She gazed over her shoulder to find Shane’s desk still vacant. The surface was tidier than usual, and his computer monitor was dark. He hadn’t been into the station this morning at all. At least, as far as she was aware.
It wasn’t that she was concerned he would change his mind and speak with the captain. Oddly enough, she trusted that her secret was safe with him. Shane wouldn’t turn her in, not out of loyalty or affection, but because he had nothing to gain and his professional reputation to lose if he made accusations he couldn’t prove. A detective claiming another detective had confessed to murder, with no body, no physical evidence, and no corroborating witnesses, would be career suicide.
Shane was many things, but reckless wasn’t one of them.
She tapped the marker against her leg and turned back to the whiteboard. She needed to focus. The Bell case was real work that deserved her full attention, and dwelling on Shane’s empty desk wasn’t going to solve a thirty-year-old murder.
She examined the timeline again, letting her eyes trace the arrows she’d drawn between the key players. Richard Bell, the father. Eden Bell, the devoted mother. Joey Bell, the older brother. And of course, Grant Tatlock, the boyfriend from the wrong side of town. And at the center of it all, Iris, a seventeen-year-old girl with a tape recorder and enough audacity to secretly document the private lives of everyone around her. There was something almost admirable about that kind of nerve, even if the outcome had been devastating.
“Kin?” a voice called, cutting through her thoughts.
The marker dropped from her fingers, the cap popping off as it hit the tile. It rolled somewhere beneath her desk. She turned to find Izzy Martinez standing in the opening beside the glass partition that separated the bullpen from the hallway.
“I called your name twice,” Izzy said, her dark eyes studying Kinsley’s face with the same attention to detail she applied to crash scenes. “Thought you might have fallen asleep with your eyes open.”
“Sorry,” Kinsley muttered as she bent to retrieve the marker, grateful for the moment to compose herself. “Just lost in thought.”
“I’m heading out for lunch. Want to join? There’s a new Thai place that opened on Elm.”
“Thanks, but I grabbed a bear claw on the way in.”
The lie came easily, though her empty stomach protested with a faint grumble that she hoped Izzy couldn’t hear. Food was the last thing on her mind. Her appetite had all but vanished under the constant pressure of not knowing where Gantz’s vehicle and body had ended up, and every time she thought about eating, the anxiety tightened around her stomach like a fist. She retrieved the cap from beneath her desk, pushed herself to her feet, secured the marker, and set it down before brushing the dust off her dark jeans.
“Well, you’re coming with me anyway,” Izzy said with a shrug that left no room for negotiation. With a medium build shaped by years of physical training, she exuded a natural confidence and never minced words. Her short black hair was choppy and edgy, reminiscent of a rock band frontwoman who thrived on rebellion and boldness. “I don’t want it on my conscience when your blood sugar crashes in an hour and you hit the floor like that marker cap.”
Izzy advanced into the bullpen and didn’t stop until she reached Alex’s desk, where she adjusted the angle of his pencil holder and moved his stapler two inches to the left with a wicked smile.
“He’s not coming in today,” Kinsley advised with a laugh, and some of the tension eased at the sight of such a familiarritual. Izzy’s ongoing campaign to subtly disrupt Alex’s orderly workspace was a long-standing joke in the department, one that had been going on for the better part of two years and showed no signs of ending. “As a matter of fact, he took next week off to go fishing in the Gulf with some old college buddies.”
“All that matters is that he’ll eventually notice,” Izzy replied with a wink. “Did you ever notice how his face gets all pinched when he’s trying to figure out what’s different? Best entertainment in this place.”
Kinsley settled into her desk chair. As much as she enjoyed Izzy’s company, she couldn’t fathom keeping up a performance of normalcy for an entire hour without a crack showing. Fortunately, Izzy provided her with a reprieve when her attention drifted to the whiteboard.
“New case?” Izzy studied the name written in block letters at the top. “Iris Bell. Why does that sound familiar?”
Izzy wasn’t originally from Fallbrook, so she wouldn’t be privy to all the details of one of the town’s wealthiest families. Kinsley figured the surname rang a bell—no pun intended—because of the high school stadium. Izzy, along with most of the other city employees, was a devoted football fan.
“Local case from the nineties,” Kinsley explained. “A seventeen-year-old girl was found dead at the bottom of a staircase in her family’s mansion. The parents were out at a neighborhood block party, and Iris was supposed to be at a bonfire with friends. Her boyfriend, Grant Tatlock, was convicted of pushing her down the stairs. He was eighteen, working class, from the south side. The prosecution’s theory was that he killed her during an argument.”
“New evidence turn up?”
“Potentially.” Kinsley leaned back in her chair. “The Bell mansion went into foreclosure a while back, and a crew clearing out the property found a tape recorder and a bunch of cassetteshidden behind a false wall in the attic. Apparently, Iris had been secretly recording people for quite some time. Family, friends, neighbors. The works.”
“What’s on the tapes?”
“I don’t know yet,” Kinsley admitted, knowing full well that Izzy would use her next statement as leverage for the lunch invitation. “They’re at the lab being tested for fingerprints and trace evidence. I won’t get them back until Monday at the earliest.”
Kinsley thought of something that might redirect the conversation and spare her the Thai restaurant.
“The boyfriend, Tatlock, was convicted based on two things. A neighbor discovered him beside the body at the scene, and a cassette tape was found in Iris’s jacket pocket when she died. The recording captured an argument between them earlier that evening.” Kinsley paused, tapping a finger against the arm of her chair. “Tatlock had been using steroids, and Iris had apparently threatened to expose him to the football coach. On the tape, he tells her that if she ruins his future, he’ll kill her. But he maintained his innocence right up until his death in prison three years ago. I still need to pull the court transcripts to see what the defense presented and what might have been overlooked.”
“Jealousy?”
“Not exactly. More like desperation on his part and leverage on hers.” Kinsley’s attention was momentarily diverted when a couple of detectives entered the bullpen on the far side of the room, but Shane wasn’t among them. She pulled her focus back. “The captain wants me to verify the authenticity of the recordings first, then listen to them for any evidence that someone else might have had motive.”
“Like who?”
Kinsley smiled at Izzy’s interest. As a crash site forensics specialist, Izzy was adept at reconstructing accident scenes forcriminal investigations. Her keen eye for detail was exceptional, but it was the thrill of unraveling a mystery that truly energized her. She was the kind of person who couldn’t leave a puzzle half-finished, and the Bell case had all the hallmarks of a puzzle with missing pieces.
