CHAPTER 92

GRANT

Our investigation took a bit of a wandering path because so many things just didn't line up. It was like an onion, with more layers and people and different stories the more we peeled things back. We had all this evidence that seemed to point to him plotting to kill the girls ... but then the girls were safe, and the wife was dead. It was a clusterfuck, pardon my French. We finally got enough to arrest him, but I didn't like it.

—Detective Hal Heinwright, Pasadena Police Department

I was in general population for eighteen hours, which was the closest to hell I've ever been. I tried to keep to myself, but I stood out, and that wasn't a good thing. I had a black eye and a swollen jaw, and I was missing a front tooth by the time they moved me into solitary confinement.

At least in prison, I could see and understand the dangers. In my marriage, I had been in a Venus flytrap of hell, stepping in booby traps right and left, completely ignorant to them all.

I wasn't sure I was going to get out of this, and it was terrifying to think of the fact that I was minutes away from being in this same situation, but with three dead victims, including my daughter. In that alternative scenario, Perla would have still been alive and vomiting out all sorts of bullshit to the cops. It would have buried me. I was having a hard enough time keeping my head aboveground with all the existing "evidence" against me.

I'd always known my wife was smart, but I hadn't realized she was evil. My cell phone was recovered from Perla's pocket, along with hers. Mine had a long litany of internet searches for "Folcrum murder," "send untraceable emails," "how to drug someone," and dozens of other incriminating topics. All the searches had been made in the middle of the night, the histories quickly cleared without any time spent in the browser results, and Paul thinks we can prove that the phone events were part of Perla's attempt to set me up, not actual searches on my part.

My phone had also turned off the security cameras, but one of the Scotts' had captured a thin dressed-in-black figure punching in a gate code just before the madness started. That was where Perla had gone. To enter Paige's code in an attempt to place her at the scene. That video is another point in my favor, but I'm not sure it's enough.

The picture the prosecution was painting of me didn't make sense. I'd supposedly been in cahoots with someone who fancied themselves the original Folcrum Party killer—they won't agree that he was involved in the original crime—and me and that killer had teamed up to kill Perla and decorate the crime scene to resemble the Folcrum Party.

It's ridiculous ... but as a scientist, I could agree that the data points connected.

My "growing relationship" with the nanny. Flirty texts. Requests for her to purchase identical items (like the cupcakes) from the original scene. The frantic texts the night of the crime.

My emails with this TFK guy. There weren't many, but they created another dataset of support.

"My" rule that Sophie could only have two friends at the party. Why had I let her communicate it to Sophie as my directive?

And lastly, my visits to Leewood. I'd screwed myself with those. They had been harmless at the time, but now ... given this angle the police had adopted ... they looked like I had been collaborating with him. Plotting, with my visits increasing in frequency until right before the party.

The thing was ... Perla had expected to kill the three girls, and all her setup of me was designed to point to that goal. It was a small flaw, but it was there and supported my story that she had planned to frame me, gone to kill the girls, discovered they were missing, and killed herself.

At least, to me it supported the story. And it wasn't just that angle of logic that was on my side.

Sophie, Bridget, and Mandolin had blood work and urine tests done, with results that tested positive for Ambien. They all stated that I hadn't given them anything to eat, that everything had been served by Perla.

Even though they'd found texts from my phone instructing Paige to buy a Ouija board, playing cards, and cupcakes, my fingerprints weren't on any of the items.

A psychiatrist had stepped forward, revealing that Perla had visited her thirteen times in the last three months and had been increasingly critical and suggestive of the possibility of me having an affair with the nanny and also an obsession with the Folcrum Party. The doctor's suspicions about Perla's intentions had grown, and she had categorized her as narcissistic and a potential sociopath, though she had not shared either diagnosis with Perla.

And there was the call from the soccer academy, who shared that Perla had told them that Sophie was dead, weeks before the night of her party. It wasn't proof of intent, but it was a strike against her and evidence that my wife was batshit crazy.

My defense wasn't ironclad, but there were enough things that—if this made it to a jury trial—could cast reasonable doubt. No one could prove that I had my hand on Perla's when the knife dragged across her throat. No one could prove that I'd done anything other than witness a horrible event.

The psychiatrist's diagnosis irked me, and it was embarrassing that a stranger had seen the truth in Perla when I hadn't. Granted, Dr. Maddox was professionally trained, but still. I had seen enough evidence of Perla's lack of empathy, cruel behavior, and manipulation that I should have realized the dangers, or at least been more aware than I was. Instead, I let my affection and attachment to Lucy's memory trigger this ideology that, by loving and taking care of Perla, I was, by extension, giving those things to Lucy.

The thought was ridiculous, but one that had fed more than a decade of marriage to a woman who had stabbed my sister over a dozen times and watched her bleed to death.

I didn't regret killing my wife. I regretted not doing it sooner. I regretted that it took the endangerment of my daughter in order for me to take action.

"Wultz." A guard unlocked the cell door and gestured for me. "You have a visitor."