Finley’seyes lit with cruel amusement. “Calmyerself, man.Dinnaewannalet thesebawbagshear ye do that shite. They’d never quit takin’ thepissouttaye.”
Breathingdeeply, I forced myself back into my usual state of practiced calm and sent myirritating stutter back where it belonged. Once I felt my heart settle, I shookmy head and addressed my partner again.
“Thatpoor woman wasmurdered,” I said, speaking quietly. “Who the hell ruledit a fuckin’ accident?”
“Forensics,”he answered, shrugging. “They took it to the Chief Inspector, and he made thecall.”
Standingabruptly, I headed straight for the door to Chief Inspector Frasier’s officeand banged my fist against it until he shouted for me to enter.
“Whatthe hell is the matter with ye, Brodie?” he growled, as I entered and slammedthe door shut behind me.
“Whatthe hell is the matter withyoufordroppin’that case?!”
Hesighed, shaking hisheadand folding his hands uponhis desk. “Idunnowhat ye want me to tell ye. Thereis no case. The autopsy came back clean. She fell, man; simple as that. I kenye want there to besomethin’ more to it than that,but there justwasnaeanythin’there.”
Plantingmy hands at the edge of his desk, I leveled him with a stony glare. “Did yeevenlookat her?”
“Thebody?”
“Christ,”I groaned, tipping my head back to stare incredulously at the ceiling. “Yes,the body. Did ye look at it?”
“No,”he answered pointedly. “And why should I? We have an excellent forensics team,and if they ruled it an accident, then that’s exactly what it was.”
Turningto face the door, I grasped the ends of my hair between my clenched fists. “Icannaefuckin’ believe this,” I muttered beneath my breath.
“Lad,”Frasier said from behind me. “Look, I can understand how ye might feeldesperate. Ye’re back from the big city, where there’sgottabe murdershappenin’ regularly. Ye’re bored of thesame shite, and I don’t blame ye. But the fact of the matter here is, yecannaemake it a murder just because you want it to be onefor the sake ofyersanity. Ifyerthat desperate, maybe ye should go back, when ye’re able.”
Iknew he meant when my father is no longer in the picture, and I dropped myfists to clench them at my sides. There was no reasoning with him. He hadmade a decision, and he wasn’t going to change his mind,unless I could offer more proof and convince him to take a look at the corpseand see the things I had seen.
So,I left his office in an angry rush of determination. I headed down the hallway tofind Maggie Wallace in the evidence department, clicking around the screen ofher computer. She looked up at the sight of me and offered a welcoming smile.
“Goodday to ye, Inspector,” she said, flashing me a smile. “Is theresomethin’ ye need?”
Nodding,I replied, “I need to take a look at the evidence ye collected from the sceneyesterday.”
“Thewoman in the woods?”
“Aye.That would be the one.”
Sheshrugged apologetically. “I’m verra sorry, Brodie. Therewasnaeany evidence to collect.”
“No… evidence?” I asked, as if my brain couldn’t quite compute with her statement.“What do ye mean?”
“Itwas ruled an accident on the spot,” she explained, grimacing. “Any evidence wethought might’ve been collected has been set aside to send to the family inAmerica.”
Iwas fighting what felt like a losing battle, one that seemed to me shouldn’thave been a battle at all. But then, I began to question what I had seen theday before in the woods. Had I really seen finger-like bruises around herthroat? It was possible I had just wanted this to be a murder so badly, I’dfabricated the drama, but who could really know for sure?
Disheartened,I made my way back to my desk, to find that Finley had gone to the shops and myphone was ringing. With resignation to carry on with my day in typical FortCrow fashion, I sat down at the desk and answered the phone.
“InspectorBrodie,” I muttered with a sigh, finding it hard to not think of the woman andthose marks on her neck.
“Um… hi, this is … this is Rosalynn Allan,” the woman on the other line said,timid and unsure. And American.
Immediatelyalert, I went out on a limb and asked, “Miss Allan, are ye by any chancerelated to Grace?”
“Y-yes.You spoke to an officer here, Officer Patrick Kinney, to let him know about,”she hesitated, taking a deep breath before continuing, “a-about my sister andwhat happened.”
“Whocalled him? Do ye know?” I found myself asking in a low voice, as if this womanand I were in on a secret together.
