Detective Murray was right, though. All they’d needed to move the investigation forward, it turned out, was one kid to talk. In the beginning, when the police were asking parents to voluntarily come forward, no one had anything to say. They were sorry to hear what had happened, of course, and they hoped that the police were able to catch whoever did it. But it was a different story when, armed with June’s evidence, the police were able to go to parents and say, your child has been named as a perpetrator, would you be interested in discussing a plea deal? That caused the floodgates to open. Over the last week, parents had been bringing their terrified kids into the station ready to strike a deal. They asked for leniency and were only too happy to give up the details of what had happened in exchange.

The picture that emerged was grim. Dozens of kids had made their way to the property, carefully carpooling or leaving their cars on the road to escape notice. They’d entered the house, knowing full well that they had no right to be there, and proceeded to tear it apart, piece by piece, as they cheered each other on. By the time the police heard these stories, they’d taken on a slightly mythic status with the kids: Will O’Connor showing up with a keg and throwing a hammer through a glass door, his brother, Trip, dragging a toilet through the hall and launching it off the deck. Hunter Finch, or as most kids knew him, Will O’Connor’s rich friend, had handed out pills. The names of other kids they hadn’t heard of yet started coming up: one who set a fire on the deck, and another who’d brought in spray paint to tag the walls. Two kids had sold lines of cocaine in an upstairs bathroom, and another brought the bottle rockets that had damaged the deck. It wasn’t just a party that had gotten out of control. It was a party that was designed to get out of control.

Once Detective Murray had the confessions, Jake put together the charges and brought them to Hal for approval with an air of triumph. This was a real case, he thought. It would be covered in the papers. Not just the local one, but the Philly papers too, and maybe even on TV. It was his first big chance to make a name for himself as a prosecutor. Hal had shown little interest in the case after he’d told Jake to concentrate on the O’Connor boys, but Jake expected that, given the new evidence, he would happily sign off on the charges, which ranged in severity from summary trespassing to criminal mischief and corruption of minors.

What Jake didn’t expect was for Hal to blow a gasket.