Murder in the Medina

“I don’t want to speculate. The man is dead. His friend is hurting. Throwing out ideas is just going to jumble things.” Stacey suddenly pulled herself off the sofa. She walked resolutely to the stairs. “I’m going to go check on Gavin. He still hasn’t recovered.”

“Let me know if there is anything I can do,” Finley called after her, but Stacey had already descended the landing and was heading toward Gavin’s door.

Finley began to mount the stairs to the rooftop but stopped midstride and started down the stairs instead. She was drawn to the railing that the inspector had examined. What was there that had so intrigued him? She kept her eyes on the railing, following it along from the stairs to just outside Gavin’s door, where the inspector had stopped. On the face of it, there was nothing. She went back and traced her hand over the same area. When she got to the spot, she stopped again. Her hand felt a small indentation, a little nick. She dropped to her knees and looked under the rail.

“Find something?” She jerked up to find the inspector smiling at her, his eyes locked on the barely visible nick on the underside of the rail.