She'd started with Sheridan's Sunset Ridge files, but the real story was in the patterns across his other projects. A complaint about substandard concrete in Tucson, settled quietly with an NDA. Workers in Flagstaff reporting safety violations, paid off and transferred. An environmental assessment in Sedona that should have halted construction but somehow got revised and resubmitted with a passing grade.
Every incident had Sheridan's fingerprints on it. And every incident followed the same pattern: complaints filed, then quietly withdrawn. Witnesses who changed their stories. Documentation that got conveniently lost or altered. The kind of problems that didn't just disappear on their own—the kind that got solved with cash in envelopes, favors traded, pressure applied in the right places.
She couldn't prove money had changed hands. Not yet. But she'd seen this pattern before, and it always smelled the same.
Her phone rang. Maria.
"Tell me you found something," Maria said without preamble. "Because I've spent hours watching security footage and interviewing neighbors and I've got no idea where Tessa Crane is."
"Yes, I found something. Whether it helps us, I'm not sure yet." Kari leaned back from the laptop, rubbing her eyes. "Sheridan's company has a history of environmental violations and illegal construction practices. Nothing that got him criminally charged, but enough accusations and settlements to establish a pattern."
"How does that connect to the murders?"
"What if the murders aren't about revenge for the petroglyphs at all? What if they're about preventing exposure of criminal activities?" Kari pulled up her notes. "Think about it—Garrison was the investor, Hoffman approved the permits, Sheridan did the construction. All three would know about any illegal practices. If someone thought they were going to expose those practices, or if they were threatening to turn evidence over to authorities..."
"That's a motive beyond environmental activism," Maria said slowly. "But who? Who benefits from keeping those practices hidden?"
"The developer, for one. Charles Sterling—his name is all over these documents." Kari had seen Sterling's signature on dozens of contracts and approvals in Sheridan's files. "If his flagship project is revealed to be built on fraud and environmental crimes, he faces serious consequences. But he's not the only one with something to lose. Any of the investors, the contractors, even the city officials who approved questionable permits—they all have reasons to want this buried."
"So we're looking at a wide field of potential suspects."
"Yeah. And most of them would have the resources to hire someone to handle their problems quietly."
Maria was quiet for a moment. "You're thinking about the accomplice theory, but turning it around. Not Hatathli with accomplices, but two or more accomplices using Hatathli as a convenient scapegoat."
"Exactly. Frame the environmental lawyer who publicly threatened the victims, make it look like activism turned violent, and meanwhile the real motive—covering up corporate crimes—stays hidden."
They were both silent for several moments.
"What about the archaeologist?" Kari asked. "Dr. Caldwell. She documented the petroglyphs, fought to stop the resort. She'd know about the legal battles, might know about irregularities in how the project got approved."
"You want to interview her?"
"Yeah. If she was deep in the legal fight, she might have information about the victims we don't have. And she might have insight into who else was involved in pushing the project through despite the opposition."
"Okay, I'll set it up. Caldwell teaches at ASU—she should be on campus today." Maria paused. "Kari, I want to believe this theory about corporate cover-up. It makes more sense than the department's accomplice nonsense. But without proof..."
"I know. We're running out of time, and Hatathli's running out of options." Kari closed the laptop. "But this feels right. The environmental activist angle is too convenient, too perfectly constructed. Someone's using Hatathli's anger and public statements to cover their real motive."
"Then let's prove it. I'll call Caldwell, see if she can meet with us this afternoon."
After they hung up, Kari sat staring at her notes for a long moment. Three people dead, all connected to a project builton illegal practices. Thomas Hatathli charged with murders he didn't commit.
And somewhere, a killer who'd carefully constructed a narrative that directed attention away from the real crime.
***
Dr. Jennifer Caldwell was on her hands and knees when Kari and Maria arrived at her office, photographing what appeared to be a broken piece of pottery with the intensity of a crime scene investigator.
"One second," she said without looking up, adjusting the angle of a portable light. "This sherd is eighteenth century Hopi—absolute miracle it survived in storage this long without proper documentation."
She took three more photos from different angles before standing, brushing dust off her jeans. Caldwell was probably mid-forties but moved like someone twenty years younger, all efficient energy and unconscious grace.
"Sorry about that. When ASU's storage facility floods and dumps a hundred years of artifacts in your lap, you work whenever you can." She gestured at the chaos of her office—not the genteel clutter of an academic, but the organized disaster of someone managing multiple crises simultaneously. Boxes of pottery fragments competed for floor space with rolled maps, a laptop balanced precariously on a stack of field journals, and a wall-sized photograph of petroglyphs that Kari recognized immediately.
The ones at Sunset Ridge. Before they were destroyed.
"You're here about the murders," Caldwell said, following Kari's gaze to the photograph.
