Kill the Messenger Read Online Free PDF Page A

shiny wet gloss she used to fill them in. The “Mall Mexican” look was the way Detective Kray described it.
    Kray, another of their Homicide team, had problems with women
and
Hispanics, and blacks, and Jews, and every other definable ethnic group that wasn’t a stupid, racist, redneck cracker from Bumfuck, Louisiana—which was how Parker described Kray.
    “Where’s your notebook?” he demanded. “You have to write everything down. And I mean
every thing.
You should have started writing the second you got this call. What time the call came, who told you what, what time you wedged your ass into that skirt and put on those ridiculous shoes. What time you arrived at the crime scene, who you spoke to first, what you saw when you came in the front door, what you saw when you came into this room. Position of the body, location of the murder weapon, which way his brain splattered and how far the pieces flew, whether or not his fly is open. Every damn thing in sight.
    “You leave something out and I can guarantee you some dirtbag defense attorney will get you on the stand and ask you about that one seemingly insignificant item, and he’ll unravel the DA’s case like a cheap sweater. The worst two words in the English language, babe:
reasonable doubt.
”
    Parker refused to call her “Detective” Ruiz one second before she had her shield in hand. She was not his peer, and he would remind her in subtle and not-so-subtle ways every day of her training period. He didn’t have control over a hell of a lot in his job, but for the time he was partnered with Ruiz, he had at least the illusion of control over her.
    “And measure the distances,” he said. “If you find a booger on the carpet, I want to know exactly where it is in relation to the body. Put the exact measurements in your personal notes, approximate measurements in the notes you’ll take to court. If you put your exact measurements in your official notes and your measurements don’t match the criminalists’ to the millimeter, you’ll have a defense attorney all over you like a bad rash.”
    Ruiz came back with the attitude. “You’re lead. It’s your case. Why don’t you do the scut work, Parker?”
    “I will,” Parker said. “I sure as hell am not trusting you to do it right. But you’ll do it too, so when the next vic comes along and you get the lead, you at least look like you know what you’re doing.”
    He looked around the room cluttered with crap and crime-scene geeks. One of the uniforms who had answered the initial call stood by the front door, logging in every person who entered the scene. The other one—older, heavy-set, and balding—was on the other side of the room, pointing out to one of the geeks something he thought might be significant evidence. Jimmy Chewalski. Jimmy was good people. He talked too much, but he was a good cop. Everyone called him Jimmy Chew.
    Ruiz looked right through the crime-scene techs and the uniforms. Having passed the written detective exam, she now considered herself above them. Never mind that she had been in a uniform herself not that long ago, she was now a princess among the lowly hired help. To Ruiz, Jimmy Chew (Choo) was a pair of fuck-me shoes.
    Parker made his way over to the officer, leaving Ruiz to figure out how to bend down and look at evidence without flashing her ass to everyone at the scene.
    “Jimmy, where’s the coroner’s investigator?” Parker asked, stepping gingerly around the body, careful to miss a sheaf of papers that were strewn on the floor. The coroner’s investigator had the first dance. No one could so much as check the dead body’s pockets until the CI had finished his or her business.
    “Could be a while,” Chewalski said. “She’s helping out at a murder-suicide.”
    “Nicholson?”
    “Yeah. Some guy blew away his wife and two kids ’cause the wife brought home a bucket of regular KFC instead of extra-crispy. Then he goes in his bathroom and blows his head off. I