Corin & Angelique (After the Fall of Night) Read Free Page A

know, Sheriff,” Angelique spoke for him. “He’s not—”
    “No, it’s okay, Angel,” Tomes cut her off. “I want to know who did this.”
    “That’s what we’re trying to determine. Can you tell me what happened, what led you out here?” Pierson opened his notepad, pen in hand.
    “A scream woke me…Louisa’s scream. I noticed she was gone and rushed out to find her, meeting up with Angel in the hall. We hurried outside to look for her and found her here.”
    “Ms. Jaffler stated you were the one who found her body…that you were sure the scream had come from this direction.”
    “That’s right. I knew the sound had carried from the road, so naturally, that’s the direction I headed. When I saw her clip, from her hair, I ran on up the drive and started this way. I was just about to turn back, thinking I’d gone too far, when I noticed her nightgown near the tree line.”
    “Just one scream?” the sheriff confirmed.
    “Yes,” Angelique spoke out. “Only one scream.”
    Sheriff Pierson had no cause to consider Tomes Jaffler a suspect, but the fact that he seemed to know right where to find the body, so far from the house, bothered him.
    “We were too late,” Tomes mumbled. “Just too late. She was already dead when I found her.”
    “Can’t this wait till morning, Sheriff?” Angelique took a protective stand for her brother. “Can’t you see he’s not up for this right now? He’s going through hell. If you don’t mind, I really need to get him to the house.”
    “It can wait,” the sheriff agreed. He asked the paramedics to escort the Jafflers to the farmhouse. He understood that they needed some time to absorb the shock and collect themselves, especially Tomes. This had to be a nightmare for him.
    “I’m not going anywhere,” Tomes stated. “I’m not leaving her.”
    “She’s gone, Tomes, and we need to let the police do their jobs,” Angelique urged.
    “I’m staying. I need answers, who did this, and why.” Tomes held his position and remained on the scene until they took his wife’s body away almost two hours later.
    Bringing his thoughts back to the present, Sheriff Pierson leaned back in his chair and groaned, stumped by the whole ordeal. He scanned the medical examiner’s report, stopping where it mentioned a chemical imbalance in the blood with unusual cell activity.
    Strange. An illness wasn’t mentioned.
    His gaze then fell on the words chronically anemic —another mystery in itself—with no visible injuries to account for the substantial blood loss. The only marks found on the victim’s body were two, three to four millimeter puncture wounds on the left side of her neck. Dr. Berg had suggested needle insertions caused the marks, perhaps used to draw blood from the body, but Sheriff Pierson needed more than just speculation. He observed a notation the doctor had made in the margin: “inconclusive pending forensic analysis.”
    The sheriff knew Forensics had taken specimens of the surrounding tissue, but waiting on them could take longer than watching ice melt in the Arctic, he wouldn’t hold his breath. The whole process dragged out even more with the shuffling of paperwork between the crime lab and the investigative offices. He just hoped that when the results did arrive, he would have a little more than supposition to go on.
    Just one scream. He thought back to the Jaffler’s claim of having heard a single scream. People had different reactions to fear, but he couldn’t help question why, in a moment of terror, she’d cried out only once. However, he did have a hypothesis, which had led him to prompt Dr. Berg to check for any sign of head injury or chloroform use, thinking the killer might have knocked her out by striking her over the head or by administering an anesthetic to sedate her. He’d hoped something might come of his conjecture, but according to the report sitting in front of him, the doctor had found no sign of head trauma or traces of chemical