Her Frozen Cry (Detective Amanda Steele)

“Oh, I enjoy that too,” Trent chimed in.

Amanda looked over at him and raised her brows. She wouldn’t have guessed him to be the adventuresome, outdoorsy type. She’d rather have a tooth pulled without drugs than barrel down a rushing river that swatted her around, eager to capsize the boat and drown her. No thanks!

“She is… was… a lot of fun.” Tony’s eyes glazed over—the reverie alive for the moment.

“We have some more questions we need to ask you,” Amanda said. She wasn’t going to mention pentobarbital until it had been confirmed with absolute certainty as playing a role in Alicia’s death.

“Sure. Fire away. However I can help. I just want all this…” He swallowed roughly, his Adam’s apple heaving. “I just want all this over with for the kids’ sakes.”

“I imagine this has been very hard on them.” The empathy slipped out, being a part of her, but she had to reel herself back and remain objective. “My partner and I are considering different angles, and one thing that may help us is to see a copy of her will.”

“Her will.” He tossed that out like it sat as bile on his tongue. “Like one of her beneficiaries is behind her death?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“That’s exactly what you’re saying, Amanda.”

“Detective Steele,” she corrected sharply.

Tony sat back like he’d been physically struck. “Detective Steele, am I a suspect?”

“I’m not sure why you’re getting so defensive.”

“You’re sitting here, in my house, insinuating that I might have something to do with my wife’s death.”

“I’m not,” she said. “We do, however, need to consider all angles, all the evidence.”

He bunched up his face. “Yeah, sure, I can get you a copy of her will. Just remember I volunteered. Would a killer do that? And from what I understand, you don’t even know what caused her death. Do you?”

She chose her words carefully. “Not yet.” The truth without leaving room to tear it apart.

“Huh.” Tony worried his bottom lip, his eyes staring into space. “So you don’t even know if she was murdered?”

“We don’t.” She wanted to tell him the investigation was steering them that way but had to be careful how she played this. “There are other possibilities,” she added. She’d explore the path of suicide more for due diligence. Rideout hadn’t been able to say if Alicia had ingested the pentobarbital in one large dose or little by little over the course of a few days. Heck, he wasn’t even ruling pentobarbital as contributing to her cause of death until he saw the toxicology report.

“Did Alicia ever attempt suicide in the past?” Trent asked, his expression grim.

“What? Absolutely not!”

“Mr. Bishop. I’m just asking these questions to get a better idea of what might have happened to her.” Trent’s attempt to smooth things over had Tony’s scowl deepening.

“You’re not even masking what you’re getting at, but I can tell you she didn’t kill herself.”

Amanda gave it a few beats before she inserted, “The signs can be easy to miss.”

He clenched his jaw and glared at her. His gaze was so intense it had her insides jumping, but she had a job to do.

“She was in good physical health, but did she have any emotional wounds, lost relationships that weighed on her?” She thought of Brad and Leo and how neither was Tony’s son.

“We all have relationships that don’t work out.”

The way he said it felt leveled at her. Personal. She pushed on. “Was Alicia acting differently? Withdrawing or antisocial? Having a hard time sleeping?” Again, Amanda thought of the sleeping aid on the night table at the cabin.

“Not any different. She’s always been a light sleeper, but she had a lot on her mind.”

“Did she take something to help her sleep?” Amanda didn’t want to assume Sleep Tight was a nightly occurrence.

“Yeah. Sleep Tight.”

Amanda nodded. “And that was something she took every night?”

“She did.”

Amanda was suddenly desperate to know whether the sleeping aid at the cabin had been tampered with. She’d need to wait to find out. But she was feeling satisfied for the moment that Alicia hadn’t killed herself. If she had, she’d exhibited no signs of wishing to do so beforehand. Maybe she could find out more about Alicia’s health in the days leading up to her death—something to disclose whether she had ingested pentobarbital over time or not. “Did Alicia complain of nausea or shallow breathing?”

“No.”

“Have low blood pressure, a rapid pulse, dizziness?”

He shook his head.

“Difficulty concentrating or confusion?”

“Some I guess, but she had a lot on her mind, as I told you. So, yeah, sure, her thoughts would stray some. She’d sometimes lose track of what day it was.”

Was that a coincidence or indicative of being poisoned over days? “Did that happen often for her?”

Tony seemed to give it thought. “More often recently, I guess.”

“Could that be because she was under a lot of stress wanting to sell the business?” Trent asked.

“Yes, probably.”

“We spoke with Harold Armstrong,” Amanda began. “He didn’t even know that Alicia planned to sell.”

“That’s because she hadn’t told him.”

“He was her right hand,” Trent pointed out.

“That’s why. Alicia had no idea how she was going to break the news to him.”

“He’d be devastated?” She could find motive for murder in that. She and Trent had already hypothesized about this very thing.

“I think he’d be disappointed, but he’s going to have to accept it. I’ll be telling him.”

“You’ve decided to sell the business already?” Amanda thought it was rather fast to have come to a decision of that magnitude overnight—in the wake of losing his wife, no less.

“That’s what she wanted, so…”