[33]
Olivia stepped into the morgue and followed the sounds of the grunts coming from the office to her left. She’d visited the morgue enough times during her two years as a detective with the force that Megan, the receptionist, simply waved her on back. Wade got a strange look, but since he was with Olivia, Megan simply shrugged.
“You should have stayed home,” she told him.
“Not a chance.”
She found Francisco on the floor of his office. “How many today?”
“A thousand.”
“Did you figure out the problem?” she asked, indicating the body on the table. Francisco did push-ups for a lot of reasons. One of those reasons was when he was confused or trying to work through a problem.
“Yes. She was strangled from behind. Not a difficult problem to figure out. The fingerprints on the front of her throat were pretty much a dead giveaway.”
Olivia rolled her eyes. “No pun intended, right?”
“This is Wade Savage.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Francisco said from the floor.
“Likewise.” Wade didn’t seem to find it at all strange to be talking to the medical examiner while standing over him.
“Anything on Justine Harmon?” she asked.
Francisco popped to his feet and motioned to the laptop on his desk. “Take a look.”
He wiggled the mouse as Olivia slipped into the plush leather chair. Francisco had bought the chair himself, saying the hospital-issued one hurt his back. She could see why he liked this one. Wade moved behind her and she found she was very aware of his presence. Not just the fact that he was there, but that she was glad he was there. Glad he’d insisted on coming. Glad that Charlie had been willing to follow them and act as a lookout in case they were followed. She didn’t want to be glad. She frowned. Focus.
Justine’s file was already on the screen and she pushed Francisco’s hand from the mouse. “I’ll take it from here, thanks.”
“Right. You’re welcome.”
She looked up. “Sorry. I appreciate you letting me do this.”
“I know you do. Otherwise I would refuse. I’ll just be making a Y-incision in room 4. Text me when you’re finished.” With one last glance at Wade, he left.
Olivia focused her attention on the words in front of her while Wade read over her shoulder.
“The first part of the report just talks about what she looked like coming in, what she was wearing,” Olivia said. She clicked through the pages. “What I want to know is at the end of the report. Here.” She pointed. “See where it says, ‘Opinion’?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, time of death is reported to be between 11:30 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. due to body temperature, rigor and livor mortis, and stomach contents. Cause of death is a single gunshot wound to the head. Manner of death is reported as a suicide. No special remarks were made by the medical examiner.”
“And why is it important that we know this?”
She heard the pain in his voice and minimized the screen. “I’m sorry, Wade. You shouldn’t have come.”
He cleared his throat. “Yes, yes I should have.” Then he frowned. “Wait a minute. Can you pull that back up?”
Olivia hesitated, then complied.
“There,” he said and pointed. “Where it gives the time of death. How accurate do you think that is?”
“Pretty accurate. Why?”
He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the screen. Then he held it out to her. “Because if the autopsy time of death is right, then Justine would have had to send me her text after she was already dead.”
Wade stared at Quinn as he paced the morgue floor. The detective had been visiting Maddy’s family at the hospital on the fifth floor when Olivia texted him. He’d come right down and not said a word about Olivia reading an autopsy report. Now he had his gaze fixed on Wade’s phone, which showed Justine’s text. Then his eyes bounced back to the screen that clearly showed her time of death.
“Well?” Olivia asked, her tone low, not rushed, just curious.
“I would say this makes me go ‘huh.’”
“‘Huh’ as in we need to check into this a little more or ‘huh’ as in ‘so what?’”
“The first.”
“Good.
“I’ll get that exhumation request expedited and we’ll go from there,” Quinn said.
“Are we all set for the charity dinner tomorrow night?” she asked.
“All set. Security is as tight as I’ve seen with the private sector involved.”
Olivia gave a short nod as though she’d expected no other answer. “Excellent.”
Quinn took a screen shot of Justine’s text. “All right if I send this to myself?” he asked Wade.
“Of course.”
Quinn did, then gave Wade a penetrating look. “Did you ever doubt it was a suicide?”
“I did, but never really considered murder. I thought at first it had to be an accident, but with the text . . . ,” he nodded at the phone and then gave a slight shrug, “. . . I figured I just didn’t know her as well as I thought I did.”
Quinn nodded. “All right, I’ll be in touch.” He turned back. “Oh, meant to tell you, I talked to Erin Abbott.”
“And?” Olivia asked.
“She took the weekend off like you thought. She’s covered as far as an alibi. We checked her key card, and Friday, it was used last around 11:04 p.m. She placed a call from her room for breakfast at 8:15 a.m. and it was delivered at 8:47. So it looks like she was in the room the entire night. Same thing for Saturday night as well.”
Wade shook his head. “I hate that she felt like she had to lie to me. I would have gladly let Stacy stay no matter what Erin wanted to do.”
“Well, there really was a conference that she was registered to go to,” Quinn said. “She said she decided not to at the last minute. I don’t think she’s your stalker. Admirer? Yeah. A little phone happy with the calls to the station? Sure. Stalker? No. Probably not.”
“She never gave her real name when she called,” Wade said. “I never knew it was her.”
“She seemed embarrassed about the whole thing, to be honest.”
“I won’t bring it up,” Wade said. “If she wants to talk about it, fine, but otherwise . . .” He shrugged.
Quinn nodded and held out a hand to Wade. “I may have misjudged you. I thought you were just a rich daddy’s boy playing at having a career. You’re not. I was wrong and I apologize.” Without giving Wade a chance to respond, he left and Olivia rose.
Wade didn’t move, just stared at the floor as he processed the fact that Justine might have been killed. “Why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Why would someone kill her?” He saw the intense compassion in Olivia’s eyes and it was nearly his undoing.
She rested a hand over his. He gripped her fingers. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe she had enemies you weren’t aware of.”
“She had people who got mad at her sometimes if they didn’t like what she had to say in a counseling session or if a child confided abuse and Justine had to recommend removal from the home. But . . . murder?”
Olivia sighed. “I know it’s hard to process. I’m sorry.”
Wade didn’t think about his actions, he just pulled her into an embrace. A loose one so that if she didn’t want to be there she could easily slip away.
But she didn’t. He held her against him, taking comfort in her presence and the compassion she extended. “I miss her,” he whispered.
“She would have liked you. And you her.”
“I’m sure.”
He felt a slight tremor run through her. “Can I tell you something that’s going to sound awful?”
She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Okay.”
“Justine and I had a different kind of relationship, as I’ve already explained, but I asked myself a question the other night.”
“A question?”
“If I’d have met you first, would I have looked twice at Justine?”
Olivia caught her breath and he could see she wasn’t sure if she wanted to hear the answer or not.
“Justine was a truly wonderful person and I liked her. Even loved her. As a friend. But . . .”
“But?” Olivia whispered.
“We lacked something.” He tilted her chin so he could look down into her eyes. Wary eyes. Thinking eyes. “Something that I think I feel with you.”
“Wade—” She pulled back and stared at him. “I can’t respond to that right now.” She stepped all the way out of his embrace. “In fact, I shouldn’t even . . .” She waved a hand. “You know.”
“I know. But I want to make sure that you know I care about you.” He cleared his throat and thought about Martha and Joanna’s concern that he could be a distraction for her. “It’s okay. Just concentrate on getting this person who’s stalking me. We can talk about—” he mimicked her hand wave—“whatever, later.” He kept his tone light, a teasing mockery.
She gave him a slight smile and shook her head. “Fine. Let’s go back to your place and discuss security for tomorrow night.”
“I’d rather talk about why you’re so scared of the water.”
Her eyes darkened, lips tightened. “I’d rather not.”
“You’d trust me with Shana, but not with that?”
She blew out a sigh and he thought he saw a glint of frustration in her suddenly cool blue eyes. “It’s not a matter of trust, it’s . . .”
“What?”
“Nothing. Let’s go.”