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“You may.”
Here again is a difference between my world and his. A medical examiner might let me prod to get a better look at evidence, but they aren’t going to let me do anything that could damage evidence. Yet what would I be damaging here? It’s not as if Gray will be taking photos for the procurator fiscal to use in court. He has already made his observations, and even those are only unofficial ones for the police investigation.
I poke the spot for a moment. “Shit.”
“You do have the most colorful profanity, Mallory.”
“Vulgar, you mean.”
“I wasn’t going to say it.”
“As for what prompted the profanity, there’s a soft spot under the scrape. A contusion. Caused by a fatal blow to the temple? Or the force of his fall to the floor?”
“Yes.”
I give him a look.
Gray shrugs. “It could be either. That is the problem. To know more, I would need to open up the wound, which I cannot.”
I hesitate, then I swear again. “Because it’s on his temple, where anyone can see it, leading to questions regarding the incision, which you are not supposed to be making.”
“Yes. Now I have checked for other signs of a hard blow to the temple, in his pupil and such, and I do not see it. I also noted potential signs of suffocation, with a soft object, as we speculated at the scene, but even now I cannot say he suffocated any more than I can say he was hit on the head. Ultimately, I am not certain how much it matters whether or not the poison killed him.”
“The poisoner still planned to kill him, making it first-degree murder.”
Gray arches a brow. “There are multiple degrees?”
“Basically, first is planned, second is unplanned, third—or manslaughter—is accidental.”
“With presumably different levels of punishment, depending on the degree of culpability. That makes sense.”
“Here, they just toss everyone on the gallows, right?”
He waggles a finger at me. “Not every killer goes to the gallows.”
“Yeah, some are transported to Australia.”
“Not anymore. The Australians began to object to that practice.”
“Shockingly. In my time, Australianslovethat their country was once used as a dumping ground for your most unwanted.”
“I shudder to think what it must have become.”
“It’s actually fine. Nice people. Great beaches. Amazing surfing.”
He frowns. “People go to Australia on purpose?”
“Only if they can afford it.” I look down at Leslie. “So even if we proved that the poison didn’t kill him, it wouldn’t matter, because the poisonerintendedto kill him. The only problem would be that someone could get away with murder, if they hurried it along and left the poisoner to take the blame.”
“Unless the same person did both.”
“In that case, the finger would point directly at the person who benefited the most, both from his death in general, and his hastier—pre-will-change—demise.”
“Annis.”
THIRTEEN
Gray is gone. Where? I have no idea. We finished the examination, and he took samples for Isla, and then he left. Here is the problem—one of many, really—with wearing the disguise of a housemaid. Gray can say he recognizes that I’m a police detective. But then we’re in the middle of investigating, and he takes off, leaving me with the slap of the front door as I’m trotting down to see him after delivering the samples to Isla’s lab.
