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"Am I that obvious?"

"Nah I just kno I’d feel if soave a rude snort, shook his head "Frat prank? I don’t know about that"

"It wasn’t a frat prank," I said "Derrel, that was no college punk I know the cops have no reason to believethis up"

"I don’t believe for one second that you’reany of this up"

"I know, and you have no idea how much that : The dude rote that da off on how horrible it was for the family when the reuarded properly But…has the next of kin for poor Mr Norers behind his head "Y’know, funny thing, that I’ve been trying to track the more and more like Mr Kearny didn’t have any Next of kin, that is Widower, no kids as far as I can tell Not a peep fro weird about this whole thing," I insisted "There has to be a reason that asshole stole that body"

"I’el, but I don’t think there’s uard who tripped on soround checks and info that the lab had on file, and it all says that this guy really was Norman Kearny"

"Well, what if the personnel file was tampered with?"

He cocked an eyebrow athard into conspiracy-theory territory?"

I made a sour face "I kno it sounds, but I think that there has to be so rimaced "True Unfortunately I have no idea hoe could find out if the personnel file was altered If we still had the body we could run the prints or check dental records, but…" He spread his hands and shrugged

I sat up straight "Derrel, I’ave me an amused smile "Well, I’ve known that for a while, but what makes you think so?"

"I put his watch in the property safe," I said with a grin "We can have that fingerprinted"

He nodded slowly, an approving gleam in his eye "That could work, since we don’t have the actual body to verify the prints" He glanced up at the clock on the wall Two pm "I have court in half an hour, but I’ll talk to the folks in Investigations in the "

"I could take the watch over there now," I said, probably too eagerly

He smiled "Impatient much?"

I didn’t smile back "Derrel, there are people who think I was involved My name is plastered all over the paper, and I’ulped "And I really need this job" My voice cracked on the last part, and I wasn’t even trying to be dramatic

His expression softened "I know you do And I’h all this I just…I don’t want you to get your hopes up too far about that watch suddenly answering all the questions"

I nodded stiffly "I know But it’s worth a shot, right?"

"Right" He gave et that watch out of the safe for you Let me knohat you find out"

Derrel retrieved the watch in its plastic bag forand angsting for severalan overly paranoid idiot with hed, picked up the phone and put in a call to Detective Ben Roth, relieved that it was his case At least he consistently treated me like a person--unlike some of the other detectives at the sheriff’s office If this had been Abadie’s case, I’d have probably chickened out

"Detective Roth," caruff answer a few seconds later

"Hi, Ben," I said, "It’s Angel Crawford From the Coroner’s Office," I added, suddenly paranoid that I was totally iel!" His gruff tone shifted to sohter "What can I do for you?"

"Well, I’"