Shallow Graves - Jeremiah Healy Read Free Page A

second?"
    "Nobody. Family just keeps it furnished, case
somebody wants to stay over."
    "The dead girl's family?"
    Holt smiled. "Yeah."
    "You talk with them?"
    " Not much. Just with the uncle. Dani, Vincent."
    The landlord name in the application for the policy.
"How about mother and father?"
    Holt's smile broadened. "I think I'll let you go
for that on your own."
    Swell. "When did all this happen?"
    "Week ago Friday."
    "Time of day?"
    " The call to 911 was 7:45."
    "Quarter to eight on a Friday night in April.
Kind of an odd time for a B&E.
    "Used to be. Now we get them during Thanksgiving
fucking dinner."
    "One of the chunks I'm supposed to catch
wouldn't be any leads you've got?"
 
"No
leads to throw, Cuddy. We got a dead girl and part of a necklace near
the body."
    "Necklace."
    "Fancy fucking thing. Purple stones."
    "Amethyst?"
    "No. The uncle called it 'iolite.' "
    "Never heard of it."
    "Me neither. Looks like the girl maybe surprised
the perp as he's going through the jewelry box. They fight over the
necklace, and it breaks, him getting away with most of it and a
couple of other things the uncle knew she used to have."
    "How do I get the uncle?"
    "Lawyer, downtown firm."
    "Number?"
    "Let your fingers do the walking."
    Okay. "Anything from forensics?"
    "The party animals, they pretty well wrecked the
body position and all trying to bring the girl back to life."
Holt skipped ahead again to a photo envelope. "Here's a couple
of pictures you might like to see."
    He spun them to me like a man dealing poker. Both
were eight-by-tens. The first showed part of a necklace against a
hardwood floor background, peeking out from under the edge of a print
futon couch. A large purple pendant and some purple stones above it,
all set in what looked like gold. The gold appeared to lead to a more
elaborate, but missing, neckpiece. The second photo was of an
Amerasian woman, taken from her feet back up toward the face. The
hair on her head seemed stringy, maybe from being wet. The robe she
was wearing was open, no panties or bra. Her skin tone was golden and
perfectly consistent, no tan lines or blemishes. The only problem was
the abrasions down toward the throat, where a smudgy blue spoiled the
skin. Her eyes were only half-closed, the irises glazed in the giving
over of vision from life to death.
    Holt said, "Notice anything?"
    "The medical examiner say whether these were
cuts on the throat?"
    "Yeah. M.E. thinks the perp had the necklace in
his hand when he choked her. Notice anything else?"
    "No sexual abuse."
    "No."
    Holt sounded impatient, like I was getting colder
rather than warmer. It was hard to tell from the photos, but the
application had listed her eye color.
    I said, "They're the same."
    Holt sat back again and smiled. "Spooky, isn't
it? Her eyes and the necklace there, the same color."
    The telephone company keeps track of all calls, even
local ones, made from any address. "You have her phone records
yet?"
    "They're being sent."
    "Ten days, you don't have them?"
    Holt came forward, reaching across the desk to
reclaim the photos. "What do you think, our boy stopped to call
his momma, see if she needed anything from the store on the way home?
We got no eyewitnesses on the perp and no hope of turning one. We
find somebody dirty with the necklace, he's a done guy. Or, somebody
pops a name at us, gives up the killer, we can lock it in with maybe
a little pressure and a couple of statements. But otherwise, this
one's a dream you can't remember once you wake up."
    "I'd think you'd be showing a little more
enthusiasm for a glamour killing like this."
    "Cuddy, we've logged over fifty homicides in the
city since January one, and we're not into May yet. Used to be, we'd
have maybe a hundred in the whole Commonwealth the whole year.
Enthusiasm's kind of tough to come by, these days."
    Holt tipped back in his chair again. "Besides,
now that you're on this, we can relax and watch you bring it home for
us."
    I thanked him and got up.
He told