Page 19 of Luck of the Devil (Harper Adams Mystery #3)

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?

He carefully sorted through the sopping-wet clothes, unfolding each item to check for anything hidden.

Then, to my surprise, instead of tossing the items into a pile, he refolded each one and set it on the floor.

I was sure he was being this careful because they belonged to my mother.

Part of me wanted to tell him to just drop them and move on to the next piece of clothing.

It would be faster if he did, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

I felt like my mother deserved some shred of dignity.

I couldn’t help noticing the irony that James Malcolm was the one giving it to her.

I had no doubt she wouldn’t have granted him the same consideration.

By the time Malcolm went through all the clothing, I’d counted two pairs of pajamas, five pairs of slacks, six long-sleeved and three short-sleeved shirts, a cardigan, and two business-style dresses.

“Your mother was a great packer,” he said with a short laugh. “Not a lot of people could have gotten that much into one side of a carry-on suitcase.”

“True.” Funny how I’d never known that about her. Then again, she hated to travel, so I’d never seen her packing skills in use.

He started on the other side, searching inside each shoe before setting it beside the stacks of clothes.

Next, he pulled out a trench coat and searched the pockets, which were completely empty.

The makeup bag held her cosmetics, her toothbrush, and skin care bottles, but it was the two pill bottles that commanded our attention.

Malcolm held one up and read the label. “Zestril.”

“Her blood pressure medication.”

He shook the bottle, and the pills rattled inside of it. Then he opened the cap, showing me the contents. “Do you know if this is what they look like?”

I looked up the medication and compared the photo of the orange tablets to the ones in the bottle. “They look the same.”

He set the bottle to the side and picked up the other one. “Lipitor.” He looked up at me. “Cholesterol medication.” He shook the bottle, then glanced at the white tablets. “Yep, that’s what they look like.”

I didn’t ask how he knew.

“Her bottle of Zoloft isn’t in there,” I said.

“Nope.” He set the bottle on the floor. “Seems like she would have kept all her medication together. It’s not the kind of pill you pop when you get anxious. You take it once a day.”

“Agreed.” It seemed unlikely, but I suppose there was a chance it been in her purse and they’d removed it.

But I wondered if she’d been taking it at all.

Could I convince the pharmacy to tell me who’d picked up her prescription?

Or maybe Malcolm could use his other questionable resources to find out?

“Can Carter have his mysterious helpers find out if my mother picked up the Zoloft or someone else did?” As soon as the words fell out of my mouth, I knew I should be horrified that I’d suggested it, but I couldn’t muster up the self-disgust.

His brow lifted in surprise. “You don’t want to question them yourself?”

“They’re not going to tell me anything,” I said. “It seems like it will be a more efficient use of our time if you get someone else on it.” Then I realized the people working for him didn’t do it out of the kindness of their hearts. “I’ll pay for their time.”

A frown creased his forehead. “Like hell you’re gonna pay. Whatever we find out will likely benefit me too.” He gave me a smarmy grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And if it doesn’t benefit me in any way, I’ll let you work it off.”

His tone made it sound like an innuendo. I put a hand on my hip. “With a PI case?”

“Of course,” he said like I was an idiot. “What else?”

What else indeed? After last night, there was no way in hell he’d ever want to sleep with me, and even though my wandering eyes were lustful, I knew better than to sleep with him.

What the hell was I thinking about anyway? I was investigating my mother’s murder. Why was I imagining James Malcolm naked, pinning me against a wall?

I suddenly wished I had a fifth of whiskey—vow or no vow—to wash that image away.

His eyes narrowed in concern. “You okay? You need a drink?”

“I’m fine,” I said gruffly. “Let’s finish.”

He gave me a lingering look before he searched the lining of the case. After he’d gone over it twice, he announced. “Nothing hidden in here.”

Thankfully, my attention was back where it belonged. “She packed for multiple days. It wasn’t just a day trip, which is weird because she didn’t cancel her dentist appointment.”

“Maybe she forgot.”

I gave a slight shake of my head. “She wouldn’t have forgotten.”

“So if she didn’t cancel before she left, she planned on cancelling later?” he asked.

I considered it. “Or she packed to be gone for a lengthy period of time just in case she needed to be gone longer, but hoped to be back before Friday.”

We were both silent for a few moments, mulling over the various possibilities.

“You think she was going to her parents’ house?” Malcolm asked breaking the silence.

I shook my head. “Not unless she was planning to surprise them. I didn’t see their number in her call log.”

So where had she been going? The navigational app on her phone might have been able to tell us her planned destination, but she had an older phone. One that wasn’t waterproof.

“Wait,” I said. “Her phone wasn’t in her purse.”

He stared at me for a moment. “You think the sheriff’s office still has it?”

“Maybe. The phone would have been dead once it became submerged. They wouldn’t have been able to get anything from it.

They might try to see if they can get anything from the SIM card, but it’s highly unlikely to give them much beyond the phone number and the carrier.

That’s if the river sediment didn’t already corrode the metal.

” I glanced at the suitcase. “But if I were working the case, I’d take the phone anyway. You never know what you might get.”

“If the sheriff’s department didn’t take the phone, then someone else did?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Or they gave it to my father.” I gestured to the suitcase and purse. “They gave him this.”

“And if he kept the phone … if it’s not waterproof, it’s worthless.” His face darkened. “That seems suspicious.”

“Agreed.”

We were silent again, me trying to come up with a logical explanation for why my father would keep my mother’s phone and came up with nothing. It seemed far more likely the person who’d killed her took it. But why? What could she have on it that they would want?

“Harper,” Malcolm said in a gentle tone. “Go take a shower.”

I gaped at him in surprise.

“I’ll repack all of this, you go shower so we can get on the road to Jonesboro.” When I didn’t move, he lifted a brow. “Fair warning, I’m taking a shower too. Let me know which one you plan to use so I can use the other.”

“I’ll shower in my apartment.”

He gave me a curt nod, then I headed up the stairs to my apartment.