Broken Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

the day a little easier for this man.
The building had an L-shaped parking lot that ran behind the structure, then down a slight slope to the river; a parking lot at one time fully fenced off with chain link. The fence had long ago been clipped and bent and tortured. Huge sections were missing. Trash bags, tires, and street litter were strewn everywhere.
Before Jessica could inquire about the DOA, a black Ford Taurus, identical to the departmental car Jessica and Byrne were driving, pulled into the lot, parked. Jessica did not recognize the man behind the wheel. Moments later the man emerged, approached them.
“Are you Detective Byrne?” he asked.
“I am,” Byrne said. “And you are?”
The man reached into his back pocket, pulled out a gold shield. “Detective Joshua Bontrager,” he said. “Homicide.” He proffered a big smile, the color rising in his cheeks.
Bontrager was probably thirty or so, but he looked much younger. A slim five ten, his hair was summer blond gone December dull, cropped relatively short; spiky, but not in a GQ way. It looked like it may have been a homemade haircut. His eyes were mint green. He had about him the air of scrubbed country, of rural Pennsylvania that spoke of state college on an academic scholarship. He pumped Byrne’s hand, then Jessica’s. “You must be Detective Balzano,” he said.
“Nice to meet you,” Jessica said.
Bontrager looked between them, back and forth. “This is just, just, just... great. ”
If nothing else, Detective Joshua Bontrager was full of energy and enthusiasm. With all the cutbacks, retirements, and injuries to detectives— not to mention the spiking homicide rate—it was good to have another warm body in the unit. Even if that body looked like it just stepped out of a high school production of Our Town .
“Sergeant Buchanan sent me out,” Bontrager said. “Did he call you?”
Ike Buchanan was their boss, the day watch commander of the homicide unit. “Uh, no,” Byrne said. “You’ve been assigned to homicide?”
“Temporarily,” Bontrager said. “I’ll be working with you and two other teams, rotating tours. At least until things, you know, calm down a bit.”
Jessica looked closely at Bontrager’s clothing. His suit coat was a dark blue, and his slacks were black, as if he had cobbled together an ensemble from two different weddings, or had gotten dressed while it was still dark. His striped rayon tie was from sometime around the Carter administration. His shoes were scuffed but sturdy, recently resoled, tightly laced.
“Where do you want me?” Bontrager asked.
The look on Byrne’s face fairly screamed the answer. Back at the Roundhouse.
“If you don’t mind me asking, where were you before you got assigned to Homicide?” Byrne asked.
“I was in the Traffic Unit,” Bontrager said.
“How long were you there?”
Chest out, chin high. “Eight years.”
Jessica thought about looking at Byrne, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
“So,” Bontrager said, rubbing his hands together for warmth, “what can I do?”
“For now we want to make sure the scene is secure,” Byrne said. He pointed to the far side of the building, to the short driveway on the north side of the property. “If you could secure that entry point, it would be a great help. We don’t want folks coming onto the property and disturbing the evidence.”
For a second, Jessica thought Bontrager was going to salute.
“I am so on it,” he said.
With this, Detective Joshua Bontrager all but ran across the grounds.
Byrne turned to Jessica. “What is he, about seventeen?”
“He’ll be seventeen.”
“Did you notice he’s not wearing a coat?”
“I did.”
Byrne glanced at Officer Calabro. Both men shrugged. Byrne pointed at the building. “Is the DOA on the first floor?”
“No, sir,” Calabro said. He turned and pointed to the river.
“The victim is in the river?” Byrne asked.
“On the bank.”
Jessica glanced toward the river. The angle sloped