Death by Marriage Read Online Free PDF Page A

surprised her with his
unexpected insights which went way beyond the simple facts they were dealing
with.  In that way, he reminded her of Clint. She remembered the wonderful
conversations she and Clint used to have. They’d talk all night and into the
morning. Clint had also loved taking the largest perspective possible on
whatever was going on. Cindy took a moment to wonder how Clint would react to
what she was doing, and whether in some way he was with her now?
    “Let’s
move on,” Mattheus urged her. “We’ll have time to dwell on things later. We’ve
got to get to the crime scene while there’s still light. And before the storms
come in.”
    Cindy
wondered how much could possibly be left? “It’s an open street now,” she
remarked. “People walk through it every day.”
    “True,”
said Mattheus, smiling. Cindy saw that he was pleased by her comment. “But the
kind of thing we’re looking for won’t be brushed away so easily. The police
checked the scene carefully in the beginning for that kind of evidence.”
    “What
exactly are we looking for?” Cindy asked him.
    “We’ll
know when we get there,” said Mattheus. “The place will speak to us. When you
get to a crime scene, especially one that’s been gone over, the best way is to
get real quiet, and let your eyes scan the place. Don’t focus on every little
thing you’re seeing, just let your mind take it all in.  It can take a few days
sometimes before you realize what you saw. Then, someone says something, you
make a connection and suddenly it pops into your mind.
    Cindy
liked that.  She loved it when Mattheus showed layer of sensitivity that she
didn’t normally see. She also loved learning the trade from him. He was a
generous mentor.
    They
picked up their pace and walked briskly on towards the end of that street and then
turned right into a narrow lane, behind a shopping stall. The two of them
stopped at the entrance, automatically, at the same moment, and peered in.
    The
lane was narrow, shaded and curved slightly as it led to the back of the
street. Filled with a strong aroma of smoke and meat cooking, Cindy could see a
few lizards skittering by and hear the call of birds.  She shuddered. This was
a perfect place to dump a body, she thought.
    “I’m
not surprised,” Mattheus said.
    “At
what?” asked Cindy.
    “This
is a natural spot to dump a body,” he said. “But it’s also a spot where you’d
know it would be found. Whoever dumped the guy here, didn’t want him hidden.
They wanted him to be found. They probably want to be found as well.”
    Cindy
remembered reading years ago that all criminals had a secret yearning to be
discovered, to pay for their crimes, make atonement. That was why jailhouse
confessions were so common. She thought about that for a long time. She’d
always been fascinated by the workings of justice and how, deep down, each
person craved it, no matter what they had done.
    Now,
she and Mattheus approached the actual spot where the body had been found and
Mattheus stopped and bent over.  Stains of blood could still be seen soaked
into some of the stones.
     “Can’t
ever get all the blood up,” Mattheus said. “They left a lot here. Surprised
they didn’t find fingerprints or DNA that could link them to the killer.”
    Somehow
it didn’t surprise Cindy. She felt there was a different route through which
this crime would be solved.
    Mattheus
took photos of the stones on the street, lizards, walls, the angle of the
sunlight. They walked together slowly up and down the lane, and then suddenly,
something caught Cindy’s eye. It was over against the far wall, a scrap of
paper the wind must have blown over, that got stuck between two rocks. She went
over to it immediately and slowly pulled the paper out. A few words were
scrawled on it, in a shaky hand. By now they had faded and were hard to make
out.
    “Look
at this,” she said to Mattheus.
    He
turned abruptly. “What?”
    “This
paper. There are