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I don’t ask what this has to do with the case. Nothing, and everything. Nothing in the sense that it’s unrelated to the poisoning deaths. Everything in the sense that Gray is up before five studying an unrelated bit of forensics for the same reason I’m up cleaning. His brain is buzzing, and he can’t stay asleep.
“I came down to clean the parlor,” I say. “I can sweep quietly out here or I can go upstairs and polish the dining room table.”
“Or you can take this.” He thrusts out a ruler. “Measure this wound. Unless you’d rather hold the leg, but I know you do not like handling dead bodies. Germs and such.”
Yep, he’s definitely in a mood. I bite my tongue and answer by striding forward and taking hold of the leg. He grunts and starts his measurements.
“Is the wound what killed him?” I ask when I can’t stay silent any longer.
“I did not steal part of a corpse to study it, Mallory.”
I bite my tongue harder before I say, evenly, “If you’re going to keep snapping at me, Duncan, I’m going to walk out and let you handle this yourself.”
He looks over, eyes narrowing. “That is a poor trick.”
“What trick?”
“Calling me Duncan, so that I will be pleased enough to forget my ire.”
“Is that ire caused by me?” I say.
“No.”
“Then I don’t give a shit whether you drop it,Gray.Just stop aiming it my way or I’m leaving.”
A grunt. Then, “You are correct. I apologize.”
When he looks over, expectantly, I say, “Don’t expect a pat on the head for apologizing. Youwerebeing an ass, and I deserved that apology. Now, I didn’t accuse you ofstealinganything. I thought you’d been given thispost-mortem to study, but I know people like their loved ones to be buried whole, for religious reasons. It wasn’t removed post-mortem. I can see that now. It was amputated.”
He nods, finally mollified. “Yes, it was amputated, and I requested the limb, which I have been storing for later study. The fellow claimed the cut came on the shop room floor—an accident with a blade—but I believe it was an ax. I am trying to determine that, as well as determine whether it was accidental or intentional. There is a small cut.” He points at it. “This could indicate intention.”
I examine the cut, which is ragged. “Someone hit him with an ax, and he managed to evade it, but then was hit again.”
“He was in some trouble with moneylenders. He insists the injury was accidental, and so my interest is purely academic, although, if I conclude it was an ax and possibly intentional, Hugh could take that information to the man and see whether he wishes to alter his story.”
Gray keeps working, explaining as he goes, relaxing, too, until he’s finished. Then he says, “I fear Annis’s chances are not good.”
“I know,” I say softly.
He goes quiet again as he replaces the limb in its jar. Then he says, “There are times I remember a very different Annis, from when I was quite young. And then there are times I think I am misremembering and confusing her with our mother.”
“Isla says Annis was very different toward you when you were little.”
“That is what I thought, although then it makes me wonder what I did to change her treatment of me.”
“Nothing. She seems to be the one who changed.”
“Perhaps, but…”
I follow as he takes the jar to a closet. It’s the storage cupboard for such things, and he doesn’t turn on the light, leaving only the shadowed illumination through the doorway as he places the jar on a shelf.
“I did not like Sarah when they first became friends,” he says. “That is when Annis began to change, and I blamed Sarah, as her new friend. Annis found out and was quite peeved. That leads me to wonder whether I am misremembering the sequence of events. Whether I was jealous of Sarah, and my behavior turned Annis against me, particularly if her interest in Sarah was more than friendship. She could have feared I’d drive Sarah away.”
“If she did, then that was something for her to discuss with you. It was no excuse for how she came to treat you.”
He fingers another jar, his gaze on it. “I could not sleep tonight. I kept thinking… No, I keptfeeling.It was as if I were a child again, losing my sister to a dark shadow thatismy sister.” He shakes his head. “That makes no sense, does it?”
I step into the closet. “No, it’s exactly right. There is something dark in Annis. Something troubled. It stole her from you once, and now, if she did this, it’s stolen her again.”
