CHAPTER TWENTY #2
He moved toward the workbench, and Isla let him, watching carefully for any sign that his cooperation was performance rather than genuine.
"I've been paying utilities out of my own pocket at some of these locations," Murphy continued, pulling out a binder and opening it to reveal a stack of receipts.
"Look—here's Harrington's Steakhouse. I've been covering their electric bill since January so the freezer stays operational.
When Paul settles his insurance dispute, I'm hoping to buy that unit for the museum.
It's a vintage 1972 Traulsen—they don't make them like that anymore. "
Isla looked at the receipts. They were real—printed utility statements with Murphy's name and payment information, dating back weeks and in some cases months. She felt something cold settling in her stomach that had nothing to do with the warehouse's temperature.
"Mr. Murphy," she said carefully, "three women have been murdered in Duluth over the past week. Their bodies were found in the freezers of closed restaurants—Bella Ristorante, the Shoreline Diner, and Harrington's Steakhouse."
Murphy's face went pale. Not the theatrical paleness of someone feigning shock, but the genuine blood-draining color change of someone receiving devastating news.
"Murdered?" The word came out strangled. "In the freezers?"
"In freezers at locations your business has connections to. Locations you have detailed records about. Locations where you've been maintaining utilities."
Murphy staggered back a step, his hand finding the workbench for support. "Oh God. Oh my God." He looked at the spreadsheets, at his own careful documentation, and Isla could see him making the same connections they had—seeing how his innocent records could look like a killer's planning documents.
"I didn't—I would never—" His voice cracked. "This is for a museum. A museum about restaurants. I'm trying to preserve history, not—" He couldn't finish the sentence.
"Where were you yesterday evening?" Isla asked, her voice sharper now. "Between five-thirty and eight PM?"
Murphy looked up at her, and she saw genuine confusion cutting through his distress. "Yesterday? I wasn't even in Duluth yesterday. I was in Chicago."
"Chicago?"
"At the National Restaurant Equipment Expo.
It's an annual trade show—buyers and sellers from all over the Midwest. I drove down Monday morning, stayed at the Palmer House, and I'm not supposed to come back until tonight.
" He reached into his pocket and pulled out a lanyard badge, the kind they gave out at conventions.
"See? This is my exhibitor pass. I had a booth showcasing vintage equipment for the museum project. "
Isla took the badge. It was real—professionally printed, with Murphy's name and photo, a barcode, and the dates of the expo: February 12-14, 2025.
"I only came back early because I forgot some paperwork I needed for a presentation this afternoon," Murphy continued, his words tumbling out in the particular rush of someone desperate to be believed. "I was planning to grab it and drive straight back. The expo doesn't even end until Friday."
"We'll need to verify your alibi," James said, but Isla could hear the doubt creeping into his voice. The same doubt that was now gnawing at her own certainty.
"Verify whatever you want. Call the expo organizers. Call the Palmer House—I have receipts, room charges, everything. My booth was being manned by colleagues while I ran back here. They can vouch for me."
Isla looked at the folders spread across the workbench. The historical photographs. The grant applications. The meticulous records that had seemed so damning an hour ago and now looked like exactly what Murphy claimed—the obsessive documentation of a man dedicated to preserving culinary history.
She thought about the timeline. Sarah Ramsey had been killed yesterday evening, sometime between when she'd left her office and when Paul Harrington had found her body. If Murphy had been in Chicago...
"The expo," she said. "What time did you arrive Monday?"
"I left Duluth around six in the morning.
Got to Chicago by early afternoon, checked into the hotel, went to the convention center to set up my booth.
I was there all day Monday, all day yesterday.
" Murphy's color was slowly returning, replaced by something that looked almost like hope.
"I have credit card charges, toll receipts. I can prove where I was."
James moved to the laptop on the workbench and opened it. "Do you have documentation here? Email confirmations, travel records?"
"Everything. I'm meticulous about records—you can probably tell." The ghost of a self-deprecating smile crossed Murphy's face. "It's a character flaw, my ex-wife used to say. I document everything."
Isla watched James pull up Murphy's email, scrolling through confirmation messages and hotel receipts. Chicago. The Palmer House. A booth at the National Restaurant Equipment Expo.
If it checked out—and it would check out, she was increasingly certain—then Daniel Murphy had been four hundred miles away when Sarah Ramsey was murdered.
His connection to the crime scenes was exactly what he claimed: a passion project, a museum endeavor, the obsessive preservation of Duluth's disappearing culinary heritage.
They'd been reaching. She saw that now with painful clarity. Three crime scenes connected to a single business, and they'd built a narrative around that connection without considering alternative explanations. The same rush to judgment she'd sworn never to repeat after Miami.
"Mr. Murphy," Isla said, her voice carrying none of the accusatory edge it had held minutes ago, "I apologize for the disruption. We'll need to verify your alibi before we can fully clear you, but it appears we may have been operating on incomplete information."
Murphy nodded slowly, the tension in his shoulders beginning to release. "I understand. Three women dead—of course you had to check. I just wish..." He trailed off, looking at his careful records with new eyes. "I never thought my preservation project could be connected to something like this."
Neither had Isla. But she should have. She should have dug deeper before showing up with a warrant, should have verified the expo attendance, should have considered that a man who meticulously documented closed restaurants might have reasons beyond murder for doing so.
They finished the search—protocol demanded it—but found nothing to connect Murphy to the killings.
No evidence of violence, no trophies from victims, no indication that his freezer collection was anything other than what he claimed: artifacts awaiting their place in a museum that might never be built.
By the time they left Murphy's warehouse, the gray February morning had brightened into something approaching midday. Isla stood in the parking lot, watching James finish up with the surveillance team, feeling the familiar weight of a lead gone cold settling onto her shoulders.
Three women dead. And they were back to square one.
"The alibi will check out," James said, appearing beside her. "I'd bet money on it."
"I know." Isla stared at the warehouse, at the hand-painted sign advertising restaurant equipment salvage. "He's not our guy."
"The connection was real. The restaurants, the freezers, the utility records—"
"The connection was coincidental." The words tasted bitter, but she forced herself to say them. "Murphy's museum project happens to overlap with the killer's hunting ground. It doesn't mean Murphy is the hunter."
James was quiet for a moment, processing what she was saying. What it meant for their investigation.
"So where does that leave us?"
Isla thought about the whiteboard back at the field office, covered in connections that led nowhere.
Thought about Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce and Sarah Ramsey, three women who shared a physical type but apparently nothing else.
Thought about the killer who had posed them with such terrible tenderness, who had chosen closed restaurants with working freezers, who had accelerated his timeline in the days leading up to Valentine's Day.
Which was today. The killings had only increased. Would there be even more today, of all days?
"It leaves us with a profile," she said slowly.
"Someone who targets women with light hair in their thirties. Someone who has access to information about closed restaurants—maybe through legitimate means, like Murphy, or maybe through something else entirely.” She turned away from the warehouse and headed for the sedan.
"We've been focusing on the crime scenes, trying to trace the killer through the locations.
Maybe we need to focus on the victims instead.
Find out what drew him to them specifically.
What they have in common beyond the way they look. "
"The yoga studio connection didn't pan out."
"No, it didn't. But there has to be something.
Three women don't just get selected at random by someone this organized, this careful.
" Isla climbed into the passenger seat and waited for James to start the engine.
"We're missing a piece of the puzzle. Something that links Monica Hayes and Amanda Pierce and Sarah Ramsey in a way we haven't discovered yet. "
James pulled the sedan out of the parking lot, pointing them back toward the field office. The February sky stretched above them, gray and flat and offering no answers.
"We'll find it," he said.
Isla wished she shared his certainty.
Eventually, they would catch him. But how many more women would need to die first?