“I walked up the porch steps, crossed to the door, and when I reached for the doorknob to pull it shut...” Darlene’s voice had dropped to nearly a whisper. “I spotted Iris at the bottom of the stairs. She wasn’t moving. There was blood around her head, so much blood, pooled on the marble floor and spreading across the tile. And Grant was leaning over her. His hands were going through her pockets. I didn’t understand at the time what he was looking for. It was days later that I found out about the tape recorder in her jacket.”
Darlene’s face had paled considerably, and the memory was clearly still vivid despite the decades that had passed. Her hand trembled slightly as she resumed tracing the pattern on her skirt, the repetitive motion seeming to ground her in the present.
“What happened then, Ms. Barrett?”
“I must have gasped or screamed. I’m not sure which. But Grant looked up, and his eyes...” Darlene’s voice caught. “I’ll never forget them. They were wild, almost feral, like he wasn’treally seeing me. Like he was somewhere else entirely, and I just happened to be standing in his line of sight. I backed away. I nearly fell down those front steps getting out of there. I was terrified he might come after me.”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“No. Not a word.”
“And what did you do next?”
“I ran straight back to my house and called 911. I was shaking so hard I could barely dial the numbers.” Darlene inhaled deeply, the worst of the retelling behind her now. “I probably should have gone back to the block party and gotten Richard or Eden, but the 911 operator kept me on the line until the police arrived. If I’m not mistaken, the flashing lights are what caught the attention of the partygoers. One of the officers had to block them from entering the house.”
Darlene fell silent, her gaze fixed on the table. When she spoke again, her voice had a different quality. Relief, or something close to it.
“I’m just so thankful that Frannie stayed at the party with the other children. Can you imagine? An eight-year-old seeing something like that?” Darlene shuddered visibly. “I had nightmares for months as it was. My little girl didn’t need those images in her head.”
Kinsley gave Darlene a moment to collect herself before pressing deeper. The account matched the court transcripts and the original statement almost exactly, which in Kinsley’s experience could mean either an excellent memory or a story that had been rehearsed so many times it had calcified into a fixed shape. But there were still details being left out, gaps that the original investigation had apparently never thought to explore.
“Thank you for being so thorough,” Kinsley said after a while. “I know these aren’t easy memories to revisit. Ms. Barrett, youmentioned that you were afraid Grant Tatlock would come after you, but I’d like you to think about something. He didn’t call out to you. He didn’t chase you. He didn’t try to flee the scene. When the police arrived, he was still there beside Iris’s body, and he didn’t resist arrest in the slightest. Does that sound like the behavior of someone who had just committed a murder and been caught in the act?”
Darlene’s expression shifted from somber recollection to something closer to confusion. A small crease formed between her brows as she considered the question, tilting her head slightly as though hearing something she’d never been asked to listen for before.
“I... no one’s ever asked me that.” Darlene blinked rapidly, processing the implication. “I suppose I was afraid. I reacted on pure instinct. But you’re right. Grant never tried to approach me, not then and not after. He was just...there. Kneeling beside her. Almost like he was in shock.”
Kinsley noted the shift in language. Darlene had moved from describing Tatlock’s eyes as “wild” and “feral” to suggesting he might have been in shock. The reframing was significant. It meant the memory wasn’t as fixed as it had initially appeared, and that the version Darlene had been telling herself for thirty years could bend under the right kind of pressure.
“You mentioned your daughter earlier,” Kinsley redirected gently. “What about a husband? Were you married back then?”
Darlene shook her head, a small, practiced movement that suggested she’d answered this question many times throughout her life.
“There’s never been a husband. It’s always been just Frannie and me.” Darlene gestured vaguely around the kitchen. “My parents bought this house for me a few weeks after Frannie was born. I know how that sounds, but they wanted to make sure their granddaughter was taken care of. I’m personally notwealthy like the Bells or the Kusmans. Never have been. But we’ve always had enough, Frannie and I.”
She nodded toward the pottery on the shelves.
“As you can see, I make pottery. I used to sell my pieces to some shops downtown, but the internet changed everything. I do quite well with my online sales now.”
Through an archway beyond the kitchen, Kinsley caught sight of what appeared to be a sunroom. The space was flooded with afternoon light, illuminating two pottery wheels and several shelves of clay works at various stages of completion. Some pieces were roughly formed, still bearing the marks of fingers and tools, while others awaited glazing, their surfaces smooth but unfinished. Tools were carefully arranged on a nearby workbench, reflecting the ordered creativity of their owner. The pottery wasn’t just a hobby. It was a livelihood, and Darlene had clearly built something substantial from it.
“I’d like to go back to that night, if you don’t mind,” Kinsley said, steering the conversation once more. “You mentioned walking from the block party to your house for the desserts. Did you see anyone else on the street during that walk?”
Darlene’s eyes narrowed slightly, and a small vertical line once again appeared between her brows. She stared at Kinsley as though the question might be a trap, which was itself an interesting reaction. An innocent inquiry about who else had been on the street shouldn’t have provoked wariness, and the fact that it did told Kinsley the answer mattered more than Darlene wanted it to.
“No one asked me that during the original investigation, either. I guess they were all so focused on what I saw inside the house.” Darlene seemed to be mentally retracing her steps from that evening, her gaze distant and unfocused. “I did see a few people, now that I think about it, but nothing out of the ordinary.”
Kinsley got the distinct impression that Darlene didn’t want to put anyone in the spotlight. The vague phrasing, the qualifying language, the emphasis onnothing out of the ordinary. She was minimizing before she’d even shared the details, and when it became clear she wasn’t going to volunteer names without prompting, Kinsley became more direct.
“Who did you see that night, Ms. Barrett?”
“Todd. Todd Kusman. Ginny’s husband.” Darlene delivered the name as though offering the least damaging option first. “He’d worked late that night. He was just getting home from the office.”
“Anyone else?”
“Mrs. Sadler,” Darlene said after another moment’s consideration. “She lived three doors down, but she passed away about ten years ago. I spotted her in front of me, walking slowly down the sidewalk on my side of the street.”
“And neither Todd nor Mrs. Sadler mentioned seeing anything unusual when they were questioned?” Kinsley asked. She didn’t recall their names appearing in the case file.
