Predator. Faye Kellerman

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       CHAPTER FOUR

      Marge could almost remember a time when one in the morning meant being asleep. For the last twenty years as a homicide cop, one in the morning meant a phone call directing her to a crime scene, some of them more grisly than others but all of them horrendous. At present, she and Oliver were gathering forensic evidence. Amid the mess and the outrage, there were a few directional arrows that pointed to what went down. When she spotted something shiny winking from a pile of feces, she had a good idea what it was. But that didn’t make the task any more pleasant.

      “I don’t really have to do this, do I?” Marge’s question to Oliver was not rhetorical. “I outrank you.”

      “But you also love me,” Oliver said.

      “Not that much.”

      Silence. “Flip a coin?” Oliver suggested.

      Marge pulled a quarter from her purse, tossed it in the air, and caught it. “Call.”

      “Heads.”

      She slapped the coin on the underside of her arm and took away her hand. George Washington was staring up at her. “I’m going to cry now.”

      Oliver pretended not to hear, making busy by trying to find a weapon that matched the depression in the victim’s head. Since the coroner’s office had removed the body, he was left with only photographs of the wound. It seemed to be more round than ovoid, about an inch to an inch and a half in diameter. Oliver’s first choice was a hammer. He was attempting to locate a toolbox or a tool drawer.

      Cursing her luck, Marge bent down. The smell was atrocious. She wrinkled her nose, and then stuck two gloved fingers into a squishy mound of tiger poop. Extracting the metal, she regarded the slime-coated hunk of steel. “A twenty-two. At least I found something valuable to offset the gross factor. Can you give me a bag, please?”

      “Just because you said please.” He handed her an evidence bag. “I guess the logical question was how did a bullet get inside the mound of shit? It doesn’t seem like something an animal would normally eat.”

      “Yeah, Decker and I were wondering about why the victim was shot but not the tiger. At least, I don’t think the tiger was shot. We were also thinking about how someone got around the tiger to get to the victim.”

      “What’d you come up with?”

      “The tiger was drugged by a piece of tainted meat. The tiger knew the perpetrator and didn’t view him—or her—as a threat. The tiger was chained up, so the perp could move in and out without being attacked. Or the tiger was shot, and in all the commotion, no one saw a bullet hole. Let me know if you can think of anything else. I’ll call Agent Wilner in the morning and find out the status of the big girl.”

      “Where does one take a stray tiger? Last I heard there was no pound for big cats.”

      “There are a few sanctuaries for wild animals. I seem to recall some kind of nonprofit wild animal shelter when I worked in Foothill—around two decades ago, so I don’t even know if it still exists.” Marge dropped the bullet in the bag. “We’ve got a problem.”

      “Talk to me.”

      “If we already found one bullet in poop, is there other important evidence in poop that we’re choosing to overlook?”

      Oliver glared at Marge. He said, “Why don’t we just bag it all and give it to SID?”

      “Why don’t I take these two massive piles and you take that one and that one?”

      “You can’t assign a rookie to this one?”

      “My X-ray eyes are scanning the room as we speak.” Marge turned her head to the left and to the right. “Only you and me, bud.”

      “I don’t see why I have to do this.”

      Marge said, “In case you didn’t get it the first time. I take these, you take those.”

      “How about if I canvass the neighborhood and Wanda gets her hands dirty.”

      “How about we get this over with ASAP? This is reality, not a reality show, and I don’t have all night. Actually, I do have all night, but I don’t want to use up all night.”

      Reluctantly Oliver bent down in front of the first pile of feces. “What I don’t do to earn a paycheck.”

      “At least you’ve got a job.”

      “This is disgusting.”

      “True, but irrelevant. Just go for it. Today is the first day of the rest of your life, blah, blah, blah.”

      He plunged his hand into the pile and groaned. “Frankly, Dunn, I prefer the past to present. I was younger, I had dark hair, and I had yet to pay a cent of alimony.”

      Rina was an early riser, but Gabe must have gotten up with the sun. “How are you feeling?”

      “Okay.” He ran his hand over his downy scalp. His hair was beginning to grow in. It was a few days away from looking like a buzz cut. “Want some coffee? Machine’s all set, but I didn’t want to turn on the pot until you were up. Stale coffee sucks.”

      “That’s considerate of you. I’d love some coffee. How long have you been up?”

      “About an hour.”

      “Couldn’t sleep?”

      “I slept a little. I’m all right.”

      “Nervous?”

      “Yeah, a little.”

      “You did terrific yesterday.”

      “No one was hammering away at me. I’m sure today will be different. It’s okay. Whatever happens … I mean what can I do about it?”

      Rina took down СКАЧАТЬ