Page 39 of Luck of the Devil

Possibly, but I wasn’t going to risk getting my hopes up.

He carefully turned the page and February was the same, just ink smears on the page. Next was March, which was just as unreadable, but held more smears than the other pages.

“Maybe if we let it dry, it will reveal more,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes as I glanced up at him. “Since when did you become delusional?”

He shrugged slightly. “You never know what’s going to turn up. Maybe we’ll be able to see indentations where she wrote.”

I leaned closer, nearly gagging again. “The paper’s wet, and the fibers are swollen. Any indentations are long gone.” I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. “Is there anything else in her purse?”

He walked back over to the purse and squatted next to it, then peered in, the calendar still in his hand. “Nothing.” He looked up. “She was definitely a neat and tidy woman.”

“Neat and tidy was her middle name,” I said through gritted teeth. She’d hated clutter and threw out just about everything she considered no longer useful. Just like she’d done with me.

Stop with the melodrama.

If she hadn’t been so fastidious about paper clutter, then maybe there’d be more clues about what had happened to her.

“You ready to move on to the suitcase?” he asked.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

He put everything back in the purse, except for the planner, which he put on the work bench. He gave me a look as though expecting me to challenge his hopes for the planner, but I kept my mouth shut. If he wanted to venture to dreamland, I wasn’t going to stop him. Let him crash and burn on his own.

He lifted the suitcase out of the bag, and I was either getting used to the smell or it wasn’t as stinky. I suspected it was the former.

He moved it several feet toward the opening of the garage before laying it down and unzipping the case. The zipper stuck a few times, but he gave it a good tug and got it unfastened, then opened the lid. Her clothes were neatly folded and placed in neat stacks on one side. A makeup bag was on the other side, along with a pair of heels, a pair of flats, and carefully packed underwear and socks.

It was neat, just like my mother, but it shouldn’t have been.

“The sheriff didn’t go through this.”

Malcolm was kneeling behind the top of the case. He glanced up with a questioning look.

“The sheriff’s department should have gone through her personal items, and if they had, they wouldn’t have repacked it so neatly. They never opened her suitcase.”

“You’re saying they broke protocol?” he asked sarcastically.

I ignored his tone. “Her car was in a river, which made her death suspicious. It’s why they did an autopsy. They definitely should have gone through her bags.”

“Unless they already came up with their explanation and decided they didn’t need to go through it. Presume the sheriff’s detective isn’t crooked. What would have stopped him from searching the bag?”

“If he found her bottle of Zoloft in her purse or the car—because this is too neat for them to have looked for it in her carry-on—but even that’s a stretch. He wouldn’t have the toxicology report likely for days. It’s standard procedure to search.”

“So they were sloppy?” he asked.

“Or they let my father sway their conclusion.”

He gave me a pointed look. “Or they’re crooked.”

I had no problem believing the Jackson Creek police were lazy or crooked, but I’d gotten a different impression about the Lone County Sheriff’s Department. Still, I had to admit it was a possibility. “Or if the detective on the case is crooked.”

He started to reach for the first piece of clothing, but I stopped him.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. “We should do this right.” I took several photos, then opened a note taking app and prepared to start an inventory list. I should have done it for the contents of her purse. One more piece of evidence my brain was shit.

Should I even be investigating?