“Do you think he hurt her?” She drops her gaze again and blinks fresh tears onto her cheeks. “Rejection can feel really loud to those who care most of all about their image, even when the rejection was spoken quietly.”
“We’d like to concentrate our investigation in this direction,” Archer hedges. “But we have no proof right now. He has an alibi, and disliking a person is not enough to push forward with a murder charge. Add in that he’s still a minor, and this case becomes even trickier.”
“S-so how do we get proof?” She sniffles. “It’s not like anyone in that family will admit he did it.”
“We run the case,” Drake answers. “We dig until we have irrefutable evidence, and then it doesn’t matter what anyone is willing to confess.”
“Has Josey said anything else about them over the last eight months?” Archer asks. “Anything at all? You might not even think it’s relevant, but the more information we have, the closer we’ll get to answers.”
She closes her eyes, sandwiching Josey’s hand between her palms and draws a deep breath. She holds it for a long minute, calming her hitching lungs and squeezing fresh tears onto her cheeks, then she releases it again and shakes her head. “We talked about all of her clients over the years. Unimportant things, like how Susan Carpenter was trying out for the school play. How the Mundys got a new dog last Christmas.” Opening her eyes, she looks up at Archer. “Jose always wanted a dog, but I just…” She exhales a small groan. “I couldn’t do that for her. She judged the Mundys for getting a puppy at Christmas because by Easter, they’d re-homed him. He was too much, she said. Too large. Too untrained. She didn’t intend to be judgmental or unkind, but she was human, and she’d always wanted one of her own.” She draws a shaking breath. “When she spoke of the Prims, it was most often about the parents.”
“How so?” Drake questions. “Can you give us examples?”
“Like, how Scott’s constant interruptions during Tara’s hour were detrimental to what they,Mr. and Mrs. Prim, were paying to achieve. He was a spoiled brat accustomed to attention, and he felt no need to respecthis sister’s learning time. Josey mentioned in a roundabout kind of way that an hour a week isn’t a lot, and how she’d love to have undisturbed time with each of the twins.” She shakes her head. “They heard her, but applied it only to Scott’s time. They changed their dinner routine so as not to disrupt his hour in the dining room, but had no problem interrupting Tara’s. Josey used to say Geoffrey Prim had a head so large, she was surprised he could fit it through a standard-sized door.” She exhales a watery laugh. “Not to them, of course. Just to me. When I asked what she meant, she said he never shut up about his football days or how Scott would follow in his footsteps. There was one time Tara did particularly well in school, she even received a special certificate for it, and she wanted to show Josey, but before she could get more than a few words out, Geoffrey interrupted her to talk about Scott’s accomplishments. Even Rhonda would get in on it sometimes. They considered themselves quite the superior breeders.” Again, she snickers. “That’s what Josey said.Superior breeders. Because the dad was a football star all through high school, and the mom ran track. Ribbons and trophies and newspaper articles were always near enough for them to pull out at a moment’s notice, because God forbid Tara have one, itty-bitty, little thing to celebrate without someone else speaking over her.”
“This is helpful,” Drake rumbles. “Thank you, Ms. Ryan. Is there anything else you can think of? Anything about the dining room she sat in? The living room she walked through? Much of that house was open plan, so she would’ve had a clear view of the kitchen and front door while she sat at the table. I know it’s difficult searching for these things, because it feels like you’re looking for something invisible. A single hair on a head full of them. But maybe Josey came home one day and mentioned…?” He trails off, allowing silence to pulse amongst us. “Anything at all?”
“She said she wished Rhonda would divorce Geoff and split the family straight down the middle. Scott could go with his dad, since they thought so highly of themselves and each other, and Tara could go with her mom, which still wasn’t a perfect solution, considering Rhonda was Team-Scott in basically everything anyway. But maybe if Scott were with his dad and Rhonda had a chance to focus less on the guys all the time, she might be better for her daughter.” She brings swollen eyes back up to us. “She said they slipped one time, Rhonda and Geoff. That they were always careful to appear like the perfect family, but Geoff came home from work one day while the girls were at the table. A minute after that, Scott arrived home too. The house had been quiet before that, but the instant they walked through the door, everything turned to chaos. Rhonda had beenpreparing dinner, and Geoffrey wanted a drink or something from the fridge. Scott immediately started complaining that he was hungry, so both of them stomped around the kitchen and made a mess. Geoffrey had some important thing going on that night, a work thing, and was pissed because his shirt wasn’t ironed yet.”
She reaches across and carefully strokes the bridge of Josey’s nose.
“She said those words. That he was pissed, and it really stuck with her, because in our home, we were big on doing things for ourselves. She said ‘he has two hands and a heartbeat, Mom. He could’ve ironed his own damn shirt.’”
“He expected Rhonda to get it done?” Archer murmurs. “While she was cooking. While Tara was having her session with Josey.”
“Yes. He was picking fights with Rhonda, arguing and acting like she was lazy even though she’d been at work all day, too. He went to the laundry room and grabbed the ironing board. The iron. Jose said she was kinda stressed, because her forensics brain had her thinking worst-case scenarios.”
“Like he might brain his wife with the iron?” I question.
Four sets of eyes come up and stop on my face.
“Sorry. I have a forensic brain, too. While you were telling that story, I saw it in my mind. Him throwing it at her or something.”
She nods. “Exactly. He didn’t throw it at anyone, but he slammed it and the ironing board onto the counter and messed up the dinner Rhonda was preparing. She was still worried about appearances, I guess, because her eyes instantly went to Josey’s. She was embarrassed. She faked a smile and hurriedly wiped up the mess he’d made. Meanwhile, he grabbed his drink and shouted some more about how ironing wasn’t his responsibility, since she insisted on buying a board that didn’t work properly anyway.”
Drake’s brows come closer together. “How does an ironing board work, except to stand there and provide a flat surface to iron on?”
She shrugs. “Something about how it folds and unfolds. Tara whispered that he always used it as an excuse for why he never had to iron, but then she kinda did what Rhonda does: smiled and pretended her family wasn’t a complete mess. She brought Josey’s attention back to their textbooks, Scott and his dad went to the living room and watched football, and Rhonda finished dinner and ironed his shirt. Tara never brought it up again.”
MINKA
While Aubree stays back to put Josey’s body away, the rest of us step out of the refrigerated room. Drake leads Sylvia to the elevator, and Archer walks on my left, his finger brushing mine each time he can manage it.
Still, he backs away when a fresh set of eyes swings our way.
“Oh! Good. Can I get a minute with you, Chief?” Preston whips a small contraption from his ear and pushes up from his stool. Fisting a jumbo takeout soda cup, he takes a long pull from the straw and flashes a wide smile. “I need you to stand still long enough for me to take your ID photo, then I’d like to run you through the system. We’re almost done.”
“I’ll go.” Archer exhales a tired sigh, a sound he so rarely allows past his lips. As the elevator closes with Sylvia inside, he studies his detective counterpart with a sadness I’m not sure he realizes is there. Turning to me, he pastes on a smile as fake as those the Prims are known for. “I’ll drop by later and update you on our case.”
“Wait.” I grab his hand before he can escape, then I bring my focus back to Preston. “I’ll come find you soon. I just need to speak with Detective Malone first.”
“Sure thing.” He plops back onto his stool and slurps another mouthful of his soda. “I’ll be here.”
Drake backs away from the elevator, his eyes burning with the same kind of exhaustion Archer’s do. He wanders this way, his hands in his pockets, but for the first time, perhapsever, he doesn’t sneer at Archer.He doesn’t growl. Doesn’t even roll his eyes. He merely comes to a stop a full ten feet away and lifts his brows. “You need to talk about Josey’s case, Chief?”
“No. I need to discuss something else, but I promise not to keep him for long. Preston?” I glance across and catch him mid-swallow. “Are the cameras active inside the fridges yet?”
“Err… They can be. Or they cannotbe.” He wipes his mouth on the sleeve of his shirt. “Your call.”
