Chapter Forty-Eight
FORTY-EIGHT
Tim
Tim found Shana pacing the hall after he’d finished up with Woody.
She made no attempt to hide her nerves as she guided Tim to her office and sat him down.
He knew she would watch the recording of the interview just as soon as she could, but this was Mac’s brother-in-law.
Shana couldn’t wait to find out what she’d missed.
“According to him,” said Tim, “there’s no connection between Mikko and Angelica.
They barely talked that night, and she spent most of the evening with Woody.
The body was found in Helle’s home, and Woody knows the situation doesn’t look great for him either.
I gave him every opportunity to point the finger at Helle.
You’d think he’d play every angle he could to save his own ass, but he didn’t.
That said, he doesn’t trust the guy, though I think he wants to.
There’s the partnership and all that, which he’s taking very seriously. ”
“Huh,” said Shana. There was a stain on her shirt, a small, pale smear of avocado from Darcy’s breakfast, and it triggered a pang of longing in Tim. “Where does that leave us?”
“There’s something off about all this,” he said.
“The house, the Tesla, the Rivermouth. Helle’s clearly got money, and Woody has none.
He admits to parting with forty grand, the family’s entire savings, to invest in the project.
In my interviews, they kept referring to each other as a partner.
No offense to Woody, but what does he bring to the party?
The figurative one, I mean,” he added, his voice dipping low.
“Woody says Helle wants him to run the business. So why not just hire the guy? Why take Woody’s money, a drop in the bucket of the property’s cost, when Helle could just pay him a salary, be in full control of financial decisions related to the business, and pocket all the profits for himself? ”
“That is strange,” Shana agreed. She’d spotted the stain and was dampening her finger on her tongue to scrub it away.
“We’ve been operating under the assumption that the house is central to it all.
It’s where Angelica Patten’s body was found, plus Molly Kranz and Nicole both spent time there.
But maybe the Rivermouth is a bigger part of this than we thought. ”
It was the same impression that had formed when Tim stood, head cocked, outside the place that very morning. “I think we should look into Helle’s finances.” Tim would see if he could expedite the request. Mac had a friend who was a judge. He’d helped them out before.
“Do it,” said Shana. “Let’s make sure we’re not overlooking something with him.”
On the way out the door, Tim hinged at the waist and touched his lips to Shana’s nose. They stayed that way for a long moment, their breath mingling. Her self-possession, so concrete now, giving him strength.
There was no question in Tim’s mind that he’d chosen the right career path, and yet, that decision was a heavy cross to bear.
Hell, some days that cross felt like it was made of solid lead.
If he’d gone into accounting like his sister, a miscalculation might result in an extra hour of work.
An amended spreadsheet, at worst. If Tim slipped up on the job, an innocent person might go to prison. Someone else might die.
Along the way, the team had missed something. Disregarded a critical clue.
And they were running out of time to pinpoint the oversight and make things right.