Mitchell turned the photo over.
On the back, someone had written:
Ask who signed the original evidence transfer.
Mitchell reached for Gavin’s case file with a growing unease he could not name.
He flipped to the evidence log.
Knife.
Shirt.
Shoes.
Broken glass.
Wallet.
Receipts.
Telephone.
Kitchen towels.
Each item had been collected, tagged, and transferred.
At the bottom of the page was a signature.
Mitchell stared at it.
The name belonged to a man who had never appeared in any news story, any appeal, or any courtroom argument.
A man who, until that moment, had seemed completely unconnected to Martin Keller’s death.
Deputy Warden Thomas Reed.
Mitchell looked again at the photograph.
The young man in the baseball cap was Reed.
PART 3
Warden Robert Mitchell did not move for a long time.
The photograph lay on his desk beneath the yellow pool of lamplight, its glossy surface catching every tremble in his hand. Four people stood outside a lakeside cabin, smiling at a moment none of them had expected to return from the past.
