Chapter 326 Cold Body
ADRIANA
The detective had been talking for ten minutes and I had been growing progressively less patient for all ten of them.
“When Tim told you about the keychain and the bag on the counter,” I said, “why didn’t you follow up on it?”
He shifted in his chair. “My Queen, at the time of arrest we had a man standing over his wife’s body with his hands on the murder weapon. The details he mentioned afterward seemed like — like something someone would say to create doubt.”
“He was crying,” I said. “When you found him, he was crying. Is that part of the report?”
“Well — yes, My Queen.”
“So you had a man who had just found his wife dead, who was crying, who mentioned specific details about objects in the room that pointed to another person’s presence, and your conclusion was that he was manufacturing doubt.” I looked at him steadily. “Did it occur to anyone in your team that a man who planned and executed a murder would not stay at the scene weeping over his victim? That he would run?”
“My Queen, psychopathic serial killers have been known to—”
“Is Tim a psychopathic serial killer?”
The detective opened his mouth. Closed it.
“It’s not a complicated question,” I said. “Is he or isn’t he?”
“He’s not,” the detective said.
“Then why are you citing behavior that applies to a category he doesn’t belong to?” I leaned forward slightly. “You made a determination within minutes of arriving at a scene and you built your entire investigation around confirming that determination rather than questioning it. In the process, evidence was mishandled, key items went missing, and a man who was almost certainly innocent sat in my cells for months.” I paused. “That is not police work. That is a conclusion dressed up as an investigation.”
The detective looked at the floor.
Tobias, the commissioner, who had been sitting to the side in the specific posture of a man absorbing a great deal and saying very little, shifted in his seat.
“My Queen, I can assure you that—”
“I’m not finished with the detective yet.” I turned back to him. “The items Tim mentioned. The keychain. The bag. Are they in evidence?”
A pause long enough to be its own answer.
“They’re not,” he said.
“Because nobody looked for them.”
“Yes, My Queen.”
I sat with that for a moment. Evidence that had existed. A detail that pointed clearly to another person’s presence in that cabin. Gone because the people responsible for collecting it had decided the case was closed before they had properly opened it.
“I need two things from you,” I said. “Lucy’s phone. Find it. I don’t care how long it’s been or what state it’s in — find it. And I want the coast guard who was first on the scene brought here within the hour.” I held his gaze. “Don’t look through the phone. Don’t discuss it with anyone. Bring it to me.”
He nodded and left the room at speed.
I turned to the commissioner.
“How many people in your department are on someone’s payroll?” I said.
He looked up sharply.
“That is not an accusation,” I said. “It’s a question I need you to think seriously about. Because the chain of failures in this investigation — the mishandled evidence, the missing items, the complete absence of alternative inquiry — is either catastrophic incompetence or deliberate obstruction. Both possibilities concern me. One of them concerns me significantly more.”
Tobias was quiet for a long moment. “I hear you, My Queen.”
“Good.” I stood up. “The Beta and I will continue our own inquiry in parallel. I’d like your department to function as a resource rather than an obstacle from this point forward. Can you ensure that?”
“Yes, My Queen.”
The coast guard arrived sooner than I expected — a solid, sun-weathered man who came through the door with the look of someone who had been told the Queen wanted to see him and had been rehearsing his posture for the entire walk over. He looked around the room and landed on me and went very still.
“My Queen,” he said. “It’s an honor—”
“Tell me exactly what happened the day you found Tim,” I said. “Every detail. Start from the beginning.”
He straightened. “I received a call from a woman who said her house was on fire. She said she could see smoke and she needed help immediately. I drove to the location she gave me — which turned out to be the cabin — and when I arrived I saw no fire or smoke anywhere on the property.” He paused. “But the cabin door was unlocked and when I pushed it open, I found a man inside crouched on the floor beside a woman who was clearly dead.”
“And you immediately arrested him.”
“I — yes. I took him to my post to restrain him and called the police.”
“You left the scene,” I said.
“I had to secure—”
“You left an unprocessed crime scene with a body in it and no officer maintaining it, to take a suspect to your post.” I looked at him. “Who called you? The woman who said there was a fire. Did she give her name?”
“No, My Queen. She didn’t. I remember thinking her voice was — she sounded young. Almost childlike. Very soft.”
I looked at Hazel. She looked at me.
“A woman called you with a false report of a fire to bring you to that specific location at that specific time,” I said slowly. “And when you arrived, you found exactly the scene that someone wanted you to find.”
The coast guard was very still.
“You were used,” I said. “Someone needed you there and they manufactured the reason.” I paused. “If you heard that voice again, would you recognize it?”
“Immediately,” he said. “It’s not the kind of voice you forget.”
“Good. I’ll be in touch.” I looked at him. “You can go.”
After he left, Hazel spoke for the first time since we’d entered the room.
“Someone orchestrated the entire thing,” she said. “The false call, the timing, finding Tim at the scene. All of it staged.”
“All of it staged,” I agreed. “Which means whoever killed Lucy planned this carefully. They didn’t just kill her and leave — they constructed the frame around Tim before the body was even cold.” I moved toward the door. “Let’s go home. We have work to do.”