CUTTING ROOM -THE- Read Online Free PDF

technicians from the Medical Examiner’s office, his first thought — standing on a ladder over that filthy Dumpster, surrounded by blue uniforms and onlookers straining for a peek, sweating his
cojones
off in the ninety-degree heat — was that it seemed as if something or someone was beneath the poor girl, like in that horror flick,
Drag Me
to Hell.
Pulling her back down into the garbage, back into hell, by her pretty blonde hair while she desperately reached out for someone — anyone — who could help her.
    But no one had.
    Her name was Holly Skole, her case number was F10-24367, and she was the thirty-fourth homicide of 2011 in the city. Her body had been found by Esteban ‘Papi’ Munoz, the owner of Papito’s Cafeteria, who’d apparently discovered Holly while disposing of spoiled trays of last night’s special. Clutching at his chest, the old man had staggered back through the parking lot towards his restaurant — and straight into the path of an SUV that was pulling into the lot. Fortunately, the two ribs he’d cracked on the fender of a Lexus hadn’t killed him. Unfortunately, the heart attack that was most likely brought on by seeing a dead body in with his leftovers had. It was only after the ambulance had come and carted off the grandpa of sixteen to the hospital morgue, the reports had been written, the rubber-neckers had dispersed, and the tow truck had hauled the Lexus off to impound that someone finally thought to take a good look around and see what had gotten the old
abuelo
so freaked out. A rookie traffic cop with twenty minutes on the job was the one who’d ultimately lifted the dumpster lid — only to spend the rest of the morning throwing up his Cheerios.
    Manny washed down the last chunk of his lunch with a slug of crappy coffee from the machine down the hall as he flipped through the pictures and reviewed his reports. Dumped bodies were never good. Not that he relished a gory domestic or a gang-banger shootout, but usually with dumpers by the time you found them they were in a progressed state of decomposition and they stank and looked terrible. The real crime scene was missing, along with vital evidence. Plus, there was something tragic about a victim who’d been used up, right down to their last ounce of dignity, then their remains tossed away like a piece of trash. It was especially disturbing when the body being thrown out was that of a pretty, nineteen-year-old college coed with her whole life in front of her.
    Clipped to the top of a Coral Gables PD missing persons report was a photo of the vivacious University of Miami sophomore from Connellsville, Pennsylvania, with the creamy complexion, infectious grin and honey-blonde hair. A communications major on a partial dance scholarship, Holly had vanished without a trace from the hardcore nightclub Menace after celebrating a friend’s twenty-first birthday back in April. Her body was found nine days later across town in the Design District — a gentrified part of the city that bordered the crime-ridden and infamous suburb of Overtown, the birthplace of Miami’s 1982 race riots.
    It hadn’t taken long to get an ID. Holly’s purse, along with her wallet full of cash and credit cards, had been thrown in the dumpster alongside her. Thanks to her distraught mom, who’d flown in from Pennsylvania after Holly was reported missing by her roommate, pictures of Holly had made the rounds on all the local news stations, and Manny had known right away who it was he was staring down at from atop that ladder. In a cardboard box under his desk now sat the stack of family photos that Cookie Skole had given to him after her daughter had been pulled from the garbage and the investigation had officially changed course from missing persons to homicide. He hadn’t needed more than one picture, seeing as the girl was dead, but it was hard to tell a bawling parent, ‘One photo of