Dust To Dust Read Online Free PDF

ashen by stress and by the cold gray light spilling in the windows. He barely glanced up as they walked into the room.
    Liska flashed her ID and introduced them. "We understand you found the body, Mr.-"
    "Pierce," he said hoarsely, and sniffed. "Steve Pierce. Yes. I ... found him."
    "We know this is terribly upsetting for you, Mr. Pierce, but we'll need to talk to you when we finish. Do you understand?"
    "No:' he said, shaking his head. "I don't understand any of this. I can't believe it. I Just can't believe it."
    "We're sorry for your loss:'Liska said automatically.
    "He wouldn't do this," he mumbled, staring at the tabletop. "He wouldn't do this. It's Just not possible."
    Kovac said nothing. A sense of dread built in his chest as they climbed the stairs.
    "I've got a bad feeling about this, Tinks"' he muttered, pulling on latex gloves. "Or maybe I'm having a heart attack. Thatd be my luck. I finally quit smoking and I have a heart attack."
    "Well, don't die at the scene," Liska said. "The paperwork would be a big pain in the ass."
    "You're full of sympathy."
    "Better than what you're full of.You're not having a heart attack." The second floor of the house had probably been open attic space at one time, but had been nicely converted to a master suite. joist -beams had been left exposed, creating a loft effect. A lovely, private place to die, Kovac thought, taking in the scene at a glance.
    The body hung from a traditional rope noose just a few feet beyond the four-poster bed.The rope looped over a ceiling beam and was tied off somewhere at the head of the bed frame, that end of it hidden by the bedding. The bed was neatly made, hadn't been slept in or even sat upon. Kovac noted these things in t4e back of his mind, his concentration on the victim. He flashed on the photographs he'd turned over on the dresser in Mike Fallon's bedroom the night before: the handsome young man, the star athlete, the fresh-faced new cop with Mike beaming proudly beside him. He could see that same academy graduation photograph sitting on Andy Fallon's dresser. Good-looking kid, he remembered thinking.
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    Now the handsome face was discolored, distorted, purple and bloated, the mouth frozen in a kind of sneer. The eyes were half-open and cloudy. He'd been there a while. A day or so, Kovac guessed from the apparent lack of rigor, the tautness of the skin, the smell. The sickly sweet aroma of beginning decay conirmingled with stale urine and feces. In death, the muscles had relaxed, bladder and bowel discharging on the floor.
    The body was nude. His arms hung at his sides, hands curled into fists held slightly forward of the hips. Dark spots dotted the knuckles-lividity, the blood settling in the lowest levels of the extremities. The feet, no more than a few inches off the floor, were swollen and deep purple as well.
    Kovac squatted down, took hold of an ankle, and pressed his thumb against the flesh for a moment, then let go. He watched for the skin to blanch, but nothing happened. The blood had clotted long before. The leg was cold to the touch.
    An oak-framed full-length mirror was propped against the wall some ten feet in front of the corpse. The body was reflected fully, the reflection distorted by the angle of the mirror. The word Sorry had been written on the glass with something dark.
    "I always figured these IA guys for kinky."
    Kovac looked to the two uniforms standing ten feet away, smirking at the rmirror. The cops were a pair of buzz-cut no-necks, the bigger one having a head as square as a concrete block. Their name tags read "Rubel" and "Ogden."
    "Hey, Dumb and Dumber," Kovac snapped. "Get the hell outta my death scene. What the fuck's the matter with you? Tromping all over the place."
    "It's a suicide," the uglier one said, as if that mattered.
    Kovac felt his face flush. "Don't tell me what's what, Moose. You don't know dick. Maybe in twenty years you'll have a right to an opinion. Now get the fiick outta here.