Buried (Detective Ellie MacIntosh)

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Authors: Kate Watterson
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mist began to fall about noon, so that everything was wet and bleak and dismal.
    Ranks of uniformed officers stood in lines and the various wreaths of flowers held glistening drops of moisture. It was just as well it was raining for that could account for the dampness on Danni Crawford’s face.
    The instant that Chad was in the ground—the flags and the crying relatives aside—she would never see him again.
    Not his face, she’d sobbed. Not his kind of quirky smile that turned up at one corner, and his hands would never again slide over her body …
    She told him that, more personal than maybe Jason was comfortable with, but grief was an interesting emotion. Their relationship was, in a word, obliterated. Chad hadn’t passed on her. Hadn’t found her lacking, hadn’t disliked that her hips might be just a little too curvy and maybe could even be classified as fat, hadn’t decided to move on for any reason than someone had decided to just take him out.
    They had loved each other.
    Jason had let her talk. He wasn’t good at sympathy, but he did stand with her, and … listened. There was nothing he could do about what had happened, but at least he could listen.
    Chad’s family stood in a small circle, his mother’s face as gray and drawn as the weeping skies. She’d cried quietly during the service and Danni had wept with her, spine straight, eyes ahead, and her grief put a knot in the pit of Jason’s stomach like a clenched fist.
    Whoever had done this would pay.
    It smelled like a contract hit, just like the killing the week before. Everyone in the department was talking about it and homicide was all over both cases, but the murders had been so clean and fast there was virtually no evidence. Even Fielding’s wife couldn’t give a description.
    Fielding’s wife.
    That had been an interesting interview, or so Danni had told Jason. Looking back, he now wondered if the woman’s shell-shocked statement had been just incoherent babbling as she’d thought at the time, or if it meant something.
    She’d said over and over: Garrison . He shouldn’t have called. He shouldn’t have called .
    Chad had wondered too, Danni had stated in a small, wavering voice. They’d talked about it later, about how both of them assumed at the time it was the name of her child, a mother’s frantic worry even though she’d been reassured time and again he was safe. Covered in blood spatter, understandably hysterical, she had been a useless witness.
    But it wasn’t the name of Joanne Fielding’s son, Danni had found out.
    The last message she had from Chad was that he thought he knew what it meant but he needed to check with the chief before he gave the information to the detectives assigned to the case.
    And now he was dead.
    Carl left the cemetery and turned his phone back on, seeing he had a text.
    Missed you at the party . Lindsey .
    Call her back? He might have except Ellie called him even as he was contemplating the question. “Lieutenant, I’m going to be out of town for the weekend. Considering everything, I wanted to let you know. Family matter.”
    The brusque, businesslike tone of her voice made him wonder just what had her so … maybe unsettled was the word.
    In his opinion, she didn’t unsettle all that easily.
    Carl had seen her at the funeral, serene outwardly anyway, standing in the rain with Grantham with a shared umbrella, and she’d briefly exchanged words with Santiago, but left quickly.
    No one had really wanted to stay. Wet earth and dripping branches and tears.
    He hadn’t stayed either.
    “Cell on?” he asked.
    “Pretty much always.”
    “Not 24/7. Take some time for yourself.”
    “Excuse me?” She sounded surprised.
    “You have a job, Detective, but it isn’t everything. What I am saying is that if you need to take your weekend actually off, go ahead. We don’t have a handle on what is going on, but we will. If something comes up I’ll call you.”
    When they hung up he sat and thought

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