by Kelly Irvin
“When was the last time you were in your father’s study?”
He was like a dog worrying a bone. Nina silently counted to ten. “It’s been a few weeks.”
“Are you sure? Can you be more specific?”
“I didn’t make an appointment and write in my planner, if that’s what you’re asking me.” Neither would she forget the encounter. Dad’s tone had been definitive. He’d thought about her plan and he could not support her “ill-conceived” proposal to devote herself full-time to her own photography/art business. His recommendation, offered in his most lawyerly voice, was to get her real job back.
Like a lawyer delivering final arguments to the jury, he drove home his point. That poets/photographers/artists could not hope to be commercially successful. Not like her mother, the romance author. Nina measured success differently. He couldn’t understand that, but he meant well. He was a man driven to be the best, do the best. He wanted his children to have that same drive.
They’d agreed to give it another six months. He would never kick her out of his home. Neither would he give up. “It was about three weeks ago. I remember because we disagreed—”
“You argued?” King pointed his long finger at her. He might as well have said, “Aha.”
“We discussed. He wasn’t thrilled with my business plan, but we came to a compromise. Compromise wasn’t easy for him, but he cared about his children and he wanted us to be successful.”
He chose compromise because he believed he would ultimately be proven correct.
“Sounds like a fair man.” King rubbed his chin, his gaze fixed on her face. “We’ll need some things from you. Like your phone records.”
Sorry she’d let him provoke an answer that revealed more than he had a right to know, Nina nodded. “Do what you have to do.”
“I will.” He popped up from the chair and came to stand next to her. His cologne had a woodsy scent to it. Definitely, he should be photographed outdoors. “We need to do a couple of things. Number one, I’d like to run a GSR test. Then I’d like to take a little field trip.”
She stared at the fire bushes, yellow bells, and Pride of Barbados. They danced in the wind and rain, making a riot of bright colors against a dreary backdrop of brown grass strangled by a summer-long drought. She couldn’t catch that dance with a still camera, but Aaron might let her use his video camera. If she didn’t go to prison. “A GSR test?”
“Gunshot residue test.”
“You think I shot my father?”
“I don’t know yet, but a GSR test would go a long way in eliminating you as a suspect. I could get a subpoena.”
The periwinkle jazz festival T-shirt, now covered with blood that had dried a brown, rusty color, had been among her favorites. Now she wouldn’t miss it. “Whatever you need.”
He disappeared from the room and reappeared a few minutes later with a crime-scene tech who didn’t say a word. Or smile. He simply swabbed her hands, arms, cheeks, and even the shirt. Then he fingerprinted her, gave her a wad of floral-smelling wipes, and went on his way without so much as a thank-you or a by-your-leave.
King, propped against the wall, his expression unfathomable, straightened. “Now your apartment. You can change your clothes and I can see the darkroom.”
“The darkroom. Why?”
“Because you were the only one in the house when your father died. You have two dogs and neither of them barked, by your own admission. They likely knew the killer. Someone who was in the house, who didn’t have to break in to get here. You have his blood on your shirt and hands. I think you can figure out the rest.”
“He could’ve easily let someone in. I wouldn’t have heard. What about the gun?”
“It’s registered to the judge.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe it was an accident.”
His lips twisted in a wry smile, King shook his head. “The killer was playing around with a gun in a judge’s study and accidentally shot him? Then dropped the gun and fled? Why?”
“I don’t know.” An answer would certainly be nice, she agreed. For herself. Who wanted her father dead? And who wanted Nina to take the fall for it? “I really don’t.”
“Your dad was a judge so he had enemies. Anyone specific come to mind? Did he mention any problems at work recently?”
“No. Nothing specific.” He’d spent more and more time in his office recently, rarely sitting down to dinner with them. “He seemed tired and talked about having a lot of work, but that wasn’t unusual.”
“Did your dad always keep loaded weapons in his office?”
“This is Texas, after all. He had a license to open carry.”
“What about you? Do you have any enemies?”
She thumbed through photos in her mind. The more belligerent folks at Haven for Hope. She was careful not to share personal information when she chatted with them in the cafeteria after serving lunch. Many suffered from mental health and addiction issues, among the most common reasons for homelessness. “None that come to mind.”
King chuckled, a dry, humorless sound.
“What’s so funny?”
“Usually the most obvious answer is the right answer.”
“Not this time.”
“You’re the one with the victim’s blood on your shirt.”
No good deed went unpunished. “I tried to help him. Why would I kill him?”
“You know the one thing prosecutors don’t have to prove in a court of law?”
She should know from all the endless discussions at the supper table when Dad’s colleagues were invited. Times when her mother was away. Her mother who said such discussions would give them all indigestion. Nina’s mind was in lockdown mode, unable to recall a single word of those conversations. “What?”
“Motive. You know why?”
Of course. Motive. Prosecutors couldn’t read minds, and a defendant could never be made to testify if he didn’t want to do so. To self-incriminate. “Because sometimes murder is a senseless act done in the heat of the moment. There is no logical, rational reason.”
King cocked a finger at her, an approving smile on his face. “You’re your father’s daughter.”
“He sat on the bench in a civil court.”
“And he was an attorney. I can get a search warrant, or you can show me the darkroom. Your choice.”
“Anything to catch my father’s killer. Do I need an attorney?”
“I’m thinking you probably will, but right now we’re just talking.”
Yeah, just talking. “I’m not stupid.”
“I have no doubt of that. If you want to call an attorney, go ahead.”
“I have nothing to hide. Geoffrey Fischer rescued me and my sister from foster care and gave us . . .” She waved her hand at the spacious, perfectly furnished living room with its original Jesse Treviño artwork, a hutch filled with expensive crystal, perfectly matching paisley furniture, and a rug that cost more than she would make in a year. “All of this. He adopted us. He is—was—our father. I would never hurt him.”
King slid his hand in his pocket, pulled out a phone, and held it out. “Call your attorney and tell him to meet us at the station.”
She took the phone—her phone. “The station?”
“I’d like you to make a formal statement.”
“This isn’t a formal statement?”
“This is you and me talking. We need to get into an interview room where we can tape your statement, do a written transcript, and get you to sign off on it.”
The only attorney she knew personally was Rick. Her dad had a family lawyer. Beyond that he had to be careful who he had contact with outside the courtroom. He never knew when a lawyer would come before him in a case. He’d recommended Rick to Peter Coggins. They’d gone to law school together, maybe that was it. She always let the shop talk between her dad and Rick go in one ear and out the other. Could his phone call at three in the morning be considered an alibi?
She thumbed in her password and checked her messages. Rick hadn’t responded to her texts. Neither had her brother. Four texts from Aaron. All asking if she was okay. Could he do anything to help? Find a way to hit rewind on the last twenty-four hours. She would answer him later. After the noon newscast.
Gritting her teeth, she hit favorites and listened to the ringing. Voice mail again. She glanced at her watch. Almost eight. Partying or sleeping, one or the other. “Rick, call me. Soon. Please.”
She inhaled and let the air out one beat at a time. She turned to King and gestured toward the hallway. “This way.”
He pounded up the stairs behind her without complaint, unlike Rick who couldn’t understand why she embraced two flights of stairs to have her own space. He’d never been in foster care with half a dozen other “paychecks” crowded into small bedrooms filled with bunk beds. He’d never lived in a tent city.
“This house is old?”
“Why?”
“Curiosity. I’ve never been in one of these King William houses before.” He didn’t sound the least bit out of breath despite the pace she kept, borne of much practice hauling herself up and down stairs that wound themselves toward the top of the three-story house. “It’s . . . big.”
“Eight bedrooms, four bathrooms, two studies, a living room, formal dining room, kitchen, breakfast nook, sunporch. The style is colonial revival.” It was a relief to talk about something other than the issue at hand. “It was designed by Alfred Giles and built in the 1870s. The Fischer family has always lived in it.”
“I guess you’ll inherit it.”
She hesitated at the top step. Every question led somewhere. “I doubt that. My father had a wife. I also have a sister and a brother.” A brother who was the true heir to the Fischer fortune, not an adopted daughter. “To be honest, I don’t know. My dad was sixty. He was in his prime. We didn’t sit around talking about wills.”
“Being in the legal profession, you’d think he would want all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted.”
At the top of the stairs, the detective surveyed her living space with its low-hanging ceiling and jutting walls that ended in knee-high windows. “You live up here?”
“I do.”
“If it’s such a big house, why do you live in the attic?”
“When I moved back into the house last year, I knew I would need my own space and I wanted a darkroom in that space. This floor is perfect for my work.”
“Which is?”
“Photography. Writing. Creating.”
“Why a darkroom? Don’t most photographers shoot digital now?”
“I don’t want a computer or technology between the subject and me. Shooting with film is more personal.”
He moved to study the first poster size–framed photo on the long, low living room wall painted an off-white as a backdrop to her pieces. Despite herself, Nina tried to see it through his eyes. It was enough to see it through her own, without the lens of her camera between her subject and herself. Painful enough.
A woman faced the camera wearing a tattered, faded housecoat buttoned wrong. A roll of belly fat peeked through at her waistline. She flashed a bright smile, revealing dirty silver-capped teeth. The sores on her lips and face suggested prolonged meth use. She looked forty but told Nina she was thirty. She held a filthy Chihuahua clutched against her chest with chapped and swollen hands. Her feet bare, she stood in one of Main Plaza’s fountains. Nina had caught the water as it spurted up and wet the hem of the woman’s housecoat. Behind her rose the majestic spires of San Fernando Cathedral, the second oldest cathedral in the United States.
“Must make for some interesting talk at dinner parties.”
“Does it look like I have dinner parties here?”
He glanced around. Again, she saw her apartment through his eyes. Heavy, dark, mismatched furniture she’d found when she first began to explore this space. Most of it had belonged to her grandmother. It might be old, but the Fischer family always bought quality and it lasted forever. She hadn’t dusted or vacuumed in a long time. The room had an unlived feel to it.
“Now that you mention it, not really. I take it you shot this.”
“Yes.”
His opinion didn’t really matter, but like any artist she found it difficult not to care what he thought. This particular photo was framed and hung in her living space. Her private life. She didn’t need anyone else’s opinion. It belonged to her. It was private.
He leaned in and studied the four lines of poetry under the photo, her own calligraphy captured on white cardboard cut into black matting around the photo.
“You wrote that?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t like to talk about your work?”
“It speaks for itself. And this isn’t an art gallery opening and you’re not a reporter for the arts section of the newspaper. My father is lying dead on the floor downstairs.”
“I’m well aware. Why would a wealthy girl like yourself take photos of homeless people?” He moved on to another photo. This time she’d caught three men around a trash can in which they’d made a fire. They were passing a quart bottle of beer from hand to hand, sharing without complaint. “You feel sorry for them? Did you slap a twenty in that woman’s hand to appease your conscience, knowing you’ll make much more than that when you sell her picture?”
“I don’t plan to sell that particular photo. And I’m not a girl.” Nor was she wealthy, but the Fischers didn’t discuss finances with strangers. Proceeds from the sale of her other homeless photos went to Haven for Hope. Which was none of his business. “What does this have to do with my father’s death?”
“I’m just trying to get some context.” He made a show of examining the photo again. “I remember reading that you were involved in a fund-raiser at Haven. Do you spend time there?”
“Yes. I volunteer each week.”
“Any of those folks have reason to track you down at home late at night?”
“Just because they don’t have homes, doesn’t make them more likely to commit murder. They’re at Haven because they’re trying to improve their situations. In a tourist town like San Antonio, a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck. The hospitality industry doesn’t pay much above minimum wage.” She tried to keep irritation from her voice. Misconceptions about people experiencing homelessness were common. “When someone like that loses a job, there’s no cushion to fall back on. Plus this is a military town. We have a lot of veterans with PTSD. Then there’s the people with alcohol and drug—”
“Gotcha. I didn’t mean to offend. Cops are well aware of the psychology of homelessness. Believe me.”
She took a breath and evened her tone. “Even so, I’m careful with my personal information, as I would be regardless of where I volunteer.”
His nose wrinkled, and his body language exuded skepticism. That and some trace of something . . . Like he didn’t approve of her. More than that, he didn’t approve of her family. He didn’t even know them.
He turned to the other wall. Photos of highway construction. Towering cranes flinging mammoth steel beams into place, the sun peeking from behind metal and cement making shadows across asphalt and gravel. Sprawling graffiti offering strange abstract designs across the metal. Urban nature.
One by one, he studied each framed piece. Each poem underneath each photo. “You get paid to do this?”
“Sometimes.” Hence the attic apartment in her parents’ house. “Not much. But I do it anyway.”
“These are . . . unsettling . . .” Frowning, he lifted his hand and let one fingertip touch the corner of the no-frills black frame. “They’re dark, somehow.”
He got it. Surprised, she nodded. He was among the few who did.
He stood. “Where’s the darkroom?”
She led him into the room. With his big ego, his woodsy aftershave, and his oversized feet, he filled up more than his share of space.
No one but Aaron had ever come into this room. The on
ly person she trusted to understand. Because he felt it too. Somehow. For different reasons, maybe, but he got it.
Now a police officer took up air and space in her sanctuary. Because Dad had died.
King studied the photos hanging from the line. “You don’t talk much.”
“Should I?”
“Some people when they’re nervous, they run at the mouth. Makes my job easier.”
“I don’t have anything to be nervous about.”
“You don’t seem too broken up about your father either.”
“Do you have a meter on which you measure your suspects’ grief to help determine culpability?” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the quiver from her voice. She swallowed and breathed deep. The Fischers were all about keeping a stiff upper lip in front of company. “Is there anything else?”
He pulled the door shut, making the space even smaller. For the first time in her life, Nina felt a growing sense of claustrophobia in a darkroom. She swallowed against tears that made the ache in her throat unbearable.
King cocked his head, his gaze pinned on her face. “Hmmm.”
“Hmm what?”
“Where’s the radio?”
She pointed to the old-fashioned boom box squeezed onto a shelf next to photo paper and containers of chemicals. “I like the radio at night. The chitchat is white noise. During the day I use my playlists on Spotify.”
He flipped the On switch. Music blared. Billy Idol’s “White Wedding.” King shook his head and silenced it again. “How can you work with that noise playing?”
“Regardless, it’s obvious why I didn’t hear the gunshot.”
“Nothing is obvious yet, Miss Fischer.”
He’d reverted to using her last name again. Playing games with her? Or simply keeping a professional distance from a suspect?
He smiled for no apparent reason. It made him look like a shark. “You can be sure, I will do whatever I need to do to find your father’s killer. You can take that to the bank.”
He made it sound more like a threat than a promise. Or both. “Good. That’s what I want.”
