SEVENTEEN
Today had been more productive than Amanda could have hoped. They might even have the person who’d tampered with Alicia’s sleeping aid sitting in the interrogation room. Seth Rossi. Amanda and Trent were watching through the one-way mirror.
They had contacted the charging officer on Rossi’s assault conviction and were armed with more details on the arrest. It resulted from a two-man brawl over a woman’s affections in a local bar. The other man claimed Rossi had charged at him and that he’d done nothing to aggravate him. Eyewitnesses had backed up his testimony, and it was Rossi who served the time.
“We need to see if we can get more information out of Rossi about his assault charge,” she began. “I’d like to know who the woman was, for one. Even just the fact he fought over a woman tells me that he’s possessive and willing to go to fists to defend what he sees as his. He might have taken things further and killed Alicia, thinking she was either his or no one’s.”
“Yeah. Not a good sign.”
“Nope. We also need to know what we’re looking at regarding his shoes.”
“No problem. I can get on that. The crime lab should have uploaded the photographs from the scene onto the server by now. It would be good to get a look at the mystery tire treads and the shoeprints for comparison.” They had Seth’s shoes and a photo of the tires on his Chevy pickup.
“All right, you go do that, and I’ll get in there and start asking some questions. No time to waste.”
“You got it.” Trent left the room for his cubicle, and she went to the neighboring room.
Seth Rossi was slumped in his chair, but he moved quickly to sit straighter.
“I don’t have anything to do with her death. I swear to you.”
At least he wasn’t saying, “You have to believe me.” She’d heard that once too many times in her life, and once was enough. She didn’t have to take anyone’s word at face value. She set the folder with Seth’s background on the table. It also included some pictures of Alicia Gordon from the cabin. If nothing else she said or did managed to elicit a reaction, these likely would—and it would be telling.
She relaxed her body language, and Seth mirrored it, his shoulders lowering. “Why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Alicia?” she asked, deciding to start off on less volatile ground than poking at his assault charge.
“When we were together or after?”
“Either. Whatever you feel like talking about.” She said it casually, as if she were relinquishing control of the conversation to him.
“Ah, okay… Our relationship was all fire, until it wasn’t. We’d been living together for a few months when she became pregnant with Leo.”
“He wasn’t planned?”
“No. But I was happy about the prospect of being a father. Still love the job.”
She nodded. “What happened to break you up?”
“New Belle.”
Amanda drew back. “Her business did?”
“How I see it. We’d been drifting apart, but she put in crazy hours. Even after Leo was born. She let a lot of the responsibilities of caring for him and Brad fall on me.”
“Did you resent how much time she put into work?” Amanda asked.
“Ah, yeah. We had a long talk when she became pregnant. She promised she’d be around more, that she’d do her part.”
“And she let you down.”
“Yeah, but she brought in a nanny to help some.”
“Still, it sounds like you’re prepared for full custody. You were used to doing all the work before,” she said. Sometimes it was advantageous to portray herself as an ally, someone who understood.
“Exactly.” His eyes met hers, questioning her sudden empathy. “Do you have kids?”
Amanda hesitated for a second. Not because she didn’t count Zoe as her kid, but because images of Lindsey entered her mind. “I do.”
“Then you understand how important it is to be there for them.”
Amanda opened the folder, more as notification of a nonverbal shift in power. She was taking the lead from here. “I need to ask you about that assault charge.” She glanced at the page in front of her—it didn’t specifically have the arrest record on it, but Seth didn’t know that.
“What about it?” The question was riddled with exasperation.
“It was in a bar, over some girl. That right?”
“Yeah.” Seth put his hands on the table, fidgeted with them.
“Who? What was her name?”
Seth pulled back, his face darkening. “What does that matter?”
Amanda hadn’t been sure the woman’s identity had mattered at all—until Seth’s reaction. “Please, just answer my question.”
Seth snapped his mouth shut and stared through her.
“If you’re not going to talk to me, I’ll have no choice but to pay a visit to”—she shuffled to another page in the file, completely for show, elongating the silence, hopefully building up the tension—“the guy you fought with. I’ll ask him about this woman, see if he knows her name.”
Seth slumped in his chair. “It was Alicia.”
“He was making moves on her or something?”