Sam Mason stared at the photos of the bloody crime scene lining the corkboard in his office and reminded himself that sometimes, serving justice didn’t always mean doing things by the book. Especially when you were the chief of police of a small northern New Hampshire town loaded with corruption.

He scrubbed his hand over his face, the rasping sound of the rough stubble on his chin reminding him that he was operating on only a few hours of sleep. He still wasn’t caught up from the weekend stakeout that had turned out to be a waste of time.

“We can stare at these all we want, but they’re not going to tell us who killed him.” Sergeant Jody Harris stood beside him. Coppery curls sprang from under her navy-blue police cap, her gray eyes studying the photos intently. She had a yellow legal-sized notepad in one hand and a number-two pencil in the other.

“I know, but I keep hoping I’ll see something that will give us a lead.”

“We already know Thorne’s behind this. And we have to prove it and take him down before he takes us down.”

Jo was right. The crime scene had a lot of potential for things to go sideways for Sam and Jo. The victim, Mayor Harley Dupont, had requested a secret meeting with them the night he was killed. He’d promised to turn over information that would help incriminate Lucas Thorne. Sam desperately needed such information. He’d been trying to get something on the real estate developer, whom they suspected was responsible for the influx of drugs into White Rock for years now.

Trouble was, every time Sam thought he had a good sting in place, someone tipped off Thorne. Which brought him to the second piece of information Dupont had promised: something on fellow officer Tyler Richardson.

Earlier that summer, Tyler had been gunned down at what appeared to be a routine stop. It appeared as if he’d pulled over to help someone with a flat tire. But the case had turned strange. The facts didn’t add up. The killer and the driver of the car were never found. The only solid clue was a lone fingerprint that didn’t match any in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System database.

Dupont had claimed he had information about Tyler’s death, which, as it turned out, could be another big problem for them.

Sam glanced back at the photos taken inside the abandoned mill where Dupont had requested the meeting. Dupont lay on the dusty, wide pine floorboards. Blood pooled under his head, and a gun lay at his side. Pigeon droppings splattered the scene as if someone had taken a brush and flung paint around.

Sam could still smell the dry wood of the old mill and hear the pigeons flapping in the odd hushed silence that always seemed to surround the dead. His eyes focused on one photo. Dupont’s empty hand lay palm up, half curled. Dupont had been dead when they arrived, their only information on a small scrap of paper in the dead mayor’s hand.

Had anyone noticed that paper was missing?

“I still can’t believe that Tyler was tipping off Thorne,” Jo said, as if reading Sam’s thoughts about the missing piece of paper.

The paper, a scrap from a DNA test, indicated that their fellow officer and trusted friend Tyler was related to Lucas Thorne. The paper wasn’t in the crime scene photos because Sam and Jo had taken it. And that wasn’t the only thing they’d tampered with before the rest of the police arrived, which was why this investigation could become an even bigger problem.

Sam glanced back at the door to his office. Shadows moving beyond the smoked glass window set in the top portion of the antique golden-oak door indicated activity in the squad room.

Sam lowered his voice. “Maybe he wasn’t.”

“But those DNA results. There’s no denying those,” Jo whispered. “I would’ve bet my paycheck that Tyler was one of the good guys too.”

Sam looked down at her and nodded. After Tyler had died, they’d done everything to protect his memory. They’d investigated the case in their spare time even though the state police had taken over and forbidden them from taking part in the investigation. Jo had even forged an entry in Tyler’s logbook to make it appear as though he’d done everything by the book. But still, from the very beginning, something had been off. “It kind of makes sense now. We knew someone was feeding information to Thorne. That’s why all our surprise busts didn’t pan out.”

“Especially the last one at the river. But Tyler was already dead. Who was feeding him information then?”

Sam shrugged. “I suspect Thorne simply felt things were too hot around here with the mayor’s death just days before and called off the drop.” They’d been tipped that Thorne was moving drugs out of state using a small river in a remote location. But a two-day stakeout at the most likely spot had yielded nothing. Sam figured Thorne had realized it was too risky to make a move so close to Dupont’s murder.

“Probably. So how do we catch him? We’ve been over the crime scene countless times. We’ve scoured Dupont’s house and his office.”

Sam walked to the tall windows in his office and looked out at the quaint New England town, past the green of the commons and toward the brick building where Harley Dupont used to preside as mayor. Lucy, the German shepherd mix police dog, lay in a pool of early-morning sunshine on the honey-gold oak floor. She glanced up with one whiskey-brown eye then, upon deciding there was nothing of interest going on, snapped it shut and went back to sleep. “I just hope we’re doing the right thing.”

“We haven’t done anything yet.” Jo tapped the end of her pencil on her notepad. “Well, hardly anything. I mean, we did what we did for the right reasons.”

The tense tone of her voice indicated she felt the same apprehension that Sam did about tampering with crime scenes. He reminded himself they were doing this for the right reasons. They were the good guys. But the way things had gone down with Dupont made Sam think Thorne might have seen an opportunity to silence the mayor and frame Sam for it.

Sam walked back to the corkboard, keeping his voice low. Only he and Jo knew what the crime scene had really looked like in that mill, and he wanted to keep it that way. “We have our work cut out for us, but finding the killer could lead us to Thorne.”

“Whoever did this must be a close associate of Thorne’s. If we can nail him for the murder, maybe we can convince him to give us evidence on Thorne’s other activities.” Jo glanced up at him. “I just hope a full investigation won’t uncover some things better left covered.”

“That’s why I did a little rearranging.” Sam cocked his head and looked at the photo of the gun next to the mayor, almost exactly as it would be positioned if he’d shot himself. Almost. “Gives us the opportunity to rule it a suicide.” Sam didn’t like the idea of not conducting the full investigation. He was all about justice. But in this case, what could come out in the investigation might not serve justice. Maybe Thorne had rigged things this way on purpose.

Still, he was having regrets about moving the gun. Tampering with crime scenes wasn’t the norm for him. He had integrity. Principles. But sometimes you had to do what you had to do in order to get to the truth.

“Seems risky. What about the medical examiner and Kevin? We won’t be the only ones looking at this case.”

“John hasn’t written up his report yet. He hasn’t said one way or the other whether he thinks it’s suicide or homicide. And Kevin, well, I think he seems on board with ruling it a suicide.”

“How do you know that?”

“He indicated that when we were on the stakeout.” Sam had been surprised that their part-time officer, Kevin Deckard, had apparently been well aware that Thorne might be setting them up. Kevin had come a long way in the few months since Tyler’s death. Sam hadn’t been so sure of his loyalties earlier in the summer, but he’d stepped up big time and gone above and beyond on the stakeout. Sam hadn’t taken him into his confidence about what he’d done at the crime scene, though. The only one he trusted with that was Jo.

A knock sounded on the door. Sam shot a warning look at Jo, not that it was necessary.

“Come in,” Sam said.

The door opened, and Kevin Deckard and Wyatt Davis came in. Kevin clutched a white bag of doughnuts from the local coffee shop, Brewed Awakening, in his hand.

“Hey, Chief. I’ve shown Wyatt the ropes.” Kevin raised the bag. “Including the important parts, like where Brewed Awakening is.”

“Thanks for coming in early, Wyatt.” Wyatt wasn’t supposed to start for two weeks, but given everything taking place with the investigation, they’d called him in to start that morning.

“No problem,” Wyatt said. He looked at ease in his uniform. Proud to wear it. Maybe a little too proud. If he had an overly developed sense of his own authority, Sam would have to deal with that later. It wasn’t as if applicants for this police job way up in the middle of nowhere were knocking down his door. Wyatt’s had been the most qualified of the few resumes that had crossed his desk.

Kevin gave the bag to Jo. She peered inside and pulled out a jelly doughnut then passed the bag to Sam.

The crinkling of the bag woke Lucy. She trotted over next to Sam and gazed up at him with hopeful eyes.

“Not today, buddy. These aren’t good for you.” Sam bit into a cruller and passed the bag to Wyatt.

“Any new ideas?” Kevin’s eyes drifted to the corkboard. “I brought Wyatt up to speed on what we have so far.”

Wyatt stepped in front of the board. “I hear the mayor wasn’t well liked around here,” he said without turning to face them, still studying the gruesome photos.

“Not really,” Sam said. “He made upholding the law difficult for us.”

“There was a reason. He was in deep with Thorne.” Jo wiped a blob of jelly off her shirt.

“He wasn’t a nice guy, either.” Kevin put the doughnut bag on Sam’s desk and bent down to pet Lucy. “If he had his way, we wouldn’t have Lucy here as our K-9.”

Wyatt turned, his dark eyes narrowed on the dog. “Animal hater?”

“Yep,” Jo said.

“Probably made a lot of enemies,” Wyatt said.

“No doubt.” Sam leaned a hip against his desk and looked back at the photos. “Dupont had set up a meeting with Jo and me that night. He was going to hand us evidence we could use against Lucas Thorne. But when we got there, he was already dead. Dupont must have been getting nervous about what he had gotten himself into. Either he couldn’t see any way out and took his own life, or Thorne got wind he was going to talk and took it for him.”

Wyatt’s eyes flicked to the photos. “You think it could be suicide?”

“Possibly. The gun was at the scene and in the right position,” Sam said.

Wyatt cocked his head to look at a photo from a different angle, doubt seeping into his expression.

“If he was murdered, leaving the gun doesn’t make any sense,” Jo said. “Unless the killer had a reason.”

“Like what?” Wyatt asked.

“To frame Sam or Jo.” Kevin’s words surprised Sam. Apparently, Kevin was much more insightful than Sam had thought.

“That would serve two purposes,” Jo said. “Avoid being prosecuted himself and put someone in place here at the police station that he can control.”

Wyatt nodded and reached down to pet Lucy, his face relaxing into a smile as his hands touched her tan-and-black fur. Her tail swished on the floor. Sam’s estimation of Wyatt went up a notch. Anyone who liked dogs was okay in his book.

Wyatt looked back up at them. “So, how do we prove it was him?”