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INNOCENT MURDERER
INNOCENT MURDERER
A Cordi O’Callaghan Mystery
Suzanne F. Kingsmill
A Castle Street Mystery
Copyright © Suzanne F. Kingsmill, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
Copy Editor: Cheryl Hawley
Designer: Jennifer Scott
Printer: Webcom
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Kingsmill, Suzanne
Innocent murderer : a Cordi O’Callaghan mystery / Suzanne F. Kingsmill.
ISBN 978-1-55488-426-1
I. Title.
PS8621.I57I66 2009 C813’.6 C2009-903252-X
1 2 3 4 5 13 12 11 10 09
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President
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For B.W.J.
Contents
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
“You want me to spend a week in the Arctic with a convicted murderer?”
My lab technician swivelled around in her chair to face me. “Well, not exactly a murderer,” said Martha, her voice lingering on the word “exactly,” stretching it like molas–ses. She tried to stare me down, all her indecision playing over her round face like a carousel of slides flicking too fast: excitement swirled into indecision, melding with con–sternation, mixing with uncertainty, combining with stub–bornness. I got dizzy watching the play of feelings over her face, which is beautiful when it’s not so conflicted.
“Martha, how can someone be a convicted murderer but not really?” I glanced out of the window of the uni–versity zoology building where I work as a professor. Summer classes were winding down and there were only a few people walking through the grassy quadrangle below. When classes are in full swing in the fall the little patch of green is thronged with students lazing about, or playing Frisbee or catch.
When Martha didn’t answer I turned back in amaze–ment. She usually views questions as one views the next potato chip. Impossible not to devour.
“Well?”
“Really,
