“They told me what I needed to know,” she replied, keeping her secret. The nurse at the counter had tried to avoid the questions but she couldn’t lie to Amelia. By asking the right things, the nurse had revealed it all without realizing it.
Leo’s phone rang, interrupting her triumphant moment. He waited, listening and answering the caller in the appropriate places.
“…thanks buddy, I owe you one,” he finished before hanging up. “The M.E. has finished the autopsy on Renee, he’s given her the heads up I’ll be visiting. Feel like a trip to the morgue?”
“Do I have a choice?” Amelia asked, only half-joking. She had never seen a dead body before and really didn’t want to start now. Nor did she want to faint in front of the detective.
* * *
“What can I say? She’s dead,” Medical Examiner Peyton Johnson said flatly. “It’s all in the report. I know you can read.” She cast an attitude-laced look toward Leo. She was obviously immune to his charm.
He wasn’t prepared to give up on her, however. “How about a two minute recap? You know all that medical terminology does my head in.”
“Who’s your little friend?” She deflected, nodding toward Amelia. She was still standing by the door, just in case there was anything bloody or worse lying around. She hadn’t seen a body yet but was anxious one would be hanging out in the morgue somewhere. The door would give her a quick escape.
“This is Amelia Landau, she’s consulting on the case,” Leo introduced her, trying to coax her into the room. It didn’t work, she stayed exactly where she was.
“Consulting, huh? Is that what you call trying to impress a girl these days? Pathetic. Perhaps I should run it by your commissioner? Just double check?”
Leo knew she was baiting him but couldn’t stop from biting. “Don’t do that, you know how grumpy Pace gets when he has to answer the phone. So, the report?”
Peyton rolled her eyes and begrudgingly opened the file. “I don’t know why I indulge you, Detective Michaels. You are nothing but a thorn in my side.”
“But what a nice side you have,” he slipped in, hoping she would eventually melt to his charms. God knows he had tried to soften her for a long time.
“I’m embarrassed for you,” she retorted. “Let’s get this over with. Renee White, female, aged thirty-nine, one hundred and thirty-three pounds. She died of multiple organ failure, caused by overdosing on an unknown medication.”
“Was it suicide?” Leo asked seriously, getting down to business.
“That’s not for me to decide, Sherlock. That’s your department.” She slapped the paper file against his chest, giving him no option except to take it. “It’s my job to tell you how she died, not why she died.”
He handed the file to Amelia to have a read through, hoping she might get a vibe off the report. He wasn’t kidding about the medical terminology giving him a headache, he may as well have been reading Latin.
“Come on, you don’t have any idea?” He persisted with the M.E.
Peyton sighed, making sure he knew her frustration. “She didn’t have any bruises from struggling, she didn’t have any defensive wounds. If she didn’t kill herself, then she didn’t put up a fight about it either. Her brain didn’t look depressed, but then it never does. Can I go back to my potato chips now?”
“I have a question,” Amelia piped up, thumbing through the autopsy report and findings. “The report doesn’t say anything about Renee having Hemochromatosis.”
“That’s because she doesn’t,” Peyton said, starting to lose whatever patience she had to begin with.
“But her son did. Isn’t it a genetic disorder?”
“Hemochromatosis is, but you can get it from your mother or father. Or both if you lose the genetic lottery. Jordan’s father has to be the carrier of the gene.”
“Right, thanks,” Amelia replied, turning her attention back to the report. It read almost as gross as actually seeing it. She was only minutes away from vomiting.
“Now? Can I go?”
“Sure, thanks Peyton. I really appreciate it.” Leo smiled but it didn’t have the desired effect. The M.E. left them, getting out the door before they could stop her again. He turned his attention to Amelia. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing really, I just remembered Jordan having the condition. It’s hard to pronounce.”
They left the M.E.’s office and returned to Leo’s house, needing to process what they learned and running out of people to question. The detective knew he didn’t have much time but he still needed to take a moment. It was usually in those quiet times where he could really think that he was most productive.
Harley greeted them at the door, the dog jumping all over Leo before doing the same to Amelia.
“I think he likes you,” Leo commented, pulling out the murder board.
“He’s a cute dog,” she replied, at eye level with the pooch and rubbing his sweet spot behind the ears. “He doesn’t remind you too much of your ex-girlfriend?”
“Nah, Harley is actually nice. Tidier too.”
He scrawled the updates on the board with black marker, noting who they had spoken to and what pertinent information they offered. From what he had learned, Renee White was a complicated woman. One that was hiding many things from many people. He wrote Link between Renee and Turner.
“What do you think it means if they knew each other?” Amelia asked, hoping the suspicions she held were wrong.
“It could mean she had something to do with his confession.” Leo grimaced, the thought making him uneasy. He hated accusing a woman of being involved in her own child’s death, but it was too early to rule anything out. That would have been a mistake.
“Wouldn’t a mother want her son’s murderer to be brought to justice?”
“Yes. A normal mother would and I hope we’re wrong. It could just be a coincidence but we have to keep our minds open.”
Amelia knew he wasn’t lying, he really did want to find the theory to be in error. She liked the way he was so virtuous, it made a change from most of the remaining population.
“I don’t think Renee is exactly the perfect mother she wanted everyone to believe when Jordan was kidnapped,” Amelia said. If the detective was too nice to say it, she would. She had never even met the woman but she bet there would have been quite a few lies coming from her mouth.
“No, I can’t disagree,” Leo admitted. He started making a list on the board about the woman. “We know her boss thought she was stealing prescription drugs. We know her husband thought she was having an affair-”
“But with her boss, who she wasn’t sleeping with,” she interrupted. “So she was probably acting strange because of the stealing and not an affair. That’s a mark in the good column, right?”
“Right. So why did she contact Bree Rowland and the district attorney?” He tapped his chin with the marker, trying to think of all possible scenarios.
People went to the media and the authorities when they had a crime to report, that was normally how it worked. But they usually started with the police as their first point of contact. Renee had completely bypassed them, going straight for the public opinion and the courts.
“If you knew of a crime, where would you turn?” Leo asked Amelia, trying to get an ordinary citizen’s opinion.
“The police,” she answered without hesitation.
“So why didn’t Renee do that?”
She shrugged, no idea. “Maybe she had an aversion to the police because of her work situation? Stealing drugs is a crime, not just something to get you fired from your job. Wouldn’t the accusations damage her credibility or something?”
“It would, she may have been trying to beat the hospital to the punch line. If she knew something, then she may have wanted it to get out quickly before the hospital reported her stealing. Going through the proper channels would have taken time.”
Satisfied, Leo wrote down his theory on the board. It was very likely that Renee needed the information out quickly, choo
sing to circumvent the police before her crime was reported.
“So what information did she have?” Leo asked next, more to himself than his guest.
“No clue.”
“Do you have any feelings about it?” Getting some help from the spirits might be the only way he was going to crack the case.
Amelia tried to think before she answered, remembering how frustrated he was last time she came up empty. Out of everyone they had spoken to, she had managed to get the truth out of them all and not one of them indicated they knew what Renee was up to. She answered carefully.
“Renee had a secret life, whatever she was in was bad enough to keep from her husband.” She hoped he wouldn’t notice how she dodged the question.
“Shouldn’t he have been the one person she would talk to?”
Amelia laughed. “You’re so naive.”
“No, I’m not, I believe in the sanctity of relationships. You are just cynical.”
She couldn’t argue. If he had heard as many lies as she had, he wouldn’t be so quick to throw away the notion. “Everybody has secret lives, Detective. Every one.”
He recapped the marker, stuck for any more information. Looking at her, his eyes held a cheeky sparkle.“So what’s your secret life?”
“If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.”
“I’m a cop, you’re compelled to tell me the truth,” he pushed her.
“You are on suspension, so technically you’re not a cop.” She grinned back, refusing to be bested. “How about you tell me what your secret life is?”
“That’s easy, I don’t have one.”
“Everyone has one.”
“Not me. What you see is what you get.” He held out his arms, as if showing there was nothing he was hiding. Amelia knew it was the truth too, it only frustrated her. Nobody could be that perfect. “You don’t believe me?”
“No, I think the problem is that I do believe you. You’re a freak of nature.”
It was his turn to laugh. “I don’t believe you have a secret life either. I think you just say things like that so people can’t get too close to you.”
“What are you, a psychologist now? It looks like you’ve got it all figured out, perhaps you don’t need my help anymore.” She went to stand. She was annoyed by the detective. Not because he was pretending to analyze her, but because he was right. It bugged her more than anything else.
Leo instantly regretted the comment, he quickly grew serious. Placing a hand on her arm, he stopped her in her tracks. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I still need your help.”
She studied him, knowing the apology was genuine. Just once, she would have liked him to mutter a lie so she would have a reason to leave. “Why do you even need a psychic to help you with this case? I’m sure you can solve it by yourself.”
He relaxed a little as she sat back down again. “I believe in psychics. You know things that can take me weeks to work out. Your input is invaluable.”
“Have you worked with psychics before? It sounds like you’ve had first-hand experience.”
Leo hesitated for a moment, just enough for Amelia to know he was considering withholding the truth. “My mother was psychic. So I have a great respect for them.”
The revelation triggered a rush of guilt in Amelia. She was the one lying and it felt terrible. She wondered whether she should come clean and tell him about her real ability and the way it had nothing to do with being psychic. But that would require telling him more about herself than she had ever told anyone. She couldn’t risk it, she just couldn’t.
“Maybe your mother could help with the case then?” She offered, thinking she could take her place.
“I have you,” Leo said cheerily. “I don’t need her. Now, where are we going to take this case next? Any thoughts?”
She knew he was referring to her abilities and she didn’t have any idea. She stared at the board, studying it. There was still one photograph pinned on the board that didn’t have any details. “I think we need to know who that guy is.” She pointed to the picture she took at the Armstrong Inn of the man who was seen speaking with Blake Turner. “He could link Turner to the real killer. Or at least to whomever paid him for his confession.”
Leo thought it over, finishing it with a nod. “You’re right. He’s the unknown here. I’ll follow up with the station and see if there have been any hits. It’s probably waiting in a queue somewhere.”
“We’ve only got eleven days left.”
The reality of that fact already weighed heavily on Leo. The longer Blake Turner sat in a cell, the more comfortable the case against him. The D.A. had a slam dunk, even if they would have to gloss over some of the evidence. If he left it too long, he would have to slip Turner’s court-appointed attorney some information. And he really didn’t want to have to do that.
A sudden knock on the door made them both jump and Harley to leap off Amelia’s lap. Leo only took a moment before hurrying into action. He needed to get rid of the murder board before anyone saw it. And judging by the flash of blue on the other side of the glazed door, he was going to be in serious trouble if he didn’t.
CHAPTER 12
Leo took one last look around the living room, double checking there were no signs of their investigation. A stray file, photograph, or jotted note could give him away.
Amelia hurried into the kitchen with the board and Harley. She stared at the dog and he stared back at her – both wondering what they were doing sequestered away like they didn’t belong there. Neither had an answer.
The visitor knocked again as Leo finally opened the door. “Commissioner Pace,” he said, inwardly groaning. One visit from his boss was enough, but twice in one week was too much. He tried to maintain his composure.
“Detective, may I come in?”
He stood away from the door, allowing entry. “What brings you here?”
They stood in the living room awkwardly awaiting the other to speak next. Finally, Pace started. “I thought I would check on you, see how your suspension is going. I hope you’re keeping out of mischief.”
“I’ve been watching a lot of television.” I’ve been investigating the case. Thankfully, only Amelia listening at the door could hear the lie.
“Television, huh? I bet daytime soaps get boring after a while.”
“I have cable, so it’s not so bad.” Leo refused to get flustered. He maintained his cool, making sure he couldn’t be accused of investigating. Even though it was the truth.
“And you haven’t been thinking about the White case at all?”
“It’s in your capable hands.” It’s in your incapable hands. “I’m sure you’ve got it under control.” I’m sure you haven’t got it under control.
“I heard you visited the White’s house after Renee’s death. I was disappointed to hear this. I thought you were done with the case.” The commissioner kept his hands held behind his back, adding to his imposing figure. Many officers before Leo had crumbled under his questioning.
“I’d spent a lot of time with Renee White, I was concerned for the family and thought they might appreciate a friendly face. Especially considering I was the lead detective on Jordan’s case. I only stopped by to check on the family.”
“How very noble of you.” Pace took a step closer. “But suspension means suspension. You need to stay away from the White family and everything about their case. Am I clear, Detective?”
“I told you, I’m just watching television.” I’m just investigating this case.
Amelia grinned in the kitchen, if only the commissioner could hear what she did. He wouldn’t be happy. She had to admit it kind of felt good hearing Leo lie, perhaps he wasn’t as perfect as she thought. Although, he was doing it for a good cause so it was probably justifiable.
“Good then, Detective. I’m sure I’ll see you back at work in just over a week. The cases are piling up for you, I’m sure they will keep you busy.”
“I’m sure they will.” Leo walked
to the door, hoping his boss got the hint that he should leave.
“You know, this reminds me of an article I read recently.” Pace didn’t move. “It was about insubordination in the police force. I don’t know why it comes to mind.” It reminds me of you and your insubordination, Amelia heard.
“I think I read that one too.”
“Good, we’re on the same page then.” Finally, Commissioner Pace made his way to the door. They said their goodbyes and Leo was all too happy to close the door firmly behind him.
Watching discreetly through the window, Leo didn’t open the kitchen door until he saw Pace’s vehicle drive off into the distance. Even then, he could still feel the man’s eyes on him as if he could see what he was up to. He tried to shrug off the feeling.
“You can come out now. Sorry about that.”
Amelia and Harley were released into the living room. Harley immediately went to the entrance and sniffed the stranger’s scent. He looked at Leo, trying to figure out if it was from a friend or foe. To be honest, Leo didn’t have an answer for him.
“I can’t stand that guy,” Amelia said through gritted teeth as she helped steer the board back into place. “He’s so arrogant. How can you even talk to him without wanting to punch him in the face?”
“I’m not a fan either,” Leo started, amused by her seemingly unfounded anger. “But he’s okay. He’s just doing his job, which happens to be keeping all of us in line. It can’t be easy.”
“He waltzed into your home and practically accused you of insubordination – something you guys take really seriously in the force, right?” She waited for a nod of agreement. “And you are nice to him? I don’t get it.”
“He’s my senior, I have to do what he says. He’ll retire soon enough and then hopefully someone better will step up to the plate.”
“Someone like you?” Leo gave her a surprised look, something she did not miss. “What? You think you’re the only one who can analyze people?”
A grin spread across his lips. “Fine. Maybe I’d like the job one day, in the future. I’m not ready to leave my post yet though.”
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