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“If the family requests an autopsy, sure.” She shrugged. “But it can be costly. And if the patient had an underlying condition, it might just tell you what you already know.”
“Can you think of any connection between Mark Galanis and Jasmine?”
“They knew each other. At least in passing.”
“And they both knew me,” Jason said.
Stacey checked her watch again. “Look, I have to get back. I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help.” She stood, her gaze flicking to Cassie and then back to Jason. “Vanessa’s looking for you, by the way. She heard about Jasmine. Heard you were in town. I think she’d like to talk to you.”
“Oh.” Jason’s face was passive as he took in the information. It was a controlled sort of disinterest. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
“It was nice meeting you, Cassie.” She hugged Jason again. “And nice to see you again. If I think of anything else, I’ll let you know.”
“Thanks.”
Jason didn’t wait for Stacey to pick up her tray before he turned on his heel and left the cafeteria. Cassie followed in his wake, wondering who Vanessa was and why every muscle in Jason’s body had stiffened at the mention of her name.
15
Bear greeted Harris with a wagging tail as soon as she pushed through the door. Apollo waited to rub against her legs until she kicked the door closed behind her and kneeled to scratch Bear behind the ears.
“Are you more excited to see me or to have lunch?” Harris asked. Apollo answered with a meow, and the detective was certain what it meant. She confirmed her hunch when she got to her feet and he ran over to his bowl, staring at her with unblinking eyes.
Harris went through the motions of her new routine. Feed the cat. Feed the dog. Make herself lunch. Eat and pore over David’s case file, even though she had the entire thing memorized. There were no additional details to glean from the handful of pages inside the folder, and yet she couldn’t stop looking for them.
After everyone had finished eating, Apollo curled up in a patch of sunlight while Bear took a nap at Harris’ feet. She spread papers across the coffee table and sat back as though she needed to see them from a fresh perspective.
But it was no use. The information was the same. Someone had shot David once in the head and once in the heart. The bullet was a .308 Winchester, the type of round a police sharpshooter would use. Harris couldn’t decide if it was irony or a sick joke. Maybe it was neither and they needed to look internally. But that didn’t mesh well with her working theory that Aguilar was the one responsible.
Harris felt anger rising as she thought about the man who could’ve killed her friend, her partner. It ran red hot through her veins. Burned like acid. But instead of hurting her, it made her stronger. More resilient. More determined than ever to bring him down.
Apollo perked up, sun glinting off his fur and making him glow. He stood and stretched, then trotted to the other room. Harris watched him go, his form light and lithe. She’d only been at Cassie’s for a couple of days, but she already hated the idea of leaving these two behind when their owner returned home.
Harris pulled a different folder closer. This was a new one. It belonged to Officer Steve Warren, the cop killed one week prior to David. The department hadn’t mourned him any more or less than David, but his death had seemed normal, if not natural. Dying in the line of duty was a reality they all faced.
As tragic as it had been, Officer Warren’s death was straightforward. Routine traffic stop. Someone had reported a suspicious vehicle. A 2010 Chevy Aveo. White. Rusted doors and a missing bumper. Suspect was a white male, dark hair, in his mid- to late-twenties. Witness said he appeared to be drinking and driving.
Warren was the first person to call it in. He did everything right. Pulled the vehicle over. Radioed his position. Ran the plates. Everything came back clean. The car hadn’t even been swerving, he’d said, but he was going to talk with the driver. Then he approached the vehicle.
Body cams were a neutral party. They didn’t have opinions. They recorded facts. Sometimes those facts revealed how some cops shouldn’t have a badge and a gun. And sometimes those facts revealed that some cops never stood a chance.
It was quick, at least. The suspect already had the window down and his gun pulled before Warren approached the vehicle. One shot to the face and Officer Warren was dead. He had no time to react. He didn’t suffer. Didn’t even know what happened to him. If a silver lining was conceivable in a situation like this, that was it.
But Harris only saw the rain clouds.
They had yet to locate the man who’d killed Warren. They’d found the car and his apartment, both abandoned. He’d either escaped the city or was lying low for the time being. He didn’t have a criminal record, but everyone had to start somewhere. And he apparently had started with murder.
There was no connection between Warren and David. They knew each other, of course, but had never worked together. Weren’t friends. Harris would’ve known if they played poker together on the weekends. Or went golfing. Or whatever middle-aged men did in their downtime.
There was no connection between Aguilar and the suspect, or between Aguilar and Warren. Statistically, there was a higher chance that the two murders were unrelated. Coincidence. But that seemed too convenient to Harris. Two wasn’t a pattern, but it wasn’t an anomaly, either.
When Harris had interviewed David’s wife, Lisa hadn’t been able to tell her anything she didn’t already know. David had seemed stressed the last couple of months, but given his profession, that wasn’t strange. They’d recently had a talk about what she would do if he died in the line of duty, but again, that wasn’t out of the ordinary for them. She mentioned David had left a letter for Cassie, but seeing as Cassie hadn’t mentioned it, Harris could only assume it was personal and had nothing to do with the case.
Mostly, Lisa had wanted to tell Harris how much David had respected her as an officer and a friend. Harris accepted the compliment, but even thinking back on the moment, she was embarrassed by the way she’d acted. She’d practically run out of the house before the tears could fall.
Apollo jumped up on the arm rest of the couch and meowed, jolting Harris out of her thoughts. She ran a hand over his back, but he slinked away and returned to the floor. He meowed again, loud enough to wake Bear from his nap. The dog tilted his head to the side as though he’d be able to understand Apollo if he could just concentrate hard enough.
Apollo meowed again. It was sharp and insistent. There was a whine to his voice that made Harris put down the piece of paper in her hands and lean forward. She reached out to him, but Apollo backed away.
