Page 56 of Mann Hunt
Declan shook his head. “We’re not on opposite sides. We’re both trying to find out what happened to this woman’s husband, only you’re shackled to a bigoted senior partner and working within the law.”
“And you’re not?”
“No. My partner isn’t the least bit bigoted.” Declan smiled.
“You know what I mean.”
Luke moved in a little closer. “What if we agree to help each other out,” Luke said. “I tell you everything I know about what’s going on, if you do the same.”
“You’ll show me yours if I show you mine?” Declan laughed.
“I’m serious,” Luke said. “I could get into a lot of trouble if they ever found out I was talking to you—”
“Then why take the chance?” he said, but Luke said nothing. Declan continued, “Unless if I give you something you can use, it’ll make you look better to the brass.”
“I never said that.”
“But you were thinking it. You’d be a fool not to.”
Luke stared at him. “They’ll be treating this as a homicide. The bones on the left side of his head were badly fractured and there was a lot of tissue damage. The coroner thinks it was done with an irregular, heavy object, like a rock.”
“The damage couldn’t have been caused by a fall, could it?”
“Possibly. The question is—how did his body wind up floating in the Elbow River?”
“Where on the Elbow?” Declan asked.
“On the eastern edge of the Glencoe Golf and Country Club.”
That’s…downstream from Sheldon Prescott’s neighbourhood.
“Your turn,” Luke said.
Declan began, “The night he disappeared, Ian Mann was attending a house party that involved individuals that certain police officers might be prejudiced against. They’ll eventually find out about it, but not from me.”
Declan could see Luke processing this new information.
“The lipstick on his face—it wasn’t Katherine’s, was it?” Luke asked.
Declan just stared.
“I can see why you don’t want that to come out. I take it that you’ve been to the party house?” Luke asked.
“I have,” Declan answered.
“And I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me where it is?”
“Not if I want to maintain any credibility with my clients.” Declan walked over to the cabinet containing the safe and brought out two objects. “But I did find this gum wrapper in the garden near where Ian parked his car. I also found this.” He passed him a copy of the footprint photo. “I discovered the prints in the dirt by the security wall surrounding the property. That’s my foot for scale. A size ten and the impressions were deep, like someone had jumped from the top of the wall.”
“May I?” Luke said, taking the evidence. “If I could figure out some way to run the wrapper through forensics for DNA or prints without letting the boss know, would you be interested in the results?”
Declan said, “Sure. Anything for the hottest cop on the Calgary Police force.”
“Anything?” Luke asked as he began to kiss Declan’s neck.
“I take it that you didn’t just come over to interrogate me?” Declan asked.
“Would I have brought along a change of clothes if that was the case?”
