You Belong to Me Read Free

the dead man, but JD wondered who Lucy was and what it was that she’d know to do.
    Two uniformed officers stood inside the yellow crime-scene tape, shoulder to shoulder. One faced the neighbors, the other the crime scene. Together they were a barrier, blocking the view of the victim as best they could.
    CSU was already here, snapping photographs and processing the scene. Between the cops and CSU, nobody in the waiting crowd could see much of anything now, but JD knew that many of them had seen enough before the scene had been secured.
    The two uniforms pointed to a third cop standing next to Drew Peterson, the leader of the CSU team. The cop was Hopper, JD was informed. The first responder.
    ‘Thanks.’ JD stepped around the two uniforms, steeled for what he’d see. Still he fought a grimace. The victim sat in a chair fixed to the pavement, his body sprawled over a park chess table, his head and face beaten so severely that he was unrecognizable. Who would do that to an old man? Why?
    The victim wore a beige trench coat, buttoned to his neck, belted around the waist. His hands were shoved in his pockets. There didn’t appear to be any blood on his coat or around the chair. The only blood visible was dried on the victim’s face and scalp.
    Officer Hopper approached, a grim determination in his steps. ‘I’m Hopper.’
    ‘Fitzpatrick, Homicide.’ After three weeks on the unit, the words still felt strange in JD’s mouth. ‘You were first on?’ he asked and the officer nodded.
    ‘This is my beat. The victim is Jerry Pugh. Sixty-eight year old Caucasian male.’
    ‘So you knew him. I’m sorry,’ JD murmured.
    Hopper nodded again. ‘Me too. Jerry was harmless. Sick.’
    ‘He had dementia?’ JD asked and Hopper’s eyes narrowed in surprise.
    ‘Yes. How did you know?’
    ‘The lady on the front row said she told Barb to put him in a home.’
    ‘That’s Mrs Korbel. And I imagine she did. So did I. But Mrs Pugh – that’s Barb – wouldn’t do it. Couldn’t do it, I guess. They’d been married forever.’
    ‘Who found the body?’
    Again Hopper looked surprised. ‘She did.’ He pointed to the other side of the crime scene where a woman stood alone, watching. She stood with her arms crossed over her chest, her expression unreadable. But there was a fragility to her, a palpable tension, as if she was barely holding on.
    She was tall, five nine or ten. The long hair she’d pulled back in a simple ponytail was a reddish gold that flickered under the bright CSU lights, like little licks of fire. She was very pretty, her features so classically fine that her face could have graced a statue. Or perhaps it was because she stood so motionlessly that he thought so.
    She wore a windbreaker, running shorts and a pair of hi-tech running shoes. That she’d been allowed proximity to the scene suggested she was more than a simple bystander, but he’d never seen her before. That face he’d remember.
    Those legs he’d certainly remember.
    ‘Who is—?’ he started to ask, then she turned and met his eyes.
    And in a flash of painful memory, JD knew exactly who she was. ‘Dr Trask,’ he said quietly. Lucy Trask, the ME. Lucy will know what to do . ‘She found him?’
    ‘Just before dawn,’ Hopper said. ‘The doc . . . well, she’s a nice lady, that’s all.’
    JD found he had to clear his throat. ‘I know. Where is Mrs Pugh?’
    ‘My partner Rico went to find her. He got no answer when he knocked on their apartment door. The super was waiting with the key. By then the whole building was out here. Everybody but Mrs Pugh. Rico searched the apartment, but no sign of the missus. Her car’s not in the parking lot.’
    ‘No sign of foul play in the apartment?’
    ‘No. Rico says it looks like she left. There were a couple extra bowls of cat food on the kitchen floor, and all the kitchen appliances were unplugged. The super’s getting emergency contact info off the rental agreement now.’
    JD had been