“It’s summer, it stays light late, and yes, I do hike at night, I have a headlamp. I told you I need to move my legs after being home.”
“Do either of you have anyone who can corroborate your whereabouts? Anyone with you?”
They looked at each other.
“Uh, no…” Kelly said. “I was alone.”
“And I was alone too. Why would we need someone to corroborate our whereabouts?” asked Joel. “What is this about? Why are we being questioned? Do we need to get a lawyer?”
A spike of adrenaline ran through Kelly. A lawyer? What in the actual hell was happening?
The officer gave them both a long stare. There was a beat of silence before he took a deep breath.
“On the night Faith Richards was killed she handed an intern a piece of paper in the parking lot. She asked that intern to give it to Tom Archer, Channel 9’s main anchor. Your names were on that list. Now, why would that be? We’re looking at each of those people for connections to Faith. It turns out you two had recently told an officer that you thought she stole from you although you had no proof. And now you have no alibis?”
All of the blood drained from Kelly’s face. She glanced at Joel, whose eyes were bulging.
“We’re completely innocent,” Kelly said. “We would never hurt anyone. This is ridiculous.”
Joel said nothing. Kelly glanced at him for support, but he didn’t look back at her. She had a sudden, sharp thought. Joel had been gone for a long stretch Friday. At the time she had chalked itup to him seemingly needing long breaks from her, but he hadn’t returned until after ten, long after it was dark. And he had been extra cold toward Kelly when he walked in the door, mumbling about being tired and going straight to bed.
No way. No way Joel did something to Faith.No way.He was so angry at Faith, though. She couldn’t stop the seed of doubt. And now she had to defend her own innocence and wonder about her boyfriend’s, all at the same time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Matthew
June 3
The worst part of the day was not that he had to get up earlier than usual, stand in front of thousands of strangers at a vigil, and lie about how great Faith was. It was not even that he had to shake hands and give hugs to viewers, saying things like, “I know, it’s horrible. We’ll miss her forever at Channel 9.”
No, the worst part for Matthew was that he was still expected to go in to work and be on the five and eleven Sunday broadcasts, putting in a full workday while Perry was probably home drinking a rum and Coke with his feet up.
The other talent from the weekend team—Stella, the anchor, and Emma, the sportscaster—had been given the option of attending or not attending the vigil, and both chose not to attend. But Matthew was on the weather team and Perry had required them all to be there. Thus, Matthew was the only one at the vigil who both had to play the proper grieving roleandwork that day, and he had to go straight from the event to the station, sweaty from the heat, annoyed by the day, and overwhelmed with thoughts, as his mind was still processing all that had happened.To add final insult to injury, he didn’t even have time for lunch. It would have to be one of those crappy microwavable meals from the vending machine.
Matthew used his key card to gain entry to the gated parking lot and swiped into the two doors that led to the newsroom. The air-conditioning was blasting, as it always was, protecting lots of expensive equipment. The coolness felt incredibly refreshing, and he dabbed at his brow.
Walking quickly to the weather office, he went to the small fridge in the corner for a bottle of water. After downing half of it in three giant gulps, he said, “Ahhh…,” wiped his upper lip, wandered to his desk, and flopped down in his chair. Closing his eyes, he tried to quiet his tired mind, but he couldn’t stop thinking about Faith, about the vigil, and about the thing in this office that had plagued him for months.
Matthew’s baseball and water bottle had never been returned. He looked with dismay once more at the empty space where the ball used to sit on his desk. He had reported it to Perry and HR but they couldn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing and Perry just said, “Are you sure you didn’t misplace it?” Of course Matthew was sure, but he didn’t feel like dealing with Perry’s BS toward him, so he was forced to let the whole thing go.
Still, memories of the game with his father were so strong that Matthew could almost smell the popcorn mixed with the scent of his dad’s aftershave. Matthew had been sitting on Dad’s lap munching down a snack for most of the game. After it was over, an autograph line formed and his father put Matthew on his shoulders as they waited. Matthew adored when his dad did that; it gave him both a bird’s-eye view and a feeling of complete safety being fully supported by his dad’s broad shoulders. Matthew would wrap his skinny arms around his dad’s head, andhis father would laugh. “Don’t block my eyes, kid, or we’re both going down!” he’d say, and Matthew would slide his arms higher or lower, sometimes tickling Dad as he did.
A lump started to come into Matthew’s throat now. He would never get over the loss of that ball. Matthew and his dad remained close, but his dad had retired to Florida and they didn’t see each other that often.
Matthew let his eyes drift to Faith’s desk, and his stomach clenched at the almost inconceivable news he had learned Saturday morning. He couldn’t compute that Faith was not just on vacation, but gone forever. Yes, he hated her, and yes, he was still 99 percent sure she had something to do with the baseball, and yes, he had wanted her gone, but not inthisway, and now that she was, he didn’t know how to feel. Perry had told Matthew that Matthew would be ascending to the Monday–Friday main meteorologist chair on an interim basis and they would see if it was permanent or not.
This was what he had always wanted, had dreamed of since he watched Detroit TV as a kid. He was in Jack’s position now. It was the fulfillment of so many years of work and sacrifice, yet he felt somehow unsatisfied and ill at ease. A ball of sour acid was growing in his stomach, and he turned back to his desk and reached for the Tums he kept in a drawer, downing five in one handful. They said to take a max of four but he always thought one more would be for good measure and surely couldn’t hurt.
OK, Matthew, focus now, you have to work.
He needed to microwave his lunch and start going over maps and trends, designing his forecast for the shows. Perry had him not only working today but all five days of the week ahead. A seven-day week, and he didn’t even get overtime since he was on a salary. It was just something people on TV were expected todo when needed. In what other industry could you be asked to work any shift anytime and put in marathon weeks and not be compensated? Maybe a doctor, he didn’t know, but it was one thing he had always disliked about television news.
The news never stopped: not for nights, not for weekends, not for holidays. He had worked countless holidays in this business, eating the catered-in Thanksgiving turkey on paper plates in the back hallway, or rushing to his mom’s house for a quick Easter or Christmas brunch before a long workday.
He had to get going on the forecast, but first just one more minute. He closed his eyes again, thinking of Tara.
She had not wanted to attend the vigil, and Matthew couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t have either if he didn’t have to. He had to work a normal shift Saturday, which was hard enough. When he got home close to midnight after the show, Tara was in her flannel pajamas, the ones with little pictures of sheep on them. She was curled in the corner on the couch. The air-conditioning had been set so low it was freezing in the apartment, and he stopped at the thermostat and cranked it back to a more normal level. There was a bottle of wine next to Tara that was almost entirely empty, and she looked at him with glassy eyes.
