Page 48 of Crossroads Magic
I wrapped my arms around my middle. “I don’t understand why you feel the need to apologize for anything. She and you are both in the clear now.”
“I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t…in the clear, before.”
“You had no alibi. Now you do.” I said it flatly. I badly wished this conversation was over.
Benedict frowned. “Perhaps I misunderstood. What, exactly, did Harper tell you?”
“The truth, I thought.” My heart was thumping again. “Along with a solid dose of fury.”
“She does that with everyone,” Benedict said, although he said it absently, as though his thoughts were on something else.
Broch shoved the curtain aside and leaned into the room. “The Sheriff’s department is here.” He dropped the curtain and disappeared.
“No…!” Benedict said, his tone one of utter disbelief.
Hirom hurried up the platform, picked up the notebook that Ghaliya had left on the counter and handed it to me. “Best put that upstairs, tucked way where people who might misunderstand won’t trip over it.”
I thought about the piles of paperwork on the floor. The officers would need to see the body… My heart picked up speed. Hirom was right. I didn’t want anyone to see the ramblings of my mother’s mind, with all the innocent mysticism on every page.
I hurried up the stairs with the notebook. Outside the open front door of the inn, I could hear the crunch of tires on the roadway, rolling at low speed. As I turned at the landing, I glimpsed through the front door a black vehicle with yellow bands and a badge on the side panel through the open door.
Chapter Fourteen
I leapt up the stairs to the apartment, threw open the door, then bolted it behind me. I swept up the piles of papers and notebooks, folders of documents and other bits and pieces and stuffed them into the nearest hidey-hole, as much as would fit, then the next one and the next one. I could hear feet on the stairs as I softly shut all the portraits and photo frames that hid the cupboards.
I tried to control my breathing as I answered the knock at the door.
An officer in a black uniform, with a heavy black coat over it, stood on the small landing, with Benedict right behind him. The officer touched the brim of his hat, then removed it. “You’d be Mrs. Crackstone? The daughter?”
“This is Sargeant Lewinsky of the Criminal Division of the St. Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office in Canton,” Benedict said.
“Captain Glass sent me, ma’am,” Lewinsky said. “Something about a suspicious death?”
“You’d better come in,” I told him. I let the door swing open fully, turned and led him into my mother’s bedroom.
The room instantly felt smaller with the two tall men in it. I didn’t go all the way to the bed. It was obvious where my mother lay.
Lewinsky leaned over and studied her for long minutes. Then he straightened up and put his hat back on. “I see,” he said, his voice crisp. “She was moved?”
I wasn’t sure who he was talking to, so I said, “Dr. Marcus took a great many photos of where she was found, but it was in the middle of the intersection you just drove through…and it was over 48 hours ago. She had to be moved.”
Lewinsky turned to look at me. “DoctorMarcus?”
“I’m not a medical doctor,” Benedict said quickly. “I’ve had some medical training and provide first aid and basic care for the residents here.”
My jaw sagged.Not a doctor? But he had…he’d spoken like a doctor. How had I made the assumption that he was? Had he called himself a doctor at any point?
Acute embarrassment spread through me, making me want to sink into the floor or become invisible. I couldn’t look at Benedict. I could barely look at Lewinsky. “So, you will investigate now?”
“I’ll have my men collect what evidence is left,” Lewinsky said stiffly. “But the body has been moved, and the critical early hours are long gone…” He shook his head. “I doubt there’s anything we can do, now.”
Again, my jaw loosened. “But…you took your time getting here!”
“We came as quickly as we could,” Lewinsky said. “We have nearly twenty-five hundred square miles we must manage, ma’am. As soon as I got the assignment, we moved. We gave this our top priority.” He pulled out a cellphone and thumbed a number, then listened.
“Yeah, bring up all the gear,” he said softly. “Call Davey in, too. We’ll need the van.”
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