poisoned.”
“Poisoned? That’s typically pretty personal.” Echoes of Bob Richmond. “What was he poisoned with?”
I feel an odd reluctance to say anything, as if the answer is a piece of spinach stuck in Hurley’s teeth, or a booger hanging from his nose. “We think it was cyanide.”
A long silence stretches between us and though I’m tempted to break it, I wait, curious to see what Hurley will say next.
“Shit,” he says finally. He sounds sad, dejected, and defeated. “That’s not good. I have a supply of potassium cyanide in my garage. I use it in my metalwork.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and wince. Only now do I realize how much I was hoping to hear him say he didn’t have any of the stuff.
“Mattie, are you still there?”
I open my eyes. “I’m here. Sorry, I was just thinking things through.”
“It’s all rather damning, isn’t it?”
“It is, and there’s more,” I say, reaching a potentially disastrous decision. I tell him about the hair we found in Callie’s wound, the one I took from his bathroom, and my subsequent examination of the two. When I’m finished talking, the line between us crackles with an awkward silence. Only because I can hear him breathing do I know he hasn’t hung up on me.
“You’re angry with me,” I say, fearing he’ll hate the fact that I did the hair comparison behind his back.
“On the contrary, I’m impressed. You need to have an open mind and be unbiased in things like this. But I am a little bothered by the fact that you didn’t tell me what you were doing ahead of time. I would have gladly provided you with a hair sample to compare if you’d asked for one. The fact that you didn’t makes me think you don’t trust me.”
His comment irritates me. “Well, the evidence against you is rather damning,” I snap. “And I haven’t known you all that long, Hurley. You’re asking me to put my reputation and my job on the line for you and I need to be sure I’m making the right decision. If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, feel free to enlist someone else.”
“No, wait,” he says quickly, sounding panicked. “I’m sorry, and you’re right. It’s not fair to ask you to trust me based on my word alone.” He pauses and curses under his breath. “Please, I . . . I need you, Mattie.”
His plea melts my lingering resistance, which to be honest wasn’t much to begin with. Even though the evidence all seems to point toward him, my gut still tells me he’s innocent. And I’ve learned to trust my gut for the most part, at least when it comes to matters not of the heart. Problem is, Hurley sort of overlaps the professional and romantic parts of my life.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll help you. Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.” I can hear the exasperation in his voice. “I realize things don’t look very good for me but I swear to you, I had nothing to do with Harold’s death or Callie’s. But it’s becoming clear to me that someone wants it to look like I did.”
“Okay, so who would do something like that?”
“My best guess is it’s someone who wants to see me suffer, someone who’s bearing a serious grudge against me.”
“ Very serious,” I say. “I mean, this goes way beyond your typical payback.”
“I’ve been a cop for a long time. I’ve made a few enemies.”
“Any idea which one this might be?”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “The only one I can think of who hates me that much is Quinton Dilles, the asshole who cost me my job in Chicago. His wife was murdered and when I caught the case, I fingered him for it early on. But my efforts to prove it pissed him off and the guy is very rich and very well connected. He complained to some very important people about the way I was harassing him and the next thing I know, I’m given the option of taking a position investigating computer crimes, or quitting. So I quit and a month or so later, the new detective on the case dug up some
“Poisoned? That’s typically pretty personal.” Echoes of Bob Richmond. “What was he poisoned with?”
I feel an odd reluctance to say anything, as if the answer is a piece of spinach stuck in Hurley’s teeth, or a booger hanging from his nose. “We think it was cyanide.”
A long silence stretches between us and though I’m tempted to break it, I wait, curious to see what Hurley will say next.
“Shit,” he says finally. He sounds sad, dejected, and defeated. “That’s not good. I have a supply of potassium cyanide in my garage. I use it in my metalwork.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and wince. Only now do I realize how much I was hoping to hear him say he didn’t have any of the stuff.
“Mattie, are you still there?”
I open my eyes. “I’m here. Sorry, I was just thinking things through.”
“It’s all rather damning, isn’t it?”
“It is, and there’s more,” I say, reaching a potentially disastrous decision. I tell him about the hair we found in Callie’s wound, the one I took from his bathroom, and my subsequent examination of the two. When I’m finished talking, the line between us crackles with an awkward silence. Only because I can hear him breathing do I know he hasn’t hung up on me.
“You’re angry with me,” I say, fearing he’ll hate the fact that I did the hair comparison behind his back.
“On the contrary, I’m impressed. You need to have an open mind and be unbiased in things like this. But I am a little bothered by the fact that you didn’t tell me what you were doing ahead of time. I would have gladly provided you with a hair sample to compare if you’d asked for one. The fact that you didn’t makes me think you don’t trust me.”
His comment irritates me. “Well, the evidence against you is rather damning,” I snap. “And I haven’t known you all that long, Hurley. You’re asking me to put my reputation and my job on the line for you and I need to be sure I’m making the right decision. If you don’t like the way I’m doing things, feel free to enlist someone else.”
“No, wait,” he says quickly, sounding panicked. “I’m sorry, and you’re right. It’s not fair to ask you to trust me based on my word alone.” He pauses and curses under his breath. “Please, I . . . I need you, Mattie.”
His plea melts my lingering resistance, which to be honest wasn’t much to begin with. Even though the evidence all seems to point toward him, my gut still tells me he’s innocent. And I’ve learned to trust my gut for the most part, at least when it comes to matters not of the heart. Problem is, Hurley sort of overlaps the professional and romantic parts of my life.
“Fine,” I tell him. “I’ll help you. Where do we go from here?”
“I don’t know.” I can hear the exasperation in his voice. “I realize things don’t look very good for me but I swear to you, I had nothing to do with Harold’s death or Callie’s. But it’s becoming clear to me that someone wants it to look like I did.”
“Okay, so who would do something like that?”
“My best guess is it’s someone who wants to see me suffer, someone who’s bearing a serious grudge against me.”
“ Very serious,” I say. “I mean, this goes way beyond your typical payback.”
“I’ve been a cop for a long time. I’ve made a few enemies.”
“Any idea which one this might be?”
He lets out a heavy sigh. “The only one I can think of who hates me that much is Quinton Dilles, the asshole who cost me my job in Chicago. His wife was murdered and when I caught the case, I fingered him for it early on. But my efforts to prove it pissed him off and the guy is very rich and very well connected. He complained to some very important people about the way I was harassing him and the next thing I know, I’m given the option of taking a position investigating computer crimes, or quitting. So I quit and a month or so later, the new detective on the case dug up some
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