Page 87 of The Woman Left Behind

“I didn’t determine suicide. I determined suspected homicide. Strongly suspected homicide.” She closed the file, picked it up and tossed it several inches so it plopped in front of Harry. “There was trace GSR on him, but only because the man was shot. No significant GSR on his hand that would indicate he pulled the trigger. We all know how GSR works, so that doesn’t mean he didn’t. But with the trace GSR, either he was around another gun or guns that were discharged, or the gun was not in his hand when the bullet went into his brain.”

Harry felt chills creep over his skin as he reached for the file.

He opened it leaning toward Rus so they both could read it.

But he didn’t have to read it. He could see immediately that it wasn’t what they had in their file.

Harry took his department’s file and tossed it in front of her.

“Our report reads differently,” he told her.

She kept hold on his gaze a beat before she opened it.

It didn’t take long before her face got red. Very red. Pissed red.

Fuck.

“That’s my signature. That even looks like my writing,” she stated, attention still on the file. It lifted to Harry. “But that is not my report.”

She tossed her sandwich on some waxed paper on her desk, brushed her hands together and sat back angrily.

“Honestly, when I pulled this, had a look at it and remembered the case, I got annoyed because I hadn’t heard anything was happening with it,” she said. “But then I remembered Roy was looking into it, and that man could barely find his shoelaces, so it didn’t surprise me he couldn’t find a murderer.”

“So you remember Roy. Did Dern have anything to do with this case?” Harry asked.

She shook her head. “I vaguely remember thinking that poor soul was in trouble because you weren’t on rotation to catch his case, rather than Roy, but by that time, Dern had so divorced himself from any real police work, I don’t know if I’d seen him in my morgue for years.”

“So all you remember is Roy,” Harry pushed.

“All I remember is Roy, Harry,” she replied. “But it was years ago. Still, I can say with some certainty that I didn’t deal at all with Dern on this case. I sent my report to Roy, then I had other bodies to deal with, and I’m afraid to say, I didn’t think about it much, outside feeling sad that obviously Roy hadn’t solved it, since I heard nothing else about it.”

She returned her attention to the file in front of her, bent close to it, then opened some drawers, rummaging through them until she found a magnifying glass.

She took it to the report, inspecting it closely in a variety of places, and her face got red again.

She tossed the magnifying glass on the report testily and stated, “That signature has been traced. You’d have to get an expert’s opinion, but there’s a carefulness to it that isn’t mine and looking closely at it, you can see the outline of my signature underneath. In fact, there’s a carefulness to all the writing. Also, you can see some Wite-Out marks. Someone emptied a copy of another report with Wite-Out, forged this one and traced my signature over the top.”

“Can I?” Harry asked.

She flung an irritable hand to the file in front of her. Harry gave the one he had to Rus and grabbed theirs and the magnifying glass.

Again, he leaned to the side so Rus could follow with him.

The base form was over-copied in the first place.

But with the glass it was easy to see small breaks in lines and ghosts of impressions of words that were there before, which the naked eye wouldn’t see or would identify as a smudge or a bad copy of the original form.

“Son of a bitch,” Rus muttered.

Harry yanked out his phone and made a call.

“You got me,” Polly answered.

“Polly, send two deputies to sit on Roy Farrell’s place. Inconspicuous. I don’t want them made, and Roy might be able to make them. The minute he comes home or there’s any sign of life in his house, they go in and get him. I want him at the station as soon as we can find his ass.”

“You got it,” she said.

“Polly,” he called before she hung up.

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