“Like what?”

“You would know that better than me, Commander.”

LeJeune appeared to be looking at her in a pitying fashion. “Am I … missing something here, Detective?”

“No,” said Hazel flatly. “I just want to be sure you’re completely confident that your investigation was thorough.”

“I’m beginning to understand you think differently.”

Hazel opened her portfolio and took out a copy of Deacon’s autopsy and passed it to the commander. LeJeune began reading it slowly. After a moment, she muttered, “Goodness” and passed it to Bellecourt. She put her finger on what Hazel presumed was the salient detail.

“Oh gosh,” said RC Bellecourt.

“So my next question is, where would a person in Queesik Bay come across a Taser? Or something like it?”

“I doubt that’s what made these marks on Mr. Wiest,” said Bellecourt.

“Well, unless you have electronic wasps here, it had to be something that could pierce a person’s skin and give them a lethal shock.”

“Tasers aren’t lethal, Detective Inspector.”

“I know they’re not supposed to be. But fifty thousand volts is an unpredictable amount of electricity, don’t you think?”

“Do you not have Tasers on your force?” LeJeune asked.

Hazel shifted in her seat. “We don’t need them.”

“Everyone needs Tasers. And they don’t kill people unless you bash someone over the head with one. And it’s not volts that kill, anyway. It’s amps. Current, you know? How many Taser deaths were reported in North America last year, Lydia?”

“There were none, Commander.”

“Detective Inspector Micallef thinks it’s possible Henry Wiest was killed by a Taser.”

“I must admit,” said Bellecourt, “I do think it very unlikely. A Taser barb stays in the victim. It shoots out what are little more than two miniature jumper cables. They really get in there and they can leave a significant wound. These ‘sting’ wounds in Mr. Wiest weren’t made by a Taser.”

“I didn’t think of that, Lydia,” said LeJeune. “That’s excellent.”

“Jesus Christ,” said Hazel. “The point is, he was murdered. He was electrocuted.”

Commander LeJeune’s eyes lit up. “Oh, thank you,” she said.

“Thank you?”

LeJeune was accepting a tray of tea from one of her administrative assistants, and she put it on her desk and poured each of them a cup. “Try this,” she said. “It’s cranberry tea. It’s excellent for a lot of things.” This woman was so poised it was unholy. She reminded Hazel of Chip Willan, but where his stance was one of self-possessed malice, LeJeune was being genuinely professional. Her attention was still on someone standing in the doorway behind her. Hazel finally turned and caught another constable, this one a man of about twenty-eight, mouthing something to his commanding officer.

“What is going on here?” Hazel asked.

“I’m sorry,” said LeJeune, waving the man away, “it’s just that we’re planning a small party for Constable Bellecourt here –”

“I’m getting married.”

“Congratulations,” Hazel muttered.

“We won’t be disturbed again.”

“It’s fine, I understand.”

“Let’s get back to the matter. So, it wasn’t an insect sting that killed Henry Wiest. And you need to reopen the case. I understand that now. You will have our full cooperation.”

“Thank you,” said Hazel after a moment spent digesting the strange aura of honesty and warmth in the room. These people needed to be 40 per cent more cynical than they were. She turned to Bellecourt and tried to act gracious. “Honestly, my heartiest congratulations, Constable.”

“Are you married, Detective Inspector?” Bellecourt asked.

“Not anymore,” she said, and the glow in the constable’s face guttered slightly. “Look, if you really want to help me, make me an introduction to your pathologist.”

“Of course,” said LeJeune. “I’ll have Lydia tell Dr. Brett you’re on your way over.”

“And then I want to poke around a bit.”

“Would you object to a chaperone?”

“You mean a carefully guided tour.”

“You may want to go into the casino,” Bellecourt said.

“Do you think I should?” she asked. “What’s it like in there?”

“Well, if you’re going to poke around, you might as well have a look in there. Lots of people in the casino. But if I accompany you, I can smooth the way, you being in nonreserve uniform and all. Or are you going to go plainclothes?”

“I’ll go see your doc first,” Hazel said. “And sure, you can meet me at the casino in half an hour, Constable Bellecourt. I suppose I might as well have a gander.”

“You could meet Lee,” she said.

“Lee?”

“Her fiancé,” said LeJeune.

“As long as I don’t have to witness too much joy.”

“Lee’s the manager of the casino,” LeJeune continued. “You’d probably want to make his acquaintance anyway. Maybe you can stand a few feet back, Constable, to cool your ardour.”

That was agreeable to Bellecourt, and Commander LeJeune placed a call to the hospital and arranged Hazel’s visit. She gave her a map of the reserve and circled the hospital. “It’s a two-minute drive,” she said.

“I’ll walk it.” Hazel took the map and rose and the other two women stood and watched her out. She felt eyes on her as she retraced her steps to the front of the detachment and left the building.

It was still more than twenty degrees outside and the sun hadn’t set. It was Wednesday night, but cars were streaming into the front parking lots of the casino just down the road to her left.

The main road – which was called Queesik Bay Road locally but was officially RR26 – ran directly in front of the building and she turned right, following the map. The hospital was visible from where she was, a large, low building with a roadside post topped by a large H. Church Bay Road, the one that ran behind the casino, met RR26 just before it. She got to the hospital in ten minutes and got directions to the morgue from the information desk. The man who met her, Dr. Brett, brought her into his office. He was a handsome man in his fifties with a short, red beard. Commander LeJeune had already faxed the Mayfair autopsy. “Looks like we screwed up, Detective,” he said.

“Do you even know what a wasp sting looks like?”

Brett opened a file folder that was sitting at the edge of his desk. “Yes. It looks exactly like a hard, swollen, raised welt, white in the middle where the venom has been injected and ringed with red.” He slipped out a couple of 8 × 10 photos and slid one of them across to her. He laid the tip of a pen on the image of Henry Wiest’s cheek, where there was an angry red dot. “Here’s an excellent representation of one.”

Wiest’s body had lost its lividity by the time Deacon had seen it on his slab, and it had looked completely different than what she was seeing in Brett’s picture. Here, Wiest had been dead for less than ninety minutes. He still had colour; his flesh still looked alive. She realized, perhaps with some disappointment, that there had been no cover-up here. Any doctor, even a particularly talented and discerning one, probably would have concluded Wiest had died of anaphylaxis due to an insect sting. Probably a bee or a wasp. Any hope that this Dr. Brett was involved, somehow, was already vapour. “Fine,” she said now. “I’m gathering that, knowing what you know now, you’re not of the opinion that there was any way to arrive at Dr. Deacon’s interpretation when you looked at the body?”

“Likely not.”

“Then tell me this. Do you agree with Dr. Deacon’s report?”

“Well,” he said, “I’ve already made the mistake once of not seeing everything in front of me, Detective. I’d better not make it again. It certainly sounds reasonable, but I’d have to do my own autopsy over.”

“And say you did, then. Keeping a completely open mind, what other possibilities would you be considering?”

“I wouldn’t consider any other possibilities unless new evidence presented itself.”