Page 24 of A Midsummer Night's Ghost

I immediately felt less guilty.

“Can you get me an autopsy report for James Kwaitkowski?” I asked Jake.

He sighed again, the deep sigh of a man questioning his love for me. “Already on it.”

SIX

“There’s the lovebirds,”Detective Cox said with a grin as I followed Jake into the room at the station stuffed with working cubicles. “Have a nice weekend?” He raised his eyebrows up and down.

“We were unpacking,” I told him, smoothing down the front of my taupe skirt and pretending to ignore his innuendo.

“Moving is hell,” Jake said, walking behind me.

“Hell is this case I’m working on,” Detective Debby Smith said, leaning back so far in her office chair it creaked and threatened to give way. She put her hands behind her head and stared at her computer screen. “Is the WiFi off? Why is my computer frozen?”

“Mine’s working,” Detective Cox said. “Maybe restart it.”

“Why is it everyone says that like I’m some kind of idiot?Just restart it.” She rolled her eyes.

“Because nine times out of ten, that fixes it. Did you restart it?”

“No.” Smith grumbled but powered off her desktop computer.

I hovered, determined to let the detectives take the lead with me. Neither of them were all that fond of me to begin with—Detective Cox because I called him out on his inappropriate flirting, Detective Smith because she thought I was a helpless female—and I had anticipated some resistance to me being there.

I wasn’t wrong to call out Cox. But Smith might not be wrong about me either. I get squeamish. But I had come a long way in the last year.

Jake gave me an encouraging smile, lifting his suit jacket off of the back of his cubicle chair and slipping it on. He’d met me downstairs at the security check-in and now that I was in the belly of the homicide unit, I remembered two things—he belonged here and I did not.

There was always something about the rows upon rows of cubicles in the center of the room, flanked by a perimeter of glass offices, that had given me claustrophobia. It was a practical workspace, humming with computers and detectives on phone calls, and swearing and shouts to co-workers. Clicking office doors and the endless clacking of fingers on keyboards. Nothing too grim, save the crime scene photos scattered around, and yet not designed for anything other than function.

It was why I had always felt so out of place there. I wasn’t practical. Not really. I owned too many dresses and expensive shoes for a woman with a modest income and I didn’t always dress for the weather. I ordered takeout more often than I should and I bought the pre-cut vegetables at the “fancy” grocery store because if I didn’t I would never bother to eat them because chopping is an extra step. I paid for a gym membership I never used and I was a streaming services dream customer. I signed up and paid in perpetuity for apps and channels I no longer even remembered I had.

I also valued pretty things. Delicate things. Like flowers and friendships and the sanctity of human life.

Jake belonged at the station. He was the epitome of practical. Keep it simple, stupid. The solution is usually the most obvious one. He was pragmatic, efficient, capable of compartmentalization. He was also empathetic, but never driven by his emotions. Not there, anyway. There he was Marner, not Jake. In his personal life, he was still practical, but also caring, romantic, and compassionate.

I liked both sides of him, or maybe I should say I loved the whole that made him who he was. A great man, and a great detective.

He also rocked a suit like nobody’s business. Like a detective on a TV drama, not real life.

While I was admiring his biceps and abs in his well-fitted suit, Cox was smiling at me. “So how do we do this? You need a ouija board or something? Crime scene photos?”

He shoved a glossy picture into my hand.

At first, I didn’t even understand what I was looking at. There was just blood everywhere. But then I realized that beneath all the blood, or in it, was a lumpy shape that was a body. There was mud and brown grass surrounding it. On the head was a crumpled up blue plastic bag with a grocery store name emblazoned on it beneath some patches of dirt.

I almost dropped the photo but I didn’t want to show that level of weakness in front of Jake’s colleagues. I tried to force myself to stare at it and not make horrified gagging sounds.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Jake demanded of Cox.

He snatched the photo from my hand and turned it down so I couldn’t see it anymore.

“Seriously,” Smith said. “This is an active investigation and you just showed her evidence.”

I almost rolled my eyes. Because what, I was going to run to the press and blast what I had seen? And I wasn’t helpless. Just different from her. Maybe that’s what it was. Sometimes youmeet someone and they just don’t like you and there is no real reason why. That was me with Detective Debby Smith. She had just decided to dislike me the second she clapped eyes on me.

“Come on,” Cox said, doing the eye rolling at Smith for me. “She doesn’t even know what’s relevant, now is she going to compromise our investigation?”

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