Hush My Mouth Read Online Free PDF Page B

cruiser’s front seat held a dash-mounted computer, a shotgun sitting upright between us, and various other high- and low-tech gadgets, so storage space was scarce. Thanks to the prisoner cage, he couldn’t throw stuff in the backseat, where I carried most of my worldly possessions.
    He pulled out a picture. “Cleaned up but only a little. You sure you don’t mind identifying it?”
    I was afraid I knew what he meant by
cleaned up
, but I’d handled medical malpractice defense in my earlier life. I’d seen plenty of gruesome photos.
    She lay on her back, her damp-looking hair swept away from her forehead. The dull steel table made it clear she wasn’t in a hospital room. The delicate birthmark, right below where her cheek would crease if she could smile, was dark on her bloodlessly pale skin. Neanna Lyles.
    “She’s the one you’re looking for?”
    I nodded, my mouth too dry to speak.
    He slipped the photo back into his folder.
    “What happened?”
    “How do you know her?”
    “I told you. I don’t. Her sister—I have clients, you know. Just clients.”
    “We don’t know for sure what happened.” He took another bite and looked out the windshield, watching the people in line at the Burger Hut window.
    “You don’t have to spare my feelings, you know.” What was with him? He wasn’t usually so protective or so reticent.
    “It was a tough scene,” he said. “One of the rookies on routine patrol spotted a car parked at the overlook early Saturday morning.”
    I didn’t ask which overlook.
    “He figured he’d interrupt a couple in flagrante delicto and send them home.” He rolled out the Latin in his thick drawl.
    “The driver’s window was down—actually shot out, as he discovered. He could see the driver slumped over the wheel. The view he had was much worse than the photo you saw. Exit wound did a number on the left side of her skull. From the initial description of the body, sounded like she’d managed to give herself a perfect kill shot.”
    “Give—she shot herself?”
    He half shrugged, half nodded. “Can’t say for sure. I reckon the autopsy report will give us a better idea.”
    “I take it there wasn’t a note.”
    “No. No ID either, so they’re working up a sketch or some computer version—something a bit more presentable than that photo—to put online and release to the media, see if someone recognized her.”
    Two plus two equals four. “Why didn’t somebody do the math and put it together with the call from her sister?”
    “That,” he said with a touch of disgust, “is what I intend to find out.”
    That didn’t bode well for whoever had worked the desk when Fran called.
    I took a deep breath. “Wow.” I’d been so intent on the hunt. I never expected this. “What’s the next step?” I hoped he would tell me a cop would break the news to Fran.
    “We need an official identification, especially since she didn’t have any ID on her.”
    “Can her—sister give it from that photo, without having to—”
    “Probably.”
    “She’s going to have a lot of questions. She’s not going to buy that it was suicide.”
    “Nobody ever wants to. But sometimes, them’s the facts.”
    We crunched through the last of our hot French fries in silence, and I wiped my fingers on a tissue-thin paper napkin.
    “Thanks for the lunch invite,” I said as I opened the door. “Wish I could say I enjoyed it.”
    “Same,” he said with a wry grin. “You reckon you can bring her by midafternoon?”
    “I’ll call her.”
    As he fired up the cruiser’s big engine, I leaned in the open window.
    “Rudy, how sure are you about the suicide? I mean, is there any question?”
    “You mean, would I tell her sister that she killed herself? At this stage, it’s not for certain. Not until the ME has finished.”
    “Did you work the scene?”
    “Personally? No. A new guy did it, with help from Lester Watts.”
    I gave him a wary eye. Lester Watts was notorious for his poor