CHAPTER SEVEN
MINA
Paolo’s medal sits inside an evidence bag on my desk while three armed men search the building for a ghost.
“The key never leaves me,” I say.
Gabe stands across from my desk. He has taken off his overcoat and folded it over the chair instead of sitting. Felix is in the old corridor with a locksmith. Jo is upstairs making tea she will forget to drink.
“It left you tonight,” Gabe says.
“Thank you. The distinction had escaped me.”
“When did you last use it?”
“After the DeLellis viewing. Seven twenty.”
“Where after that?”
“On the key ring at my waist until the chapel went dark.”
“Who touched you?”
The question lands too close to the stone column and his body over mine.
“Half your guest list shook my hand.”
“At the funeral home.”
“No one.”
His eyes drop to the chain at my throat. “At the club, Victor sat beside you.”
“So did your mother. If Elena Corso is climbing through service corridors, this book is better than I thought.”
He does not react to the joke. “Victor knew about the medal before I told him.”
The office seems to contract around the statement.
“When?”
“After I left the prep room. He said scene crew told him. None of them did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I’m telling you now.”
“That answer is going to age badly.”
“Probably.”
I expected defense. The agreement disarms me more effectively.
Felix appears in the doorway. “The exterior service lock was picked. Clean job. Chapel circuit was opened at the breaker with a copied utility key.”
“Cameras?” Gabe asks.
“Looped for one hundred and four seconds.”
“The new system?”
“No. They cut over to the analog feed before the replacement finished syncing.”
“Someone knew the installation sequence,” I say.
Felix nods. “Four people. Me, Gabe, the network lead, and his tech.”
“Victor?”
“He knew there were upgrades. Not the sequence from us.”
Gabe picks up the bag containing the medal and turns it beneath the desk lamp.
“No blood,” he says.
“It has been cleaned.”
“Can you tell with what?”
“Not by admiring it.”
He gives it back.
I call Anika at one in the morning. She answers on the fourth ring with, “If this is a body, I am off duty.”
“It is related to a body.”
“That sentence is why you don’t get invited to brunch.”
“I found the missing property from Paolo Corso in my chapel.”
Silence, then sheets moving. “I’m awake.”
By two fifteen, Anika is in the prep room wearing blue scrubs beneath a wool coat and glaring at Gabe as if he personally invented overtime.
“You had a private physician sign a cause before the ballistic review was complete,” she says.
“I did not sign it.”
“You removed the body from county custody.”
“Lawfully.”
“That is not the same as wisely.”
I hand her the specimen container with the dark glass.
Anika examines it under magnification, then reviews my photographs of Paolo’s jacket.
“Laminated safety glass,” she says. “Tint layer. Could be a windshield or side window from an armored vehicle. I can’t source it here.”
“Would it embed in the fabric if he was shot standing outside a car?” Gabe asks.
“Possible if glass exploded beside him. But these fibers are driven inward around the fragment.” She looks at me. “You saw the lower wound?”
“Angle is wrong for the scene description.”
Anika pulls up the preliminary autopsy images on her secured tablet.
“You’re right. Downward path, but the parking deck camera places him upright beside the driver’s door.
Unless the shooter was on the roof—which the structure doesn’t allow—he was already seated or bent when at least one round hit. ”
“The camera is false,” Gabe says.
“Or the timestamp is.” I point to Paolo’s stopped watch on the tray. “Nine seventeen was accepted as the shooting time because the watch was broken.”
Anika leans closer. “This crystal is cracked from the face. The wrist bruise is beneath the band.”
“Someone adjusted it after death,” I say. “Tight enough to mark him.”
Gabe’s stillness changes. He does not move toward me. He becomes more present in the room.
“How much later?”
“We can’t date a pressure mark that precisely,” Anika says. “But postmortem changes, temperature, stomach contents—my office’s broader window was eight forty to nine thirty. Nine seventeen was never proven.”
The killer did not only murder Paolo. He edited him.
I know what that kind of arrogance feels like. It feels like smoke in a report labeled electrical fault.
Anika swabs the medal. “This has a chlorhexidine residue.”
“Medical cleaner?” Gabe asks.
“Antiseptic. Also found in preparation products and clinical environments.”
His gaze moves to me.
“Don’t,” I say.
“I didn’t speak.”
“Your face filed an accusation.”
“You use it here.”
“So do hospitals, ambulances, clinics, and anyone with a pharmacy account.”
Anika seals the swab. “She is right. The residue proves cleaning, not location.”
“Thank you,” I tell her.
“I’m not staying for the marital portion of this argument.”
She leaves with the glass and swab for formal testing.
At the door, Anika stops and looks back at Paolo.
“There’s another problem,” she says. “The private physician documented lividity as fixed along his back. Your intake photograph shows pressure blanching near the right shoulder.”
I bring the image up. “Here?”
“Yes. It means the body may have spent part of the early postmortem interval on its right side before being placed supine. Not proof of location. Proof he was moved.”
Gabe’s attention moves from the screen to his brother. “The scene report says he fell on his back and stayed there.”
“Then the report is incomplete,” Anika says. “I will amend the county record and request the original body-camera files.”
“Can Victor intercept that request?” I ask.
“Victor is not a county employee.”
“He does not rely on job descriptions.”
Anika looks at Gabe. “Neither do you. That is why I am logging this under my own credentials and copying an external examiner.”
“Good,” Gabe says.
“That was not praise.”
“Still good.”
She looks at me. “Is he always like this?”
“We have been married six hours. The data set is strong but incomplete.”
Anika leaves for real.
Gabe remains at the marked line. Powder from the chapel’s old fire-exit seal marks one knee of his trousers. He has not noticed.
“Your mother will ask about the medal,” I say.
“She will.”
“What will you tell her?”
“That it is evidence.”
“That is the answer you can solve.”
His gaze shifts. He remembers the kitchen.
“What answer is she asking for?”
“Whether Paolo was alone when he died. Whether someone treated him as a person after. Whether the object she gave him was with him at the end.”
“I don’t know.”
“Then say that. And say we found it.”
“We did not find the person who took it.”
“She did not ask that yet.”
He looks at Paolo for a long time.
“He used to lose it,” he says. “The chain clasp was weak. My mother replaced it twice.”
“Was it weak Thursday?”
“No. I fixed it at dinner last week.”
“You?”
“With pliers.”
“Jewelry repair and extortion. Diverse portfolio.”
His mouth almost gives me the reaction I wanted.
“The chain should have broken if it was pulled,” I say. “It didn’t arrive with the body. Ask the scene team whether they found loose links.”
“Already did. None.”
“Then someone opened it or cut it cleanly.”
“Someone close enough to know it mattered.”
I think of Victor describing the medal before Gabe shared the loss.
“Or someone who watched your family long enough,” I say.
Felix follows to escort her, which leaves Gabe and me beside Paolo’s body again.
I remove the evidence key from my pocket.
“The strip,” he says.
“I’ll show you the original. It stays in my cabinet.”
“Agreed.”
I unlock the cabinet and retrieve the envelope. Gabe photographs it, then sends the image to his secure analyst.
“R7 is an old repatriation prefix,” he says. “Before Corso digitized the international mortuary accounts.”
“How old?”
“Five to seven years.”
Bianca’s years.
“I want the archive,” I say.
“It’s at a bonded warehouse.”
“When?”
“Morning.”
“It is morning.”
“After you sleep.”
“You do not schedule my sleep.”
“You have been working since before Paolo arrived.”
“And you have been grieving since before you threatened to marry me. Neither seems to have improved your judgment.”
The words hit. I see it.
I should apologize. Instead, because I am tired and shaped badly around tenderness, I add, “We leave at seven.”
Gabe studies me.
“Eight,” he says. “You eat first.”
“Seven thirty.”
“Done.”
He turns toward the door, then stops.
“Mina.”
“What?”
“The key.”
I look at the empty ring on my chain.
“We’ll replace the locks.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
He reaches into his pocket and places a brass key on the counter.
Mine.
“Where did you find it?”
“Inside my overcoat.”
The coat hung behind his chair during dinner. Victor stood behind him during the ceremony.
Gabe’s eyes meet mine.
The medal was placed in my chapel. My key was placed on my husband.
Someone is not framing one family anymore.
They are editing both of us into the same story.