MAY BETH FOSTER [PHONE]: I can ask Claire when she gets back in, but I doubt it.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: Tell me what you got.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Sadie was looking for a man from her childhood—her mom used to date him. She knew him as Keith, but everyone else I’ve talked to has called him Darren, which is why I never made the connection. Sadie was telling people he’s her father, but that’s not likely.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: Okay, so who is he?
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Can’t find anything on either name. I got my team on it. Get this, though—in Langford, that motel, the Bluebird. Keith’s room was trashed … just hold on, I’m gonna send you the photos …
[KEYBOARD SOUNDS, MOUSE-CLICKS]
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: [WHISTLES] Wow.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: Yeah. The photograph Sadie’s been carrying around was in that room. It was from May Beth’s album of the girls—she took it with her. So I’m going to guess she was in that room too. I don’t know if it was like that before she got there or after she got there or while she was there. According to Joe, Keith wasn’t there when she was, so I don’t believe they met.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: She broke into his room.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: That’s what I’m thinking but … wait a second …
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: What?
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: I forgot—I got so distracted by the photo. There was a matchbook in the room. Cooper’s. That’s a bar outside Montgomery.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: Montgomery … the town Sadie passed through on her way to Langford.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: [PAUSE] Wait.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: What?
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: It’s owned by Silas Baker.
WEST McCRAY:
Silas Baker, the man charged with sex crimes against the children he coached on his T-ball team. At first, it feels coincidental, but when I dig deeper into his case, I find a news clipping where Baker’s family was pressed for comment. I discovered Marlee Singer is his younger sister.
She refuses to answer my calls.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: I should’ve done Montgomery first. Goddammit.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: So you go back.
WEST McCRAY [PHONE]: This isn’t—I have a bad feeling about this, Danny.
DANNY GILCHRIST [PHONE]: You have to follow those too.
WEST McCRAY:
Silas Baker’s crimes were uncovered when a local boy, eighteen-year-old Javi Cruz, called 911 and reported a dead body in an abandoned house fifteen miles outside of town. When the Montgomery Sheriff’s Department arrived on the scene, they didn’t find a body. Instead, they found a collection of pornographic photographs of children. One of the officers recognized the kids in them and after that, all hell broke loose.
I head back to Montgomery to talk to Javi. He’s an interesting guy. He’s six foot three, lean, with light brown skin. He’s lived in Montgomery his whole life. This is his last year of high school and college is on the horizon. This was supposed to be the year he lived it up, but things have taken a hard turn for him, at least socially, in the wake of his role in Silas Baker’s arrest. Javi happened to be best friends with Silas Baker’s teenage twins, Noah and Kendall, and was even on one of Silas’s T-ball teams when he was a child himself. He says he was never abused.
JAVI CRUZ:
Everyone hates me now.
WEST McCRAY:
That’s rough.
JAVI CRUZ:
Well, not everyone. And, I mean, I don’t have it bad, compared to those kids, but I lost a lot of friends. There’s still a lot of Baker loyalists. You see the comments sections on stories about him?
WEST McCRAY:
They’re divided, to say the least.
JAVI CRUZ:
This city is never going to be the same.
WEST McCRAY:
And you didn’t know about Silas? You never experienced any untoward or sexually aggressive behavior from him when you …
JAVI CRUZ:
No! God, no. It was T-ball. We just … played T-ball. I didn’t know he was a freak. I didn’t know about the house until—I told you, it was the girl.
WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]: Sadie.
Javi met Sadie during her brief time in Montgomery.
JAVI CRUZ:
She told me her name was Lera.
WEST McCRAY:
Tell me how you two met.
JAVI CRUZ:
I was hanging at Cooper’s bar with Noah and Kendall, and another one of our friends—but she doesn’t want me to mention her name and she’s still talkin’ to me, so I’d just as soon not name her, if that’s okay with you.
WEST McCRAY:
Sure.
JAVI CRUZ:
We were drinking. We never had a problem being served at Cooper’s because Mr. Baker owns the place and I know that’s not right but you can’t tell me you never drank before you were legal. That’s how we killed time in Montgomery in the summer. It was no different than any other night, and then—she came.
She was like … You’re gonna think it’s stupid.
WEST McCRAY:
Try me.
JAVI CRUZ:
It’s hard to explain. The band was taking a break, and they put on some canned music, and Lera—Sadie—was … dancing, right in the middle of the bar by herself and I thought she was so beautiful, you know? I just wanted to know her. You ever met someone like that, and all you can think about is being near them? Just like … in their orbit?
WEST McCRAY:
Yeah. I married him.
JAVI CRUZ:
Right? That’s what I’m saying. I mean, I should say—she wasn’t a great dancer. [LAUGHS] She just didn’t care and that’s what made it beautiful to me. I’m not …
Noah calls—called me a benchwarmer.
WEST McCRAY:
What’s that mean?
JAVI CRUZ:
It’s the—it was the big joke in our crew. Like … I watch the action, but I don’t get in on it. But I got up, and I asked her to dance.
I danced with her.
WEST McCRAY:
What happened?
JAVI CRUZ:
I brought her back to our booth.
The friend—the one who doesn’t wanna be named—she thought Sadie was part of a family who had just moved into town and Sadie just went along with it. She and Kendall kind of … I don’t know.
Kendall didn’t like her.
WEST McCRAY:
Why?
JAVI CRUZ:
Because being that crazy chick that dances alone, the one everyone’s lookin’ at? That’s Kendall’s thing. She thought Sadie was creepy, because Sadie stalked Kendall’s Instagram. Like she looked Kendall up, and came to Cooper’s because she knew we’d be there.
WEST McCRAY [STUDIO]: More and more, it seems I had reason to doubt Marlee Singer’s insistence that she never spoke to Sadie. I believe Sadie talked to Marlee, who knew Keith. She sought out Marlee’s brother, Silas Baker, and his family in Montgomery. It stands to reason Silas knew Keith too.
JAVI CRUZ:
She told us her family’d moved to town because her sister died.
WEST McCRAY:
Did she elaborate on that?
JAVI CRUZ:
No, but I could tell it really hurt her. I wasn’t surprised when you told me that part was true. Anyway … I gave her my number and she promised to call me in the morning—we were going to go over to the Bakers’ together. Then she calls me and tells me to meet her here.
WEST McCRAY: Here is Lili’s Café. It’s a small coffee shop on the corner of Montgomery’s main street, with a sweet, homey feel to it. Javi tells me it’s insane in the mornings, wall-to-wall with people lining up for Lili’s famous cold brew and sugar-glazed doughnuts. It’s quiet now.
JAVI CRUZ:
I bought her breakfast and we ate and right away, I could tell something was really wrong. It’s hard to describe, but she was quiet and looked … sick. I asked her what it was. She didn’t tell me, though.
She showed me.
WEST McCRAY:
Sadie took Javi to the house fifteen miles outside of Montgomery and showed him the photos. Javi is visibly shaking when he tells me this part.
JAVI CRUZ:
I remember I came out of that house screaming. Because I knew those—I knew those kids. And those pictures were … I … I dream about them and it makes me wanna tear my brain out and—I can’t.
I’m sorry … I’m sorry—
WEST McCRAY:
It’s okay. Take your time.