He started to laugh at that. “Well, anytime you want to get on that, feel free.”
She groaned. “Nobody will listen to me, and you know it.”
“Nobody ever likes anything that’ll involve a ton of money and that much work.”
“I feel like it’s more of a software thing.” She frowned, as she thought about it. “I’ll have to talk to the sergeant.”
“You do that.” Smidge’s good humor seemed completely restored now. Having dumped everything on her, he stated he would be out for lunch.
She rolled her eyes at him, as she hopped up. As she walked over to the coroner, she asked him, “Anything else about the case bother you, Doc?” He didn’t say anything for a moment, but she pressed on. “Well?”
“I never thought the guy they charged did it.”
“Why not?”
“Her brother was blamed,” he noted quietly, “but there was never a motive.”
“That sounds pretty personal for a brother,” she noted in astonishment.
He looked at her, tilted his head. “The kid was only sixteen.”
“Whoa.” She walked back over to the visitor chair and sat down. “Seriously?”
“He was sixteen when he supposedly committed the crime, and eighteen when he was put away, as I recall.”
“Is he alive still? That is the next question. Because he was a juvenile at the time, so his sentence couldn’t have been all that long. So, in theory, he could be out again.”
“That’s up to you to find out,” Smidge replied.
“Yeah, I’ll work on that.” She shook her head. “I can’t imagine doing that to a sister.”
“Or anyone else for that matter. But, if I’d spent years in prison, thinking about it, it might be the first thing I’d do when I got back out again.”
She winced, and, with that thought in mind, she added, “I’ll leave you to your next patient.”
“Other than getting some lunch, I’ll be here all day and probably half the night,” he grumbled.
“Sorry.”
He shook his head. “We have a lot going on right now.”
“It’s not like there’s ever a holiday,” she reminded him.
“There never is.”
With that, she walked out to see Rodney on his phone, texting away, as he leaned up against the wall. He looked up, and she could see the anger still evident in his expression.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
“Sorry about that. I’m not sure why he didn’t want you in there.”
“He doesn’t like me,” Rodney stated.
She stopped, looked at him. “Really no room for like or dislike when it comes to the job.”
“You want to tell him that?”
“Nope, I do not,” she stated. “You’ll have to work things out with Smidge on your own.”