“Or they knew and kept it hidden,” Somers adds.
“Yes,” Dr. Flanagan says. “That’s possible too.”
“Anything else? Anything in the blood?”
Dr. Flanagan flips over the page and scans the findings. “Some opioid, a sedative, but not at palliative levels. His blood alcohol was slightly elevated, which makes sense, given he was drinking wine at dinner before he died. Nothing beyond that.”
“Fine. Good. Listen,” Somers says again. “I’m going to take a picture of this report with my phone. I know that’s against the rules, but you know well that some rules are made to be broken, right? So I’ll take the picture, then you file this report away again, and I promise you that this picture will never see the light of day. This conversation never happened.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Flanagan says.
Somers aligns her phone with the page and takes the photograph. She and Clare stand and shake the doctor’s hand.
“We’re grateful for your time and expertise, Dr. Flanagan,” Somers says, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
His expression is almost sad when they turn to leave. Clare must jog the hallway to keep up with Somers as she walks past the reception area and through the door to the outside world. Somers stops at the bottom of the steps and fishes through her bag for her sunglasses.
“I know I’ve already said this,” Clare says. “But you’re really good at that.”
“You played your part too,” Somers says. “You know. The quiet, cute, good cop. The little questions you innocently threw in here and there.”
“I’m not sure ‘cute’ is a real thing in detective-speak. And I’m pretty sure it’s meaningless. Unhelpful.”
“Ha,” Somers says. “You’d be surprised. When you come across a lot of men like Flanagan, you know—men with egos incrementally larger than their brains?—cute helps a lot. At one point he was looking at you like he would have handed over his scalpel and the key to the morgue if you batted your lashes and asked him for them.”
They reach Somers’s car. In the passenger seat Clare feels hot with anger. Her entire life Clare resented those around her for whom things seemed to come easily, Grace first and foremost, and Somers now, exacerbated by the implication that Clare’s best weapon is her looks. No, Clare thinks now. Settle down. She buckles her seat belt.
“Do you think Jack Westman knew he was dying?” Clare asks.
“He must have.”
“Do you think it matters if he did?”
“Everything matters,” Somers says. “Every little secret matters.”
Somers turns the key in the ignition. They pull out of the spot and drive up the hill. When they pass a park, Clare can see the ocean overtop of it.
“I think we should go see Germain,” Somers says. “It’s time I met him.”
“Sounds good,” Clare says, even if her tone does not match the conciliatory nature of her words.
The police detachment is open and airy. Clare barely remembers its layout from yesterday morning, all the upper floors open to the atrium, where Clare and Somers wait. Just like the coroner’s office, this space seems too well appointed to be a government building. Looking up, Clare spots Germain standing at the third-floor elevator. They make eye contact before Somers sees him too. Even from a hundred feet away Clare can read his look, the sly smile. He descends in the glass elevator facing outward, his hands in his pockets, his eyes never leaving Clare. So confident, she thinks. So self-assured. Somers is looking at her phone and only spots him when he arrives at the desk and stretches out his hand to greet her.
“Detective Somers,” he says. “It’s a thrill to meet you. Thank you so much for your work on this case.”
“What case?” Somers says. “We’ve got a few of them on the go, don’t we?”
“Sure, maybe,” Germain says. “I see it as one. One big present tied together with a bow.”
“I don’t,” Somers says.
The front desk clerk follows their volleys intently, chin propped on her hands.
“We don’t have much time,” Clare says in an effort to insert herself. “Can we take a few minutes in your office?”
“Sure,” he says. “I’ve got a soda maker.”
“He’s very domestic,” the clerk chimes in.
The clerk recedes into her chair under Somers’s withering look. They follow Germain to the elevator and wait for its arrival in an awkward silence. On their way up, they stand shoulder to shoulder, Clare between them.
“Not a terribly busy place,” Somers says.
“Well, it’s Friday. Start of the weekend.”
“That’s when chaos reigns in most detachments.”
Somers is toying with him, working to gain the upper hand. Clare can feel Germain stiffen next to her. The elevator doors open and they follow him along the third-floor hall and through the cubicles to his spacious office. Both Clare and Somers take the chairs across from his desk and watch as he prepares them two sodas from a machine that sits on the bar fridge. Somers looks to Clare and rolls her eyes, tapping on the notebook in her hand as if to say, I don’t have time for this shit. Germain hands them the drinks and sits.
“The video was… an interesting twist,” he says. “Quite the break in the case. You said you received it in an email?”
“She did,” Somers answers for Clare. “I’ve had my guys working on the encryption. Seeing what they can dig up about the sender. But the file was bounced around a lot before it arrived in her in-box. It’ll be next to impossible to triangulate.”
Germain holds quiet, watching them. “It looks like Charlotte Westman was filming,” he says. “I’ve sent an officer out to pick her up for questioning. But I
