Timeline
Persons of interest
Physical evidence
JAMES HALLOWAY — DECEASED
Timeline
~10 days before the death — Halloway told Marcus a man had been hanging around. Marcus wrote it down: middle-aged, didn't look lost. The unease had a runway, not one bad night.Wednesday — Realty office walkthrough. Confirmed.
Thursday morning — Someone from the realty office returned alone, "dropping off paperwork"; Marcus buzzed her up. Soft ID: could be Kelsey Doyle — "the hair's right"; four seconds across a lobby; he won't swear. Listing contracts confirmed physically present in a Diane Ashford Realty folder on the counter, predating any building involvement.
Thursday, raining [confirmed via duck boots] — Matches Kelsey's Episode 4 description; the she-was-inside-on-a-rainy-day inference is still not drawn explicitly.
Thursday afternoon — Halloway discovers the theft, calls police, speaks to Lena.
Thursday evening — Halloway visibly frightened.
Friday early morning — Halloway found dead. Keys missing.
Service entrance used Thursday night — no log entry. Still unresolved.
Cameras — dead end, closed.
Syringe on counter — reframed. Halloway used insulin pens, all accounted for in the fridge. The loose syringe was not his. Caught by Marcus, not Lena — his personal knowledge of Halloway's routine is what makes it land.
Body found on the kitchen floor, at the near end of the counter — on his back, "like he'd gone down where he stood." Body, loose syringe, and insulin pens all within a few feet: the staged tableau that read as a cardiac collapse.
Cornerstone's offices are a corner rowhome four blocks east. Walked past it a hundred times without looking up.
NEW
Realty assistant
Kelsey Doyle
Art history, Tyler School of Art — four years of learning to know what's in a room.
THEFT-HAND, NOT CLOSED
THEFT-HAND, NOT CLOSED
Conservatory student
Theo Thomas
Dark since Episode 4.
HOLDS
HOLDS
Della's granddaughter
Naomi Mercer
Still a near-blank — no profile, no surface, a name that mostly returns Della.
THE WAY IN?
THE WAY IN?
Unidentified
The Unknown Man
No longer a rumour.
DATED
DATED
Cornerstone Records
Victor Reese
On the street, in person, four blocks from home: leaving the rowhome mid-morning, warm to…
SEEN, NO CONTACT
SEEN, NO CONTACT
Marcus's logbook — the entry
A battered composition book kept under the front desk for the three a.m. oddities. Between an item about the recycling and one about an idling truck: "Prof H — man hanging around, past few days. Middle-aged. Didn't look lost. Keep an eye." Dated ~10 days before the death. Photographed; the book stays at the desk.NEW
The Cornerstone money pattern — archive findings
Fifty years of the Philadelphia Tribune, read in an afternoon. No single clipping says it. A 1962 profile mentions the label's famously careful artist contracts in passing. An estate dispute in the early seventies runs two items and evaporates. In 1978 a singer's widow sues over royalties; settled, terms undisclosed, the catalog remains intact. And the obituaries, all ending the same way: his recordings remain in the Cornerstone catalog. Bought once. Flat. Forever.NEW
The manuscript (absent).
THE CONSERVATORY NEWSLETTER
the announcement that started it.
The Ashford folder, left on the counter.
2D — Halloway's apartment. The kitchen where he was found, and the desk the manuscript was taken from. Lena has now stood in it twice.NEW
The business card — Cream card stock. Diane Ashford Realty. Console table, foyer, under a grocery receipt, the first day. Fully paid off: it's what led to the Ashford call that reached Kelsey instead.The lawyer's letter — Naomi Mercer's formal ownership claim on Della's manuscripts. Names her lawyer, and names an independent authenticator retained to verify.
The Cornerstone demand letter — Harmon & Associates, on behalf of the label: all compositions and related materials produced under their agreements with Della Mercer, to be returned immediately, all rights reserved. Read five times before the word agreements sat up. Nobody had ever asked what Della actually signed — or where seventy years of that money went. The label's own catalog page still lists her four compositions today.
The threatening note — "Della belongs to me." Singular, possessive — reads personal, not corporate. Author unknown. Bagged by Halloway himself.
"Stepped on some toes" comment — still unconnected.
WHAT WERE THE AGREEMENTS? — the catalog is the company, and Cornerstone is the only name here that can't afford the manuscript to exist. None of it is evidence. All of it points the same way.
Murder BoardEpisode 8 — The Catalog
The Board So Far
Cornerstone moves to the top of the board on the weight of motive alone — and not one thing on it puts anybody in the building.
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Confirmed
Suspected
Evidence
Unverified