“It was just so sudden, you know?” Joey took a tentative sip of his coffee, testing the temperature, then nodded to himself and tipped the cup back farther. Once he’d swallowed, he set the cup down and wrapped both hands around it. “Nothing was the same after Iris died. Nothing. My grades fell off a cliff, and my life started going in a direction that nobody saw coming. Least of all me.”
“How so?”
“I stopped hanging out with my friends. Started smoking weed. Drinking more than a sixteen-year-old has any business drinking.” Joey lifted one side of his mouth in a grimace of self-disapproval. “I even injured my shoulder because I wasn’t taking warmups seriously. I was angry at everything and everyone, and I didn’t have the tools to deal with any of it.”
Kinsley sipped her coffee, allowing the silence to stretch between them. He was working up to saying more, and she’d learned long ago that the fastest way to shut someone down was to fill the space they needed with questions.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I suffered from a lot of guilt back then.” Joey was quick to follow up with his reasoning, as though he’d anticipated the direction her thoughts might take. “Iris and I used to argue all the time. We never agreed on anything, from music to friends to what to watch on television. But I did love her. And at sixteen, that was a lot of emotion to carry, especially when the last conversation you had with your sister was an argument about whose turn it was to take out the garbage.”
Kinsley set her cup down but kept her hand wrapped around the warm ceramic. The time for gentle reminiscence was over.
“Joey, after the foreclosure crew discovered those cassette tapes in the attic, a lot of new information has come to light that casts doubt on Grant Tatlock’s guilt.” Kinsley kept her voice level, her tone factual rather than accusatory. “It’s come to our attention that your sister was blackmailing people. We’re also aware that your father was having an affair with Shannon Utgoff. And as for my request to have you meet me here today?”
She paused, letting the weight of what was coming settle across the table.
“Joey, we know you weren’t at the football game the night Iris died.”
Joey must have begun jostling his knee beneath the table. With his forearm resting on the surface, his nervous energy caused everything to vibrate slightly. The cup, the napkin dispenser, the sugar packets in their ceramic holder, all trembling with the rhythm of whatever was happening below.
“I didn’t lie, Detective.”
“But you never corrected the investigating detective’s assumption,” Kinsley pointed out, keeping all judgment from her tone. “You can understand how that might come across.”
“I know what it looks like, but Iwasat the game. A friend and I left early, that’s all.” Joey frowned, studying her face as though attempting to calculate how much she already knew. “How did you even find that out?”
“Does it matter?” Kinsley didn’t want to reveal Shannon as her source. Not yet. “I believe you want to find out what happened to your sister, so I’m asking you to tell me the truth about that night.”
“A friend of mine?—”
“Name?”
“I’d rather not give it.” Joey shifted with visible unease, glancing around the café as though someone might overhear them, even though Kinsley had specifically chosen the most isolated table. “He doesn’t want his name dragged into this investigation, even thirty-some years later. I can tell you what you need to know. His older brother was able to get us some alcohol. We left the game, picked up the bottles from his brother’s car in the parking lot, and then cut through some yards on our way to the bonfire at Miller’s Pond.”
“What happened once you got to the bonfire?”
“It was maybe twenty or thirty minutes later that we heard about the police cars.” Joey stared down at the lid of his coffee, as though the memories were replaying on its plastic surface. “I think one of the parents walked down from the Wilsons’ placeto let the kids know something had happened. I assumed it was about us. Underage drinking and all that. My friend and I grabbed the bottles and ran.”
“Where to?”
“Back to the game.” Joey used his thumb to pick at the seam of the coffee lid, a small repetitive motion that seemed to help him organize his thoughts. “We stashed the bottles underneath the bleachers and blended back in with the crowd. Nobody noticed. The game was still going, and everyone was focused on the field.”
“When did you find out that Iris had been murdered?”
“When I got home.” Joey’s voice caught in his throat, and he cleared it before blinking rapidly to dispel the moisture that had gathered in his eyes. “It was stupid, I know. But we were kids who’d had too much to drink, and we didn’t want to get into trouble.”
Kinsley nodded slowly, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. A barista dropped something behind the counter, and the sharp crash of ceramic on tile momentarily drew Joey’s attention toward the sound. When he turned back, his composure had returned, the brief vulnerability sealed over as though it had never been there.
“Was Iris blackmailing you, Joey?” Kinsley asked, allowing the question to hang in the air between them. “Over something specific?”
“Not the way you’re thinking. She wasn’t extorting cash from her little brother.”
“But she was holding something over you,” Kinsley pressed, monitoring his expression carefully.
“Sure, but it was sibling stuff.” Joey rotated his cup slowly between his palms, the motion mechanical and unhurried. “She recorded me complaining about Dad to some friends. Talking on the phone to a girl who happened to be dating oneof my buddies. Typical teenage stuff that would have been embarrassing if it got out, but nothing that would ruin my life.”
“And what did Iris want in exchange for her silence?”
“Chores.” Joey paused to take another drink of his coffee, and something that was almost a smile crossed his face. “She hated doing the dishes. So suddenly, I’m doing her kitchen duty for two weeks straight. Taking out the garbage every night. Things like that. She wasn’t after money from me. She was after convenience.”
