“Come here.”
Annoyed, Swift set his clipboard down and walked over to Spenser. She handed him the magnifying glass and pointed to the spot on Hamill’s skin and what she’d found. Swift bent low and looked at it with a frown on his face. But when he saw what Spenser was trying to show him, the frown slipped away and his face tightened.
“That looks like an injection site, doesn’t it?” Spenser asked.
“It could be.”
“Could be? What else could it be?”
He shrugged. “Could be anything. He could have stuck himself with a safety pin.”
An incredulous expression crossed her face as she looked at the man. “Really?”
Swift set the magnifying glass down and turned away, refusing to meet her eyes.
“I mean, I suppose it could be an injection site. Of course. But it also could be any of a hundred other things,” he said.
“So, to reiterate, he’s not a diabetic and has no history of needing an injectable drug to treat some condition?” Spenser asked.
“No. There’s nothing in his chart to suggest that,” he admitted and quickly added, “but if it’s a recent diagnosis, his records may not be updated yet. You know how slow things can sometimes move in this town.”
“I do. But this is another inconsistency we’re going to need to address before I feel comfortable signing off on a cause of death.”
He looked at Spenser, his face painted with frustration. It was clear Swift was hoping to have this cleared, closed up, off his desk, and be back on the golf course this afternoon. Swift could be right. It might be nothing. It could have been heart disease passed down his family line that caused the man’s demise. As for the possible injection site, for all she knew, Hamill very well may have stuck himself with something sharp by accident. But Spenser had questions. And she wasn’t going to close anything until they had the discrepancies cleared up.
She wouldn’t be doing her job if she let it pass without an actual investigation. Wouldn’t be doing her job if she closed the case and left all those questions unanswered. She certainly wouldn’t be doing Seth Hamill and all who loved him any favors if she signed off on something she had reservations about. If something untoward happened to him, they deserved to know about it. And if that was the case, he deserved justice.
“I need you to send blood samples to the crime lab in Seattle. I want a full tox screen,” Spenser said. “And tell them to put a rush on it. Please.”
Swift sighed and looked crestfallen as the image of him getting eighteen holes in this afternoon came crashing down around him. Spenser wondered why he didn’t hang it up and let somebody who wanted to do the job take over for him. The perks of the job couldn’t have been that great.
“Thanks, Doctor Swift.”
Spenser turned and walked out of his office without waiting for his reply.
If only campaigning to keep her job was as easy as doing it.
“Hey, Sheriff. How are you doing this morning?”
Spenser looked up from her computer to see Amanda standing in the doorway of her office with a strange expression on her face. The younger woman shuffled her feet, hands in her pockets, an awkward flickering of her lips.
“What is it, Amanda?”
“What is what?”
“Why are you standing there looking like a kid who got caught with her hand in the cookie jar?” Spenser asked.
“I’m not.”
Spenser closed her laptop and sat back in her chair, her gaze fixed on her undersheriff. The silence between them was strained and uncomfortable. It was unusual, to say the least.
“Okay, out with it,” Spenser finally said. “What is it?”
Amanda shrugged and with her cheeks flushing, looked even guiltier. “I was kind of wondering… I mean… have you seen the papers today?”
“No. Not yet. Why?”
“Oh, nothing. Just asking.”
“Seems like more than nothing.”
Spenser turned to the stack of newspapers on the corner of her desk. Every morning, Alice Jarrett, the department’s receptionist, made sure to bring in the major newspapers for Spenser to peruse, staking them on her desk for her to get to when she had a chance. That morning, she needed to fill out some paperwork on the Hamill death and hadn’t gotten the opportunity to see what was going on in the world. Judging by the way Amanda was acting, that had been a mistake.
Not sure which paper Amanda was talking about, Spenser started to shuffle through the stack. She flipped through a bunch of major papers until she found the Dispatch and paused when her eyes fell on the headline in big, bold letters.
“An Innocent Man in Prison?” Spenser read the article’s headline and the subheading. “Is Sheriff Song Railroading a Man For Personal Reasons?”
Spenser quickly scanned the story, her face tightening, her mood growing darker with every word she absorbed. When she was finished, she dropped the paper on her desk and stared straight ahead into nothingness for several long, tense beats.
“Are you okay?” Amanda asked tentatively.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never been the victim of a hatchet job before so I’m still trying to process how I feel about it all. I think I’m… pissed. No, I’m pretty sure of it. I’m pissed.”
“Yeah, that’s understandable,” Amanda said. “But the one thing you should remember is that it’s the Dispatch. Nobody really believes anything they read in the Dispatch. I’m not even sure that anybody even reads it anymore.”
