An Evil Shadow Read Online Free PDF

loosely
reassembled, the eyeball inserted back in its socket. It would have been a
gaunt face even before the attack; now it was concave, the cartilage and bone
structure of her nasal septum having been destroyed. Val allowed his eyes to
descend slowly along her body, following the mid-line of broad sutures that ran
from her neck to her pubic mound. She was severely undernourished; her pelvic
bones seemed to be trying to burst through her skin.
    “Take a look at her hands and arms,” the ME said,
extracting her right arm from the bag and rotating it. “No defense wounds. No
cuts or lesions, no bruises or scratches.”
    “She wasn’t expecting the attack?”
    “That would be the obvious inference, though how
exactly can you take someone by surprise when you re holding an axe?”
    Not difficult, Val thought, if the attacker was the
victim’s nine-year-old daughter.
    “What about the angle of the blows? Can you tell me
anything about the height of the assailant?”
    The ME tucked the arm back inside the body bag.
“Unfortunately not. The victim was five foot two inches tall and was struck
three times from above with considerable downward force. A tall killer would
have no need to raise his or her arm above shoulder height, while a short
person could have inflicted the same type of injury by swinging the axe in an
arc above their head. Any one of the three blows would have been sufficient to
cause death.”
    “Can you speculate as to the first blow?”
    The ME shook his head. “That’s all it would be I’m
afraid — speculation — and I’m not
prepared to do that.”
    Val questioned him for another quarter of an hour, but
nothing of any significance came from it. He returned to his car and drove to
the Irish Channel. The camping axe used in the killing had been brand new and
how many camping and hardware stores could there be in that part of the city?

 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    CHAPTER THREE

 
 
    Val spent the rest of that day and the morning of the
next questioning the owners and employees of stores within a ten-block radius
of the Duval building. With the river to the south, it meant he had a
semi-circular section of the city to cover. He worked east to west and
eventually struck lucky with a camping and bait shop on Annunciation Street.
    “I was meaning to ring in about it,” the manager
explained. “But you know how it is. The store gets busy and you put it to the
back of your mind. By the time business quietens down, it’s slipped your
memory.”
    “What exactly are you talking about? What slipped you memory?”
Val asked patiently.
    “The camping axe. I read about the Creole woman’s
murder in the Times-Picayune and I
said to Joe — that’s Joe Walsh, he works for me part-time, helps out at the
weekends. Weekends is our busiest time, especially coming into---”
    “What was it you said to Joe?”
    “I told him there was a good chance that the axe was
one of ours. I have a rack of them over here.”
    The manager came out from behind his counter and
crossed the well-stocked floor to a display of camping equipment. He lifted an
axe and handed it to Val. Val didn’t fish and hadn’t been on a camping trip
since he was twelve years old, but the paraphernalia to be found in stores like
this had always held a fascination. He hefted the chrome axe in his hand to
gauge its weight, rubbing his thumb along the rubber grip.
    “Is that anything like what you’re searching for?” the
manager asked.
    It was a twin of the one that Marie Duval had used to
sever his finger, though Val wasn’t about to confirm that just yet.
    “What makes you think it was one of yours?”
    The manager grinned. “A young coffee-skinned kid
hoisted it from right under our noses. She walked in bold as brass, lifted it
and walked straight out. I shouted for her to stop. She didn’t, and the store
was full of people so I couldn’t chase after her. They do that — wait ‘til the
place is