said. ‘Now I’ve gotta come good on that or she’ll bitch to the lezzos over in Equal Opportunity. That’s all I bloody need, the hairy armpit brigade marching through here with their women’s rights.’ He slumped in his chair and shook his head. ‘That’s what’s wrong with the job these days. We used to be a police force, now we’re just a pussy force.’
I waited, silent, letting him rant.
‘Don’t tell me you agree with affirmative action?’ He pointed out the window. ‘Let me tell you something, McCauley. This isn’t a fucking university; this is the real world. Having fancy pussy like Cassie fluffing around only makes it harder for blokes like you and me to get the job done. I don’t care what anyone says, females just get in the way. I mean, can you really see her out there wrestling with drunks or brawling with some shithead off his face on meth?’
I didn’t bother replying. I could name numerous occasions when female cops even smaller than Cassie had dealt effectively with the mad, the bad and the sad.
‘You wanna hear this or not?’ I said.
‘Sure, go.’
I explained the anomalies at the crime scene, starting with the missing syringe cap and moving through to the lack of teeth marks on the leather belt. I told him about the missing mobile phone and the CCR I was requesting, and ended by detailing the expensive clothes the victim had been wearing and how he hadn’t had a single criminal conviction over the past year. I didn’t mention anything about my visit to the morgue, the conversation with Will Novak or my search of Boyd’s apartment.
When I’d finished, Eckles rubbed his jaw, swivelled away from the desk and looked out the window.
‘So you’re saying somebody else injected him?’
‘I’m saying I think he was murdered.’
‘Whoa, hold up a second.’ He fished a report from a tray on his desk. ‘That’s your eighty-three from yesterday morning.’
Eighty-three was code for an official police report to the coroner.
‘Now let’s read from the summary,’ he continued. ‘ “Nil signs of violence. Nil suspicious circumstances. Most likely cause of death is accidental overdose.” ’
I remained silent while he put the report back in his pile.
‘Let me get this right,’ he said. ‘What you’re telling me is that you think you might have green-carded a homicide, wrote it off as accidental?’
‘I wouldn’t put it that way.’
‘Then how would you put it?’
‘I’m telling you there are anomalies that need investigating; anomalies that weren’t apparent at the initial crime scene.’
‘What do you mean they weren’t apparent at the crime scene? Everything you’ve just described was at the crime scene.’
I closed my eyes, knowing it was true.
‘What I mean is, I didn’t realise the significance of it all until I got home and thought about it.’
‘So you wrote it off as accidental because you either ignored or missed the anomalies at first. Now you’ve had a change of mind.’
‘Well, not exactly. I guess everyone on the scene concurred that it looked like a standard OD.’
‘Everyone else? You mean Finetti?’
I nodded, the shame of it weighing on me.
‘Since when do you let a cowboy like Finetti dictate a crime scene? This was your scene, McCauley. You wrote it off, so don’t go blaming anyone else. You accept this fuck-up and own it –’
‘All right,’ I said, a little too forcefully, anger curling inside me like a fist. I needed solutions, not condemnation. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘We?’
‘Well, you countersigned that report, boss. Like you said, it goes up the line.’
He stared at me a long moment. ‘We wait and see what happens with the coroner. If they pick up suspicious circs then we don’t look like dickheads calling in Homicide after the horse has bolted.’
‘And what if the coroner doesn’t pick up any other anomalies and all we’ve got to go on is what we know about the crime scene?’
‘Then it’s not a homicide.’
‘Excuse me?’
Eckles let out a sigh. ‘Look, we can’t afford to be chasing so-called anomalies for every single death we come across. That’s what the coroner’s for. Besides, this department has suffered enough embarrassment over recent years, and so have you. I don’t want you to pursue this any further and be thrown into the public laundry again. We’ve done our part.’
My gut churned. I saw right through him. It had nothing to do with saving the reputation of the Force or balancing resources or, indeed, my welfare.
‘It’s your job you’re worried about, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘You’re the officer