Liam moved to stand next to her, his arm around her shoulders protecting her like a knight’s shield. Unfortunately, the move served to put Liam on the officers’ radar.
“Are you William Walsh?” Pataki asked in a tone that made it sound like an accusation.
“I am,” Liam answered.
“We find it very interesting that the corpse of the victim?—”
“Alleged victim,” Carson corrected.
“—ended up in your possession,” Pataki spat.
“Very interesting. Quite the coincidence,” Garland added, in a tag team effort likely designed to unnerve Liam.
Too bad for them, Liam had an uncanny ability to remain unflustered. The worse the situation was, the calmer he became. Like when Gabe’s killer had them tied up, Liam rose to the challenge to save the day and all their lives. These two buffoons didn’t stand a chance.
Liam said nothing in response. Which, when she thought about it in the silence that stretched between them, he didn’t have to. In all of that overly dramatic performance, there hadn’t been even one question for Liam to answer.
“Care to tell us how that happened?” Pataki finally said as a follow-up.
Liam delivered a tight-lipped smile. “My pleasure. Approximately three months ago I put in a routine request with the Anatomical Gift Program run by Albany Medical College.”
“Why?” Garland asked, looking torn between being horrified and suspicious.
“Research,” Liam answered with lowered brows and a tone that said the answer should have been obvious.
Natalie probably would have tacked a, duh, onto the end of that sentence but Liam was more professional than that.
“You do that a lot? Order dead bodies for research?” Pataki asked.
“Define a lot,” Liam asked.
As Pataki’s face turned red, a single drop of sweat trailed down the officer’s rounded cheek. He should probably move away from the fireplace. Or drop a hundred pounds.
“Mr. Walsh?—”
“Doctor Walsh,” Liam corrected.
“Why did you put in a request for Lionel Graves’s body?” Pataki demanded, looking like anger, or hypertension, were getting the better of him.
“I didn’t.” Liam shook his head.
“You have it in your possession,” Pataki accused.
“I do.” Liam nodded.
This was starting to get comical. Or at least it would be if Natalie wasn’t worried that, unlike Carson, these New Haven police might actually haul her in and not let her out just as Alice feared.
“Doctor Walsh, did you or did you not specifically acquire Lionel Graves’s body to hide the evidence that Natalie Chase killed him with a blow to the head?” Garland asked in a voice worthy of the final speech in one of those police procedural dramas on television.
Liam frowned.
“Nothing to say?” Garland asked with an attitude that said she thought she’d won.
“Too much, actually.” Liam drew in a breath. “One, I requested a specimen, any specimen, for my grant research months before Graves died. In fact, months before Natalie and Professor Graves even met.
“Two, Albany chooses what cadavers they ship and when. I couldn’t acquire any one specifically even if I had wanted to. In addition, researchers are never given the donors’ identities. It’s an anonymous program. Call Albany. They’ll verify everything I’ve told you.
“Three, Miss Chase didn’t kill anyone, especially not a six-foot two-inch man with a single blow to the head in New Haven, Connecticut on a day she was publicly seen here in Mudville, New York.
