A Detective's Guide to the Perfect Crime

IX

Police sirens chirped and their lights flashed on the road. Margo stood in the crowd of curious onlookers as a body is fished out of the frozen river below. Coagulated blood surrounded his face— likely from the force of taking a nosedive through the ice.

"Who is it?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think it's someone we know?"

Questions rippled through the growing crowd. A single police officer kept them all at bay, her arms spread out like wings. As if that would do anything if this hoard of people decided to push through the yellow tape separating them from the crime scene.

Margo didn't need any kind of M.E. or DNA proof to know that the pale floater was Rooke Kinsley. He looked exactly how Sam had described him. Except... more dead... and wet.

The medical examiner on scene took a few pictures as the body was loaded into a bodybag and zipped shut. "Hey! Fancy seeing you here." Roman laughed as he pushed through the people.

"I think it's Rooke..." Margo followed him under the yellow tape. If he noticed her, he definitely didn't show it.

"Yeah, I got the call." He stretched on the typical blue latex gloves and gestured for the bag to be unzipped. "Yep, that's our guy." He sighed to the medical examiner. "Do we know what happened?"

The officer he had asked shrugged. "Not really. We're guessing suicide..." blah, blah, blah. Margo padded across the bridge to the other side, looking down at the half-flowing river.

She didn't know Rooke personally, but she knew the Kinsley family. None of them ever struck her as dumb enough to choose such a slow death. The bridge wasn't nearly high enough for a gravitational suicide. And the ice wasn't thick enough to cause severe damage. So the only two ways Rooke could've died— if he even died here— would be to either freeze to death or drown.

Roman's partner, one Elizabeth Winslow, trotted to join the conversation. "Is it?" She asked. Roman nodded. "Well, dang it." Margo scanned the faces of the onlookers. Looking for anything out of the ordinary. Like a smile among the faces of tears and confusion. Or an unfamiliar face.

Nothing. Not even so much as a sideways glance.

"Hey! What the heck do you think you're doing?!" An officer marched toward Margo. "You're supposed to stay on the other side of the tape..."

Roman waved the officer off. "She's with me. Don't worry about it." Elizabeth shot him a disapproved look. "She's a junior detective."

"Right." Margo snorted. "And I had the privilege to ride with Detective Daley of all people."

The officer looked between the two of them. Her dark eyebrows creasing with questions unasked. "Thank you, Officer." The woman put her palms in the air and went back to crowd control. "You're welcome." Roman winked at Margo.

"I didn't need your help." She sneered. "Anyways, do you think it was a suicide?"

Roman shrugged, leaning over the railing to look down. "Well, it certainly doesn't look like an ideal final destination."

"It's not even tall enough." Elizabeth added. Margo felt almost a sense of trust in Roman and his partner. "What about you?"

"Well," Margo took one last look over the edge. "The ice definitely isn't thick enough this time of year. And if I were gonna kill myself, I'd want something quick, easy, and relatively painless."

Roman raised an eyebrow. "Why does it sound like you've put thought into this?"

Margo waved him off. "Don't worry about it. My point is, the only way he could've died in this river is hypothermia or drowning."