A Study in Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

just don’t want to pick up all those balled up tissues off the floor.”
    She laughed and I counted it as a victory.
    “Well you’re driving,” she announced.
    “You don’t even have a license,” I snapped back as we walked out of the diner and into the sound of late morning traffic.
     
    I remember it being exceptionally bright as we drove to meet Detective Lambert. The rays of the sun beat down on the road and shimmered back at us, turning the streets from dark pavement into paths of iridescent movement. Remy’s newfound mood matched the intensity of the day as she rambled on about tracing bloodlines and offshore bank accounts. As she described the difficulties of tracing any family line that traveled through Ellis Island, my thoughts drifted and all I could concentrate on was the thought of seeing a dead body in person. For all that I had seen and done in the Air Force, most was relegated to the screens we stared at. There were a few injuries I witnessed, some more gruesome than others, but it was never death itself. I had never seen a dead body in person outside of a funeral. I couldn’t shake the image of a bloody mass of flesh and bones as we continued on towards the address Lambert had emailed over. 
    As we turned onto the street and passed the three story homes, one after the other, I could see the cars parked in front of one of the buildings at the far end of the block. It looked exactly like all the others. The low hanging branches of the trees that grew on both sides of the road hung overhead and encapsulated us in a tunnel of shaded browns and greens. The day no longer felt bright as we approached the house where Lambert waited.
    This particular rowhouse sat back a few feet farther from the street than its neighbors. It gave the house a reserved, un-inviting look. Two of the windows on the second floor had plywood covering them and another had a plastic tube that emptied into a large garbage bin on the side of the house.
    The only spot to park the car was around the corner. Remy and I walked back towards the scene and I realized she was still talking about the other case. She didn’t seem to have any feelings towards the body that lay inside the house or the oddities that bothered Detective Lambert.
    “So that’s what causes most people to mistake the Indians of Central America with the Spanish settlers that have just recently inhabited the areas over the last few hundred years. Easy to catch if you know what you’re looking for,” she said, smiling to herself.
    “Mmm, interesting,” I grunted back.
    We reached the front of the rowhouse and the small front courtyard area was a muddy mess. It had rained a number of times over the last week but it appeared to me that most of the damage to the front area was from the contractors.
    Remy reached down to finger the brick, continuing on with her monologue.
    “See it really all comes down to enforcement with places like Cayman. Their assets are shielded there,” she said as she bent and groped along the front steps of the house. She kept talking as she dropped to her knees and felt around in the mud, picking a handful up before moving on to the neglected flower bushes that sat beneath the windows.
    “I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s money laundering, since it’s not technically illegal, but I’m still wondering why a man of his stature would need to move his money around like that.” She strained to look into the first floor windows above her, felt around the window ledges, and then lay down on her stomach, apparently searching for something under the bushes which she didn’t seem to be finding. Suddenly, she shot to her feet.
    “Watts!” she yelled, “Was it the partners? Was he hiding his partners’ own assets?”
    “Was who – What?”
    Remy peered back at me, half of her small body hidden by the shrubs that were mostly dead. “Well, I’d say this place is in serious disarray, don’t you think?”
    Before I had the opportunity to