Chapter One

A Year Earlier……

"He didn't do it, Woody," Jordan said in exasperation.

"That's what you say, but all the evidence points otherwise," Woody retorted, clearly angry with her conclusions…conclusions that had once again contradicted what he had hypothesized.

"Look, I know what you're thinking….that I'm jumping conclusions, that I don't want to see the forest for the trees, that because it's difficult to believe a sixteen year-old boy would commit such a heinous murder, I'm deliberately not looking at all the evidence…."

"A sixteen year-old boy is on the cusp of adulthood. He could have committed these crimes. Especially when you see what kind of people he was hanging out with after school and on the internet. Come on, Jordan. You remember Columbine…you remember the twelve year-old kid last year that killed both his grandparents and then his little sister. Kids do commit murder."

"Yeah, but this kid didn't commit this murder."

"Jordan," Woody said, his voice lowering and taking on a warning tone. "Look at all the evidence."

"I am. I'm looking at the body."

"Yeah, yeah….and the answers are always in the body…I know, I know. I've heard that schpill for the last four years. Yes, it is the forensics that helps prove the case. Help. Assist. But you have to weigh all the evidence together. This kid had motive….opportunity … the weapon….and the help and the background. He hated women. Hell, after what his mother did to him, he had a right to. But that didn't give him the right to kill."

Jordan took a deep breath and counted to ten. Lowering her voice, she replied. "I know that, Woody. Circumstantial evidence-wise, you may have him. But I'm telling you, forensically, you don't."

Woody threw her look…one filled with fury and disbelief. "Just finish your autopsy. I need your report on my desk first thing tomorrow morning. When I make an arrest, I need it to stick." He turned and walked to the doors of the autopsy room, when her voice stopped him.

"Woody. I'm telling you the kid didn't do this. And I won't testify against him."


Joel Thomas Brady was in a world of trouble. The sixteen year-old with a troubled past was sitting in solitary confinement in the Boston Central Jail. Solitary, because he was young and the Boston PD knew the other inmates may try to take advantage of his youth, naivety, and inexperience to introduce him to the darkest side of jail life.

The world of trouble was a completely different matter. Born to single mother who made her living among a world of pimps and johns, he was often neglected as a baby. As a child, he was ignored and abused by his mother, her "bosses" and sometimes even her clients. When he was seven, his mother was arrested for prostitution – soliciting an undercover cop. He was taken in by the foster care system. From that time until he was fourteen, he was shuttled from one foster home to another, never really fitting in. Like most children in foster care, he dreamed of a permanent home with parents that would love him…accept him….care for him. He wanted to be adopted.

But never had a chance. His mother would never sign away her parental rights and the courts would never sever them. He was caught up in a system that was chewing him up and spitting what was left of him out. Finally, seven years later, his mother convinced family court she could be his parent again. She had left her life of crime behind her and was working as a secretary. The judge had agreed and awarded her custody.

And the nightmare of abuse began one more time. He would run away, the police would bring him home. Finally, after the third time, he landed in juvenile delinquency. Figuring a few nights in there may help straighten him out, his mother didn't come for him immediately.

Oh, it helped all right. Those few days in that adolescent facility introduced him to a circle of boys that felt the same way about their mothers. These boys hated their moms for what they had been put through….the beatings….the neglect….and many times worse. Joel found a "support group" that encouraged him to let his feelings out. To hate his mother. To hate all women…because they all were like that – like his mom.

Part of Joel's fourteen year-old mind accepted that as fact. But he had some good memories of women too…Like Nancy, the foster mother he really wanted to adopt him. She was good to him. Bought him nice clothes. Toys. His first skateboard. Took him to the doctor when he was sick and then sat up with him all night. Maybe it was only women like his mother….women who had been prostitutes… that were bad. Nancy wasn't one. She was nice. But he kept these thoughts to himself.

Now in high school, he was barely passing most of his classes. The exception to this was his computer class. Joel loved computers, technology….he had a mind that grasped the concepts of that field. His giftedness in this area allowed him unsupervised time in the computer lab…on the internet…where he found other groups that felt the same way he did about women.

So he wasn't the only one. He began formulate the idea in his head that some women were truly evil. Maybe they didn't even deserve to live.

Then he came home one night after a party and found his mother sprawled out on their tiny living room floor…dead. Her body mutilated. He went into shock and then his body switched to automatic pilot.

He ran.

With is troubled past and with his juvenile record, he knew the police would suspect him, even though he had an alibi for most of the evening. But he had left the party at eleven. He found his mother's body at nearly one. After leaving the party, he had spent nearly two hours walking the streets near his Boston home, trying to get rid of the alcohol and pot odor on his breath and clothes. For nearly two hours, no one saw him.

He knew the police would take the easy way out and try to pin his mother's murder on him. So he left.

Only to be picked up a few hours later and placed in "protective custody."

Protective custody my ass, he thought as he sat on the hard cot in his cell, his head in his hands. They may as well go ahead and freakin' arrest me. They're going to do it anyway.


Jordan looked down at the body of Deborah Ann Brady with a mixture of distaste and pity….if it was possible to mix those two emotions.

Distaste because of what she had put her son through….the abuse, the neglect….all carefully recorded in Joel's family court record. What she had done to her son was unthinkable, at least in Jordan's mind. Being a single parent was no excuse. Jordan herself had been brought up in a single parent home and had known nothing but love and attention.

Pity…because no one deserved to die like this. No one. Jordan had carefully examined Deborah's bruised and beaten body, noting the slash marks the killer had made all over her…until finally administering the one that killed her…the one that nearly severed her head from her body.

She had been alive when the killer cut her throat. Alive and probably pleading for her life. The other wounds and injuries were for torture…the murderer had played with her…nearly exhausting her strength before he had put the knife to her throat and killed her, severing main arteries and veins. The woman had quickly bled out, losing consciousness and dying.

No one deserved to die like that.

And no one that killed like that deserved to go unpunished.

But it wasn't Joel. Deep in her gut…her instincts told Jordan the killer wasn't Joel. Children who murdered their parents…commit patricide….generally don't torture them. Not at age sixteen. No. At that age the kids are angry…furious….and emotions control the murder. They kill viciously, to be sure. But they kill…they don't take the time to torture. They murder and leave.

Joel was a typical sixteen year-old boy. He may have developed the ability to hate at such a young age, but not the capability to torture. There was nothing in his record to indicate that….no mistreatment of other adults or children. Or animals. If hemurdered his mother, which Jordan didn't think he did, he would have killed and left.

However, he did leave the scene. Jordan sighed. It would have been much simpler if Joel would have called the police and remained with his mother's body. Or went to a neighbor's. But the boy panicked. From what Jordan was thinking, the boy came home from the party late, saw his mother, went over and touched her…to see if there were any signs of life….freaked out and ran.

Not an uncommon reaction.

Woody thought otherwise. Joel left the party at eleven, came home, his mother ragged him out for being late, so he killed her. There was motive. There was opportunity. There were those two hours in the timeline that Joel didn't have an alibi for.

And there had been Deborah's blood on Joel's hands and clothes. That and the knife left at the scene with Joel's fingerprints on it had pretty much sealed Joel's fate for Woody.

The boy was guilty.

Jordan still didn't see it. Woody said her own mother'smurder was impairing her judgment.

"No such thing," she had snapped back. "The forensics don't add up. Joel has no cuts on him. Someone that did that would have gotten their hands wet with blood. At sometime, the knife would have slipped….he would have cuts on his hands."

"Not always."

"His clothes didn't have splatter on them…they were saturated with blood. There's a difference."

"That doesn't always happen either…not with stabbings."

"Woody….there's too many things that don't add up to make me think Joel did it…."

"And you're not on the jury. It doesn't matter what you think. You just have to give your report," he retorted. "And there's enough evidence to make the jury think he did…no alibi, motive, opportunity….and no forced entry."

"That only means that Deborah knew her killer. She let him in."

Woody leaned closer into Jordan's face. "Your history is impairing your judgment, Dr. Cavanaugh. I need your report on my desk, ASAP. Do you understand?"

Jordan had swallowed and nodded. He'd have her report. It just wouldn't tell him what he wanted to hear.