Closer Than Blood Read Online Free PDF Page A

as the door closed and the driver stepped inside.
    Tracy shook his head. “She’s en route to the ER.”
    â€œGoing to be okay?”
    â€œThat’s what I hear,” said the younger cop, a kid with an earnest demeanor that reminded Kaminski what it was like to be fresh out of the academy. The top-of-the-class syndrome , he thought. The eager beaver’s need to raise a hand, make a comment, just to be sure to be a part of the conversation.
    â€œThanks, Tracy . . . and . . .” He looked at the kid.
    â€œOfficer Caswell.”
    Kaminski grinned. “Yes, officer. You got a first name?”
    â€œRobert,” he said, nodding, like he was confirming some major mystery of life.
    Kaminski nodded back and looked up over the lawn at the front door of the house. “Got it.”
    Not Bob. Not Rob. But Robert.
    â€œCall me Detective,” he said over his shoulder, stopping a beat to look up and down the block as he made his way up the painted gray steps.
    He nodded at another officer by the door.
    â€œHouse is secure?” he said.
    The officer nodded. “Yeah, neighborhood canvass at work, too.”
    Kaminski pulled the knob and stepped inside. The foyer was grand, museum-entryway grand. The floor was burnished oak topped with a powder blue and gold oriental rug, its pile so thick that the soles of his shoes nearly levitated as he walked to the sitting room. The coffered ceiling seemed a mile overhead. He looked up; pale blue insets filled the voids between dark oak mullions. The staircase was curved, sweeping from the first floor to the second like an anaconda. A series of portraits artfully illuminated by unobtrusive spotlights added to the museum vibe.
    Not my taste, he thought. But who knows what a man will do with the dough if he has too much?
    He glanced in the direction of the pocket doors, pulled open to reveal the activity of the murder scene. The smell of blood and gunpowder was unmistakable. Sweet and smoky. Not like barbecue, of course, but more like the scent of a Fourth of July picnic. A Tiffany fixture overhead sprayed gold light from its mushroom shades; Kaminski could see the coroner and assistants in clean suits, assuring that whatever evidence would be gathered from the deceased would not be anything they brought in from the outside. There was never a time when that procedure didn’t make sense, but it didn’t become official until a case a dozen years before in which a defendant claimed chain-of-custody issues when a detective’s Persian cat’s fur was discovered on the corpse.
    If a person visiting an open house was required to wear disposable booties, then no one should argue the need for initial criminal responders to suit up.
    Kaminski caught the attention of forensics specialist Cal Herzog, hunched over the area by the sofa where the body had been found.
    Cal, a balding man of about fifty, who began working in the forensics unit at the Tacoma Police Department after a reasonably distinguished career in the military, was crouched over the dead man.
    â€œEvening, Cal.”
    â€œJust in time. Medical examiner’s about ready to bag him,” Cal said.
    Kaminski stepped closer. “Let me have a look.”
    â€œPoint-blank,” Cal said, indicating the wound on the back of Alex Connelly’s head. The place of entry for the bullet was like a bloody borehole that cut through the man’s skull and into his brain. Death, no doubt, was instantaneous. Alex Connelly, sitting in his robe, facing the television, might not even have had an inkling that the gun was going to fire.
    â€œSOB didn’t struggle,” Cal said. “Didn’t even know this was going to happen.”
    Kaminski crouched behind the camelback sofa and looked up at the TV over the mantel.
    â€œI don’t know about that,” he said. “Pretty good reflection off that plasma. Almost like a mirror.”
    Cal looked up. The TV had been on when the