Dane was looking at her a bit strangely. “Sorry,” Ryan said, wishing the ground would swallow her.
Then Dane’s eyes drifted to Liv, and recognition lit in them.
Dane had known Ryan since she was in high school, when she had shadowed him as part of her senior project. He knew their history. In her time on the force, he’d become a mentor to her, eventually helping her work her way up to detective.
“So what do we know about the victim?” Ryan asked Dane, redirecting him.
“Given her ID and the fact she lives here, the victim’s probably Cairo Levitt.” Dane showed her the driver’s license. “She’s engaged to Steven Blackstone, and has family that lives on Reardon Lane.”
“Have they been notified?” Ryan asked. Next of kin got tricky when a fiancé was involved, since Cairo’s family was legally her next of kin until they were officially married.
“Yes, and agreed to be questioned when we’re available.” Dane nodded.
That was a mostly good sign. But it wouldn’t be the first time she had seen cooperation vanish in a hurry.
“We’ll talk to the family first,” Ryan decided. “Once we’re done here.”
Dane grinned.
4
Wednesday 28th September; 9:00pm
Ryan stood there, her hands on her hips as she surveyed the crime scene. It looked like a suicide, but something made her uneasy.
“Looks like a suicide to me,” Elliot said as she zipped up the body bag. “I’ll know for sure when I get her autopsy done.”
Ryan nodded to Elliot, distracted. She saw a piece of paper flutter to the floor, as if it had been on Cairo’s body but had fallen off. Uneasiness churned in her middle as she walked over to it, slipping latex gloves on before picking it up.
It was a Joker card.
“Did anyone see a card anywhere on Cairo’s body?” Ryan asked, her voice loud as she slipped the card into an evidence bag so it could be tested for prints.
A chorus of “no”s responded.
Ryan swore under her breath. If she could have proved the card was on top of Cairo, it made suicide a lot less likely. Maybe the photos would, but the tech that had taken the photographs was still there and among the nos. It wasn’t the first suicide that had been staged so carefully. People did all sorts of things when they knew they were about to die.
“I found something.” Dane was in the kitchen, so Ryan headed his way.
On the counter was a carefully unfolded piece of paper. “Suicide note?” Ryan asked, skepticism in her voice.
“Looks like it.” He gently pressed his fingers to the paper, laying it flat out so that Ryan could read it.
I couldn’t stand the pain anymore. Please forgive me.
Cairo
“How unreassuringly generic,” Ryan muttered.
“There have been notes like this before,” Dane pointed out.
Ryan huffed. She knew that, and the fact that Dane was the more experienced homicide investigator, but she had long learned to trust her instincts and something was off.
Whether or not she could convince the rest of the department was another story. “Make sure you take proper measurements,” she said, pitching her voice loud enough that it carried.
“They know how to do their work,” Dane said, his voice low enough to be a reprimand.
“You can’t say that work doesn’t get shirked when it’s a probable suicide,” Ryan pushed back.
Dane made a noncommittal noise, his attention distracted by bagging and tagging the suicide note. “At least none of them got stuck in their own handcuffs.”
Ryan put her hands on her hips in exasperation. “That was once! When I was in training!” She paused. “I did get out of them.” She tucked her bangs back behind her ears, wishing she had the time to dig a bobby pin out of her purse. “Are you ever going to let me forget that?”
“Nope,” Dane retorted.
Ryan huffed. “Does she have an office or anything?” Maybe they could find more paper there, or a computer. Something to prove Cairo had written the note.
“The far corner.” One of the evidence techs, a woman named Elly, walked Ryan there. It was probably the cleanest office that Ryan had seen in a long time.
The thin-screen computer sat on the desk, a tower on the bottom side. Cords were neatly folded and secured by elastic bands. A printer and paper were on the filing cabinet next to it, the cords plugged into an outlet under the desk. Maybe she had typed it on this computer.
“We should probably take the computer,” Ryan murmured, thinking to herself. They’d have to send it out to the state police, since no one in their small department was qualified for computer forensics. She wasn’t really fond of the thought - the larger departments were often backed up, and it took forever to get to all of the cases. But they didn’t have a choice.
“It’s almost too clean,” Ryan mused, her gaze sweeping the house. She was going to make enemies if she had to, but she was going to make sure that it was a suicide and not something else in a disguise.
“We’re meeting the family next,” Dane said.
Ryan looked at him and nodded. “Let’s get ready, then.”
Wednesday 28th September; 9:30pm
Liv’s grip on Mocha’s leash was probably tighter than it needed to be, but she could barely stand, much less process what had just happened. It wasn’t just the body, or just Ryan’s reappearance (she had always known Ryan had wanted to join the local police force), but the hit of everything at once.
She swallowed thickly, but she kept her feet moving. Her car was back at the coffee shop, and from there she could head home. It was easy enough that she could do it on autopilot.
The image of Cairo hanging there, eyes wide open and empty, would haunt her dreams for months to come. Mocha was good, but she didn’t know if Mocha was good enough to chase off dreams of that caliber.
Still, Mocha trotted faithfully by her side, as if they had just gone on a
