Page 27 of Fatal Fame
"What makes you say that?"
"Thirty years of interviewing people who don't want to tell the whole truth. They know more about Keith's relationship with Rebecca Hale than they're admitting, and they know more about why he was scared before he died."
“Maybe.”
Noah started the engine and pulled away from the Dwyer house, his mind working through the contradictions and implications of what they'd learned. Keith's death might have been suicide, but it was suicide motivated by fear rather than despair. Someone had pressured him, threatened him, or convinced him that death was preferable to the consequences of staying alive and talking to investigators. The question was whether that pressure had come from external threats or internal guilt. Either way, Keith’s death was connected to the Hale murders in ways that went beyond simple coincidence. And if Noah was right about that connection, then Landry's investigation had already accomplished something that ten years of official police work had failed to achieve, it had forced someone to take action to protect secrets that were worth killing for.
9
Thirty-five minutes east of High Peaks, the landscape shifted from tourist-friendly lakefront communities to working farms and small settlements that seemed untouched by the boutique shops and artisanal coffee culture that had transformed so much of the Adirondacks.
Pierce sat in the passenger seat of their rental van, reviewing his notes while Marcus drove and the rest of the team recovered from the previous night's town hall disaster. The bruise on Pierce's jaw had darkened overnight, and his split lip served as a constant reminder that his investigation had crossed some invisible line from professional inquiry to personal threat.
"You sure about this?" Marcus asked, slowing for a tractor that was taking its time navigating the narrow road. "After last night, maybe we should be thinking about damage control instead of stirring up more trouble. You heard what that cop said."
"Last night proved we're on the right track," Pierce replied, touching his tender jaw. "People don't get that angry unless you're threatening something they want to keep hidden."
Camila looked up from her laptop in the back seat, where she'd been researching Rebecca Hale's family connections. "I've been going through the old interviews Evelyn Cross provided. Rebecca's sister Wendy was pretty vocal about her theories back then."
"What kind of theories?"
"She thought Rebecca's ex-boyfriend might have been involved. Michael Torres. He used to be a cop. They'd broken up a few weeks before the murders."
Pierce felt his investigative instincts engage. Ex-boyfriends with law enforcement backgrounds who had recent breakups with murder victims—that was exactly the kind of lead that could crack a case wide open. "What happened to him?"
"Still lives in the area. He was there last night. Don’t you remember?”
“I don’t remember much,” he said rubbing his jaw.
“Well I do. He left the police force a few years ago, works in real estate now. But according to the files, he had an airtight alibi for the night of the murders."
"Alibis can be manufactured, especially by cops who know how investigations work."
Elizabethtown emerged from the rural landscape like a postcard of small-town America: tree-lined streets, well-maintained homes, the kind of community where people still knew their neighbors and left their doors unlocked. Pierce noted the contrast with High Peaks, where his team had been met with suspicion and hostility. Here, at least, they might be able to conduct interviews without fear of physical violence.
Wendy Sutton lived in a Victorian house on Court Street, its wraparound porch decorated with hanging baskets and wind chimes that created a symphony of gentle sound in the afternoon breeze. Pierce had called ahead, explaining thatEvelyn Cross had provided her contact information and that he was investigating her sister's murder for a podcast series.
She answered the door before they could knock, a woman in her late forties with gray hair and eyes that held the kind of sadness that came from unresolved grief.
“Mrs. Sutton?”
"Pierce Landry?”
He nodded.
She gestured for them to enter.
The interior of her home felt like a shrine to family memory, photographs covering every available surface, mementos from vacations and holidays, the accumulated evidence of lives lived and lost. Pierce noted several pictures of Rebecca and Jacob, frozen in moments of happiness that made their violent deaths seem even more tragic.
"I appreciate you agreeing to speak with us," Pierce said as they settled into a living room that smelled of vanilla candles and old wood. "I know this must be very difficult."
"It's been ten years, Mr. Landry. The difficult part is that nothing's changed. Rebecca and Jacob are still dead, and whoever killed them is still walking free." Wendy's tone was full of the controlled anger of someone who'd spent a decade watching justice delayed. "When Evelyn called to say you were investigating the case, I thought maybe finally someone would care enough to find the truth."
Pierce pulled out his recording equipment. "Tell me about Rebecca in the weeks before her death. How was she?”
Wendy was quiet for a moment, her fingers worrying at a tissue she'd pulled from a box on the coffee table. "Not good. She was struggling. Michael Torres had broken up with her, and Rebecca was having a hard time accepting it."
“He was police officer, right?"
