"Detective Thorne, Adirondack County Sheriff's Office. This is Detective McKenzie. Do you have a few minutes?"
Aspen studied them both. His eyes moved from Callie's badge to McKenzie's face to the unmarked Tahoe in his driveway. He didn't ask what it was about. He already knew.
"Come in," he said.
The cabin was one large room divided by function. Kitchen to the left, living area to the right, a hallway leading to what Callie assumed were a bedroom and bathroom. The space had the discipline of a barracks. Everything in its place, surfaces clear, no decoration except a framed photograph on the wall of two men in hunting gear standing beside a large buck. The younger one was smiling. The older one was Aspen. Neither was posing. They were smiling at each other.
Was it Kyle, the dead brother?
A topographic map of the High Peaks Wilderness was pinned to the wall beside the kitchen, marked with colored pins. Red for hunting routes, Callie guessed. Blue for water sources. Green for campsites. This man lived by the terrain and knew it the way most people knew their neighborhood streets.
"Coffee?" Aspen asked.
"No, thank you."
He gestured to the table. They sat. He sat across from them with his hands flat on the wood, as if he had nothing to hide. His posture was straight but not rigid.
“Let me guess, this is about Burt Halvorsen," he said.
"It's about both murders," Callie said. "We're speaking with a number of people in the area."
"You're speaking with me because someone told you about the town meeting." He didn't say it with anger. He said it as a fact, the way he might note the weather or the time of day.
She didn't confirm or deny. "Tell us about your relationship with Dr. Halvorsen."
Aspen's jaw tightened. Not much. Just enough to notice. "My brother Kyle died three years ago. Fell from a tree stand on stateland. Burt Halvorsen did the autopsy. He ruled it accidental. I disagreed."
"Why?"
"Because the tree stand was defective. The platform bolt had sheared. Kyle wasn't careless. He had been using tree stands since he was sixteen. The bolt failed and he fell twenty-two feet onto rock. I asked Halvorsen to document the equipment failure in his findings. He said the physical evidence didn't support it. I said he didn't look hard enough."
"And you raised this publicly."
"Twice. At town meetings. I also filed a complaint with the county. It was dismissed." He paused. "I wasn't quiet about it. I know that. I was angry. My brother bled out in the woods because the equipment failed and the man who was supposed to document that didn't do his job."
"Did you threaten Dr. Halvorsen?" McKenzie asked.
"I told him to his face that he was wrong. I told him his autopsy was incomplete. I didn't threaten him."
"Others have said the confrontation was heated,” Callie added.
"It was heated. I was burying my brother. You tell me how calm you'd be."
Callie let the silence sit for a moment. McKenzie was watching Aspen's hands. They hadn't moved from the table.
"Where were you on the night of August seventeenth?" Callie asked.
"Home."
"And the night of August twenty-seventh?"
"Home."
"Can anyone confirm that?"
"I live alone. So no."
"What were you doing those evenings?"
