Murder in the Aisles Read Online Free PDF

“Said the doc was a linguist and wouldn’t be caught dead in the aisles of astronomy and astrophysics.”
    Eddie leaned back in his seat. “What do you think?”
    â€œLike I said, old guy gets dizzy and falls. The investigator on the scene said pretty much the same thing. I still need the official report though.”
    â€œThe one thing a detective learns to rely on is his gut instinct. Go with it. If you have a feeling something ain’t right, nine times out of ten, it ain’t.”
    Eddie slid his glasses up on his wide nose and snapped open The Washington Post , flipping to the sports pages. “Besides, it will give you a chance to get to know this librarian.” He winked and resumed reading.
    Mark got up from his seat and snatched his coat from the back of his rickety chair. “If the captain is looking for me tell him I went to the morgue.”
    Eddie barely glanced up from the paper. “Sure thing. And, uh, tell Elaine I said hello.”
    Mark hustled around the maze of desks and file cabinets, then jogged down the wooden steps and outside. A fierce slap of icy cold wind cracked him in the face.
    â€œShit!” he spat and drew his coat collar up around his neck, which did little to fend off the blasts of arctic air.
    It was days like this that he longed for the hot, sandy beaches of Miami or anyplace above freezing. He got into his unmarked car and turned the heat on blast.
    Mark cruised down Massachusetts Avenue until he reached 1910. From the outside, the building looked innocent enough. But even after years of serving on the force and having visited the morgue more times than should be allowed by law, this joint still gave him the willies. He was convinced that there must be a special kind of gene that was needed to work on dead bodies every day. At least that was his opinion and the bone of contention between him and Elaine Burke.
    He’d met Elaine on one of his earliest cases. He was new to his job and she was new to hers. Elaine was nothing like what he’d conjured up in his head. He’d imagined some big beefy type with an accent and thick ankles. He was dead wrong—no pun intended.
    She was a stunning blonde bombshell for lack of a better term. Sea blue eyes that you wanted to swim in all night long and even beneath her pristine white smock a blind man could see she had the body of Venus and a smile that got him rock hard every time she flashed it. The sex was so indescribable he’d been tempted to give up his philandering ways and make an honest man of himself.
    But their respective jobs got in the way. He couldn’t shake the visions of her cutting people open and examining them under a microscope with an eerie detachment. And Elaine felt that he became too involved with his cases to the detriment of their relationship. “When I leave work at the end of the day, I leave work. You don’t. You carry your cases around with you like a limp.”
    Their sizzling fling lasted all of ten months.
    As Rizzo badged his way past the security guard and headed down the long cool corridor he wondered for the zillionth time if things could have worked out between them.
    â€œHey, Sylvia, she in?”
    Sylvia turned from her computer screen and peered at him over the top of her glasses. Her brandy-colored eyes widened.
    â€œMark. How are you?”
    â€œI’m good. You?”
    She shrugged her wide shoulders covered by a multicolored shawl. “Why complain?” She leaned closer, her heavy black right brow rose. “Business or pleasure?” she asked in a conspiratorial whisper.
    â€œBusiness.”
    She puckered her red lips and shook her head. “Young people. You never know what’s good for you. Why don’t you tell her how you feel?”
    Mark’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he chuckled. “’Cause I’m tired of getting kicked in the shins.”
    Sylvia made a clucking sound with her tongue.