The Innocence Game Read Online Free Page A

the state’s evidence, anyone with access could have sent me a piece. Cop, prosecutor, evidence tech.”
    “A whistle-blower?”
    “Could be. Someone sending us a message. Telling us this guy was framed.”
    “Is that what you think?”
    “I don’t think anything…until we see the evidence.”
    “But why send the letter to you? Why not the
Trib
?
Sun-Times
? I mean, you’re a student in a seminar.”
    “You don’t think I’ve been wondering that myself? Read the file.”
    Havens went to get our drinks. I picked through newspaper clippings from the murder. At the bottom of the pile, I found the original police report filed on Skylar Wingate’s disappearance. Clipped to the back was a photo from the crime scene. A shallow hole in the ground, a small white body bag beside it. I ran a finger over the picture. Then I put it aside and began to read.

3
    Skylar Wingate was last seen alive by his older brother, Bobby. He told police Skylar left St. Augustine Elementary School on the city’s Northwest Side around 3:45 p.m., and walked south on Lemont Avenue. Skylar was headed home, less than a mile away. Skylar’s mom thought her youngest was with his older brother all afternoon and didn’t become concerned until Bobby showed up, alone, at a little after six. Fifty of Chicago’s finest went door-to-door, searching the white-bread neighborhood on foot until well past midnight. Skylar was described as four foot two, weighing sixty-three pounds, wearing gray pants and a black-and-white-striped shirt. Havens had underlined the last fact with a pen.
    Detectives questioned Skylar’s family and friends in the first few hours of the disappearance and came up with nothing. According to the
Trib
, it was three days later that a hiker found Skylar’s remains in the Cook County forest preserve a mile away. Animals had dug up the body. A preliminary autopsy showed the boy had been stabbed repeatedly, strangled, and drowned before he went in the ground. I stopped reading as Havens came back with a fresh round.
    “Well?” he said.
    “I skimmed the police report and a couple of articles.”
    “You see the detail on the shirt?”
    I nodded.
    “This case was big at the time,” Havens said. “You remember it?”
    “I was eight.”
    “Doesn’t matter. White kid, Catholic school, nice neighborhood. A lot of pressure to make an arrest.” Havens glanced out the window and checked his watch. “Shit, I gotta run.”
    “We just got our drinks.”
    Havens drained half his pint in one go, gathered up his research, and stood. “See you tomorrow, Joyce. Do yourself a favor and forget about Gold. Make life a lot simpler for all of us.”
    I watched him walk out the door and down Sherman. The bar was packed now, and a gaggle of women hovered close by, ready to pounce on the booth once I’d vacated. I took a sip of my beer, but my heart wasn’t in it. I smiled at the women as I got up and presented them with their prize. One of them even smiled back. The other three pushed past, calling for the waitress and settling in. I wandered out of Nevin’s and squinted against a harsh, slanting light. It was just past six, still a couple of hours before darkness dropped over Lake Michigan. I walked down the street, thinking about Jake Havens. A horn beeped once from under an overpass. Sarah Gold sat in the front seat of a black Audi. She hustled me over with a wave of her hand.
    “Get in,” she said. I did so without a word.
    “Put your head down,” she said and scrunched low in her seat. I did the same and heard a car cruise past. Sarah popped up and turned over the engine.
    “What are we doing?” I said.
    “Following him.” Sarah swung into traffic.
    “Following who?”
    She pointed to a silver Honda, three cars ahead of us. “Havens.”
    “Why?” The plan struck me as wonderful, although I had no real idea why.
    “He’s up to something,” Sarah said. “And he’s holding all the cards.”
    “What cards?”
    “Everything.