Close to the Bone Read Online Free PDF

desk with just enough clutter to look authentic but not enough to hide the granite inlay, leather wing chairs and a beige alpaca-fur rug. Theresa didn’t know people actually bought those. Next to this opulence, a glass shelf holding specimen jars of hearts and spleens seemed discordant, but perhaps it maintained his autopsy-room street cred.
    Stone moved behind his desk but did not sit, giving them the benefit of his six-four frame, broad chest and hair with its perfect combination of wave for the ladies and gray for the jurors, and got right to it. ‘I’ll put out a press release but I don’t want to publish Johnson’s name for another day, maybe two, and certainly not Warner’s. Is that understood, Sergeant?’

    Shephard gave him a look, one of those alpha-dog-circling-the-other looks, each deciding how much of the marked territory they really wanted. Only on TV do police agencies fight to control a case. In real life if a case looks like it will develop into a pain in the butt, they’re just as happy to let the other guy have it. But Shephard hadn’t made up his mind about this one yet.
    Theresa left them to it. She worked for Stone, and for once she actually agreed with him.
    ‘That’s fine with me,’ Shephard said.
    ‘What were you doing here?’ Stone then demanded of Theresa, as if she had somehow invited bloody murder into the building by trying to pad her overtime.
    ‘Hit-skip,’ she said.
    ‘And you didn’t see anyone else in the building besides Johnson?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘And you think Justin hid under a sheet while you entered the building?’
    ‘Someone did.’ Though this didn’t make a lot of sense to her. Darryl had been practically cold, and most of the blood had dried, implying that at least an hour or more had elapsed since the murder. Why was Justin or whoever still hanging around?
    ‘All right. Despite being a witness in the case, you’re still acting supervisor for Trace.’
    Ever since the previous supervisor had covered up a homicide and then tried to kill her, yes. The temporary promotion – which, incidentally, did not come with a raise in salary – could not be taken to indicate any particular confidence in Theresa’s abilities or sympathy for her near-death experience. Stone simply didn’t have a lot to choose from. Since the county’s budget had been whittling departments by attrition for years, Trace Evidence now consisted of Theresa, DNA analyst Don Delgado, a part-time intern from Case Western and the secretary, Neenah – and not one of them wanted the supervisor job. At least, Theresa didn’t think she wanted the job.

    And the county, or Stone, seemed in no hurry to fill it. The work still got done, and the funds budgeted for the salary Leo no longer drew went – where, exactly? An excellent question, and not one she would likely ever learn the answer to.
    ‘The Police Department will need to process this crime scene,’ Shephard said, with a nice balance of firmness and impartiality. ‘That’s standard practice in such cases—’
    Theresa blurted: ‘I’ll want to look at the blood spatter. Other than that I’m all right with it.’
    Stone glared at her, certainly for presuming that her opinion had been asked for in any way, but Theresa wanted to be clear. Normally, she hated to give up any control of a crime scene, but she also wasn’t eager to spend a day swabbing up pieces of Darryl’s dried cells. However, this was her own co-worker in her own workspace – of course she wanted to wrap her fingers around every aspect of the crime and never let go until she understood every blood drop and timeline and trajectory. But time would always be a luxury denied. Nothing happened in a vacuum. In short, nothing about this situation would be as she preferred, and everything would be awkward, uncomfortable and just plain bad.
    But she didn’t have much choice about the bloodstain pattern analysis, being the only expert in the county. Blood spatter can be the