a random psychopath who stumbled across her, but I don’t think so. The body wasn’t hidden well. This is someone filled with rage masked as lust. Again, yeah, I think you got the right guys, but that has nothing to do with a court of law. A good defense attorney is going to have a field day with this case.” I hesitated and felt my heart in my throat as a nervous energy shot through me, an energy from a memory that was still too fresh to analyze without intense pain. “But I’ve been wrong before.”

She sighed. “You don’t think I knew all that? It is what it is. We go forward with the case we got, not the one we want.”

I closed the file. “You gotta start over. From square one. Get some real detectives down here and reinterview all the witnesses, get some people from the state crime lab, and a blood expert—but only to look at photos since the scene is deteriorated—and you got to have a medical examiner go over the body with a fine-tooth comb.”

“We can’t, she was buried months ago.”

“Then you gotta exhume the body.”

“Her father is very religious, no way he would allow it.”