Hold Back the Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

either didn’t mind, or had decided it was worth it to get autopsy results faster.
    Elise fluttered her eyelashes. “Well, a cause of death on that double that came in last night might soften my heart a little.”
    Josh rolled his eyes.
    Halpern waved his hand in the air. “You’re setting the bar far too low, m’dear. You’re worth so much more.”
    “I’m all ears,” Elise said, perching on the stool next to Halpern’s desk.
    “Well, your forty-seven-year-old male died between eight and ten p.m. last night from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by blunt force trauma. The lamp found at the scene is undoubtedly your weapon. I found flakes of the copper plate finish from the lamp base in the head wound.”
    Josh nodded. No surprise there.
    “Your female vic had a slightly different story to tell.”
    Josh settled down in the chair across from Halpern, braced his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers. “Do tell.”
    “She was strangled. I’m guessing with some kind of electrical cord, probably the cord from the lamp used to kill her husband. It was missing, you know.” Halpern smiled and leaned back in his chair.
    Elise looked over at Josh, brows slightly raised. Josh raised his, too, and shook his head. Why take the cord? What made it necessary to take it? Or worth potentially being caught with it?
    “Here’s the interesting part, though. The male vic was killed wham bam thank you, ma’am. The female? He took his time with her.” Halpern stood up and motioned them over to where Stacey Dawkin’s body lay on the cold metal gurney. “See how there are multiple ligature marks around her neck? I think he toyed with her. Choked her almost unconscious, released the cord and let her think she might still have a chance, then choked her some more. Based on what I’m seeing here, he went through that cycle three or four times.”
    Josh was known for his iron stomach; he was used to walking out of these autopsy bays and then going to order a gyro. But what the doc had just said made him a little sick.
    “She fought,” Halpern said. “She’s got something under her fingernails. We’re sending it on for analysis. Clyde’ll have more details for you later.”
    Josh had been a homicide cop long enough to understand how a person could be driven to take another’s life. But to savor it? To prolong it and enjoy it like that? “Sadistic son of a bitch,” he muttered.
    “Absolutely.” Halpern lifted the lower part of the sheet that covered Mrs. Dawkin. “Look at her knees.”
    They were red and rough.
    “Rug burn,” he explained. “I think the bastard made her crawl, after he bound her hands and covered her mouth with the duct tape.”
    “He made her crawl?” Anger rose in Elise’s voice. Then a connection dawned on her face. “The marks in the carpet—the ones too short to be drag marks. The bastard made her crawl to her own death.”
    “We don’t know it’s a he yet, Elise,” Josh said, keeping his voice even. He understood her anger, but feeding it would get them nowhere.
    Elise threw him a caustic glance. “Strangulation is a man’s crime. And that kind of freaky control and power game? You know that’s a guy thing. Any sign of sexual assault? On the male or the female?”
    Josh knew why she was asking. Sexual assault was rarely about lust. It was about being in charge, giving and taking away; it was about control. The way choking someone until they were almost unconscious and then letting them live for a few moments longer, over and over again, was about control. Whoever had done the choking probably had the right mind-set to also be a sexual predator.
    “Nope. Nothing like that at all,” Halpern said.
    Elise shook her head. “There’s no way that little girl back in that hospital did this, Josh.”
    “Little girl?” Halpern asked.
    “The victims’ daughter,” Josh replied. “We found her at the scene. She’s totally shut down and we can’t get her to talk.”
    “I should know