Shortly afterwards Laura came in with a report in hand. She flashed me a wide grin. ‘Channing’s first report. Our baby’s all grown up.’
‘Not quite,’ I muttered as I took it. I scanned the document and had to admit I was impressed. He’d dotted everyiand crossed everyt.
I signed it off and held it out to our admin assistant. ‘Thanks Laura. File it and copy it to the ME’s office and to Thackeray too please. He’ll want to know about this.’
‘He’s off today,’ she noted.
‘All the same.’ Thackeray lived and breathed the job, to his wife’s frustration. I knew he checked his email even when he was off. The man didn’t know what a work-life balance was. Not that I could throw stones. I took cold files home for fun. It had started with my dad’s files, but when I got nowhere fast, I started taking others home, trying to box them off. I knew what it was like to need closure and have none.
I chewed on my lip as I once again thought of Jingo’s so-called ‘evidence’ he’d brought ’round to my apartment. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting, but it hadn’t been a copy of a crime scene photo I’d seen many times before, with one sole addition: a necklace clutched in Dad’s hand. A necklace that hadn’t madeits way into evidence, and a necklace that had been very carefully airbrushed or magicked out of the original photograph.
Or very carefully addedinby Jingo.
I didn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him. He could have fabricated this whole thing to make me feel like I owed him. I’d put nothing past him.
I’d done extensive research on the pendant hanging from the chain. It was a black circular talisman with three golden lines. The bottommost was the longest, the middle line shorter, and the top not much more than a hyphen. Together, they gave the impression of a half-drawn triangle. And damned if I could find a single thing about it on the whole Connection database.
Was it a real clue, or was it an attempt by Jingo to draw my eyes elsewhere?
I wanted to distrust it, to dismiss it, yet I couldn’t. Deliberately misplaced evidence felt all too right for the Connection, the oft-times corrupt organisation I worked for. Knowing that corruption still lurked was the reason I hadn’t shown a soul the image.
Because if it was real … there was a reason someone had removed it from the photograph, and I was going to get to the bottom of it. And if Jingo was leading me on a goose chase, then I was going to make it my life’s mission to make his life a living hell until I could justifiably end it.
My email pinged – it was a message from Kate. She had some preliminary findings for me, so I left my office and collared Channing.
‘With me,’ I said brusquely. ‘We’re going to see the ME.’
I waited until he’d climbed into the car to say, ‘Good work on the report. Clean, relevant, to the point.’
‘I’ll save the poetry for Frost,’ he joked lightly.
‘Don’t mix business and pleasure,’ I warned him. ‘They don’t make good bedfellows.’
He grimaced. ‘I know you’re right, but she’s very lovely.’
‘She is. She can be your very lovelyfriend.’
He sighed but didn’t speak until we pulled up outside the ME’s office. ‘Did the ME give any hints about what she found in her email?’
‘No, just that she’d done some preliminary work.’
I pushed open the mortuary door and met Sharon’s steely gaze. ‘She’s expecting us,’ I said firmly.
The green-skinned dryad pushed back her glasses and glared at me. ‘One moment.’ She picked up her phone and dialled, waiting, presumably, until Kate picked up the line. ‘I have Inspector Wise and Detective Channing for you.’ She paused. ‘Of course, thank you.’ Sharon put the phone back in its cradle. She stood, showing off a light cream suit that seemed more wedding than funeral. ‘Follow me.’
I swallowed my objections. If Sharon wanted to show me the way, she could damn well do so. Maybe she needed to get her step count in.
She eyed us both carefully. ‘Where’s the bird?’
‘At the circus,’ I lied flatly, because it was none of her damned business where Loki was.
She pressed her lips so tightly together that they almost disappeared. I resisted the urge to tell her it was a vast improvement.
She held open the door for us, and we slid into Kate’s domain. It was too corpsey to call an office, yet it had too much tech to merely call it a morgue. Kate was at a standing desk, typing away, but she turned and gave us a brilliant smile as we walked in.
‘Stacy, Detective Channing, come on in. That’ll be all, thank you, Sharon.’
Sharon sniffed and left, court shoes clicking on the tiles as she stomped away. She had a passive-aggressive walk. I’d rather tellpeople how I felt than use disdainful sniffs and prim heels to communicate my feelings.
