Page 38 of What We May Be

Chapter Eleven

Charlie dropped the red-and-white plastic bag and sweating gallon of sweet tea on the break room table Maggie stood beside. “Talk fast. Rachel’s flirting with the new delivery guy. He looks eager, so it shouldn’t take her long to get his number. Five minutes max. What’ve you got?”

Laughing, Maggie snagged plates and cups out of the cupboard. “Heaven forbid we violate Rachel’s no-discussing-dead-bodies-while-eating rule,” she said as she filled the glasses with tea. “And thanks for the early dinner.”

“Or late lunch.” Somewhere in the middle, and in any event, the first food Charlie had had all day. After the crime scene that morning, then Craig’s tantrum and Trevor’s arrival, it had taken until now for her to even get hungry. She unloaded the bag, spreading the boxes of fried chicken, barbecue, red slaw, and hush puppies on her desk. “Four and a half minutes.”

Maggie, however, seemed determined to focus on anything but work. She swiped a hush puppy and packet of honey butter, opened the latter, and dredged the fried dough through it. “It confounds me how you eat like this with no consequences.” She plopped into a chair, then popped the hush puppy into her mouth with a satisfied hum. “Don’t care, mind you, but it confuses the inner scientist.”

“This is stress eating,” Charlie said as she loaded plates. “And there are consequences. Five miles every night.” She handed a plate to Maggie, left another on the table for Rachel, then sank into a chair across the table. “Four minutes.”

“Fine.” Maggie snagged her plate and ate another hush puppy before launching into her report. “I’m still examining Julian. Don’t expect prints, tox screen tomorrow, won’t have DNA until the end of the week if any.”

“And Professor Marshall?” Charlie asked as she dug into the barbecue. “His son will be here tomorrow and wants the body released for the funeral.”

“He’s good to go.”

“Evidence?”

“No prints, no trace fibers, nothing on the body or at the scene that didn’t belong to Jeff. Perp knew what they were doing. Jeff’s neck and hands were scarred from the rope but no other defensive wounds.”

“Toxins?”

Maggie pointed at her neck with her fork. “Diprivan, injected.”

“Preliminaries on Julian?”

“Similar injection mark on the neck, so I’m guessing he’ll also test positive. Otherwise, on first glance, the body is clean except…”

Charlie paused with a drumstick halfway to her mouth. “Except?”

“Whoever the killer is, in both cases, they waited for the victim to wake before actually killing him.”

“The bloodied ropes?”

Maggie grimaced and set aside a forkful of barbecue and slaw. “For starters. There was also a gag on the ground in the stables that tested positive for Jeff’s saliva. He must have gotten that off after he woke but before he was hung. As for Julian, the blood on his face and pillow was smeared. He struggled.”

Appetite waning, Charlie abandoned the drumstick and her plate. Maybe there was something to Rachel’s no-discussing-dead-bodies-while-eating rule.

“Hey!” Rachel appeared in the breakroom doorway, her honey-colored eyes narrowed in mock offense. “You started without me.”

“Trust me, you’re right on time.” Maggie pushed the third plate toward her. “You get the new guy’s name and number?”

She picked up the plate and claimed the open chair. “Sure did, but I won’t be using it.”

“Why’s that?”

Blissfully unaware of their previous discussion, she attacked a chicken thigh with gusto. “I’ve got my eye on someone else.”

“Anyone we know?” Charlie asked.

“May-be,” Rachel drawled in a way that clearly meant yes, but then added, “I don’t want to say more yet. Things are… unsettled. Enough about me, though. Now that we know Trevor is safe and sound and snoring on your office couch, what’s going on with Sean?” Before Charlie could object, Maggie launched into a play-by-play of the incident at the crime scene. Rachel’s eyes grew wider with every word, her ponytail of blond ringlets swinging as her gaze swiveled between them. “Is he back back? Like for good?”

“No.” Charlie ignored the disappointment and heaviness in her gut. In and out, he’d said. “He’s a friend of Jeff’s son, who’s also a fed. He’s stationed overseas with Sean. Sean’s just keeping an eye on things until he gets here.”

Maggie fixed her with a patented disapproving parent stare, one that Charlie had only ever seen bested by her dad. “Then why was he at this morning’s crime scene with you?”

And just like the time Mitch had caught her at Pier Point on senior skip day, Charlie didn’t have a good explanation. She could argue she’d brought Sean along because he was a LEO, another trained set of eyes couldn’t hurt, but her reasons were also personal. She knew Julian; she knew Tracy better. She hadn’t wanted to face that crime scene alone, and Sean had been there for her, exactly how and when she’d needed him.

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