“Please, make yourselves comfortable.” Ginny gestured toward a plush, intricately upholstered settee. The fabric, though beautifully maintained, had the stiff formality of furniture thatexisted to be admired rather than used. “I figured you’d be stopping by soon, so I made us a pitcher of lemonade.”
Kinsley took a seat, and Toby settled beside her. He reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a small notebook, and the gesture reminded her so much of Alex that she had to suppress a smile at the thought of teasing her partner about having found a replacement.
Ginny leaned over a silver tray to pick up a glass pitcher of lemonade, with perfectly round ice cubes floating at the surface. She filled all three tall glasses with practiced hospitality before handing off two of them. As Ginny turned to take a seat in the chair across from them, Kinsley quickly extended her arm and covered Toby’s glass with her hand before the rim could touch his lips. She gave a subtle shake of her head, mouthing a silentno. Confusion flickered across his features for a moment, but understanding dawned before Ginny had finished settling into her chair.
Toby set the untouched glass on a sandstone coaster on the coffee table without comment. To make the action look natural, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a pen, clicking it open as though he’d simply set the drink aside to free his hands for notetaking. It was a smooth recovery, and Kinsley gave him a mental point for it.
“As I mentioned earlier today, Mrs. Kusman, we’d like to revisit your recollection of the night Iris Bell was murdered,” Kinsley began as Ginny crossed her ankles in a pose that seemed practiced for maximum elegance, her sundress arranged just so over her knees. “You mentioned that Darlene left the block party to retrieve another tray of desserts while you remained behind. Do you recall anything unusual happening while you were at the party?”
“No, not at all,” Ginny replied, tapping a manicured nail against her glass of lemonade. “The first I knew something waswrong was when we saw the police lights coming down the street.”
“And you remember seeing Richard and Eden at the gathering?”
“Yes, Richard was talking to Simon Henderson about the man’s choice of music. I don’t know why that detail has stuck with me all these years.” Ginny glanced down at her drink, and her forehead barely moved, though Kinsley got the distinct impression she was attempting to convey something like remorse. “It’s horrible what happened to Iris. Todd and I were never able to have children of our own. I know the pain of not being able to have one, but I can’t imagine the pain of losing one.”
“I don’t intend to come across as harsh, but is that how you truly feel, Mrs. Kusman?” Kinsley asked, already hearing Captain Thompson’s voice in the back of her mind, warning her to tread carefully. She couldn’t afford to let the opportunity pass, though. Momentum in an interview was everything, and Ginny’s composure had a shelf life. “It’s come to our attention that Iris was blackmailing you. Whether she was seventeen or forty, that kind of behavior is difficult to accept, isn’t it?”
The effect was immediate. Ginny had been lifting her glass for a sip when the first question landed, and by the time the second arrived, she’d inhaled sharply enough for the lemonade to catch in her throat. A violent coughing fit ensued, and she was forced to set her glass down on the side table with a clatter that sent liquid sloshing over the rim. Toby reacted quickly, producing a crisp white handkerchief from his pocket and offering it with quiet courtesy.
Ginny glared at Kinsley before snatching the square of fabric from Toby’s fingers. She pressed the handkerchief to her lips as she struggled to regain her composure, her eyes watering andher face flushed. The pristine white fabric came away stained with pink lipstick.
“I don’t—” Ginny began, her voice raspy until she cleared it. “Did Darlene tell you that?”
“We have multiple sources confirming that Iris was blackmailing several people in the neighborhood,” Kinsley said, sidestepping Ginny’s question entirely. She wanted to divert Ginny’s anger away from Darlene while still maintaining pressure. “Her extortion wasn’t limited to neighbors, either. Family, friends, school officials. The list is extensive.”
Ginny’s gaze drifted to Toby, and Kinsley recognized the shift. She was looking for an ally, someone whose expression might be softer, more sympathetic, someone she could appeal to when Kinsley pushed too hard. It was a dynamic that could prove useful later in the interview if managed correctly.
“The foreclosure crew discovered numerous tapes with private conversations hidden in the attic, along with a duffel bag full of cash behind a false wall in Iris’s bedroom closet.” Kinsley spread her hands as though the evidence spoke for itself. “We know about your relationship with your personal trainer, Mrs. Kusman.”
“Thirty years ago,” Ginny protested, pressing the handkerchief to her mouth once more. Most of the color had drained from her face, and the confident hostess who had greeted them at the door had been replaced by a woman clinging to the edges of her composure with visible effort. “Please. You can’t mention this to my husband. He doesn’t know, and it would destroy our marriage if he found out. He’s a good man, Detective. He didn’t deserve what I did to him, and I went to a great deal of trouble to make sure he never found out.”
The words hung in the air between them, and Kinsley watched the exact moment Ginny registered the implication ofwhat she’d just said. Her eyes widened, the color that had returned to her cheeks draining again.
“That’s not what I meant,” Ginny said quickly, scooting forward to perch herself on the edge of the chair. She leaned toward Kinsley with both hands gripping the handkerchief in her lap, her body language a study in urgent denial. “Iris wanted money, but there was no way to make a large withdrawal from our bank account without Todd noticing. So, I gave her jewelry in exchange for her silence. That’s it. Nothing more. Please, you have to believe me.”
“Then walk us through what happened back then, Mrs. Kusman,” Toby said, his voice gentle and encouraging. Kinsley was glad he’d taken her advice about jumping in when the moment called for it. Ginny’s shoulders relaxed by a fraction at his tone, exactly the response Kinsley had hoped for. “How long before Iris’s death did you give her the jewelry?”
Kinsley had that question lined up next, but she didn’t mind that Toby had gotten ahead of the schedule. His timing was good, and the softer delivery drew Ginny’s attention away from Kinsley long enough for the woman to collect herself and answer without feeling cornered.
“Maybe about a month? I know it makes me look terrible that I didn’t tell the police about it, but no one wanted to shine a light on their own secrets. Not when the alternative was just keeping quiet and letting the conviction stand.” Ginny straightened her back, regaining some of her earlier poise as she followed Toby’s lead. “Pauline Henderson gave Iris a hundred dollars so she wouldn’t tell Simon that Pauline was the one who backed into their mailbox. And Rosemary Sadler, God rest her soul, gave Iris a pad of hall passes so she could skip classes during her senior year, all to keep the principal from finding out about Rosemary’s smoke breaks during school hours.”
Ginny paused, glancing down at the handkerchief in her hands and studying its crumpled edges. She gave a short, wry laugh that held more bitterness than humor.
“Maybe the old bat would have lived longer if she’d quit smoking during class,” Ginny muttered before rubbing her forehead in frustration. “The bottom line is that Iris was a manipulative teenager. We all had our own reasons for not wanting that publicized. And besides, does it even matter now? Grant Tatlock killed her. The fact that you discovered tapes and some money only proves that she wasn’t the wholesome girl the press made her out to be.”
Toby jotted something in his notebook while Kinsley decided to focus on the latter part of Ginny’s statement. The way she’d framed the tapes as irrelevant to the murder was exactly the kind of deflection that deserved a closer look.
“Then let’s switch topics for a moment,” Kinsley suggested, allowing Ginny a momentary reprieve from the blackmail discussion. “What was your impression of Grant Tatlock?”
“Grant was troubled. I don’t blame Iris for dating him, though. He had that bad boy image that teenage girls find irresistible. You know the type. From the wrong side of the tracks, always with a chip on his shoulder, handsome enough to get away with it. Really good at football, too.” Ginny’s voice had settled into a more conversational register now that the subject had moved away from her personal transgressions. “Eden couldn’t stand that her daughter was dating someone like him. It was a constant source of friction in that house.”
“What were they like back then?” Kinsley asked. “The Bell family, I mean.”
Ginny considered the question, pausing long enough to reach for her lemonade. Now that they’d moved past her infidelity, her hand was steadier and her posture more relaxed.
“Picture-perfect, at least on the surface. Richard’s firm was growing, and Eden was involved in every charity board in town. Joey was the golden boy, always winning medals at swimming meets, the kind of kid you’d see on the front page of the local paper holding up a trophy.” Ginny kept Toby’s handkerchief in one hand while swirling the round ice cubes in her glass with the other. “You can imagine Richard’s disappointment when Joey tore some ligaments in his shoulder during his senior year. Tanked his chances of getting a college scholarship, and Richard took it harder than Joey did, honestly. The boy’s entire athletic career was gone in an instant, and Richard looked at him differently after that. Like Joey had failed him on purpose.”
“Do you think it’s possible that Iris blackmailed her own parents? Her brother?”
