Chapter 5
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Doreen woke up the next morning to her phone ringing off the hook. It wasn’t yet six in the morning, but Nan was calling. “What’s the matter?” she asked, shuffling up in bed.
“The young man who died, that case Mack’s working on? … Apparently he was the grandson of somebody here.”
“Oh no. … I’m so sorry. That’s got to be one of the hardest things.”
“She’s really broken up about it. Yet she’s doubly broken up because she just realized you’re not working the case.”
Doreen frowned. “I’m not allowed to work the case, remember? It’s an active case and a murder at that.”
“I know that, but … she really, really, really wants you to be involved in it.”
“That won’t be an easy thing,” she muttered.
“She also knows the captain, or so I heard. So, if you get a phone call, don’t be surprised, child. However, it would be good if you acted surprised anyway.”
“Oh, this won’t make Mack happy,” Doreen muttered. “Those clear lines of his job versus my job seem to be blurring more and more.”
“If you ask me, those are silly lines anyway,” Nan replied. “He’ll just have to get over it.”
Doreen snorted at that, knowing full well that arguing the point with Nan wouldn’t help. “It’s not even six in the morning, Nan. Did you have to wake me so early?”
“Well, I was up,” Nan declared. “I figured you would be up soon anyway.”
“Not that soon,” she muttered, as she cuddled back under the covers. “Particularly not when it isn’t even sunny outside yet.”
“Well, it will be when the sun rises.” Nan laughed. “I’m about to sit down for coffee with the gang, and we’ll talk about our options.” And, with that, she hung up.
“What options?” Doreen wondered, as she stared down at her phone.
That didn’t sound good at all, but, sure enough, a few hours later, the captain called. She heard a heavy sigh on the other end.
“Doreen.”
“Hey, Captain. What’s up?” But she knew.
“So apparently …”
She just waited patiently.
“Have you heard?” he asked.
“Heard what?” she asked.
“The victim that we found earlier this week is related to somebody at your grandmother’s home. Rosemoor, is it?”
“Well, in a way, I’m not surprised,” she pointed out. “There are only so many places that house seniors, and, if he was a local, a member of his family could easily be there. A lot of retirees are at Rosemoor.”
“True,” he noted, followed again with another sigh. “She used to be somebody important and had quite a job in the public sector way back when. She’s contacted both her rep at the MLA and the mayor over her grandson.”
“Okay, but you’re working the case. So surely she knows you’re on it, doing the best job you can.”
“I would like to think she would know that, but she appears to be under the impression that we haven’t put our best detective on it,” he grumbled, with yet one more sigh.
Her lips twitched. “Mack?”
The captain burst out laughing. “I would absolutely love to be able to say Mack, and he would be thrilled to hear it, I’m sure. But apparently, as far as she’s concerned, you’re the best detective.”
“Oh, ouch,” she replied. “I hope Mack didn’t hear that.”
“Well, all of us took a bit of a blow on that comment,” he muttered. “Plus, in her mind, you keep solving all these crimes, so then everybody looks to you to solve the next one.”
“But the cold cases are my job, not the current ones,” she pointed out.
“Exactly.” He snorted. “As a matter of fact, we prefer to keep you well and truly contained to the cold case jobs.”
“How’s that working out for you?” she asked, laughing. “I want you to know that I don’t do anything to solicit these people who seem to think I should jump into your cases. Who is this person? I don’t know anything about her.”
“That is encouraging. The last thing we want is to shut you down because you’re already involved. Of course, from Mack’s point of view, he would like to keep things curtailed.”
She snorted. “Curtailed? From Mack’s point of view, he wants to keep me completely contained. The thing is, Mack and I don’t have a problem with that division of cases, and I’m sorry if somebody decided to change the game for you.”
“She sure did. I got a phone call this morning from the mayor, and then I got one from our MLA rep, asking what it would hurt to let you in on the case—how maybe you might have some insights that we have overlooked or answers we haven’t gotten yet.”
“Oh dear, I’m sorry. Your team is very capable.”
“We don’t really need this type of interference.”
“Or bad press,” she pointed out.
“No, we don’t need the bad press either, and that just adds to it because then the mayor and everybody else in this city thinks we can’t handle it.”
“Uh-oh,” she muttered. “That is not the impression I want the city to have. They must have confidence in you guys.”
“Exactly,” the captain agreed. “That would be really nice, yet apparently they have more confidence in you.”
“Oh, wow,” she murmured softly. “I’m sure the team is more than capable of solving this, but I can help wherever needed.” She was trying to find the right words without upsetting everything.
“Yet the townsfolk,” he pointed out, “as soon as you come onboard, looking at your track record, … give you credit for solving these cases.”
She groaned. As much as she wanted to deny it, a lot of truth were in those words. “You know I don’t do that on purpose, right?”
“Mack has assured me that you don’t do it on purpose, that it’s a by-product of your being involved in the investigation,” he shared.
“However, I know firsthand how well you do when you’re involved in these cases, so I’m really not one to complain.
Yet it’s a little disheartening when people are asking us to let you in on official investigations. ”
“How about if I work in the background,” she suggested, “and I’ll pass over all the information I can?”
“Which is what you do regularly,” he pointed out, “so that won’t change anything, except that apparently they still get wind that you were involved and that’s why the case was solved.”
“Well, then we’ll have to work on your PR,” she stated, “because that’s not fair. You guys do a ton of the work. I’m just the one out there, being a busybody and getting in everybody’s face.”
“You are that,” he agreed, and then he burst out laughing. “And we do appreciate the fact that you come at cases from a very strange mind-set that somehow unlocks all kinds of information in that brain of yours. So, you do look at things very differently,” he noted. “It seems to work for you.”
“Sometimes,” she admitted, with a dry laugh. “Obviously we’re all different, and we all have our strengths.”
“Thank you for that,” he replied.
He was attempting to be humble, but she knew him better than that. She snorted. “Come on, Captain. This is me you’re talking to.”
“I know,” he stated, with a chuckle, “and believe me that it’s been a little bit of a rough morning getting these phone calls.”
“I can imagine,” she said, “and it’s not fair because you guys do all the work, day in and day out. I just kind of pop in and out, stirring up all kinds of drama.”
“Right. Maybe you can get in and out on this one very quickly and quietly. That way we can tell the mayor and the MLA and this dear old lady at Rosemoor that the case is solved. And maybe brag a bit that we didn’t actually need your help.”
“That’s a good idea. Now, do you want me to come down there, or do you want to just send me the file?”
“I’ll send you the file,” he stated, “and you can go over it. Then maybe we’ll have a meeting tomorrow. I want to keep it quiet, so please don’t tell people that you’re working with us. Don’t share that you’re a, … a liaison to the department. For the moment, just let’s keep this between us.”
“Will you tell the MLA and everybody else involved that I’m doing this?” she asked curiously. “Because, once the lady at Rosemoor is told, … then everybody at Rosemoor will know. That place is gossip central.”
The captain sighed. “I wasn’t planning on sharing your part in this investigation, not if I don’t have to. … I was thinking we can solve it very quickly,” he pointed out. “We thought we had a suspect, and now? … We’re not so sure.”
“Right,” she noted. “So I should review the file regardless.”
“I’m sending it to you now. Believe it or not, we’ve been doing a bang-up job on this one, and I’m pretty sure we can solve it on our own.”
But the resignation in his tone told her that he was pretty fed up with everybody else jumping in to review their work.
“I am sorry,” she shared. “Politics being what it is, you’re probably better off keeping everybody happy as much as that’s possible—or not possible in this case.
I’m sure that, together, we can get it solved fast.”
“Well, that would be the idea,” he replied. “And, if you could, maybe try and stay out of trouble on this one so we don’t have to deal with any fallout from the public either. That would be very much appreciated.”
Getting his message, she smiled. “I will do my best to stay in the background, out of the limelight so to speak. You can tell whoever you need to that I’m on it in a consulting capacity, and that should be all anybody needs to know.”
“Right,” he muttered. “I’m hoping to not even tell them that much, if I can avoid it.”
“Then don’t,” she agreed. “You don’t need to tell them for my sake. I don’t do this for accolades or recognition. I do it for the victims.”
“I know,” he muttered. “And I don’t mean to minimize your involvement in any of the cases you have worked so hard on. It’s just frustrating when we have such an excellent team, and our team is often left in the background.”
“Well, your department has gotten a ton of accolades for all these closed cases.”
“Yes, but somehow people found out that you were involved with the bulk of them.”
“Well, that would have been due to Nan. In fact, anything involving Rosemoor would be all about Nan and Richie,” she pointed out. “I’m sorry, but some things in life not even I can control.”
He burst out laughing at that and replied, “Fair enough. I think Darren mentioned something similar.”
“Well, that’s the thing. We do what we can, but some of these Rosemoor people,” she noted, with a laugh, “are a law unto themselves, which is why you got the phone call. Somebody decided to go over your head to get what they wanted.”
“And yet what they want is to have it solved,” he stated, “and we can do that all on our own.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Hopefully by the time I’ve read through the file and studied the case, it will already be solved.”
“Let’s hope so,” he muttered. “I’ll talk to you in a bit.” And, with that, he hung up.