Innocent or Guilty?

KL: I didn’t really ever need to be convinced. Anyone who knows Ethan, knows he’s incapable of killing someone. Of murder. The problem was that no one here really knew him.

KT: So, you think the police and the prosecution were able to take advantage of the fact that Ethan didn’t have many friends or allies in town?

KL: Definitely. And not just that. He was up against a town institution, you know? It wasn’t just that Tyler was this super popular guy, his mom was the mayor. She still is. Talk about power and influence.

KT: The longer we’ve spent in Twin Rivers, the more it’s become apparent just how influential his family was and is. We’ve filed request after request for the investigation files, but so far they’ve all been blocked, and I’m beginning to think that’s all coming from the mayor’s office.

KL: I wouldn’t be surprised by that at all. And that’s how it all felt at the time too, you know? There was so much pressure on the police to wrap up the murder investigation that they just pinned it on the first guy they found. I always felt like Ethan was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

KT: Can we talk about that for a second, because during the trial you were brought as a witness for the defense because you could place him at your parents’ house until around 2:30am. This timing was really important because Tyler’s time of death was given as between 1:45 and 2:45am, so if he was still with you at 2:30, then he wouldn’t have been able to kill him.

KL: Yeah, that’s right.

KT: But that all fell apart when the prosecution revealed evidence that contradicted your timeline of events.

KL: Yeah.

KT: Your initial statement to the police also stated that you thought Ethan had left your house by 2am, which would have meant he didn’t have an alibi right in the middle of the time of death window.

KL: Yea-ah.

KT: So, did you lie at any point during the investigation and trial, Kevin?

KL: No. My statement to the police was actually that I thought Ethan had left between 2 and 2:30 in the morning. I wasn’t sure because I hadn’t been paying really close attention, but that’s the time I gave, and apparently they just put it down as 2am.

KT: What was it that made you change it from ‘between 2 and 2:30’ to 2:30am?

KL: Well, it wasn’t precisely 2:30am. I think it was probably a bit before that, but not much. Basically, I remembered going to bed at like, 3, but I knew that was only about a half hour after Ethan left.

KT: So, what about the record of the messages between you and Caleb Donovan the prosecution produced at the trial?

KL [sighs]: Man, all that stuff was just … you know they only had the end of the message thread?

[pause]

But they didn’t have the beginning of the message thread from that night, which if they had would have been at about 2:20am, around when Ethan left. That whole conversation on AIM lasted about ten or fifteen minutes.

KT: In court, you said you the AIM conversation lasted thirty minutes.

KL: I did? Well, maybe I’m remembering wrong, or maybe I was wrong back then. Honestly, you try remembering a conversation you had online with someone ten years ago, and see how easy it is to remember how long it lasted. Maybe at the trial I was referring to how long I’d been online, rather than how long Caleb and I had been chatting? I don’t know. I can’t remember exactly.

KT: So, you didn’t lie and change your statement about when he left your house, in order to provide him with a better alibi?

KL: No. I know that’s what people said and what a lot of people still believe, but genuinely I didn’t. People don’t understand what it’s like when you’re being questioned by police. Especially in a murder investigation when someone’s dead, and another person’s whole life hangs in the balance. Plus they brought me in for questioning a few days after Tyler was actually killed, so it was all a little bit hazy by then anyway. You’re always working with an approximation of what happened, because you’re only human, and you’re under pressure and your memory is fallible, but then the police term it as ‘evidence’ or whatever, and suddenly you may as well have carved that statement into a tablet of stone. So, then when you re-think something, or come to a realization, or just have a little more time to think about something, you’re branded at best as unreliable and at worst a liar, and suddenly your witness testimony is worthless.

* * *

“Thanks Kevin, that was great,” Kat said, removing her headphones and indicating Kevin could do the same.

“When will all this be released?” Kevin asked, and I thought I could hear a slight strain of concern in his voice. As if his conversation with Kat had finally made what he was doing sink in.

Kat exchanged a look with Ray, another of their private, impenetrable moments I couldn’t hope to decipher, and said, “We’re going to start releasing episodes from next week. We like to get as much research done as possible in the weeks leading up to recording, but then we prefer to record week by week. So the story can change and develop as we go along.”

Kevin swallowed deeply, nodding his head and his gaze flicked over to me, meeting my eyes. “And do you think you’ll use this interview in the first episode?”

“Probably, yes. We’ve already recorded a little introductory interview with Olivia today, and we’ll have one with Ethan in there too, of course.”

We were recording in Kevin’s kitchen, countertops gleaming white, the window above the sink revealing a small but well-tended yard, the walls painted a deep, rich blue. Kevin and Kat were talking still, comparing notes of visiting Ethan in prison, and I stood up suddenly, my chair almost toppling over behind me as I did so. Ray reached out a hand to stop it from falling and he gave me a quizzical look as I marched over to the sink, staring out of the pretty window as I washed my hands in bone chilling water. “You okay, Liv?” Kevin asked as I leaned down to splash my face and I made an indecipherable noise, before turning off the tap and turning around to face the others.

“Yeah, fine, just suddenly a bit hot,” I said, red warmth creeping up my neck.

Kat wasn’t paying too much attention, looking around at the kitchen instead. “This isn’t your parents’ place, is it Kevin?” she said.

“No. They still live on their farm, just outside of town.”

Kat nodded, her face scrunched in concentration, cogs whirring inside. “Could you take us to see it? And maybe walk us through the route Ethan would have taken that night?”

Kevin shrugged, his eyes meeting mine for a second before flicking back to Kat, “Sure, why not?”

Kevin’s parents’ farm backed up right to the woods that surrounded the south-eastern corner of the city. Sitting on three acres of land, the Lawrence family had apple orchards I’d spent my childhood running through. Our mothers had been friends for years, bonding over green fingers and the desire to watch things grow, and up until the age of ten or eleven, I’d spent almost as much time here as Ethan. The farmhouse was weathered now, peeling yellow paint and lopsided porch railings, when all those years ago they’d looked sunshiny and new. I hadn’t been there in almost two decades and it forced the same sense of disjointed familiarity that being back in Twin Rivers did. An almost-there, but not-quite feeling; one I didn’t want to get too comfortable with.

“So, this is it,” Kevin said, eyes squinting in the thin sunshine.

“It’s a long way from the road,” Ray pointed out.

“Yeah, the driveway’s about a quarter mile long alone.”

“So, how long would it have taken Ethan to cycle back home from here?” Kat asked.

Kevin tilted his head to the side, “Well, he didn’t take the road. He never did. See, if you cycled back through the woods using the footpaths, it cut the journey time way down. I did it everyday to school too, and Ethan – and Olivia’s – house was just on the other side of the school.”

Kat looked to me and I nodded in confirmation. “Going on the roads, it would probably take at least 40 minutes, but the woods meant it only took about 20, 25 minutes,” Kevin clarified.

“Even in bad weather?” Ray asked, “with mud or whatever?”

Kevin just shrugged, “Yeah.”

Kat turned towards Ray and said in a low voice, “It would be great if we could get hold of a bike, do the trip ourselves …”

Ray nodded thoughtfully while Kevin let out a shot of laughter, “You want a bike, we’ve got about 20. Come on,” he said, striding off towards one of the farm’s outbuildings, beckoning us with a wave to follow him.

The red doors creaked open, stiff and in need of some WD40, letting out a puff of dusty air as they did so. Inside was dimly lit by daylight creeping in at the wooden slats and through the now-open doorway, dust motes newly lit by the afternoon sun swirling in our pathway. It was a treasure trove of broken down, barely used machinery. Not just push bikes but quad bikes, about five different types of lawn mower, several tractors, and somewhere right at the back, I knew there was an ancient decommissioned fire truck. Kevin didn’t have any siblings to share this bounty with, but his dad had inherited the farm years ago, and with it this barn full of semi-useful objects.

“Take your pick,” Kevin said expansively, extending his arms out beside him to take in the entirety of the barn.

Ray let out a low whistle and Kat said, “Well, someone could be on an episode of hoarders.”

Kevin laughed, pulling one of the bikes towards him as he did so.