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“So you’re basing all this on Nina Kirby saying the wrong mascot name for a football team?” he asked.
“You’re not a big sports fan, are you Jamil?” Jessie asked, trying to keep the irritation out of her voice and failing.
“Not really,” he conceded.
Ryan, sitting next to her in the car, looked doubtful too.
“What?” she asked.
“To be honest, I just assumed she wasn’t knowledgeable and screwed up,” he said. “I was about to call her on it as a joke.”
“I know,” Jessie said. “That’s why I gave you the evil eye. I didn’t want her to realize we caught her mistake. And let me assure you that no self-respecting University of Texas fan would accidentally confuse their mascot—the Longhorns—with the mascot of their in-state rival, the Texas A&M Aggies, which is what I called them.”
“It is common knowledge,” interjected Beth, a former college volleyball player.
“I get you knowing it,” Jamil said to his fellow researcher. “You’re a jock. But I didn’t think you were a big football fan, Ms. Hunt.”
"I'm not," Jessie told him. "But remember, I went to USC, as did my ex-husband, and he was a big fan. About five years ago, well before I found out that Kyle was a sociopathic murderer and that he was trying to frame me for killing his mistress, he took me to a big USC-Texas game. It was at the L.A. Coliseum. And let me tell you, those UT fans were hardcore. People covered in burnt orange from head to toe, paint covering their skin. I get that not everyone is like that, but you can’t go to that school and not know the mascot isn’t an Aggie. I guarantee you she didn’t go there. Besides, that’s not the only thing that made me suspicious. She was crying fake tears when she talked about how sweet Ava and Gabby were. It was an act.”
“I missed that,” Ryan conceded quietly.
“Well,” Jamil said, sounding contrite over the phone. “It looks like I owe you an apology. Your suspicions were correct. Nina and Rhett might have met at law school, but it wasn’t at the University of Texas at Austin. They both went to Southern Texas State. It’s a good three hours from Austin. And that’s not all.”
“What?” Ryan asked.
“We didn’t dive into any of this because we had already cleared them, but it looks like their entire lifestyle is a charade,” he answered. “They’ve been bouncing from state to state ever since they hooked up.”
“It’s true,” Beth added. “It looks like they’d set up their practice in one state, live lavishly for a while, and then when the money ran out, skip town, leaving a trails of bills in their wake.”
"It appears that's what happened here in L.A. as well," Jamil noted. "They were doing okay for about a year. But eventually, their incoming client list couldn't keep up with what they were spending. Now they're up to their eyeballs in debt. Records indicate that they are going to be evicted from the house they rent at the end of the month. Both their cars are on the verge of being repossessed. Their whole lives are lies."
“I get that she’s scummy,” Beth said, sounding reluctant to raise any doubts of her own, “but does that automatically make Nina Kirby a suspect again? I mean, just because they’re faking being rich doesn’t make her a murderer, right? She had an airtight alibi. GPS on her phone and her car verified her whereabouts.”
Hearing Beth's words made something click into place in Jessie's brain. She recalled how, after Janet Cressey was cleared, she got an undefined feeling that something was off, that she was missing an important detail. She had sensed that they were skipping an investigative step, and that if she could put her finger on it, it would lead them directly to the killer. Now she knew what that step was.
“That’s not quite right,” she said, thinking aloud. “We cleared Nina Kirby for Ava Martell’s murder on Monday evening. She was getting Chinese takeout food and then at that ‘Women in Law’ event. Witnesses and GPS data confirmed it. But we never cleared her for Gabby Silva’s death last night. We just assumed that if she had an alibi for one murder, then she was cleared for both. But what if the Kirbys were doing this together?”
Everyone was silent for a moment.
“Explain that,” Ryan finally said.
Jessie could see it clearly now and got the words out as quickly as she could.
“We confirmed Nina’s alibi for the night Ava was killed. And we confirmed that Rhett was at home the night Gabby was murdered. In fact, right around her estimated time of death, we saw him on the home video camera scaring off whatever animal was going for the garbage can. But we never checked the other way around, for what each of them was doing on the alternate night.”
“Wait,” Beth interjected. “We did check their GPS data from last night, remember? They were both home. Your interview notes even reference Rhett Kirby saying they were engaged in intimate activity.”
“Believe me, “I can’t forget that,” Jessie said. “But it must be wrong somehow.”
“I’m pulling it up again now,” Jamil announced.
They all waited while his fingers flew audibly across the keyboard. It only took seconds for him to find what he was looking for.
“No,” he said dejectedly. “The GPS data for last night definitively has both of them at home. Nina’s phone and car never leave their residence.”
Jessie couldn’t believe it. There had to be a mistake. She was sure she had figured it out.
“Hold on,” Jamil said suddenly. “Let me go back to the financials really quick. I think there might be an explanation.”
