Don't Look Now Read Online Free PDF

room for the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury was virtually deserted when Paris arrived. He imagined the jurors were already in session and that the couple who had decided to come forward – Lucius and Azalea Quarles – were already on the stand or in the witness room.
    Paris saw Rocky Dobson, one of the oldest bailiffs in the entire American justice system, cut quickly across the reception area. Rocky was seventy-five if he was a day. Paris found him in the small lunchroom reserved for county employees.
    ‘Hey Rocky,’ Paris said, perhaps louder than he needed to.
    ‘Jack Paris,’ Rocky said. ‘How the hell are ya, buddy?’
    Rocky was of an age where words like ‘buddy’, ‘pal’, ‘mac’, ‘chum’, ‘champ’, ‘chief’, ‘jocko’ and the like were automatically attached to the end of every sentence.
    ‘How’s everything?’ Paris asked.
    ‘Oh, let me tell
you
, bucko,’ Rocky began, lowering his voice. ‘The world’s going to hell in a sidecar faster’n Jack got nimble.’ He smiled and knocked on the worn Formica conference table twice. ‘You can take that to the bank, my friend. And smoke it.’
    Paris laughed and drew a cup of coffee from the urn as Rocky continued his diatribe on societal ills and their proper solutions, a monologue that was years running when Jack Paris became a cop and was bound to continue long after he retired.
    Paris leaned against the doorjamb and blew on the hot coffee. When he looked up, over the rim of his Styrofoam cup, he saw Diana Bennett at the opposite end of the long hallway. Tommy had described her perfectly.
    Paris watched her walk the entire length of the corridor, desperately trying to find a sense of symmetry and balance for her files, folders, attaché case, and oversized purse. As she got closer Paris could see that she was around thirty years old and very fit; five-eight in her sensible heels, she wore a charcoal blazer and white blouse, a dove gray skirt cut just above her knees. Her dark brown hair fell just past her shoulders. She had ice-blue eyes.
    Paris was tongue-tied.
    ‘Diana Bennett, prosecutor’s office,’ she said.
    From somewhere amid her cargo of paper, cardboard and leather, she extended her hand. Paris took it as if it were bone china.
    He waited a few beats, composing himself. ‘Jack Paris. Pleasure.’
    She certainly was as striking as he had heard, and he knew she was unmarried, but he had reached a point in his life where he was certain there was absolutely no point in chasing after women as pretty as Diana Bennett. He was getting old and the last thing he wanted to hear was: ‘No thanks,
pop
. I’m busy Friday.’
    Paris watched her, feet leaden, as she deposited her parcels on the table and exchanged a quick pleasantry with Rocky Dobson.
    ‘We’ll try not to keep you too long this afternoon,’ she said to Paris as she drew a half-cup of coffee from the huge urn. ‘You’ll be first, in fact.’
    ‘No hurry.’
    ‘Great,’ she said. She extended her hand once more. ‘Nice to have met you, Detective Paris.’ They shook. ‘See you inside.’
    Paris exchanged a quick look with Rocky, who gave him a wink as if to say ‘hubba hubba’ or whatever guys Rocky’s age say when they meet a bona fide babe. Rocky, it seemed, was still looking.
    ‘You got that right,’ Paris said as he clapped the old-timer gently on the back and walked around the corner to the witness room.
    ‘And how long have you been a police officer?’
    Paris told her. It sounded like forever.
    ‘And how long have you been a homicide detective?’
    ‘Four years.’
    ‘And how many homicides would you say you’ve investigated in that time?’ she continued. ‘Approximately.’
    He knew that she was merely trying to establish his competence, validate his instincts, because all the evidence against Marcella Lorca-Vasquez was purely circumstantial. ‘Maybe a hundred.’
    ‘And what percentage of those were closed? Once again, approximately.’
    Paris