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“I couldn’t make her tell me.”
“No, but you could have turned her away,” Trent pushed back.
“Get off your high horses, or there’s the door.” He jabbed a pointed finger, and Amanda recalled her promise not to be judgmental. Guess Trent hadn’t agreed to that.
“How did she find out you volunteered at Gunston Hall?” Amanda asked, redirecting.
“Through my sister’s social media. I tell her to stay offline, but she’s addicted to letting the world know her every move. You’d think being related to a cop, she’d have wizened up.”
Once a cop, always a cop. She wasn’t going to correct his tense and drank more of her coffee.
Dennis added, “My sister took my picture one shift and tagged the location. I told Felicity to go away, that it wasn’t something I could discuss. But she was persistent, and it started to feel like if I just spoke with her, she’d leave me alone. That’s the path I chose. Not that it worked. She returned a few times. Obviously, looking back, knowing what I know now, that was a short-sighted decision. But is there proof her murder is linked to the Chapman case?”
“It’s just a lead we’re following,” Amanda stonewalled.
“Right, so I talk while you don’t. As much as things change, they stay the same,” Dennis said in a huff.
“Do you know why she was so driven to find out more about the Chapman case?” Trent leaned against the arm of the couch, propping up his elbow there.
“She told me that it involved the history of her publishing company.”
Amanda thought back to the articles she’d read and didn’t remember any mention of Garrison & Marrow. “I thought Chapman worked for Between the Pages.”
“She did before Garrison & Marrow took them over.”
Now, that didn’t feel like a coincidence.
THIRTY
What Dennis had just told them was a revelation that certainly explained why Felicity Kelley had been so interested in the Chapman case. It touched close to home. “Garrison & Marrow bought Between the Pages?” Amanda asked.
“Uh-huh. Between the Pages was a small publishing house that offered small print runs for their authors. Their business tanked in 2011 when the e-book revolution began because they refused to evolve with the times. G & M took them over, acquiring their authors and staff.” He rattled that off, devoid of emotion.
Amanda sat with that insight for a bit, unsure what to make of it. “Tell us a bit about the Chapman case. Did you have any reason to think it was anything but a home robbery that turned fatal?” She was grasping because it would seem something about the case held Felicity under its spell. But did it factor into her murder? A question that kept bouncing around in her head and might soon drive her crazy.
“You tell me. All of Chapman’s jewelry was stolen. The parents held an insurance policy on a few pieces and the combined value was nearly three hundred K. There was also a string of home robberies at the time, and no one was ever caught. But before you ask, none of the other break-ins resulted in murder.”
Darren was motorboating his lips while he swept a toy car through the air as if it were flying. Amanda wondered what adventure his young mind was taking him on. He was a happy and content little boy, that was for sure.
“Go on… So, Chapman was killed in her home,” Trent prompted.
“Shot three times. She was found face up on her kitchen floor. The burglar came through the back door, which is off the dining room to the back of the kitchen. The window in the door was broken. That made it easy enough for the perp to reach in, twist the lock, let himself in.”
Perp, short for perpetrator, and cop talk for bad guy or suspect. “Him? Are you sure it was a man?” Amanda asked.
“That was never in dispute. Shoe prints in the garden bed told us that much. Some led in the direction of the back door. Others that matched were found beneath another window in the back of the house, off a main-level office.”
Amanda never read those things online, but she was stuck on one nugget. “What size were the prints?”
“Size ten, I believe. A very common size for a man. It wasn’t exactly groundbreaking for the case.”
She supposed he had a point, but was it a coincidence the ones left in Felicity’s living room were the same size? “Did you share this with Felicity?”
“I might have told her some of this. But, please, I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”
Amanda clamped her mouth shut. Except that now she’s dead!
Trent tapped the arm of his chair. “Did you consider stalkers or ex-boyfriends?”
