Dirty Harry 11 - Death in the Air Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand.
    “You’re in luck, Harry,” he said. “Second victim was Betty Ann Lowry. She managed to jump to the other side of the tracks before the train got to her. She couldn’t say whether she was pushed or fell. She had just come from a long lunch period of playing handball, and was feeling pretty weak. Anyway, she was treated for a bruise or two, and then released.”
    “I don’t feel any luckier,” Harry retorted, in slight confusion.
    “The first victim wasn’t so lucky,” DiGeorgio went on. “Although she was far luckier than that girl this morning. The fall broke her leg. She still managed to pull herself into the space between the train and the platform. She was brought here for treatment. I called up right after I got off the radio with you. She’s still here. She’s being discharged from treatment today.”
    Luck stayed with the two homicide cops as they went up to the patients’ private rooms and found the first victim packing her bags. Harry had read what they had on her on the way up in the elevator. Name: Denise Patterson. Age: thirty-two. Height: five feet, six and one-half inches. Weight: one hundred and eight pounds. Hair color: light brown. Eye color: hazel.
    She was just as impressive in person as she was on paper. The report didn’t describe her intelligent face, strong body, or fashionable style. She wore tan slacks, a maroon turtleneck, and a zip-up jacket.
    The first sight Harry had of her was from the rear, but that view was impressive enough. She was one tightly-packed lady, with no visible panty lines. He could see her musculature work slightly as she crammed the various clothes, magazines, and books into her overnight bag—remnants of a long hospital stay.
    When she turned back toward her closet, she was initially surprised by the appearance of two men in her doorway. Her attractive face was framed by a mane of shoulder-length, wheat-colored hair, but her expression was one of concern.
    “Can I help you?” she said slowly, hex voice strong and low.
    “How’s the leg?” Harry asked.
    She looked down at the shapely limb in the well-fitting slacks. “Fine,” she said with slight hesitation. Then, taking a flippant attitude, she cocked her head and said, “Who wants to know?”
    “Excuse me,” Callahan said with a smile, remembering that he was still wearing his slightly odorous drunk’s outfit. He reached into his back pocket, and, for the second time that morning, showed his identification.
    Surprisingly, Patterson reacted to the Inspector’s badge with visible relief before returning to her packing. She acted as if DiGeorgio didn’t even exist. It was obvious that Callahan was in control here.
    “I didn’t know regulations had allowed your uniforms to get so . . . casual,” she said, taking a satiny, beige nightgown and a dark-green velour robe out of the closet.
    The sensuousness of that uniform was not lost on Callahan, who couldn’t help mentally picturing the woman in the outfit.
    “I just came off of an undercover assignment,” he told her, as she folded the bedclothes on top of the other stuff. “Patrolling the subways,” he finished, seeing her flinch ever so slightly.
    A second later, her stiffened shoulders relaxed, and she continued her actions as if nothing had happened.
    “I’ve already told many other officers what happened,” she said, her back to them. “I don’t see how it will help to go over it all again.”
    “I came off the undercover assignment just as a girl was run over by a BART train and killed,” Harry interrupted.
    When she turned back to them, her face was as pale as the stationmaster’s had been. It could have been that she was so sensitive that the news shocked her, Harry reasoned—or it could be something else entirely.
    “Killed?” Patterson breathed. “How horrible.”
    “Her name was Martha Murray.” DiGeorgio spoke up for the first time. “She was a high school student taking music lessons at the University. Did you