Dust To Dust Read Online Free PDF Page B

Go downstairs and secure the zone. I don't want anyone corming closer than the street. And keep your big fat yaps shut. Where there's a corpse, there's newsies. I read one word about this," he said, pointing to the reflection in the mirror, "I'll know who gets reamed new ones.You got me?"
    The officers glanced at each other sullenly, then headed for the stairs.
    T A M
    0 A Q
    " IA rat offi himself," the ugly one said under his breath." So what's the crime? Looks like a service to everyone, you ask me."
    Kovac stared at the body. He could see Liska snooping around, making notes of every detail, sketching the room, the placement of the furniture and of anything that might be deemed significant. They took turns at that job-keeping the notes at the scene. It was his turn to shoot the preliminary Polaroids.
    He started with the room itself, then slowly moved in on the body, photographing it from all angles. Each flash burned an imprint on his memory-the dead thing that had been Mike Fallon's son; the beam from which the noose hung; the Reebok exercise steps that sat Just behind the body, near enough to have been what Andy Fallon had used for his big dismount into the hereafter; the mirror. Sorry.
    Sorry. Yes, it was.
    Had Andy Fallon been sorry? About what? Or had someone else scrawled the word?
    The furnace blower kicked on, and the corpse began to twist slightly like a giant rotting pifiata. The reflection in the mirror was a macabre dance partner.
    "I never understand people who get naked to commit suicide," Liska said.
    "It's symbolic. Shedding their earthly skin." "Nobody is finding me naked."
    "Maybe he didn't commit suicide," Kovac said.
    "You think someone could have done this to him? Or forced him to do it? Murder by hanging is rare.,,
    "What's with the mirror?" Kovac asked, though it wasn't a question to him.
    Liska studied the naked corpse for a moment, then looked to the mirror, catching a slice of her own reflection with that ofAndy Fallon. "Oh, man," she said quietly. "Autoerotic misadventure? I've never had one before!,
    111ike. Kovac said nothing, trying to imagine what he would tell Mi Bad enough to have to explain autoerotic asphyxiation to strangers, which he had done a couple of times in his career. But how did you tell a tough, hard-line, old-time cop that his son had been trying to get himself off by cutting off his oxygen supply, and had strangled himself in the process?
    D U S TT 0D U S T27

    "But why the message?" Liska wondered aloud. "Sorry says suicide to me. Why would he write that if he was doing this just to get offl"
    Kovac touched a hand to the top of his throbbing head and winced. "You know, some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed." "Yeah, well ... Here's your option," Liska said, nodding to the body.
    "Doesn't look too sweet to me. I always figure a bad day living beats any day dead."
    "Fuck me:'Kovac muttered.
    Liska squatted down in front of the mirror to examine the letters more closely. She looked at Kovac's reflection. "Not in front of a corpse. 17m not that kind of girl."
    "You know what I mean."
    "I do." She rose slowly, dropped the act, and touched his arm, looking up at him with earnest blue eyes. "I'm sorry, Sam. Like ol' Iron Mike doesn't have it bad enough."
    Kovac stared at his partner for a moment, stared at the small hand on his coat sleeve and briefly considered taking hold of it. Just for the comfort of contact with another human. She wore no rings-so as not to confuse potential suitors, she said. Her fingernails were short and unpolished.
    "Yeah," he whispered.
    Below them there was a shout, then a sudden loud crash, followed by more shouting. Liska ran down the stairs like a mountain goat. Kovac pounded down behind her.
    R,ubel was trying to haul Steve Pierce off
Ogden's prone body. "Off him!" Rubel shouted.
    In a rage, Pierce shrugged him off and took a swing at
Ogden, connecting, by the sound of the thump and the grunt. Rubel grabbed Pierce again, hooking a thick arm