They’d called only me. The person Mandy had already declared as her lawyer.
My mom gave a hurry-up chin jut.
The voice in the message sounded like it belonged to an eighty-year-old chain smoker. It took me half the message to recognize it as Chief McTavish’s.
“Come down to the station as soon as you get this,” he said. “We need to talk.”
My backbone relaxed from its more-stiff-than-the-chair position. It wasn’t Mandy making her one phone call, and Chief McTavish hadn’t said anything about a person needing legal representation.
A slightly psychotic giggle threatened to break loose. It’d be my luck that he thought I was somehow behind all of this. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d accused me of somehow orchestrating a crime to take the glory of solving it. At least I’d have one of the best defense attorneys in the country with me if that happened this time.
I deleted the message when prompted and filled everyone in on what it’d said.
Mrs. Cavanaugh inclined her head toward my mom. “I can take Kathleen back to your place once we finish our meal. That’ll give us a chance to continue our chat.”
Mark gave a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine shrug. Who’d have thought our moms would hit it off by completely disagreeing with each other on everything.
I held up my hand so Mark and I could exchange a quick kiss behind it—which Mrs. Cavanaugh rolled her eyes at and my mom commented that it wasn’t like she’d never seen a kiss before—and I headed for the station.
Unlike previous visits when I’d often had to wait to see the chief, Sheila, the desk officer, hopped up as soon as I stepped through the doors.
“He was hoping you’d get his message soon,” she said.
The way my stomach swayed made me wish I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink today at all. It had to be something out of the ordinary if he’d told Sheila to watch for me that closely.
When I entered his office, Chief McTavish sat slumped over his desk, head propped up on one hand. Only his gaze moved as I stopped in front of his desk.
“Finally,” he rasped.
“You sound even worse in person than you did on the phone.”
He scowled at me, but it looked a lot less fierce with the way his mouth hung open as if he couldn’t breathe through his nose.
“I’m sick. Half my officers are sick.”
They likely had the same thing as Mark’s dad. Since I hadn’t secretly concocted a virus in my sugar shack and released it into the town’s drinking water, why he’d called me down to the station remained a mystery. “I’m sorry to hear that. It’s a strange time of year for it.”
His scowl deepened. “I don’t need sympathy. Are you Amanda Gibson’s lawyer or not?”
Oh crap. “Is she under arrest?”
For a moment, his usual sharpness glinted in his eyes. Then it snuffed out and all that remained was exhaustion. “No. Should she be?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Will you answer my question then?”
“She hasn’t retained me to represent her in any capacity. Why does it matter?”
“It’d be a conflict of interest. I need someone trustworthy”—the word seemed to stick in his throat so that he had to cough it out—“to help on this new possible murder case.”
He couldn’t mean… “You mean me?” I asked stupidly.
“Unless your mother’d like the job.”
Sarcasm noted. I’d let it slide this time. Anyone who was as sick as he looked deserved a little leeway.
“I have two other open investigations,” he said, “and not enough officers, or you know I wouldn’t be asking.”
That was true. Chief McTavish had made it clear he preferred me to stay far away from police department cases. “So why not bring in officers from another town while you’re short-staffed rather than bringing me in as a consultant?”
He rubbed his forehead like he thought it might explode at any moment. “Contamination.”
My palms went clammy. Hopefully they didn’t think this was some kind of a superbug. Mark’s dad was already sick, and we’d all surely been exposed. “You don’t want them to catch the bug that’s going around?”
“If you’re messing with me, Fitzhenry-Dawes,” he pressed both hands to the sides of his head, “I swear when I’m better I’m going to dig into your past to find the one time you broke the law, even if it’s only jaywalking, and I’ll make sure you suffer the strongest possible penalty.”
I held up my hands in the universal sign for I’m no threat.
He rubbed his temples. “I haven’t closed my investigation into whether the corruption in this department was confined to former Chief Wilson. If I bring in anyone from the outside, it adds all kinds of complicating factors. You weren’t here before last fall, so I can be certain you weren’t involved in anything going on prior to then. You also won’t have access to any restricted files or information belonging to other cases. So if there is someone in this department who should be under review, they won’t be able to tamper with anything and lay the blame on you.” He sighed and it ended on a hacking cough. “Besides, I’ve seen your investigative abilities. If you weren’t a lawyer, you might have made a decent cop.” He nailed me with a flat gaze. “Maybe.”
The little kid part of me wanted to jump around and fist pump. A compliment and the chance to work the case—semi-officially. The grown-up part of me ordered her to sit down and be quiet.
Any other time, I would have snapped up this opportunity. When I first left behind my career as a criminal defense attorney, I thought that’d be the end of my involvement with cases. Except it turned out that I loved working cases as much as I hated defending people who were guilty.
Any other time, when my mom hadn’t come all the way from DC to visit me.
“You’re thinking of turning me down,” Chief McTavish said. “Unbelievable. I can’t get rid of you when I don’t want you meddling in my cases, and the one time I ask for your help, you turn me down.”
