Crisis Read Online Free PDF Page B

the living room as if it were a doctor's waiting room.
    "What gives?" Jack asked. Silence reigned. There wasn't even any conversation.
    "We're waiting on you and the crime-scene people," Lou said as he got to his feet. The others followed suit. Instead of Lou's signature rumpled and slightly disheveled attire, he was wearing a neatly pressed shirt buttoned to the neck, a subdued new tie, and a tasteful although not terribly well-fitted glen plaid sport jacket that was too small for his stocky frame. Lou was a seasoned detective, having been in the organized-crime unit for six years before moving over to homicide, where he'd been for more than a decade, and he looked the part.
    "I have to say you look pretty spiffy," Jack commented. Even Lou's closely cropped hair looked recently brushed, and his famous five o'clock shadow was nowhere to be seen.
    "This is as good as it gets," Lou commented, lifting his arms as if flexing his biceps for effect. "In celebration of your dinner party, I snuck home and changed. What's the occasion, by the way?"
    "Where's the diplomat?" Jack asked, ignoring Lou's question. He glanced into the kitchen and a room that was used as a dining room. Except for the living room, the apartment seemed empty.
    "He's flown the coop," Lou said. "He stormed out of here just after I hung up with you, threatening all of us with dire consequences."
    "You shouldn't have let him go," Jack said.
    "What was I supposed to do?" Lou complained. "I didn't have an arrest warrant."
    "Couldn't you have held him for questioning until I got over here?"
    "Listen, the captain sent me on this case to keep things simple and not to rock the boat. Holding that guy at this stage would be rocking the boat big-time."
    "Okay!" Jack said. "That's your problem, not mine. Let's see the body."
    Lou gestured toward the open bedroom door.
    "Do you have an ID on the woman yet?" Jack asked.
    "Not yet. The building supervisor says she'd only been here less than a month and didn't speak much English."
    Jack took in the scene before homing in on the body. There was a slight butcher-shop odor. The decor read designer. The walls and carpet were all black; the ceiling mirrored; and the curtains, clutter of knick-knacks, and furniture all white, including the bed linens. As Lou had explained, the corpse was completely naked, lying supine across the bed with the feet dangling over the bed's left side. Although darkly complected in life, she was now ashen against the sheet except for some bruising about the face, including a black eye. Her arms were splayed out to the sides with the palms up. An automatic pistol was loosely held in her right hand, with her index finger inside the trigger guard. Her head was turned slightly toward the left. Her eyes were open. High on the right temple was evidence of an entrance gunshot wound. Behind the head on the white sheet was a large bloodstain. Extending away from the victim to her left was some blood spatter, along with bits of tissue.
    "Some of these Middle Eastern guys can be brutal with their women," Jack said.
    "So I've heard," Lou said. "Is that bruising and black eye from the bullet wound?"
    "I doubt it," Jack said. Then he turned back to Steve and Allen. "Have our pictures been taken of the body?"
    "Yes, they have," Steve Marriott called from over near the door.
    Jack pulled on a pair of latex rubber gloves and carefully separated the woman's dark, almost black hair to expose the entrance wound. There was a distinct stellate form to the lesion, indicating that the muzzle of the gun had been in contact with the victim when it had discharged.
    Carefully, Jack rolled the woman's head to the side to look at the exit wound. It was low down below the left ear. He straightened up. "Well, that's more evidence," he said.
    "Evidence of what?" Lou asked.
    "That this wasn't a suicide," Jack said. "The bullet traveled from above on an angle downward. That's not the way people shoot themselves." Jack formed a gun with his