Chap­ter 22 of We Solve Mur­ders inten­si­fies the inves­ti­ga­tion as Rosie and Amy are once again thrust into a grue­some sit­u­a­tion. This time, they find them­selves con­front­ed with the life­less body of Justin Scrog­gie, whose death fur­ther com­pli­cates the already dan­ger­ous web they are tan­gled in. Amy, unde­terred by the shock of dis­cov­er­ing yet anoth­er mur­der, focus­es intent­ly on get­ting access to Scroggie’s locked com­put­er. Despite Rosie’s con­cerns that they might be over­step­ping their bounds by deal­ing with the body in such a casu­al man­ner, Amy insists they pro­ceed with cut­ting down the corpse, ful­ly aware that they need to access the com­put­er for answers.

Rosie, ever the reluc­tant par­tic­i­pant, begrudg­ing­ly fol­lows Amy’s orders. She grabs a cer­e­mo­ni­al sword to sev­er the rope, which holds Scrog­gie’s body in place, and with a swift motion, the body crash­es to the floor. The two women imme­di­ate­ly start try­ing to move the dead weight onto an office chair, strug­gling more than they had expect­ed. The weight and awk­ward­ness of the task empha­size the absur­di­ty of their sit­u­a­tion, yet they man­age to make light of it, pok­ing fun at their inabil­i­ty to han­dle such an odd task effi­cient­ly. Once they have Scrog­gie seat­ed, Amy demands a make­up wipe to clean his fin­ger, which seems like an odd request under the cir­cum­stances but is inte­gral to their next plan.

Rosie pulls out an expen­sive clar­i­fy­ing wipe, proud­ly claim­ing it was sourced from Tibet, as though this makes it more fit­ting for the gris­ly task at hand. Amy cleans the blood from Scroggie’s index fin­ger, prepar­ing to use it for the fin­ger­print scan­ner, which seems like a good idea to unlock the com­put­er. How­ev­er, much to their dis­ap­point­ment, the com­put­er rejects the fin­ger­print, leav­ing Amy frus­trat­ed and ques­tion­ing what else they might try. Rosie, ever the prac­ti­cal one, points out that her device requires iris recog­ni­tion, jok­ing about how her “high-main­te­nance nails” pre­vent her from using a basic fin­ger­print scan. This brings a moment of lev­i­ty to the tense scene, though it also reveals just how many obsta­cles they face in their pur­suit of answers.

Unde­terred by the set­back, they turn their atten­tion to anoth­er prob­lem: get­ting Scrog­gie’s swollen eye­lids open so that they can use the eyes for the cam­er­a’s recog­ni­tion sys­tem. This proves to be anoth­er dif­fi­cult task, but Rosie takes charge, care­ful­ly pry­ing open the eye­lids with deter­mi­na­tion. Once suc­cess­ful, they final­ly posi­tion the body in front of the cam­era in the hopes of cap­tur­ing the nec­es­sary data. This painstak­ing effort pays off when the com­put­er final­ly acti­vates, indi­cat­ing that their hard work and col­lab­o­ra­tion were not in vain. Amy and Rosie share a moment of accom­plish­ment, despite the sur­re­al nature of what they’ve just achieved. It’s a strange sense of vic­to­ry, but in the world of crime-solv­ing, these small tri­umphs mat­ter.

As they cel­e­brate their unlike­ly suc­cess, Rosie can’t help but make a sar­don­ic remark, “Team­work makes the dream work,” draw­ing a com­par­i­son between their efforts and a more mun­dane work­place achieve­ment. This wit­ty quip high­lights the bond they’ve built through shared expe­ri­ences, no mat­ter how dark or bizarre the cir­cum­stances may be. The chap­ter under­scores not just the urgency of their inves­ti­ga­tion but also the strong con­nec­tion between Amy and Rosie as they nav­i­gate these com­plex and dan­ger­ous waters. Despite the absur­di­ty of han­dling a dead body and using its body parts to unlock a com­put­er, the women’s team­work shines through as they man­age to pull off some­thing most peo­ple would con­sid­er unthink­able.

While the inves­ti­ga­tion takes a seri­ous and dan­ger­ous turn, the light­heart­ed ban­ter between Amy and Rosie pro­vides much-need­ed relief. The dark humor in their dynam­ic helps to bal­ance the high stakes of the case they are try­ing to solve. As the chap­ter draws to a close, it’s clear that the inves­ti­ga­tion has only just begun, and the events sur­round­ing Scroggie’s death are part of a larg­er con­spir­a­cy that’s begin­ning to take shape. Amy’s resolve to solve the mur­ders and bring jus­tice to the vic­tims is unwa­ver­ing, and with Rosie by her side, they form an unlike­ly but for­mi­da­ble team. Their rela­tion­ship, which blends moments of humor with the grav­i­tas of the inves­ti­ga­tion, is cen­tral to the suc­cess of their mis­sion. As they con­tin­ue their work, they must con­front not only the threat of mur­der­ers but also the moral dilem­mas and risks of step­ping deep­er into the under­world they are uncov­er­ing. The chap­ter suc­cess­ful­ly com­bines sus­pense with humor, show­cas­ing the resilience and inge­nu­ity of Amy and Rosie as they tack­le the chal­lenges ahead.