Page 107 of Happy Wife

Este snickers.

“You’re not wrong, Perry.” I offer a faint smile. “And I’m obviously in a bit of a bind. So, I was hoping that you might still be willing to talk to me, despite what the news says—”

“She didn’t kill Will, obviously—”

“Thanks, Este.” I look at her, sternly. “But the police have taken a shine to Lindy Bedford’s young-wife-killed-her-rich-husband storyline, and we need to know what you know so that we can find out who did this. So, Perry, I’m really hoping you’ve been able to find something that can help.”

He sighs the way he talks, long and drawn out. “It took some doing, and my friend with the phone company might lose their job for this. It wasn’t Mia who called Will that night. The call came from Fritz Hall’s phone.”

All the air leaves my lungs.

Finally…the one thing I had to know.

“Fritz? Are you sure?” I gasp.

Perry nods, like he really hates to be the bearer of such bad news.

Este and I trade glances, and my brain is already racing as I try to digest this information. “I don’t follow.”

But maybe I do?

When Ardell interrogated me at the precinct, he said Mia hadn’t called Will. He hadn’t saidwhocalled—before Fritz stormedin.

All the acrimony between Will and Fritz over the last few months runs through my mind. They seemed to be disagreeing about everything.

Was it bad enough that Fritz would kill Will?

I hear Will’s voice in my head.Fritz is going to bury me if I don’t clean up the mess he’s made.

“Well, the, uh, thing I had found on my own was that there were some calls between Fritz and Dean in the phone records I got ahold of, but that’s not much of anything to go on. From the look of it, Dean was running down all kinds of different angles about Fritz. Affairs, business dealings, all of it. Will wanted Dean to take a hard look at Mr. Hall.”

Perry’s words land on me like a ton of bricks. Dean was looking into Fritz.

Which means Will was looking into Fritz. Why?

I am up and pacing.

“What are you thinking, Nora?” Este asks.

“The night of the party. Will and Fritz were arguing. It was heated and I didn’t catch the context, but they had been fighting for months. Will said they were at odds over some big case and how to handle it. Maybe it came to a head that night at the party. But why would he lie and say Mia called?”

Perry shakes his head, clueless about that as well.

“How long did they talk?” Este perks up and leans in.

Perry shuffles through some papers he has on a nearby table and pulls up a phone record, flipping through the pages until he lands on the night of Will’s birthday party.

For a heart-rending second, I hear Will in my head from that night. He was so happy.I have a good feeling about forty-six.

“It looks like they talked for about forty seconds.”

What did Fritz say? Did he tell Will to meet him on the dock? Or did they go somewhere else?

“What the hell does that mean?” Este throws up her hands.

I look at her. “I have no idea. We have to find out why Will asked Dean to dig into Fritz. There must be more there.”

Perry nods. “I agree.”