The Corpse Wore Tartan by Kaitlyn Dunnett Page B

what they were, but he knew that they were important.
    With excruciating slowness, his mind began to function again. He remembered that his father had already turned in for the night. That meant the responsibility for reporting what had happened fell to him. So did looking after the poor woman who’d made that grisly discovery. He forced himself to speak.
    â€œTricia, take Sadie to the conference room and keep her company until Sherri can come talk to her.”
    He saw questions in Tricia’s eyes, but the look on his face apparently convinced her that it was not the time to ask them. She grasped Sadie firmly by the elbow and led the older woman away. Dan watched them go and then pulled himself together and made a beeline for Sherri and Pete.
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    This was so not good.
    With one hand shielding her mouth and nose, Sherri Willett bent toward the body. The battery-powered lantern she held in the other hand provided the only light and made everything look surreal.
    She wished this were a hallucination, but she’d already confirmed what Dan had told her, and what Sadie LeBlanc had told him. This man had no pulse. He was definitely dead. More than that, he had been murdered.
    Sherri now had to do what Dan hadn’t. She swallowed convulsively, then bent closer. She saw the cause of death all too clearly. The victim’s throat had been cut.
    The murder weapon lay nearby. A skean dhu. Sherri could make out a clan crest on the handle, but the angle was wrong and the lighting too poor to allow her to identify it. She glanced at the top of the victim’s kilt hose and spotted an empty sheath. Apparently, he’d been killed with his own knife.
    Spots appeared before Sherri’s eyes. Suddenly the smell of blood was too much for her. She started to gag.
    Hands clamped down on her shoulders, hauling her out of the storage room and into the corridor. She made no objection when Pete closed the door on the horror within. Neither did she protest when he wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. Her stomach roiled, then settled, but shudders continued to rack her body.
    They stood that way, clinging to each other, for several more minutes, until Sherri finally managed to stop shaking. She’d seen death before, even murder, but not like that. Even with the solid wooden door separating her from the body, the sharp tang of all that blood stayed with her. She wondered if she’d ever be able to forget that smell.
    â€œI’m okay,” she said at last, easing out of Pete’s embrace. She had to be. “I’ve got work to do,” she added in a voice that was slightly steadier. “First off, we need to contact the state police and…”
    The words trailed off as she realized she wouldn’t be able to follow standard procedure on this one. The same howling winds that had knocked out power and phone service had damaged the towers that relayed signals for cell phones and police radios. Until work crews braved the storm to make repairs, she was cut off. On her own. She, Officer Sherri Willett of the Moosetookalook Police Department, was solely responsible for securing and preserving the crime scene and for handling the initial stages of the investigation. If she screwed up…
    Well, she wouldn’t. True, she couldn’t complete the first two steps—calling the state police and the attorney general—but she would go by the book for everything else.
    She just wished she had a copy of “the book” with her.
    Sherri glanced at the storage room door. Had she touched anything? She didn’t think so. Still, she should have put on gloves before she went in. Why hadn’t she thought of that sooner? Had she gotten the victim’s blood on her hands? She stared at them, but didn’t see any stains. That didn’t mean they weren’t there. Lantern light didn’t provide the best illumination in the world.
    â€œOkay. Okay, I can do this,” she