I leaned in, grabbing a pen and paper to jot down the information. No known associates. So Darby didn’t run with a crew, or if he did, he kept it low-key. No employer listed, but then why was he handing out business cards for Sterling Associates? Why was he claiming Tim as a client? The plates on the Mercedes didn’t come back to Darby, either. The car was owned by a Nicholas Spada. Who was he? I was curious about Langham and searched him first. Date of death, January 12, 2019. Just three months ago. He was seventy-eight. No criminal record, no liens, no lawsuits, no family, no nothing.

“Not so much as a parking ticket,” I muttered. Was Langham related to Darby? An old uncle who left him the house in his will? I fished around a little more, looking for a boat linked to Darby, but didn’t find one. He doesn’t own a boat. He doesn’t own the house he’s living in. I then clicked over and searched for Nicholas Spada, surprised when a hit came back almost immediately. Spada owned Sterling Associates. Darby’s driving Spada’s car, handing out cards to Spada’s business? That kind of confirmed his connection. I checked further, but Spada came back clean, just like Latham. He was married. His wife’s name was Anne.

I logged out, let the information sink in, then worked it through using the Annie Lee print as a sounding board. “Okay. Darby connects to Sterling, the company Tim worked his settlement deal through, which is owned by Spada, whose car Darby was driving when he busted my tail. Coincidence? Don’t think so. In fact, Annie Lee, it creates a tight little circle, doesn’t it? Yes, it does.”

That left Langham as the odd piece. Who was he and why was Darby, an ex-con with dreamy green eyes, living in the dead man’s house? And how’d an ex-con get a job with a legitimate company like Sterling right out of prison? Hadn’t Spada bothered to do even a routine background check?

I’d compiled the newspaper clippings from Ayers’s case into a file, and went through them again. The news stories simply stated the facts—suspected impairment, an unfortunate fall—nothing on Tim’s autopsy results or anything about physical evidence. That’s as good as the family wanted, apparently. Short, sweet: “Nothing to see here, folks, move along.”

I folded my notes, my mind on Darby’s checkered past. It would certainly account for the roughness under all that hotness. Four years in prison will do that to you. Peter Langham, I mused, deceased.