Gator Aide Read Free Page A

that the paint was still sticky and turned out to be blood. A tight knot of cops from N.O.P.D. were clustered about the body as if to keep the rest of us out. While I wasn’t sure I was that anxious to look, I found I couldn’t stop myself from trying to gawk over the bruisers in front, until one body got tired of my jabbing and turned around. Embarrassed at my New York aggressiveness, I flashed my ID as I backed up.
    “Rachel Porter. Fish and Wildlife Service. I received a call to report here.”
    At five-eight, I consider myself tall, but the face that peered down at me stood a good five inches taller. A thick tangle of curly black hair held droplets of rain from outside, while a pair of deep-set, dark eyes tried to focus on the badge I held too close to his face. Taking it from me, the man examined my shield. He had a strange face when examined part by part. A long, sharp nose that could have passed for a beak led down to lips tinged around the corners with disappointment at a life that had turned out differently than planned. Deep-set eyes didn’t stare so much as penetrate, with all the intensity of a laser beam focused in my direction. The lines engraved in his face looked as if they could have been etched there with acid, affirming that the wear and tear of life as a cop had more than taken its toll. Dark and brooding, he reminded me of a hawk in search of a kill. As he handed back my ID, I realized he’d been analyzing me just as closely as I had him. I felt myself fluster under his stare as I grabbed the badge out of his hand.
    “Well, Rachel Porter, if you’re that anxious to grab a peek, don’t let me stop you,
chère
.”
    I’d run into a lot of that down here. Women were never referred to by their proper names, but were instead called honey, sugar, sweetheart, darling, and
chère
. At first I’d been determined to put a stop to all that. After six months, I’d pretty well given up.
    “So now that you know who I am, who are you?”
    He silently handed over his own ID. Jake Santou. Homicide, N.O.P.D. A cop pulled away from the inner circle, and I instinctively squeezed in to grab a glimpse of the body. I was sorry I did. Lying nude on her back was a girl of about twenty-five. But then again, it was hard to tell. Her body and face had been slashed hundreds of times, making it seem as if she had been bounced off a spider’s web which had left its imprint in a myriad of fine lines. A mass of dark hair lay splayed about her head, giving her the look of a porcelain doll that had been broken and discarded. Her stark white skin, the color of fine bone china, was set in a mushrooming pool of blood as the cream-colored carpet beneath slowly turned a deep shade of crimson. An investigator busied himself dusting doorknobs, bedposts, and bureaus for any stray fingerprints, the cloud of fine dust floating through the air, descending onto the chalky whiteness of her skin and scattering a flaky cloud of dandruff throughout her hair. Glancing down at my feet to escape the surprised look of death in her eyes, I saw that the soles of my shoes were drenched in her blood. The man next to me chuckled, elbowing his companion, as I pulled back in horror and peered at the circle of faces around me. Impassive in their reactions, they had seen it all before. I backed out of the circle, grateful when somebody else moved in to take my place, hiding the bloody mess on the floor from my sight. As I walked away from the body, the soles of my shoes left a trail on the cream-colored carpet, the girl I’d just viewed following along in blood as well as spirit. Leaning against the post of her bed, I turned away from the scene, thankful that I hadn’t yet eaten as my stomach took a dive. Santou appeared behind me.
    “That’s Valerie Vaughn. She was a topless dancer who worked a club over on Bourbon. But that’s not what you were called in for. That’s over here.”
    Santou guided me past a maze of bodies, over to the doorway of the