Punish the Deed Read Free Page A

victim’s foot. Is it what it seems? Did it simply come to a stop right there? Or is its position trying to tell me something?
    She stood and bent forward to look at the dead woman’s face. It was hard to call it a face any longer. Brutal force had turned her features into raw meat – nose broken, teeth chipped, cheek bones crushed flat, eyes covered in rivers of blood and her skull caved in at several locations. There’s a lot of anger here. Is it personal toward the victim? Or is it unfocused, internalized rage and the victim was just at the wrong place at the wrong time?
    She straightened up, sighed and gave Marguerite the go-ahead to have the body removed. Lucinda moved over to the far end of the kitchen counter. There she spotted a legal pad with the first few pages curved over and back. On the top of the flat section, there were four words printed in caps in the middle of the page: “I WAS LEFT BEHIND.”
    Do those words have anything to do with this crime ? Using the tip of a pen, she eased out and flipped over the bent pages. Across the top binding, she spotted more printing in all caps: “FLEMING.” Must belong to Sharon Fleming. Were both printed by her hand? She flipped through the remaining folded-over pages and saw someone’s notes – presumably the victim’s – sprawled in sloppy cursive racing across the page, ignoring the lines as they went. Dramatically different from the printing but that does not automatically lead to a different author.
    She flipped the pad over and back, looking for any signs of evidence from the crime. She did see clusters of small, dark spots on one edge but they looked more like old splashed coffee than dried blood splatter. When did it get here? How did it get here? Did the victim carry it into the room? Or was it already here and she came into the room to retrieve it when she was attacked? Was that her printing on that page? Or the perpetrator’s. Did he use what was at hand? Or did he bring it in here after the crime? Am I sure it was a male who committed the crime? Most likely, but not definitely.
    The two men in white overalls took pains not to disrupt the crime scene any more than necessary as they lifted the body up off the floor and placed it in an open body bag on the stretcher. Lucinda took a last look at the devastation on the victim’s face then stepped back to allow the men to zip up the bag and roll it away. She closed her eye and still saw the ravaged features. As the image faded, the spark of anger in her chest flamed as hot as extreme heartburn. She pushed a fist into her chest, opened her eye and swallowed deep. She watched as a tech shot photos of the bloody floor where the body used to lay.
    Marguerite turned to Lucinda again. “Lieutenant, I’ve got a blood-spatter expert at the state lab on stand-by. You want me to bring him in for analysis and possible stringing?”
    “I’m not sure if that’s necessary,” Lucinda said. “But then, I’m not sure that it’s not. Better do it to be on the safe side. When the state guy gets here, let the methods he uses be at his discretion. Make sure you bag up the cups on the floor. I’m not sure that they’ll matter either but I’d rather err on the safe side. And that legal pad on the counter? Make sure it gets taken to the lab for fingerprint and body fluid analysis – and try not to damage any of the writing. Matter of fact, you might want to copy it all before you do any testing.”
    Marguerite nodded and got to work bagging the evidence. Lucinda hung back observing the team at work and taking in the details of the scene, hoping that all the pieces would come together into a clear picture that would lead to an arrest.
    Satisfied with the thoroughness of the team’s evidence gathering, Lucinda went to the door at the end of the hall and checked it for any signs of forced entry. Finding none, she moved into the office beside the entrance to inspect the windows. Her cell phone interrupted her.