AN INCONSPICUOUS MURDER:: by Winter Norah

Author:Winter, Norah
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-06-10T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

I had just entered the cold room when a sound at the door made me turn. I expected to see Katherine, but much to my astonishment, Harry walked in.

“Why, Dr. Fitzmorris,” he said. “You look shocked.”

“Well, you’re not exactly the person I was expecting to see,” I said, immediately feeling a sense of apprehension. Had something happened?

“I’ve been assigned to investigate a certain rooming house homicide,” he said. “I believe you performed an autopsy on the body in question?”

“You mean you’re in charge of the investigation?”

He nodded and held up a hand. “This won’t be my main priority. I understand it’s just a shop girl who died after a fall at her rooming house. I still have my other duties—tracking down union leaders and dissenters. There’s too much of that going on, and we can’t let up or we’ll have a riot on our hands.”

“What about Moose Jaw?”

“What about it? I’m not expected to leave immediately, and it shouldn’t take me long to wrap up this case. Hislop filled me in on the obvious suspects and suggested I get the details of the cause of death from you.”

My mind raced, taking in the possibility that the Moose Jaw venture was not imminent after all and that we’d be working together. “Well, that’s marvelous,” I said. “It’s an interesting case. I can show you the body and fill you in on what I know.”

I went into the cold room and after locating Miss Gibson’s corpse, I wheeled it out. Harry came and stood alongside me. He took a step back when I pulled the sheet down to reveal her head and shoulders. “She’s been dead a while,” I said.

“She must have been beautiful,” he murmured.

I glanced at him, seeing the way he seemed transfixed by her appearance. “She was,” I said. “Her good looks might have been her undoing.”

“A crime of passion?”

“Well…someone was angry enough to strike her with a heavy object.” I pointed to the area where she’d been injured. “It’s rather unusual.”

“You mean…that bump did her in? There isn’t any blood. Are you sure that’s what killed her?”

“The bleeding was on the inside around the brain,” I said. I went through the same explanation I’d given to the inspector, finishing off with the paperweight as the most likely weapon.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “So you think whoever hit her took the paperweight with them?”

“It seems so.” I pulled down the sheet enough to expose the top of her arm and pointed out the finger marks, explaining their significance. “Somebody grabbed her very near the time of death.”

“You mean someone clobbered her with the paperweight then took her by the arm and pushed her down the stairs?”

“Possibly. Or maybe the person grabbed her arm to try to stop her from falling. Or maybe they were fighting and whoever it was grabbed her in anger shortly before her death. It wasn’t necessarily a cold-blooded murder, but whatever the intent, she died from the blow to the head.”

Harry frowned. “You’re complicating things, Maggie.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.