Page 98 of Half Baked

“What time did the nurse find him?” I asked as I entered the room.

Lance had put his booties on too, so he signed his name and followed me in. “About six-thirty. She found him in the chair and thought he was sleeping, but when she tried to wake him, she realized he was cold and listened for a heartbeat. When she couldn’t hear one, she called her supervisor, who called the station.”

“She didn’t try to resuscitate him?”

“He had a DNR.”

I nodded as I studied Bergan’s body. He was slumped in his chair as if he’d fallen asleep, but his hands were resting too perfectly on the arm rests. It looked like his body had been staged. “Anyone other than the nurse been in this room?”

“Her supervisor and me,” Lance said. “They called the station and Neil came out and sealed the room.”

Thank God. I knew a few officers on the force who would have trampled all around before bringing in a detective.

“Did the nurse or the supervisor disturb his body at all? Try to roll him to his side or anything?”

He shook his head. “No. They said they didn’t touch him other than the first nurse taking his pulse on his neck. That’s how she knew he was cold.”

I leaned closer to Bergan to get a good look at his face, then took out my phone and turned on the flashlight. “Look right there around his eyes,” I said to Lance. “Those little red dots.” I glanced back at him with a questioning look to see if he picked up on what I was hinting at.

A grim look settled on his face. “Shit. Petechiae.”

I gave him an equally grim nod as I stood upright. “He was likely asphyxiated. Strangled or smothered.” I gestured to a throw pillow on the sofa that hadn’t been there when Maddie and I had dropped by the day before. “I’d go with smothered with that pillow, especially since I don’t see any bruising on his neck, but that’s for the coroner to decide.” I stood next to hm and put a hand on his shoulder. “Looks like you get to be lead on your first homicide.”

His face paled, but his jaw hardened. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

* * *

After Lance calledthe crime scene team and the coroner, he called the chief to let him know that Bergan had most likely been murdered. Chief Porter said he’d be at the residential center within the next thirty minutes, but he arrived in fifteen.

The crime scene unit had just arrived when the chief walked down the hall wearing jeans and a T-shirt. His face was covered in an uncharacteristic stubble, and he looked like he still had bed head.

“Well, imagine my surprise seeing you here,” the chief said dryly when his gaze landed on me.

“He was checking out a room for his girlfriend’s aunt,” Lance said in a rush.

“At seven o’clock on a Saturday morning? Bullshit,” he grunted as the peeked into the room through the open doorway. “You called him.”

“He did,” I said, “but in his defense, this is his first murder and I—”

“Can it,” he said, crossing his arms over his barrel chest as he studied the apartment. “I was going to call you in anyway.”

Relief washed through me. I would have had a hard time skirting around this investigation without being actively involved. “Well, in that case, I should probably tell you that I talked to Bergan on Wednesday.”

“You did what now?” he barked, turning to face me. “What in God’s name for?”

“In my defense, I was only accompanying my girlfriend.”

“Maddie Baker,” he grunted, then shrugged. “I hear things.”

I shot a glance at Lance, who gave me an apologetic look that suggested he was the source of at least some of those things the chief had heard.

“Let me guess why Maddie Baker was talking to Howard Bergan,” the chief said dryly.

“Inherdefense, she was looking at the apartment down the hall for her aunt earlier this week. When she walked by his place, his door was open, and he was struggling with the remote. She had no idea who he was when she walked in to help him. Then she introduced herself, and he started saying some ominous shit about her mother. Their conversation was cut short, but it got her thinking. So when she told me she was coming back to talk to him, I offered to join her.” I held out my hands, palms up. “It wasn’t an official investigation. She only asked questions.”

“So you started poking around about Andrea Baker’s case, huh? Did you get anywhere?”

“We did. Bergan suppressed information about her murder. He destroyed evidence and purposely thwarted the investigation.”

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