Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) Read Free

addition to the unit, a fact he attributed to his unbridled insensitivity and severe lack of social skills.
    His ex-partner, Susan Carmody, an uptight Republican Goldilocks who was more suited to a career with FOX News than a detective squad, seemed to take offense to his occasional remarks about her rear end—which, Republican or not, was quite formidable.
    Blackburn had grown up with four older brothers, in a household where such lapses of decorum were not only encouraged, but served as a measure of your masculinity.
    So could she really blame him?
    Apparently so. Six months after they partnered up, Carmody stopped just short of filing a grievance against him and transfered to Homicide. Rumor had it she was already screwing a White Shirt and was up for promotion. Seemed she had no trouble using the rear end she didn’t want Blackburn making remarks about, but that was neither here nor there.
    Bottom line, the unit was short a body and he was an army of one right now. And when it came down to it, that was just fine by him. That way, he didn’t have to spend every ten seconds wondering whether he was properly navigating the battlefield of political correctness.
    Besides, Blackburn wasn’t here to win a popularity contest. All he wanted to do was work the case and make a collar.
    He looked at the body again. “I can already see this one’s gonna be loads of fun. You got a cigarette on you?”
    “I thought you quit.”
    “A temporary solution to a long-term problem.”
    “Uh-huh,” Kat said. “You know what they say, don’t you?”
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s just an oral fixation.”
    Blackburn grinned. “You speaking from experience?”
    She rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you chew on a carrot or something.”
    “You got a carrot on you?”
    Pendergast shook her head, stifled a smile. “You’re too much, Detective.” Starting back across the courtyard, she said, “I’m gonna go give Hogan a hand.”
    Blackburn watched her go, his eyes fixed on what was, without a doubt, another formidable rear end.
    Careful, big guy.
    Sometimes they bite.
     
    D ETERMINING TIME OF death was a science that Blackburn had no real interest in understanding.
    Oh, he had learned the basics: body temperature, corneal cloudiness, potassium leak rate, parasite infestation, but anything beyond that was a foreign language to him and he’d never been good at geek. All he was interested in was the final determination, and preferred to be spared a detailed road map of how the medical examiner got there.
    Some might say that made him a lousy investigator. And who knows? Maybe they’d be right. But Blackburn had proven more than once that he wasn’t all that concerned with what some might say. He’d cleared enough cases to shut most of them up.
    The assistant M.E. assigned to the case, a chisel-jawed Swede named Mats Hansen, was something of a wiz at pinpointing time of death. He usually proffered a guess right there at the scene that, more often than not, proved to be accurate.
    “So what do you say, Mats? What’s the magic number?”
    Hansen was crouched over the body, staring intently at Janovic’s bloody chest. “This one’s pretty fresh. I’d say two hours, give or take.”
    Blackburn checked his watch. “So . . . what? Around midnight?”
    “Glad to know you can subtract.”
    The world was full of wiseasses.
    “I wouldn’t want to second-guess anybody here, but is it safe to assume he was stabbed to death?”
    “Cardio-respiratory arrest is more likely,” Hansen said, then smiled. “Caused, of course, by the stabbing.”
    Comedians, too.
    “Thanks for the clarification. What kind of weapon are we looking for?”
    Hansen leaned in for a closer look at one of the puncture wounds. “A single-edged blade,” he said. “I’m guessing a steak knife, about half an inch wide. We’ve got six fairly forceful hits to the chest and abdomen. At least two of them pierced the breastbone, probably ruptured the