Page 71 of Manner of Death
“Of course not. But there are emails between someone in the morgue and that podcaster, Felix. Someone who used a morgue computer.”
“What?” Bashir leaned against the wall for balance as his knees tried to wobble out from under him. “The leaks—they’re coming from the morgue?”
“Yes. And when we have footage of Ms. Glen driving the vehicle of a victim on the night of the murder when she has no connection to him…” Another apologetic shrug. “You can see why we’re concerned about her involvement.”
Bashir swallowed. “So you and Sawyer tried to get her to either tell you I put her up to it, or admit she’d done it herself.”
Walker nodded. “Or tell us who did.”
He closed his eyes again and sighed. It was an underhanded tactic, but he could follow the logic. As much as he didn’t like them backing Tami into a corner like that, dangling his potential guilt over her head to convince her to crack, he saw what they were going for.
“I’m sorry, Dr. Ramin,” Walker said gently. “We have to follow where the evidence takes us, and right now, the evidence is leading us to Ms. Glen.”
He met her gaze. “It can’t be her.” God, he sounded like a family member in denial, insisting the person had to be innocent despite the mountain of reasons to believe otherwise. “That isn’t…” It isn’t who she is? She isn’t capable? She’s not a killer? How many people have said that about how many murderers? “Fuck.”
“I know. This isn’t easy for any of us.” She paused. “Including Sawyer.”
Bashir winced. “Yeah. I’m sure it’s not. But I’ll take it as a pretty unmistakable sign that us being involved with each other is just going to cause problems.”
Her eyes widened. “I’m sure you can both learn to navigate—”
“No.” He shook his head and shouldered himself off the wall. “There’s no working around a job where one of us has to…” He made a face. “Just no.”
She looked like she was going to argue, but then she murmured, “Well, that’s between you and Sawyer. Not me.”
He was about to say there was nothing between him and Sawyer anymore.
But of course that was the moment the man himself swept around the corner, locked on to Bashir and Walker, and strode toward them. There was no escape, and damn it, professional considerations meant Bashir should try to escape.
Sawyer gave Bashir a wary look, but then cleared his throat and gestured with a manila folder in his hand. “We’ve, um… We’ve got some more information.”
Bashir and Walked watched him silently.
Sawyer shifted a little as he opened the folder. “We’ve had some officers doing more digging. Looking for any connections between Ms. Glen and the other victims.”
Bashir’s gut clenched.
Sawyer flicked his eyes toward him, and the uneasiness in his expression didn’t help Bashir relax at all. It might’ve been because of the new and alien tension between them, but Bashir doubted it very much.
“There’s CCTV footage of her at or near three of the crime scenes around the times of the murders.” Sawyer slid out a couple of glossy black-and-white images. One showed Tami entering what looked like a supermarket through a rear Employees Only door. The other caught her on the sidewalk near the park where McKay was found. Yet another entering the parking garage where the victim had been found in the stairwell.
After both Walker and Bashir had taken a look at the images, Sawyer put them back in the folder and pulled out another, this one showing Tami walking past the front desk of a gym. “This is her usual gym, but it turns out it’s also the usual gym of our drowning victim, Christopher White.”
Bashir breathed a couple of curses. Denials wanted to tumble off his lips. How this was all circumstantial and meant nothing. On their own, no, the images weren’t incriminating. Put together, though? Not good. Not good at all.
And Sawyer wasn’t done.
“There aren’t any cameras near the first two crime scenes.” He shuffled some photos. “But there are traffic cameras near them.”
Again, the images were benign and not at all incriminating on their own. But Bashir recognized the timestamps. He also recognized the street names printed on each image. Highway 72 was the last major thoroughfare before the county road leading to Gilroy Upworth’s residence. And Morris Boulevard was the only way to get from downtown to Parson’s Creek Road, where Christopher White—who apparently went to the same gym as Tami—had been found.
Bashir sagged against the wall again, rubbing the back of his stiffening neck. “Fucking hell.”
“I know,” Sawyer whispered. “And it, um…” He thumbed the folder and chewed his lip. “You’re not going to like this one, Bashir. I’m sorry.”
Bashir searched his former lover’s eyes. Behind the practiced mask of empathetic cop, there was genuine sympathy and regret. Wasn’t there?
Maybe. It didn’t matter. Sawyer was another cop now. A detective looking to break a case, not the man who’d been steadily convincing Bashir to drop his defenses and give him a chance.