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was dead.
    Nausea broke over me in waves as I slowly closed the door again.  I made sure to lock it with my master key and then I took Rosie by the hand.  Together we went downstairs silently, without a word, to call my son. 
    It was time to call the police in.
    ***
    “Didya check for a pulse?” Senior Sergeant Cutter asked me in the second floor hallway.  For the fifth time.
    Angus Cutter was a tall and muscular man.  I’ve always suspected he had been a body builder, once upon a time.  His white hair was shaved close down to his scalp.  His face was clean shaven except for that white handlebar mustache he sported that framed up his square jaw.  Gold clusters sat on the shoulder lapels of his stiff blue uniform shirt.
    The man looked like a bull who’d learned to walk upright.  He had the personality to match.  Blunt, direct, and narrow minded.
    “Senior Sergeant, I told you.  I opened her door with my master key.  When I saw…what I saw, I closed the door again and called you.”
    Also for the fifth time, he scratched that information down in his little spiral notebook.  Then he shook his head and put notebook and pen away in the front pocket of his shirt.  “Right.  Then.  Looks to be cut and dry to me, Dell.  Sorry ‘bout your friend.  Sometimes people end it.  Just the way of the world.”
    Rosie came up the stairs just as I was wondering how much time I’d get in a cell for slapping a cop across his stupid face.  She took me by the arm and pulled me away from the Senior Sergeant.  “I took care of informing all the guests that there was a problem,” she said.  “I let them know the police would be here for a bit and then gone.  No worries.”
    “Thank you.”  A problem.  That’s what we were calling Jess’s death.  A problem.
    In a way, that’s exactly what it was.  I was so angry at Jess right now that if she was right here with me I would’ve taken her by the shoulders and shook sense into her until her teeth rattled.  She had come here, to my Inn, just to kill herself.  Now we had the police coming in and out, and we’d have to wait for two hours before a coroner could come down from Hobart to take the body.  There would be an autopsy, of course, because of the way she…died.  I’d learned that from Kevin.  Sometimes having a police officer for a son came in handy.
    Sometimes, I just feel like I know too much.
    Anyway, angry as I was at Jess, I was also deeply sad for her.  Obviously her marriage with Horace wasn’t working.  If that phone call I got from him at…what, four thirty this morning?  If that phone call was any indication then it’s no wonder she had to come here to catch a break.  Now this…
    A sudden sob choked me.  Rosie put her arms around my shoulders and it helped but not enough.  Poor Jess.  Why?  It was so senseless.  Why would she do this?
    As I stood there, another officer came out of the room where Jess’s body still sat in that chair.  I only knew he was an officer because I recognized his face.  He was in jeans and a long-sleeved work shirt, not a uniform.  His name escaped me.  There was a total of six officers in town, including Senior Sergeant Cutter over there.  In a town like Lakeshore everyone knew everyone else.
    “Got everything, Senior Sergeant,” the officer said to Cutter.  Blake Williams.  That was his name.  He held up a clear plastic bag and in it I could see a bloody razor blade.
    My stomach turned over on itself.
    “Took the pictures, too,” Blake said.  “Every inch of the room.”
    Cutter took the bag with a scowl.  “Why’d ya go and waste the time on taking pics?  It’s clear as the desert sky what happened in there.”
    Rosie caught me glaring at him.  Good to have friends who know when to give you a bit of a hard yank to keep you out of trouble.
    Feet came pounding up the stairs.  Kevin never did have a very light step.  He came right over to me, hugging me fiercely.  Me and my son