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We had both still photos and the grainy video itself. He was driving a beat-up Toyota Camry with the license plate obscured by dirt. He wore a ball cap. If it were that alone, Holland couldn’t have made a positive ID. But for one inexplicable second, Sidney looked up and faced the camera.

“That looks deliberate,” I said.

“He had to know he was going to get caught eventually,” Dad said. “Did they figure out where the car came from?”

“It was stolen from a campground outside of Gaylord. How he got that far is unclear.”

“He had help,” Dad said. “That’s been the running theory. He was in contact with someone on the outside. Within an hour of his escape, he’s got a change of clothes and transportation. Money to buy food. He stopped at two fast-food places and a carry-out before he crossed the Ohio border. That’s well documented.”

“They have to have interviewed anyone he communicated with. Cellmates. Family members? Did he have any?”

Dad picked up a physical file on the table. He’d been helping me compile what was known about Derrek Sidney’s background. An easy task. Since his execution, there have been no less than seven true crime books and two documentaries about him.

“An ex-wife. A son he hadn’t seen since the wife kicked him out maybe a decade before the Deadwater Lake murders. No mother. His dad died right after he was arrested for the Ohio murders a year and a half before Deadwater Lake. The Putnam County jail escape is mostly a mystery. There are three lost days.”

“How did he escape again?”

Dad flipped a page in his file. “Had an abscessed tooth. They were transporting him to the dentist. The two deputies in charge of him got careless. Sidney managed to overpower one of them while the other was in the can. It would have been comedic if this wasn’t a serial killer we’re talking about.”

“So how is Geneva on Holland’s radar as an accomplice?”

“The FBI tried to prove Sidney had a contact in the area. What’s known about his travel path seems pretty deliberate. He’s not some paper bag in the wind here. By all accounts, Sidney is deliberately heading north.”

“That could still be random,” I said. “It makes sense he’d be trying to make it to the Canadian border.”

“Hell of a lot easier ways to do that than through Helene or Down County. Detroit makes more sense.”

“But they would have been expecting that,” I said.

“We’re spinning our wheels. For the past twelve years, people have been trying to crack that particular nut. Law enforcement and armchair detectives are all over this.”

“Okay,” I said. “So, physical evidence at the crime scene.”

I pulled up the photos of what the cops cataloged. It was voluminous. But the main sources of Sidney’s DNA came from the knit cap found in Geneva’s room and the belt used to garrote Maisy Adams. Sidney’s hair was found in the cap and his DNA showed up on the belt. It was coated with his sweat.

I wrote “DNA” under the Sidney column and circled it twice.

“Motive, opportunity, physical proof he’s at the crime scene,” I said. “It’s damning. It’s conclusive.”

I pulled up Geneva’s statement. Holland interviewed her three times. Once at the hospital. She’d been mostly unresponsive. Holland noted it repeatedly. His observations were consistent with what Geneva and her father had said. In the weeks immediately after the murders, Geneva at times became catatonic.

But two months after the murders, she gave a more detailed statement. Holland had a written transcript and a video recording.

I queued up the video and hit play.

Geneva looked so different on screen. Gaunt. Her hair was patchy and bald in spots. It looked like she’d actually been pulling it out. The interview took place at her father’s house. I recognized the living room.

Holland took her through a series of questions. She stayed mostly consistent with what she’d told me.

“I woke up when I heard something upstairs. Then, Annabelle was making a noise. Not a scream. A moan. I heard a thump.”

She froze. She described the agony of waiting until Sidney finished with Annabelle, then entered her bedroom. He dragged her across the room by her feet.

“She has an opportunity to mention what Sidney said to her,” Dad said. “Holland asked her point-blank.”

I replayed that portion of the video.

“Did he say anything to you, Geneva?”