Memoria Read Free Page A

happen.
    She had a tie wrapped around her throat — her own gift to Frank before he'd left for Washington. The pale skin under the tie showed a thin blue stripe.
    She'd been strangled.
    When? Why? By whom?
    Something rustled behind his back. Frank turned round. Mrs. Fletcher stood in the doorway, the cable remote in hand, squinting nearsightedly. After a second, her eyes widened filling with terror.
    She must have thought she'd understood — but she misunderstood when she saw Kathleen's body and the red spots on Frank's shirt and the bedclothes. She must have thought it was blood, but what difference did it make now? Frank lifted his hand, and his wine-spotted fingers trembled, betraying his desperation. He opened his mouth and looked at Kathleen. No difference whatsoever. She was dead for good.
    When he turned back, Mrs. Fletcher was already gone. Hollering on top of her shaky voice, she shuffled along the corridor, hurrying away.
    Frank collapsed on the edge of the bed, lifted the radiophone off the bedside table and dialed 911.

Chapter Two . The Men in Black
     
    D etective Ed Freeman slid three fingers underneath his belt and studied the suspect's face. The man sat in the interrogation room. A soundproof mirror, half the wall wide, separated him from the detective in the observation room.
    A man 's face could tell Freeman a lot. A heavy forehead in combination with pronounced brow bones and a square chin betrayed violent tendencies and high aggression levels. Small mouths, thin lips and narrow, close-set eyes betrayed stealthy type s prone to sexual abuse. But the man in front of the detective didn't seem to fit the typical mold.
    Women had to find his oval face attractive with its high square cheekbones, a straight nose, light-green eyes and dark hair. The man was a couple of inches shorter than Freeman who used to pump iron when he was younger and therefore looked slightly bigger with wider shoulders.
    Frank Shelby sat at the desk in the interrogation room staring straig ht in front. He wore a crinkled navy raincoat over a red-stained shirt: Freeman could easily tell that the stains weren't blood. The man was facing a camera. The chair opposite him stood empty.
    It had been a while since Ed Freeman had rested his fat butt on the chair's polished seat. It had been a ges since he'd last heard the familiar claims, "I didn't kill!" and "I want to call my lawyer!" that greeted him whenever he entered the interrogation room. They were usually accompanied by tears and bail pleas, by assurances that they didn't remember anything, that the whole thing was nothin g but an enormous mistake . Then they all begged him not to call for a Memoria tech, hoping he'd give the memory scan a miss.
    That had been a long time ago. No murders had been committed in New York for a long time. The corporation's methods had proven efficient enough, and the number of capital offences had gradually dwindled to nothing. Still, the city's police force remained the biggest in the country. It had to be: the Bronx's migrant camp still housed almost three hundred thousand people. And migrants, they don't feel obliged to visit Memoria. They keep their thoughts to themselves.
    The door of the observation room opened, letting in the gray mane of Bud Jessup, the chief of the police department. Without saying a word, he slid inside, handed the detective a file and glanced through the mirrored glass.
    "Has the victim's identity been established?" Freeman asked as he leafed through the paperwork.
    "They're busy with it now."
    "Why didn't she wear the bracelet? How on earth did she manage to take it off?"
    "As if I don't want to know!" Jessup leaned over the control panel next to the glass wall and studied the suspect. "I'm afraid you've got your job cut out for you, Ed. It's not an easy case. Not an easy suspect."
    Freeman looked up from the file.
    "And don't look at me like that," Jessup stood up. "I know better than you do that there's no fucking murder