Anniversary Day Read Free

laser wound, but to keep the insides from escaping. Something had gutted him—some kind of blade, probably—and had pierced his intestines in more than one place.
    That explained the smell.
    The man’s hands were covered in black fluids. If this was his only wound, it had taken him some time to die. And he had been in agony.
    Nyquist stood.
    “Can I see now?” Palmette asked.
    “If you want,” he said, and squelched across the carpet to the front door. He scraped the lower part of his protective gear off, handed it to the officer to bag for a crime scene tech, and got out another suit for a second lower layer of protective gear.
    Then he went back inside, ignoring Palmette, who crouched near the body, her feet exactly where his had been. He raised his eyebrows in surprise. At least she followed some rules. If she followed most, she might actually be a possible for a long-term partner.
    He forgot all about her, though, as he stepped into the next room. It was a kitchen. The walls were legitimately grease-stained, like he expected from the smell. He had no idea how much work—or grease—it took to cover walls like that. Someone had to shut off the walls’ self-cleaning feature or completely overwhelm it.
    At the moment, he voted for overwhelm. Dishes stacked everywhere and all of them filthy. He had no idea how anyone could even live here, let alone cook here.
    No one stood in the kitchen, not that there was a lot of room. It was more of a galley kitchen than a full kitchen. Someone—long ago—had changed this row house’s standard design and cut the kitchen in half; an odd choice, he thought.
    He stepped through the next door and found out why. A full formal dining room stood here and surprisingly, this room was clean. Stairs curved up the side of the room and disappeared into bedrooms above.
    A woman sat at the head of the table, her eyes wide as she looked at him. He got a sense of nervous containment, as if she would jump toward him at any moment. Another woman—this one an officer—sat in a close chair, her hands wrapped around a coffee mug that was still full.
    Smart woman. She hadn’t had anything to drink from the mug, even though it had clearly been offered to her.
    “I’m Bartholomew Nyquist,” he said softly to the woman at the head of the table. “I’m the detective they sent over to talk to you.”
    Normally, he would have introduced himself as the detective in charge of the scene or the crime or the death, but he had a sense that would be the wrong thing to say here.
    The woman, whose skin had an odd blotchiness, bit her lower lip.
    “This is Alvina Ingelow,” the officer said. “She lives here.”
    “Thank you, Officer,” he said in his most gentle tone, not for her sake, but for the woman’s. “Give us a few minutes alone, if you don’t mind.”
    The officer nodded and stood. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.
    Instead, he added, “If you don’t mind waiting outside. I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”
    Meaning he, not Palmette, would talk to her. He hoped the officer understood that. He didn’t want her to talk to anyone other than him. She probably had some early arrival information that he couldn’t get any other way, and he wanted to be the first to hear it.
    He touched a chip on each hand, recording the conversation. But he didn’t tell Alvina Ingelow he was doing that. He didn’t want to scare her. He’d let her know in a while. He’d used this technique before, and while it was dicey legally, the information he got from these interviews usually remained part of the court case.
    “I know you told the officer what happened,” he said, and the woman nodded—a bit too eagerly, he thought. “But I want you to tell me. Take your time. I know this is hard.”
    She shot him a grateful look. The sympathy was calming her. Good, because he thought she was wrapped just a bit too tightly, even for someone who had just discovered a body in her