Chapter 9: What Marsh Said
Devin Marsh did not look like a man who expected consequences.
He sat across from Detective Flores in the interview room with his attorney beside him and his jacket still perfectly pressed, and he spoke in the measured, reasonable tone of someone who had spent years being the smartest person in every room he entered.
I wasn't in the room.
Flores told me about it afterward, in the parking lot, leaning against her car with her arms crossed.
"He admitted to the financial relationship with Mark," she said.
"Framed it as a standard private loan.
Said he had no knowledge of how Mark was generating the repayment funds."
"And Emma?"
"He said he had no knowledge of any plan involving a child.
Said if Mark told us otherwise, Mark was lying to reduce his own exposure." She paused.
"He was very smooth about it."
"But?"
"But Mark's statement gave us fourteen months of documented communication.
Specific instructions.
Specific dates.
Marsh told Mark — in writing, in a text message — and I'm quoting from the transcript — 'The buyer needs proof the compound is viable in a real-world scenario.
Use someone small.
Make it look like an accident.
Clean it up within 48 hours.'"
I stood very still.
"He put that in a text message," I said.
"People who believe they're untouchable get careless." Flores uncrossed her arms.
"His attorney went pale when we read it back to him.
Marsh's expression didn't change, which tells you something about who he is."
"What's he being charged with?"
"Conspiracy to commit aggravated assault on a minor.
Illegal trafficking of a controlled pharmaceutical compound.
Coercion.
And we're adding a financial fraud count based on Malcolm's records — Marsh has been running the same debt scheme on at least four other people we've identified so far." She looked at me.
"He's not walking away from this."
I exhaled slowly.
"And Malcolm?"
"Cooperative witness.
The DA is recommending reduced charges given the voluntary disclosure and the evidence he provided.
He'll likely face a fine and probation." She paused.
"He asked me to tell you he's sorry.
Again."
"He already told me."
"I know.
He wanted to make sure it was said twice."
I looked at the sky.
It was a flat, pale grey, the kind of sky that doesn't commit to anything.
"Rachel?" I asked.
"Full immunity in exchange for her statement.
She told us everything — the party, the vial, Mark's instructions, the alibi coaching.
All of it." Flores looked at me carefully.
"She also told us she tried to stop Mark three days before the party.
That she called him and said she wouldn't do it.
That he told her if she backed out, he'd tell Marsh that she was the one who'd been skimming from the loan."
I turned that over.
"He threatened her too," I said.
"Yes."
I thought about Rachel in the back seat of my car at five in the morning, her arm around Emma, talking about gardens and strawberries.
"She made a terrible choice," I said.
"But she didn't make it freely."
"That's what the DA concluded." Flores pushed off from the car.
"Mrs.
Calloway — this is going to take months to fully resolve.
The trials, the sentencing.
You know that."
"I know."
"Are you going to be all right?"
I thought about the question seriously, the way she'd asked it seriously.
"Ask me in six months," I said.
She almost smiled.
"Fair enough."
She got in her car.
May you like
I stood in the parking lot for another minute, alone, and let the grey sky sit over me without trying to figure out what it meant.
Then I got in my car and drove to pick up Emma from school.
