Formula for Murder Read Free

up.”
    She trailed slowly behind him dragging her heels, wishing she’d thought to change into her pink sneakers. Style they lacked, but couldn’t be beat for comfort. A minute later Gerald shouted an oath and backed out of the latest lab he’d entered. As she raced to see, he blocked her view.
    “Charlie Abbott’s dead. Appears to be buretted. Call the cops while I block off this area.”
    “Buretted?”
    “Go on now, get away from the door.”
    Kat flipped open her cell and called 911.

 
     
    Chapter 2
     
    The angular formation is characteristic of a strong-minded person—one disinclined to yield. Angular writing, crashing into the right margins, signifies an impulsive, angry person—angry enough to kill?
“Handwriting: a Key to Personality” by Klara Roman
     
    John Lang, a pimply campus cop who’d win the youth award in a line-up of freshmen, arrived first and placed fluorescent yellow crime scene tape across the door. He knew Kat well and answered her questions, but when other police arrived he turned away to greet them and she slipped under the tape and into the lab.
    Her old friend, Richard Burrows, a slightly paunchy detective, spoke quietly with Mark Raub, director of campus security, and she remained close to the door and absorbed the scene.
    A photographer named Frank moved in a clockwise direction, his long dark locks tied with a cord at the back of his neck making him look strangely out of place in a room full of cops. The narrow aisle between lab counters hampered his movements, and he blocked her view of the body, so she made her own mental snapshots of the room. The lab wasn’t quite a shambles, but damage had obviously been done, especially in the vicinity of the body.
    Tonight the scent of chemicals masked the scent of death.
    The lab had a sterile and pristine appearance, despite the body and broken glass. Stools and carts were tucked out of sight and chemicals and glassware lined the cabinets in neat rows along the opposite wall. Raised sinks interspersed with computer terminals, and gas and water knobs adorned huge ventilation hoods to the left of the door.
    Frank moved to the other side of the body and no longer blocked her view. Now she understood what Gerald had said. She had seen bodies before, but the glass rod sticking out of Charlie Abbott’s chest was no accident. She involuntarily gasped, but covered the sound so as not to disturb the police in their measuring, calibrating, logging, and contemplating.
    One body, one death. Signs of a very angry enemy. The shock rippled in concentric circles as she realized the repercussions this would cause in the ranks of the scientific community, in the university, and the town. Cosmopolitan the valley may claim to be, but murder was not on the daily agenda here.
    Kat stared down at Charlie, trying to assimilate, to erect the buffer that police often use to assure sanity in such an insane world. She didn’t much like Charlie, but nobody deserved this. The university generally provided a supportive, caring environment; it was not equipped to suffer the repercussions caused by violent murder. She vowed to help any way she could.
    Charlie’s glasses still sat low on the nose, Ben Franklin style, but the founding father’s characteristic sparkle was missing from Charlie’s eyes. It had never been there. Charlie wasn’t the type to sparkle. His name may have been the most flamboyant part of him—Charlie rather than Charles, probably acquired before his granite nature was honed. She marveled that the glasses sat where they always did, unjarred by the fall, or death. And marveled again that she could think of something so inconsequential with someone she knew lying dead at her feet.
    Detective Burrows shouted over his shoulder, “Hey Frank, what are you doing letting her so close to the body?”
    “She was here first.’”
    Detective Burrows, his normally good-natured face somewhat sallow in the fluorescent light, zeroed in on that. “Did