Her Sister's Keeper. Julia Penney

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ lamp he could just make out the figure on the floor. He moved in closer to examine the body of a young woman with dark, shoulder-length hair, fully dressed in gray slacks and a white linen shirt. She lay curled on her side as if she’d lain down there to sleep, but her eyes were half open, gazing into infinity the way the eyes of the dead sometimes did. One hand was reaching out as if to gather up the small beaded purse that had fallen to the floor beside her. Kent squatted on his heels, looking for jewelry on her person and remembering with a stab of pain how they’d tried to take Susan’s wedding band and engagement ring. How they’d nearly torn her finger off, trying to remove them…

      The memory caused his stomach to twist. After five years he still wasn’t used to this routine. He hoped to God he never got used to it. This young woman was still sporting three rings and a necklace, and he mentally ruled out robbery as a motive. He shook his head, rose to his feet and resumed scanning the room. No sign of a struggle. Nothing appeared to be out of place. He looked closer at the victim, seeing no evidence she had been restrained or physically abused. Kent jumped as a hulking figure lurched up from the other side of the bed. “Shit, T. Ray, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” T. Ray Boone laughed as he rose, and as Kent willed his heart to slow its beating, he found himself wondering how he had not seen T. Ray on the other side of the bed. The medical examiner’s bulk was not easy to miss.

      “Sorry ’bout that,” T. Ray said, his Southern accent as deep and mellow as the tupelo honey produced by his native Mississippi.

      By this time, Murphy had rejoined Kent. “What do you have, T.? Anything new?” she asked.

      T. Ray consulted the clipboard in his latex-gloved hands. “Tell you what, y’all just change the name and location and it’s the same as that lady you dragged into my carving room this morning.”

      “Not quite,” Murphy said. “According to the desk clerk, when this one checked into the hotel last evening, she was carrying an infant. The night auditor had a guest call down to complain about a baby crying shortly after midnight. Obviously, the baby is now missing.” T. Ray shook his head. “Well, I can’t speak for that, but what we have here is a female, Caucasian, age twenty-three to twenty-six, dark hair and eyes. Dead at least twelve hours, which puts time of death right around midnight. I’m going with dehydration and possible acute organ failure as a cause of death, which screams poison to me, same as that other one, but that could change with the autopsy. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find something in the blood chemistry, but I gotta warn you guys…” T. Ray’s brown eyes took on a somber look. “If this does turn out to be some kind of viral thing, you might not want to be gettin’ too close without a haz-mat suit.”

      “Thanks for the belated warning,” Kent commented. “Did you find any evidence of viral or bacterial infection in the other woman?”

      T. Ray shook his head. “Nope, I didn’t, except for the secondary pneumonia. No reason why that young thing should’ve gotten so critically sick and died all alone at night. No reason at all for her vital organs to just shut down, that I could find. That’s why I’m thinkin’ poison.”

      “But no evidence of foul play?”

      “None. Blood was clean, body was clean. If it was poison, I don’t know what the hell it was, but give me five minutes with this one in the morgue and I can tell y’all whether it’s the same as the other,” T. Ray said.

      Kent glanced around. A pacifier lay on the floor near the body. A baby blanket was draped over the desk chair. And a baby bottle half-full of milk was on the side table. “What the hell happened to the baby?” he muttered to himself.

      “That,” Murphy responded, “is something we’re trying to find out as soon as possible. We’re hoping the infant is with its mother, but we can’t locate Ariel Moore to confirm that.” Murphy’s cell phone rang, and she turned away to answer it.

      Kent didn’t bother to listen in. He was far more interested in gathering as much information, tangible and intangible, from the scene as possible. The two deaths bore too many similarities not to be connected. If T. Ray suspected poisoning, that meant someone had killed them. He knew the sooner he could start building a behavioral profile of the killer, the faster they could capture whoever was doing this and, hopefully, prevent more killings.

      Members of the crime lab were entering the room in a steady stream, dusting for prints, shooting photos and hunting for any trace evidence the killer may have left behind. Soon, Kent knew, he would be perceived as in the way. Even in a state where people routinely took their pets to animal psychics, Kent’s particular contributions to the efforts of law enforcement were not always appreciated. Not everyone in the LAPD had reacted with enthusiasm to the addition of a forensic psychologist. Kent had been surprised and flattered when Murphy had stepped forward and requested he be assigned full-time to her department and, after a grueling six-month stint at the FBI facility at Quantico, given the official designation of a homicide detective to quell the growing departmental dissent. It was a move neither had ever had reason to regret.

      He saw Murphy was off her cell phone and walked over to her. Knowing that her take on things was oftentimes dramatically different from his own, he wanted her initial reactions to the scene. Kent’s back was to the door and before he could ask the captain his first question, he saw Murphy glance over his shoulder and a look of irritation flash across her face.

      “What’s she doing in here? This is a crime scene, not a sideshow.”

      Kent turned and saw Melanie Harris standing just inside the suite’s bedroom door. It looked like he had caught her in midwave; her hand was raised but something had diverted her attention, leaving the elegant fingers floating in midair. Even as he turned toward her, he could see her eyes widening in shock. She took a sudden step backward, stumbled on the threshold and would have fallen if Kent hadn’t moved as quickly as he did.

      It had been seven years since Kent had held a woman in his arms the way he was holding Melanie now. He carried the protesting woman from the room, vaguely aware of the wall of badges parting to allow him passage and Murphy’s angry voice demanding to know how a civilian had gotten access to the crime scene.

      “Please, put me down, Dr. Mattson. I’ll be all right,” Melanie protested as he carried her into the adjacent bedroom. Kent set her down near the bed, aware that Murphy was right behind him.

      “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said.

      “Go scope out that room, Kent,” Murphy interrupted before Melanie could respond. “T. Ray wants to bag the body and get started on the autopsy. I’ll get the paramedics to check her out.”

      Kent took advantage of Murphy’s orders and fled the room, Melanie’s distress affecting him more than he liked.

      “The pretty lady okay, Doc?” T. Ray’s crooning drawl greeted Kent as he reentered the crime scene.

      T. Ray was standing beside the bed, alternately staring down at the body and then scribbling in his notebook. “She’ll be fine,” Kent responded, pulling on the latex gloves Murphy had handed him in the elevator, and wondering if the same could be said of him.

      “’Course she will, my man. You caught her before she could hit the floor. Smooth moves for a Beverly Hills shrink.” T. Ray lowered his pen and projected a solemn, patronizing air. “Look, I’m real glad you took my advice about getting back into the social scene, but if this is your first date, y’all could be in big СКАЧАТЬ