“Gerald’s cardiologist, Dr. Marcus Feely, was formally interviewed last week. His initial intake notes from Gerald’s second appointment contain a hidden notation. Gerald explicitly expressed grave concerns about aggressive pressure from family regarding a financial matter.”
Hargrove took a breath. “Gerald also mentioned feeling abnormally, unnaturally fatigued in ways that did not align with his cardiac profile at all. Feely claims he made a referral to a specialist that Gerald apparently never followed up on. The medical examiner has officially been asked to revisit the autopsy file.”
I sat with the phone pressed hard against my ear and watched a bright red cardinal land on the bird feeder outside the kitchen window. “And the drives?” I asked softly.
“The text messages between Daryl and Terrence Webb have been subpoenaed,” Hargrove replied. “Webb’s high-priced attorney has indicated his client is flipping and cooperating fully to save himself.”
He paused, letting the weight of the moment settle. “Webb has officially stated to police that Daryl approached him two years before Gerald’s death with an illegal plan to acquire the East Parcel. When Gerald stubbornly refused to sell, Daryl allegedly told Webb he was going to, quote, ‘handle the situation.'”
“Webb claims he didn’t ask what that sinister phrase meant, but he didn’t walk away from the deal, either.”
“No,” I agreed quietly. “He didn’t.”
Two days later, Hargrove called again. He wanted me to come downtown to his office the following Monday. He was going to be there with the lead investigator from the Sheriff’s department, a seasoned Detective named Karen Muscle.
Hargrove felt it would be highly beneficial for me to be present in the room. He did not explicitly say why Daryl and Carla would also be there, but I understood immediately that they would be. This was the kind of explosive meeting that only happens once in a lifetime.
I wore Gerald’s favorite color. It was a deep blue cardigan he always said made my eyes look exactly like the lake we had honeymooned at up in Ontario. I do not know why I chose it that morning, but it felt like the only right thing to do.
Hargrove’s office was on the second floor of an aging brick building downtown, situated above a dry cleaner. I had only been there three times in my entire life: when Gerald and I bought the house, when we updated our wills, and in a blur of grief after the funeral. The cramped waiting area smelled comfortingly of old paper and lemon wood polish.
Bethany, the secretary, offered me a glass of water and looked at me with the particular, careful kindness of someone who knew much more than she was legally allowed to say. Daryl and Carla arrived exactly eight minutes late.
Daryl looked horrific, like he had not been sleeping for weeks. The careful, heavily managed quality I had always associated with him—the slick way he composed himself in boardrooms, the slight, arrogant performance of ease—was violently fraying at the edges. Carla was much more controlled, but her knuckles were white, and her hands were not quite steady when she set her designer bag down.
Detective Muscle was a compact, imposing woman in her forties with striking gray at her temples. She possessed the patient, terrifying, observational stillness of someone who had spent a long career listening closely for the exact thing people did not mean to say. She had a thick manila folder open in front of her.
She thanked everyone for coming. She did not ask me a single question for the first twenty minutes. Instead, she focused entirely on Daryl.
She asked him point-blank about the recovered text messages with Terrence Webb. She asked him exactly what he had meant when he promised to “handle the situation.” She asked him to clarify when he had first become aware that the East Parcel had been rezoned for highly lucrative commercial development.
Then, she asked him why he had been at Gerald’s house so frequently in the three weeks immediately preceding his sudden death. It was an undeniable fact established by Gerald’s own private calendar, which had been perfectly preserved among the documents in the hidden room.
Daryl answered very carefully at first, sweating under the collar. He claimed the situation was being grossly mischaracterized by a grieving widow. He insisted the texts were taken wildly out of context, and that he had merely been trying to help his aging father with complex estate planning. He swore he had been visiting so often simply because he was a deeply concerned, loving son.
Then Detective Muscle smoothly pivoted to Dr. Feely. Had Daryl aggressively recommended that his father see Dr. Feely specifically? Yes, Daryl admitted, Feely was a well-regarded cardiologist, and he had naturally wanted his father to have the absolute best care available.
Had he been aware that Gerald had tearfully expressed concerns to Dr. Feely about severe family pressure? Daryl’s jaw tightened visibly. He angrily stated that was a bizarre mischaracterization of what Gerald had actually said, claiming his father had simply been overly anxious about his failing health.
“How do you know what he said to Dr. Feely,” Detective Muscle asked, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper, “if you weren’t in the private examination room?”
The office went graveyard quiet. Daryl opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again like a dying fish. He frantically stammered something about Feely having casually mentioned it, having supposedly called him directly because he was a concerned family member.
“Dr. Feely states on the record he made no such call,” Muscle said, completely devoid of inflection.