"Investigate the Murders" quest: is this bugged or just a weird order of operations?

[DialTheDude]

Been trying to diagnose this on my own for some time now, so I figure I may as well turn this to more people.
[Act 3 Quest Spoilers]

So I'm in the midst of the "Get Orin's Netherstone" main quest and a weird thing popped up. I finished the sidequest with Investigator Valeria and they pointed me to follow up the series of murders with Gauntlet Devella in the Elfsong Tavern. I entered there for some business initially but circumstances sidetracked me to follow other quests in the meantime and I didn't end up heading back for a good dozen or so hours.

In that time, I seem to have found all of the murder victims/individuals targeted in the city. I now find my self back at the Tavern and am told by the Fist guards to go up and talk to Devella, who's looking over the crime scene. Only she's not there...

Looking it up, this seems to be a common bug for her to not appear and reloading tends to do the trick, but after booting up a save several times, it's not working. There are documents in the room I can examine, which gives me an updated popup on the quest, but I'm at the point where it's telling me to head for Candulhallow's Tombstones and examining these doesn't seem to change anything in the Journal entry.

Am I missing anything crucial having not talked with Devella, or am I safe to proceed?