"Yes. He was a good employer. Fair, respectful. This is..." She gestured helplessly at the empty house. "This is terrible."
"I'm sure it is." Kari kept her voice gentle. "I need to ask you about Mr. Garrison's security habits. Was he careful about locking doors?"
"The front door, always. He was very particular about that—lock it when you leave, lock it when you come home." Elena paused. "But the back door, the patio... he was more casual about that."
Maria leaned forward. "What do you mean, casual?"
"He liked to sit outside in the evenings, have his scotch on the patio. He'd leave the door unlocked in case he wanted to go back and forth. Sometimes he'd forget to lock it before bed." Elena frowned. "I told him many times that it wasn't safe, that even in Paradise Valley you couldn't be too careful. But he said he liked feeling free in his own home, not locked inside like a prisoner."
Kari and Maria exchanged glances. A patio door regularly left unlocked, in a house that backed onto a private yard with mature trees and bushes providing cover. It wouldn't have been difficult for someone to watch Garrison's routine, wait until he was alone in his office, and enter through the unlocked back door.
"Did anyone else know about this habit?" Kari asked. "That he left the patio door unlocked?"
"I don't know. Maybe his friends, if he entertained them outside. But it wasn't something he announced." Elena wrung her hands. "Is this important? Did someone come in through the back?"
"We're just gathering information," Maria said. "Thank you, Elena. You've been very helpful."
After Elena returned to her work, Kari and Maria walked out to the patio. The space was beautifully landscaped, with a pool and outdoor kitchen, surrounded by a tall privacy fence and mature desert plants. From the street, you'd never know this oasis existed.
But from inside the property, if you knew what you were looking for, you could easily observe when Garrison was home and where he was in the house.
"Someone could have watched him for days," Kari said. "Learned his routine, figured out when he'd be alone, knew about the unlocked door."
Maria stared at the house, her expression grim. "This was premeditated. Someone planned this, waited for the right opportunity, entered through a door they knew would be unlocked."
"And planted Hatathli's DNA to make sure he'd be blamed." Kari turned to face Maria. "I think you're right about him being framed. The question is—by who, and why?"
"I don't know. But I'm glad you see it too." Maria pulled out her phone. "I need to document this—the unlocked door habit, Elena's statement, everything. It's not enough to get Hatathli released, but it might be enough to introduce reasonable doubt."
Kari looked back at the house, thinking about someone standing in these shadows, watching, waiting, planning murder while making sure an innocent man would take the fall. "But Maria, proving Hatathli's innocence is going to be an uphill battle. The DNA evidence is strong. His motive and public threats against Garrison are documented. Even with the unlocked door, even with the possibility someone could have planted evidence, the prosecution has enough to convict him."
"I know." Maria's voice was heavy. "Which means we need to find the real killer. And we need to do it before the DA's office decides they have enough to go to trial."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ben Tsosie stared at the incident report on his desk, reading the same paragraph for the third time without absorbing a single word. The case involved a disputed fence line between two properties near Chinle—the kind of thing that should have been straightforward but had somehow escalated into threats and accusations that required official documentation.
He should care more about this. Should focus on the careful wording needed to document the complaint without taking sides, on the follow-up interviews he'd need to schedule, on the mediation process that would probably resolve the whole mess in a week or two.
Instead, his mind kept returning to his conversation with Kari about Evan Naalnish. Fifteen years cold. The kind of death that didn't stand much chance of being solved.
But if they could find his body…
Ben set down his pen and looked at the stack of paperwork waiting for his attention. The fence dispute. A request for increased patrols near the Chapter House. Three incident reports from the weekend that needed review and signatures. All of it important in its own way.
But Kari's investigation into what had happened to Naalnish—and, by extension, what had happened to her mother—was important, too.
He could do this for her. They'd talked about pulling the file Monday, about Kari interviewing the family while Ben handled geological surveys and terrain analysis. But that was before Phoenix PD had called her in on a double homicide. Kari had enough on her plate without adding cold case legwork to the mix.
Ben could at least get the basics started. Pull the file, see what they were dealing with. Maybe save her some time when she got back.
He stood, leaving the fence dispute report exactly where it was, and headed for the records room.
The file on Evan Naalnish's disappearance was thin—less than twenty pages, most of it routine documentation from the initial search. Ben spread the papers across an empty desk in the records room, the fluorescent lights humming overhead.
Evan Naalnish. Twenty-three years old when he vanished in April 2010. Last seen by his mother on a Saturday morning, heading out for a hike near Tsaile. He'd taken water, a backpack, his usual gear. Said he'd be back before dark.
He never came home.
