Page 81 of Keller

No matter how I try to justify it, I know if he ever were to find out, it would be a deal breaker. I also know the chances of him ever knowing are slim to none. The only way he could possibly know is if my findings suggest wrongdoing by Robert, Ridge, or someone else in the Stone family.

And if that becomes the case, then we have bigger problems, anyway.

I finish my coffee and rinse the mug in the sink. The water runs cold over my fingers. I dry my hands on the dish towel hanging from the oven handle and grab my bag from the chair by the door.

Time to work.

The fluorescent lightshum above my desk. I've been staring at the same document for twenty minutes.

The interview memorandum sits in my hands, three pages of single-spaced text generated after homicide brought David Parsale in for questioning based on my referral with the flagged anomaly.

I scan the header again. It was conducted yesterday and lasted only forty-seven minutes. Voluntary appearance, no counsel retained.

That last detail sticks with me. A man who made three manual routing overrides the morning after his CEO was murdered, and he walks into a police interview without a lawyer.

I flip to the substance of the transcript summary.

Parsale acknowledges the overrides. All three of them. He doesn't deny it. He doesn't hedge, qualify, or claim faulty memory. When asked why he made the changes, his answeris straightforward: verbal instruction from "executive office" to pre-designate specific inbound shipments for temporary isolation pending further review due to "security instability."

Manual overrides, by themselves, are not unusual during executive-level disruptions. That's his position.

He claims no knowledge of the fentanyl contents at the time. He did not personally flag the shipment later seized by Customs. He was not in direct contact with Robert Stone in the days prior to the murder. Phone records show his movements the night of the mugging, which are nowhere near the Warehouse District.

The detective's summary tone reads neutral, almost dismissive. The concluding paragraph states there is no probable cause connecting Parsale to the homicide.

From a homicide lens, this is a closed loop. I read that line twice. Then I read the whole section again.

What catches my attention isn't what Parsale said. It's what he didn't specify.

He repeats "executive office" multiple times throughout the interview. When asked directly whether the instruction came from Ridge Stone, he reportedly stated, "Not personally." When asked who delivered the instruction, he responded that he received a call from an executive liaison, but could not recall the exact person because it was so routine that it didn't raise any reason for him to make a note.

He listed off ten people who might have instructed it, but since there is no paper trail or electronic trail, there is no way to be sure.

There was no written directive issued, no follow-up email documented the instruction, and no crisis memo circulated company-wide that morning reflecting such selective isolation of shipments.

The memo notes he appeared cooperative. Calm. Consistent. No visible deception markers. No timeline inconsistencies.

I set the pages down on my desk and lean back in my chair.

From the detective's perspective, this reads like a corporate crisis tightening after a CEO's murder. Logical. Expected. Unremarkable.

From my perspective, this reads like targeted action.

I have studied operational patterns at Stone Intermodal for months. Manual overrides occur, yes. But not in clustered pre-arrival entries, and not without documentation during a period when liability exposure would demand a written record.

Companies that lose their CEO to violent crime don't go paperless on routing decisions. They create trails and cover themselves, documenting everything twice.

Unless they don't want a trail.

I close the report and stare at my screen.

The cursor blinks in an empty search field. I don't type anything. I just sit with the weight of what I read.

After a minute, I pick up the phone and dial Trenton Kree, the lead detective. He answers on the third ring. His voice is tired, and the background noise suggests he's at his desk, probably buried under the other nine cold cases competing for his attention.

"Mercer. Got your message. You read the Parsale summary?"

"Just finished."