Page 45 of Death at a Highland Wedding
“You were saying?” I prompt, while bracing myself for him to dismiss it and move on. That’s what he would have done a year ago, even six months ago, but now, there is a soft exhale, as if in relief before he speaks.
Am I far too pleased with myself for being the person he feels comfortable confessing to? Hell, yes. I can rationalize it and tell myself it’s not about me, per se, but more that I’m an outsider and therefore a safe confessor. I don’t have any expectations for how a Victorian gentleman is supposed to act. True, but I hope it’s also about me—that Gray feels comfortable discussing his feelings with me, knowing I’d never see weakness in them.
“I know people think I am a ghoul,” he says. “For what I do, examining and dissecting the dead. Particularly when it is someone I knew. How can I cut open a friend? But as a surgeon, I would never hesitate to operate onsomeone I knew. To me, cutting them open after death is still helping. I am either finding their killer or I am seeking knowledge to find future killers. I did not look down on my brother-in-law’s body and see Gordon Leslie. The man I knew was gone. What remained was only a shell that could help find his killer.”
He fingers the empty glass. “That was a bit of a lecture, wasn’t it?”
I smile. “As long as the lecture isn’t about something I did wrong, you know I appreciate them. You’re right. While I’ve never conducted a postmortem on someone I know, I’ve seen most of my loved ones after death. That’s what happens after embalming begins. We pay them one final visit.”
One brow lifts. “You visit their embalmed corpse?”
“Yep, it’s actually called a visitation. But I never see the person I knew lying there. They’re gone. What I see is a representation of them that gives me a chance to reflect on our relationship. Also a chance to grumble that they never wore their hair that way, always hated that dress, and so on.”
He chuckles softly.
I continue, “My point is that I get it.”
“Thank you. And my point, as the long way of getting to it, is that I do not see that body as Ezra Sinclair, my childhood friend. I see it as evidence to catch his killer, and I will have no compunction about cutting into it. But standing out there, watching that young man poke at it and flip it over as if it were cordwood… I was offended.”
“Because that’s disrespect, and you never disrespect the dead.”
He sets the glass aside. “I understand this is not our investigation. Not Hugh’s and therefore not ours. Yet I cannot abandon Ezra to that fate. Perhaps that is foolish. He will never know whether his killer is caught, and he has no family to care.”
“He has friends who care,” I say softly. “But even if it’s not about avenging the dead or stopping a killer, can we trust Ross not to arrest the wrong man? Can we trust the local judiciary not to execute the wrong man?”
Gray shudders, and I almost regret mentioning it.
“I had not thought of that,” he says. “I recall Isla talking about several cases where the person accused of a village murder was an itinerant man or woman, an easy scapegoat. It is spring, meaning there are migratory workers.”
Gray looks across the room, his gaze settling on a portrait of Cranston,and at first, it’s just where his eye happens to fall, but then he blinks. “You mentioned stopping the killer. We have reason to believe they might strike again.”
“Because they killed the wrong person.”
“We need to warn Archie,” Gray says.
“He already realizes he was likely the intended target, but yes, he may not have extrapolated that to mean he is still in danger. I hate to dump that warning on Hugh, but he’s best suited for it. You need to focus on the autopsy.”
Gray slumps, and I search my words for what I said wrong.
“Is there a problem?” I say.
“Only everything,” he says. “I have my medical bag, but I barely had the tools to operate on that kitten. I do not travel with the equipment for proper surgery much less an autopsy. I was quick to offer my services, but I can hardly open up poor Ezra on the kitchen table with a garden saw.”
“There’s a local doctor, right? Rendall? You suggested Ross make sure Dr. Rendall is okay with you performing the autopsy, and I know that was mostly protecting yourself, but maybe we should pay this doctor a visit. With the body. So you can ask to use his facilities.”
When Gray doesn’t answer, I say, “I know that risks Dr. Rendall insisting on doing it himself, but which is better? You only assisting in the autopsy? Or you conducting it yourself on that table behind the stables, with a garden saw?”
He sighs and then rises. “Let me summon Simon, and we will convey the body to the local physician.”
FIFTEEN
“I feel I must thank you,” Gray says as we sit in the coach, looking out at the passing countryside.
“For going on a road trip with you?” I say. “I was actually hoping to see the village, so I appreciate the excuse.”
“Not that, though I do appreciate it. I mean I ought to thank you for remaining silent.”
My brows shoot high. “If I’m ever too chatty, you know you can just tell me to shut up, right?”
