The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir

motivations. But even worse, I didn't trust myself. My instincts had failed me once before—with catastrophic results. Could I trust them again with something so serious?
    “What questions do you have?” she said.
    I struggled for the right words. I needed to move cautiously to keep her from getting the wrong impression. “I looked at the crime scene photos, and I noticed a couple of things. But before we go any further, you need to decide how much you want to hear. This is ugly business, and we're talking about your brother. Some of these things can be brutal. So tell me how much you can tolerate.”
    “I want to know everything. Let me worry about the consequences.”
    A spunky woman for sure. I'd give her that. “Okay, it looks like whoever did this used a pillow over the muzzle of the barrel to silence the shots. There are several holes in David's pillow, and it was found on the floor next to him.”
    She nodded. “Sergeant Yancey said the condos are so close together that he… David… didn't want anyone to hear the shots.”
    “True. But if he's distraught about their relationship, as the report concluded, why does he try to muffle the sounds? If he's going to take his own life, would he really care? That bothers me.”
    “Sergeant Yancey also said they found gunshot residue on David's hands, proving that he fired the shots. How can that be?”
    “They test the skin and hairs of the hand for barium and antimony, gunpowder components that embed in your hand when you fire a gun. There could be a number of reasons why there's residue on David's hands, but that's a tough one to overcome. Between that and the fact that the door was locked and there were no signs of forced entry, I'm not sure what to make of all this yet.”
    “What else?” she said.
    “The phone records. Your brother was the last person to call her cell phone. That's significant, but I didn't see a list of the other calls she received that day.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “It means Pampas is lazy.” I tried not to let my disdain for him show in my voice. Okay, I didn't try that hard.
    “If he's not smart or competent, why do they keep him as a homicide detective? Shouldn't he be fired or something?”
    “I didn't say he wasn't smart. He's very intelligent. That's what aggravates me to no end. He's capable of good, solid investigation, but he's notorious for cutting corners. And he's smart enough to cover his rear end and look good while doing it.”
    Not so surprisingly, Pampas was investigating Trisha's and my shooting, which was still unsolved.
    She fell back against her chair and sighed. “So where does that leave us? What can we do?”
    “I'm not sure if there is a we' in this conversation. I just gave you my observations. I don't think all the questions of this case were answered. It's like a puzzle without all the pieces. It might be exactly what the report says it is, but without those pieces, you can't know for sure.”
    “But you think it's possible my brother didn't do this?”
    “There's more that could be done.”
    “Will they reopen the case with what you told me? I mean, it makes sense. Sergeant Yancey is your friend; can't you get him to assign another detective to run with this?”
    I shook my head. “Oscar's a good cop, but he's sitting on a stack of fresh homicides right now. He can't afford to put them on hold to revisit this. We don't have enough to reopen anything. Only questions.”
    “You said we,” she said with a small smile. “Maybe you could just investigate a few things. If you find irrefutable proof, the sergeant might consider it.”
    Pam was minimizing things to draw me in. Shrewd little woman as well, especially since it was working. But could I really get involved, then turn the investigation over to Oscar? My psyche was at war with itself. Reviewing the file and talking about the case with Pam teased from me emotions I thought were long dead—like the thrill of delving back into a world that