“Okay, but then—why does he go after Allison and not Finley?”
Louise shrugs. “Well, for one, history suggests that Marlow’s a lot more comfortable attacking women, right? And Finley, he’s not a small man. He’s nearly as big as Marlow.”
Cutty chimes in. “Maybe he thinks they’re a package deal. Husband and wife. He might even think threatening the wife makes the husband more likely to comply.”
“Finley had moved out of the house by then,” Louise adds. “But Marlow probably didn’t know that. Their breakup, from what we can tell, had just happened.”
“Okay.” Bruce leans against the wall. “But how do we go from all this to Marlow murdering Finley?”
“That gets us to the text messaging that night,” says Louise. “The night of April first.”
“Okay, right. You gave me a copy.” Bruce returns to his seat and starts reading them. “What does ‘OSB’ stand for?”
“Ohio Street Beach. It’s next to their condo, separated only by Lake Shore Drive.”
“Let me see this.” Bruce pulls up a map on his phone. “Their building’s right on Inner Lake Shore Drive, on the Erie-to-Ontario block. Directly east is Lake Shore Drive. Directly east of the Drive is…”
“Ohio Street Beach,” says Louise.
“And you think Finley was on thebeachthat night, not in his condo?”
“Circumstantial evidence would suggest so,” says Louise. “We can’t know for sure. You know how cell site location data is, Bruce. It can place the phone within a sector, a zone, not a pinpoint. The distance between the condo and the Ohio Street Beach is about eight hundred feet. We checked. And there aren’t any cell towers on Lake Michigan, right? So the same cell tower covers both the condo and the Ohio Street Beach.”
Bruce nods. “Yeah, CSLI evidence has its limitations. Bottom line, we have no way of proving whether Finley Brice was inside his condo, or standing on the beach on the other side of Lake Shore Drive, when he exchanged these text messages with Allison and Grayson.”
“Correct,” says Louise. “But based on the text messages, we have every reason to believe he was on that beach. So let’s walk through this. This all starts in the afternoon, when Grayson sends a text message to Finley. Look at your copy.” Louise looks at her own copy:
Time Log of Text Communications April 1, 2026
Time (p.m.): 3:13
Caller (Location): Grayson (River N.)
Recipient (Location): Finley (Condo)
Call Type: Text
Duration or Message: I’m in the city. I hope you had a nice dinner last night. Your girlfriend seemed to be enjoying herself. Maybe next time you cheat on Mom, don’t sit near a window. I’m coming over tonight. Seven o’clock. Don’t tell Mom.
Time (p.m.): 3:45
Caller (Location): Finley (Condo)
Recipient (Location): Grayson (River N.)
Call Type: Text
Duration or Message: Ok, we need to talk. You need to hear my side.
Time (p.m.): 8:32
Caller (Location): Grayson (Condo)
Recipient (Location): Finley (O.S.B.)
Call Type: Text
Duration or Message: Hello? I’m here waiting. What happened to meeting at condo over an hour ago WTF??
