Habit Read Online Free PDF Page B

him there.
    Brendan’s hunch suggested the latter. He couldn’t swallow the idea of a robbery, right off the bat. For one thing, the way those drawers were arranged. Still, he needed to ascertain what, if anything, had been stolen.
    And there was Bostrom to talk to. Delaney had been brusque with Bostrom, but Brendan wanted to know every detail about the deputy’s arrival on scene and his actions step-by-step.
    And finally, Brendan needed to venture back upstairs to the core scene, and see where the CSI unit was at, and what else they may have turned up.
    Delaney, it seemed, had cut him loose. Brendan felt that sense of unease returning. Not because the senior investigator had basically left him on his own, but for reasons he wasn’t quite sure of yet.
    He watched the mortuary service do a three-point turn in the driveway, and then head off down the driveway. Clark followed them in his sedan. The two vehicles turned on to Route 12 and headed south, towards Remsen.
    Kevin Heilshorn stood in the settling dust. Deputy Bostrom had remained at the house, as per Brendan’s instructions. He was off in the sprawling front yard, talking on his cell phone and pacing. Brendan felt that the scuffle with Kevin had unnerved the deputy. That or the fact Brendan had asked him to stay behind and not join the area search.
    At last, Brendan looked up at the sky. He didn’t think the area search would yield anything significant. The killer, he now felt certain, was long gone.
    Brendan twisted his neck and his eyes fell on the bedroom windows where the victim had been found. The killer had made quick work of her. He’d entered the house, which was either open, or maybe he had a key. Rebecca Heilshorn had been getting out of the shower. He imagined her toweling her hair, another towel wrapped around her torso. She’d started down the hallway back to the bedroom where she’d get dressed and ready for this meeting with her brother. Along the way, she hears someone downstairs. The railing along the hallway overlooked the front door. Anyone standing there would be in plain view. So she gets an eyeful, and then runs to the bedroom where she dials 911.
    Brendan glanced at Kevin, and then at Bostrom. Bostrom was preoccupied. Kevin was looking around, apparently in a bit of a fugue. Brendan hurried over to the young man.
    “I need you to stay here, okay? Can you do that? I need to talk to you some more.”
    “Okay,” said the young man in a dolorous tone.
    “Okay,” echoed Brendan. “Where will you be?”
    “Right here,” said Kevin.
    Brendan lingered a moment. He needed to run inside. So he left Kevin there. He jogged towards the house again. On his way, he whistled. Bostrom looked over. Brendan pointed two fingers at his eyes and then pointed them back at Kevin Heilshorn. Watch him. Bostrom nodded, and lifted a hand in the air. Brendan sprang in through the front door of the house.
     
    * * *
     
    Upstairs, he found the CSI unit still working the room. He nodded at them and then took a look at what he’d come back up to see.
    The doors in the house were old farmhouse doors, the kinds that didn’t have locks. Brendan examined the door. He put on a pair of latex gloves and then ran his hands up and down the side of the door, and then the face of it. He could feel impressions towards the base. Brendan looked closely and saw what appeared to be a little black smudge. Where it had been kicked.
    He then leaned around the door and looked behind it. There was an end table there which looked like it belonged next to the bed, instead of where it had ended up, sitting at an angle. The floors were hard wood. This would make it challenging for the forensics team to lift any hairs or fabric, but they provided clarity for something else. There were whitish scrape marks under the end table.
    This was because the end table had been used by the victim to try to block the door, Brendan thought.
    He looked up at the man named Patnode, who had been taking