Everything.
The word encompassed a great deal, and Paul Fisher had chosen it intentionally.
He was drawing a perimeter around the damage radius, making it clear that whatever Iris had captured would have been a bomb that took out more than one person. It was simultaneously a defense and a warning. Pursuing this line of questioning would lead to collateral damage that extended beyond a single suspect.
“Did you kill Iris Bell, Mr. Fisher?”
The directness of the question seemed to catch him off guard, despite the fact that the entire conversation had been building toward it. He blinked twice before a humorless smile spread across his face, the kind of smile that contained no warmth and served no purpose beyond signaling that the person wearing it had decided to stop cooperating.
“No, Detective Aspen, I did not kill Iris Bell.” Paul pushed his chair back slightly. The gesture was small but unmistakable. The interview was over on his end. “As far as I’m concerned, Grant Tatlock killed her. He was found at the scene, convicted by a jury, and died in prison. Is there anything else?”
Kinsley rose slowly, understanding that her window had closed. He didn’t need to add that any further questions should be directed through his attorney. The implication was embedded in his posture, his tone, and the careful distance he’d established between his chair and the desk.
She was satisfied, though, with what she was taking away from the conversation. She’d caught a glimpse of the contempt Paul held for Iris, a contempt that ran deeper than irritation at a teenager’s antics. She’d also learned that whatever information Iris had possessed would have damaged the firm, which meant it would have hurt Richard, which meant it would have given him an additional motive beyond the affair to want thosetapes silenced. And she’d confirmed, through Paul’s careful hypothetical framing, that the recorded conversation involved something substantial enough to threaten the entire business.
As she reached the door, she turned back with one final question. She’d been saving it, holding it in reserve.
“Why did Richard end things with Shannon a week after Iris’s funeral?”
Paul’s eyes narrowed, but the expression was speculative rather than irritated. He leaned his left forearm on the desk and studied her with renewed interest, as though reassessing the detective standing in his doorway.
“I don’t know where you got your information, but Richard didn’t break things off with Shannon.” Paul picked up a pen from the desk and tapped it against the leather inlay twice, a rhythmic gesture that bought him a moment to decide how much more he was willing to share. “It was the other way around. Shannon ended the affair, not Richard. And she wasn’t fired from the firm, either. She handed in her resignation.”
Kinsley held his gaze for a beat, letting the implications settle. Shannon Utgoff hadn’t been a passive participant, discarded by a powerful man after a tragedy made the relationship inconvenient. She had made a choice. She had ended the affair and walked away from her job in the same stroke, within a week of his daughter’s funeral. People didn’t make decisions that drastic without a reason, and the proximity to Iris’s death made the timing impossible to dismiss as a coincidence.
Shannon Utgoff had been in the neighborhood the night Iris died. She had ended her relationship with Richard and quit her job within days of the funeral. And she had moved to Arizona, putting over a thousand miles between herself and Fallbrook.
Kinsley thanked Paul Fisher for his time, stepped into the corridor, and pulled the door closed behind her. Her mind wasalready composing the questions she intended to ask Shannon Utgoff, and none of them were going to be easy to answer.
18
Kinsley Aspen
July
Thursday, 11:06 am
Kinsley jabbed at the elevator button a second time, though the illuminated circle confirmed her initial press had registered. Her head was starting to throb with the dull, persistent ache that came from too little sleep and too much caffeine, a combination she’d been running on for the better part of a week. She needed to change something in her routine if she was going to survive the foreseeable future of peering over her shoulder, but the Bell case kept filling every hour that wasn’t already occupied by Gantz-related anxiety, and sleep had become the thing she sacrificed to accommodate both.
The elevator doors finally slid open with a soft ding, cutting off her thoughts. She stepped inside and pressed the button for the fifth floor, trying to focus on Paul Fisher’s parting revelation about Shannon Utgoff. Something didn’t add up with Richard Bell’s relationship with her, and the inconsistency had been nagging at Kinsley since she’d walked out of Fisher’s office.
Why would a woman break off an affair with her wealthy, married boss and then resign from her job, all within a week of his daughter’s funeral? The timing suggested more than grief or moral reckoning. It suggested fear, or guilt, or the sudden possession of knowledge that made staying in Fallbrook untenable. People didn’t uproot their lives on principle alone. They did it when staying put became more dangerous than leaving.
The doors began to close when a hand shot between them, triggering the safety sensor. They bounced apart, revealing Walter Elm.
Wally’s physical appearance didn’t match what most people imagined when they thought of a medical examiner. He wasn’t pale or lean. He didn’t wear glasses, and he certainly wasn’t an introvert. He was the complete opposite. A man with the frame of a linebacker, dark stubble on his jaw that added a rugged charm, and piercing blue eyes that had reportedly melted the hearts of several women in Fallbrook and at least one judge during a particularly contentious autopsy report dispute. He stepped into the elevator with the energy of someone who had already consumed his body weight in coffee and was looking for a reason to keep the momentum going.
“How much?”
Kinsley knew immediately what he was asking about. She normally would have strung him along regarding the preseason tickets, drawing out the negotiation for her own entertainment, but she didn’t have the time or the energy today.
“It’s your lucky day,” Kinsley said, figuring she was about to be his favorite person. “Dylan’s got his hands full with the farm, and Olivia just told me that she and Ben can’t get any more time off in August. I should have a few extra. I’ll make sure to save at least one for you, plus Izzy and Alex.”
“Sweet,” Wally said, rubbing his hands together with undisguised glee. “I’m scheduling our Fantasy Football draft for the last week of August. We drafted too early last year, and half my picks were busted by Week Three. I’m hoping the Vikings have their quarterback situation sorted out by then.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kinsley said with a laugh, knowing full well that he was still sore over her win from last season. “You’re just mad that you didn’t take a chance on the Panthers’ rookie wide receiver.”
“Fifth floor?” Wally asked, his gaze catching the illuminated number on the panel.
