Chap­ter 19 of We Solve Mur­ders fol­lows Amy and Rosie as they approach an upscale res­i­dence, which Rosie imme­di­ate­ly finds sur­pris­ing. She mus­es about how law enforce­ment offi­cers rarely live in such lux­u­ry, hint­ing at pos­si­ble cor­rup­tion or alter­na­tive sources of income. Amy, how­ev­er, remains more focused on their pri­ma­ry objective—finding evi­dence that could shed light on Sher­iff Justin Scroggie’s inves­ti­ga­tion into Fair­banks’ death. Despite Rosie’s excite­ment at the prospect of snoop­ing, Amy is more cau­tious, espe­cial­ly con­sid­er­ing recent rev­e­la­tions that Kevin may have been paid to kill her. The dan­ger sur­round­ing them has only esca­lat­ed, mak­ing stealth their high­est pri­or­i­ty. Their strat­e­gy is sim­ple: enter the house, search for any­thing use­ful, and leave unde­tect­ed before any­one real­izes they were there.

As they scan the sur­round­ings, Amy the­o­rizes that police offi­cers, espe­cial­ly those with some­thing to hide, might keep impor­tant files or evi­dence at home rather than in their offices. If Scrog­gie had been inves­ti­gat­ing Fair­banks’ death and was silenced before he could reveal crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion, his home might con­tain the miss­ing pieces to the puz­zle. The house appears eeri­ly silent, lead­ing Amy to assume it is empty—a per­fect oppor­tu­ni­ty for them to move. Rosie, always one for bold moves, sug­gests knock­ing on the door and bluff­ing their way inside, but Amy quick­ly dis­miss­es the idea. Instead, she opts for a less con­spic­u­ous route by head­ing around the back. The last thing they need is to alert any neigh­bors or passers­by to their pres­ence.

With­out hes­i­ta­tion, Amy smash­es a win­dow to gain entry, prompt­ing Rosie to quip about her less-than-sub­tle break­ing-and-enter­ing skills. Once inside, the stark con­trast between the house’s pris­tine inte­ri­or and their unlaw­ful pres­ence fills Amy with unease. The mod­ern decor and neat­ly arranged fur­nish­ings sug­gest that Scrog­gie was metic­u­lous, mak­ing it unlike­ly that he would have will­ing­ly left any­thing incrim­i­nat­ing out in the open. Split­ting up to cov­er more ground, Amy hur­ries upstairs while Rosie scours the liv­ing room for any­thing note­wor­thy. Amy search­es through draw­ers, scan­ning for doc­u­ments, elec­tron­ics, or any­thing that might hint at what Scrog­gie was inves­ti­gat­ing. The neat­ness of the space unset­tles her, as it lacks the dis­ar­ray one might expect from some­one caught up in a dan­ger­ous con­spir­a­cy.

Down­stairs, Rosie calls out that she has found some­thing, prompt­ing Amy to rush back. In a den tucked away from the main hall­way, Rosie stands tri­umphant­ly beside a desk­top com­put­er, proud of her dis­cov­ery. Just as Amy starts to inspect it, her atten­tion shifts to an even more dis­turb­ing sight—a body sus­pend­ed from a ceil­ing joist in the cen­ter of the room. The grim real­i­ty sets in imme­di­ate­ly. Sher­iff Justin Scrog­gie is dead, his life­less form bound and hang­ing in a man­ner that makes Amy sus­pect it was not sui­cide but mur­der staged to look like one. A chill­ing real­iza­tion set­tles over them—someone want­ed Scrog­gie silenced, and they might have arrived too late to uncov­er what­ev­er he knew.

Rosie, despite her usu­al quick wit, is momen­tar­i­ly speech­less, the grav­i­ty of the scene sink­ing in. Amy’s instincts kick in as she exam­ines the sit­u­a­tion, not­ing the odd place­ment of the rope and the unnat­ur­al posi­tion­ing of Scroggie’s body. If he had tak­en his own life, there would have been more dis­ar­ray, more signs of strug­gle, but instead, every­thing appears care­ful­ly arranged. Amy sens­es that who­ev­er killed Scrog­gie want­ed it to seem like a sui­cide, dis­cour­ag­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion. The ques­tion is, what had he found that made him a tar­get?

The ten­sion thick­ens as Amy and Rosie debate their next move. They now pos­sess access to his com­put­er, but with a fresh corpse in the room, their pres­ence at the scene puts them in imme­di­ate dan­ger. Rosie, ever the nov­el­ist, makes an offhand­ed remark about how scenes like this unfold in crime fic­tion, though the real­i­ty of stand­ing next to a dead body is far more har­row­ing than any sto­ry. Amy knows they need to act fast—if some­one went to this extent to cov­er their tracks, they might still be watch­ing the house. Get­ting caught here could be dis­as­trous, but leav­ing with­out gath­er­ing evi­dence would waste a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty.

They decide to access the com­put­er as quick­ly as pos­si­ble while keep­ing an eye out for any­thing else that might prove use­ful. Amy won­ders whether Scrog­gie had been try­ing to warn some­one before he was killed, or if he had attempt­ed to pass along cru­cial evi­dence before his death. Regard­less, she real­izes that their inves­ti­ga­tion has tak­en a dan­ger­ous turn—one that will like­ly put them at the top of someone’s list of prob­lems to elim­i­nate. Rosie, shak­ing off the ini­tial shock, steels her­self for what’s to come. The two women are now entan­gled in some­thing much big­ger than they antic­i­pat­ed, and with a dead sher­iff in front of them, the stakes have nev­er been high­er.