Faces of Evil [4] Rage Read Free Page A

called this address home. Outside that gruesome yellow line a host of cops had surrounded an emotionally distraught man and were struggling to get him into the passenger seat of a sedan.
    “That must be him.” He looked vaguely familiar, but Jess still couldn’t say for sure if she’d met him.
    “Yeah. Damn.” Lori shook her head. “Looks like he’s lost it.”
    Jess grimaced at the emotionally charged scene. “Who wouldn’t?” She steeled herself in preparation for what was to come. No matter how experienced the investigator, when murder hit this close to home—a fellow cop—it was difficult to take in stride.
    “You see any sign of the coroner’s wagon?” Between the cruisers and all the other vehicles crowding the street, not to mention what looked like a brigade of cops and no shortage of neighbors, it was difficult to see beyond the driveway.
    Lori guided her Mustang as far to one side as possible considering the middle of the street was about all that was left in the way of unoccupied pavement and shut off the engine. “It’s the van right behind that Camry riding my bumper.”
    Jess craned her neck to see. There appeared to be a male passenger but, with the sun glinting on the other side of the windshield, she couldn’t see the driver. Opting to jerk to a stop in the middle of the street, whoever was at the wheel of the van didn’t seem to care if more of a bottleneck was created.
    Jess climbed out of the low-slung Mustang. Instantly the heat crushed around her. The humid air was as thick as molasses. Last night’s storm had ensured a sweltering morning and that little or no viable evidence would be found outside the home.
    With one more glance behind her, she checked to see if the ME had climbed out of the van yet. She probably wouldn’t be lucky enough to get Schrader again. For all she knew Dr. Harlan Schrader could be on his way to the job offer at the Mayo Clinic by now. They’d worked a case together last week and not having to go through that awkward first time business again so soon would be nice.
    The driver’s side door of the van opened and a female emerged. Shoulder-length brown hair, pale complexion. No one Jess had met so far, that she recalled anyway. The woman wore a lavender wrap dress with matching strappy stilettoes. Her sophisticated—scratch that—arrogant body language confirmed they had not met. Jess was one hundred percent certain she would remember that cocky stride, not to mention the haughty tilt of the woman’s chin.
    “This should be interesting,” Lori murmured as she moved up to the front of the Mustang, where Jess waited.
    “What’s that?” At the scene perimeter, Jess showed her badge to the uniform.
    “That’s the associate coroner, Dr. Sylvia Baron. She’s the lieutenant’s ex-wife.” Lori ducked under the crime scene tape and Jess followed. “She’s a little pushy. No one likes getting stuck on a case with her.”
    Pushy or not, sounded like a conflict of interest to Jess.
    An older man had gotten out on the passenger side of the van and joined the woman’s purposeful movement toward the house as Jess and Lori made their way up the sidewalk. He looked vaguely familiar. Sixty maybe. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Blond and tanned. All he needed was a diamond stud in one ear and he’d have the whole Harrison Ford thing going on.
    At the front door she and Lori stopped long enough to drag on shoe covers and gloves. “Who’s the man with her?”
    “That’s Dr. Leeds.”
    That was Martin Leeds, the Jefferson County chief coroner? Jess really had to find some time to get to know the various chains of command in Birmingham. She was woefully uninformed. In her own defense, she’d held the position for only two weeks and she’d been embroiled in murder and mayhem all fourteen or so of those days. Well, maybe she’d had a small break here and there. The unbidden memory of steamy, stolen hours spent between the sheets with Daniel Burnett the weekend