Her tone didn’t carry censure or guilt, so my guess was she found it funny that I suspected her. I wasn’t going to let that distract me from the question, though. It was still one that felt like it needed an answer. I’d seen too many people dodge questions by laughing off the possible motives behind them. “Then why the boxes?”
The laugh lines disappeared, and her pen drooped. “I stopped unpacking completely a long time ago. We rarely stay anywhere long enough for it to feel worthwhile. Why take out my gardening gear if we’ll be somewhere else before spring, or why unpack the extra sets of sheets if our kids won’t be able to get vacation time to visit before we leave again?”
If we managed to find Chief McTavish and he was alright, he was probably going to hate that I’d gotten this look into his private life. In my defense, I wouldn’t have pried had I not worried his wife might be hiding something.
Mrs. McTavish had turned her attention back to her paper and was writing again. “His job was the one thing we truly argued about. I wanted him to quit internal investigations years ago.” She glanced up. “It wasn’t just the moves, either. It always took a toll on him, knowing no one had his back at work, and they wished he wasn’t there.”
It reminded me a bit of how I’d felt before I came to Fair Haven. I’d had few true friends, and I’d always felt like the people I worked with were nice to me because I was the bosses’ daughter. It wasn’t until I came to Fair Haven that I started to feel I’d found a place to belong. “There are people who’d like to see him stay here. I’m one of them.”
She gave me a smile that was sad around the edges. “I know. He’d finally agreed that this would be his last Internal Affairs job, and he’d applied to keep the job as Fair Haven chief of police. Sergeant Higgins wanted to plan a surprise party when it became official, after this corruption investigation was closed. This one’s been the worst yet. Every lead turns out to be another rabbit trail laid down to veer him off course.” She folded the paper up and handed it to me. “Now it might all be too late.”
I wanted to make her all sorts of promises, but I knew better. Chief McTavish was a good officer. Mark was a good medical examiner. They’d been struggling at this for months. There were no guarantees I’d figure this out, and there were even fewer that I’d figure it out in time to save Chief McTavish, wherever he was.
Instead of saying anything, I accepted the paper and slipped it into my purse.
She walked me to the door and pulled my coat from the rack.
“I know you think you’re always careful when you’re investigating a case, but don’t take even the smallest risk this time.” She extended my coat to me, but didn’t release it when I took hold. “Owen told me one more thing about this case. The former chief wasn’t the puppet master. He was an underling brought in to expand the operation. Whoever is behind all of this is still walking free. We don’t know who he is, but I’m sure he knows that you’ll eventually make the connection and start hunting for him. That means he might already be planning to hunt you first.”
16
I was thankful Anderson was handling Mark’s bail hearing because Mrs. McTavish’s warning didn’t leave much room in my head for anything else.
I’d assumed Chief Wilson was the one who came up with the corruption scheme in Fair Haven. He’d wanted a perfect record so that he could make a run for county sheriff. A little extra money to pad his lifestyle hadn’t hurt, either.
It’d never crossed my mind that Wilson could have been recruited by someone else.
Isabel was gone by the time I got home. She’d left me a note about making deliveries and that she would be back later. That was probably for the best. I’d already shared too much about this case with her.
It also left me with time to kill until Mark was released and we could figure out what to do next.
I took the dogs for a quick walk in the bush, making sure to dress them in their special I’m-not-a-deer jackets even though hunting season was over. Russ had tried to assure me that no one was allowed to hunt on Sugarwood property anyway, so we’d have been safe, but I wasn’t taking chances. As soon as I found out about hunting season, I’d gotten Mandy to help me create a big orange jacket that I could Velcro over top of the jackets I put on them to keep them warm.
They looked a bit like traffic cones with legs afterwards, but no one could claim they’d mistaken them for a deer.
The dogs settled in for their post-walk nap as soon as we got home, leaving me alone with the slip of paper Mrs. McTavish had given me.
I swear it’d gotten heavier the longer I carried it without looking at it. It was childish to continue to wait simply because I was afraid of whose name might not be on the list.
I took it from my purse and smoothed it out, but didn’t look at it immediately.
I couldn’t be a baby about it now. We had to know where to start. It was my whole reason for going to see Mrs. McTavish.
Just because someone’s name wasn’t on here didn’t mean they were involved with what had happened. It only meant Chief McTavish hadn’t been able to fully clear them yet. They could still be innocent.
I forced my gaze down to the list. It was longer than I’d expected. The first step would be to see who was missing.
I pulled out a fresh piece of paper. I’d write down everyone before reading the list carefully to avoid missing anyone out of some subconscious bias.
The Fair Haven police department had twenty-two employees, including Chief McTavish. Only sixteen of those were police officers. Mark, the three dispatchers, the chaplain, and the part-time counsellor weren’t sworn officers of the law. Mark, the chaplain, and the counsellor weren’t even directly tied to the Fair Haven PD. They served the whole county.
I numbered twenty-one spaces and started writing names. Thankfully I’d always had a good memory, and I’d been around the police department long enough now that I’d dealt with almost everyone.
I filled the list and then started crossing names off of mine.
Elise and Erik had both been cleared. I knew they would have, but it felt good to have my faith in them confirmed.
So had Troy.
Seeing his name on Mrs. McTavish’s list loosened something in my chest. I hadn’t realized it, but I must have been afraid Troy had been part of the corruption scheme and had been betrayed by his partner or partners. I’d rather think of him as a good man who died trying to do what was right.
Mrs. McTavish hadn’t written down any of the adjunct names, including Mark’s. Chief McTavish had cleared Mark first. That meant those names weren’t absent because they hadn’t been cleared. With that many absent names sharing the one thing in common, it seemed like Chief McTavish had been focused on the police officers.
I didn’t have enough background to know if that was because he knew something about the corruption situation that meant it could only have been an officer running it all or if he simply considered them less likely and was leaving them for last. Though that seemed backwards to how I would have operated. Most people would cross off the easiest suspects first.
I put a single X through the block of names and went back to matching up officers.
Only three officers’ names were missing when I finished.
Brandon Rigman, Grady Scherwin, and Quincey Dornbush.
“It’s not Quincey,” Mark said when I showed him the list later that afternoon. “I know Quincey.”
I’d crossed Quincey’s name off, written it back on, rinse and repeat so many times while waiting for Mark that I’d had to get a new piece of paper. I nudged the paper closer to Mark across my kitchen counter. “Was there anything in the autopsy reports that Chief McTavish had you review that could link to Quincey?”
Mark shook his head. “But I can say the same about Rigman and Scherwin. Scherwin didn’t work any of the cases.”
