The Little Grave (Detective Amanda Steele)

The temperature was still below zero but her core warmed. She’d given him the opening to dissect her past and he hadn’t taken it. “And you’re good with that? Being the lead on paper?”

“Absolutely. I can learn a lot from you. You’ve been at this—what?—thirty years?”

“Hey.”

He smiled.

“Detective for seven.” Her fellow officers would talk and say she’d only advanced so quickly because of who her father was, but she’d worked her ass off every step of the way.

“That’s more than me. I’m on the ground floor here.”

“Glad you know where you stand. Tell you what: you go talk to the guests in rooms two and three, and I’ll hit seven and twelve. Whoever finishes first wins room fifteen. They might not like us knocking on their doors considering it’s after”—she looked at the time on her phone—“one thirty in the morning, but we need to find out everything we can tonight. Ask them if they saw anyone go into or come out of Palmer’s room in the last twenty-four hours or heard anything.”

They weren’t armed with a time of death yet, but she’d worked enough death investigations to know that rigor, as a general rule, took twelve hours to set in and started in the extremities such as hands and feet within an hour or two of death. Palmer’s hand had definitely been in a state of rigor.

“Sure.” Trent grinned, likely gushing at this opportunity to branch out solo and probably just about to thank her for the opportunity.

She turned before the conversation could become any cozier. It was a little uncomfortable as it was, and she had to draw the line. Besides, this little arrangement with Trent was only temporary, regardless of what Malone might think.

Six

Amanda grabbed some business cards from her car’s glove box before hitting her first room. Even with the pit stop, she beat Trent to room fifteen. Lucky her. The renter was some pothead who had no idea what day of the week it was and probably didn’t know he was on planet Earth, but he did tell her he’d checked in last night and offered up his s

ob story. He said he was only there because his old lady had kicked him out—as if he’d had no part in that happening.

She finished up with him at the same time Trent left room three and headed toward him.

“How did you make out?” she asked him.

Trent consulted his notepad. “Room two were two men—‘married to women,’ they stressed. Not sure why.”

“Guilt, shame at being caught, any number of factors.” She rolled her hand to hopefully encourage forward movement. When he didn’t seem to pick up on the visual cue, she said, “I’m more interested if they saw or heard anything that relates to our case.”

“Nothing.”

“And room three?”

“It was a lady who checked in a couple of days ago. She’s hiding out from her abusive husband.”

She tapped a foot. “Sad, but again more life story than I need.”

Trent scanned his notepad, flipped the pages. “She said that she kept her curtains closed and stuck to herself.”

“So she saw nothing?” Amanda pushed out.

“No.”

“So how did it take you so long to walk away with so little?”

Trent tucked his notepad into one of his back pant pockets. “Showing a personal interest can go a long way in getting people to open up.”

“Sure. About things that don’t matter.”

Trent clenched his jaw but didn’t say anything.

“Just remember with a death investigation we’re working on a fine timeline. The best chance of catching a killer is in the first twenty-four hours.”

“I’m well aware of that—” Trent clamped his mouth shut and stared off into the distance. His eyes held more embarrassment than anger, and she actually felt a twinge of remorse for talking to him like he was a child.