A Dream of Death Read Online Free PDF Page B

are out
of the house now, empty nesters.”
    “So he found her?”
    “Came home after a night shift putting Crown Vics together.
Saw her car and figured she was staying home sick until he found her in bed
with half her neck missing.”
    “Fuck.”
    My thoughts exactly.
    “Pronounced at the scene at 7:51 a.m. You should hear his nine-one-one
tape, poor guy can’t get a word out.”
    “What’d she look like? Typical blonde?”
    “Not at all. White, homely—big nose, thin lips, narrow eyes,
round face—short and heavy. Greying brown hair in a bob. Forty-seven but looked
older, you know the sun worshiping type, wrinkles and spots.”
    “Not your usual serial killer victim then. Nothing sexual?”
    “Nope, told you that before. Nude when he found her but
never slept nude. The clothes she was wearing when he left for the night, yoga
pants and an old t-shirt, were never found.”
    “What about the second one?”
    “Daphne Maria Villanueva, born in Bogota, Colombia, December
twelveth, eighty-five. Colombian minister father and a Canadian missionary
mother. They moved back here a year after she was born. They wanted to get away
from the violence, give her a safe place to grow up.”
    “I bet they’re second-guessing that move now.”
    Stupid comment but the one almost everyone would make. It
was the truth and it would plague them for the rest of their lives.
    “She went to Toronto for university, came back and took a
job at Victoria Hospital as an ER nurse. Got an apartment in Tilsonburg a few
blocks from her parents. Moved her Japanese trauma resident boyfriend, Daisuke
Takahashi, in a few months later.”
    “What did mommy and daddy say?”
    “Threatened to disown her. No ring and no vows make pious
parents unhappy. I should know.”
    George laughed. “It was in-laws with you, eh?
    “Which makes it worse.” In my case, it had even led to
pressure from the future wife as well. I had barely escaped having holy water
dripped on my forehead.
    “Takahashi got home at 8:15 a.m. and found her dead. His nine-one-one
call is chilling. Perfect medical jargon in crisp, precise English, I don’t
even understand half of what he said. A bilateral incision, excision of flesh,
signs of strangulation. He knew the cut was postmortem, he saw the petechiae in
the eyes, conjuctivae I think he said, knew she’d been strangled. Even said it
was cause of death. Then he broke down and his accent appeared, he started
panicking and questioning who would do something like that.”
    “He held together as long as he could, I guess. Maybe hoped
he could keep reality at a distance if he treated her like another patient.
    “The rest of the call is in Japanese. I had it translated.
He tells her how much he loves her and then starts praying. He was still
kneeling beside her body when the first officer got there.”
    “What about her?”
    I knew what he meant. “Young, tall, slim and beautiful. Long
dark hair, Hispanic features, deep brown eyes and perfect teeth.” Her light
brown skin had shone under the florescent lights in the bedroom, giving an
ethereal quality to her final portraits.
    Kara came up behind George, her eyes rimmed in red and
audible sniffles coming from her nose. I excused myself from George, told him
to call me if he thought of anything, and went back to the office with Kara.
Kara filled me in on the emotionally devastating interview.
    It had gone as expected, with little information gained.
Franchini was working when, at eleven at night, he received a phone call from
Dupuis, a phone call that for a brief few hours changed his life forever.
    “I’m pregnant,” was all she had said when he answered the
phone. There was a moment for that to sink in followed by a scream of joy that
startled the hell out of the elderly lady Franchini had been dealing with, a
poor old widow who was certain she heard someone trying to break in through her
balcony—on the eighth floor. Franchini apologized to her and carried on