MURDER TUNED IN (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

over her mouth. Ben Sokol caught her mid-run and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing. Half-choked words came out of her throat.
                  She's dead .
                  That's all Allie could hear. And then
                  Sally...
                  Ben handed the girl off to a male dancer and started off backstage. Allie followed right behind him.
                  They got to Sally Kane's dressing room and found her slumped in her makeup chair.
                  Allie got in close. The woman had obviously been strangled to death. She looked around. The makeup table was filled, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Makeup, combs, brushes, and the assorted paraphernalia of a well-stocked actor's toolkit. A row of four Styrofoam heads, each sporting a different-colored wig, stood like a line of guards at the gate. On the corner of the table closest to the door was the glass of champagne Sally had been holding when she came over and introduced herself to Allie not more than an hour before.
                  She reached into her pockets and pulled out her gloves. With gloved hands, she lifted the dead woman's head carefully. The neck was badly bruised, and red welts had risen on it.
                  Strangled.
                  She looked around. Nowhere was there a sign of any rope. There were, however, plenty of scarves, nylons, and boas; plenty of things that could be used to strangle someone.
                  Allie turned to Ben. "I think maybe..."
                  "I'll call them," said Ben, reading her mind.
                  She bent down, trying not to disturb any part of the scene as Ben frantically dialed 911.
                  "Rope," she said to herself. She noticed that on the dead woman's neck there were tiny dark fibers stuck there. She reached into her handbag and pulled out a set of tweezers.
                  Don’t disturb anything , she could hear Sgt. Beauchenne telling her in that paternal voice of his. Don’t touch anything, don’t disturb anything, don’t even look closely.
                  But anyone giving Allie Griffin this kind of direction didn’t know Allie Griffin. Or maybe they knew her too well, for she was now holding the tweezers with a surgeon's stillness and precision. She grabbed one of the fibers and yanked it off the woman's neck. She opened up her bag, carefully holding the tweezers and their precious bit of evidence pinched between the prongs, and fished out her compact. She dropped the bit of fiber into the compact and clapped it shut. As she stood up, her elbow brushed against one of the Styrofoam wig stands, knocking it over. She picked it up and put it back on the table. The wig was frizzed and unkempt. She tried to straighten it but failed.
                  Dismissing the wig, she walked around to the front of the body in order to examine the marks on the neck more closely. Del crept up behind her.
                  "Oh my God," Del said, her voice all tremble and no tone.               "She was garroted," said Allie, not looking up. "What's more, there are no signs of a struggle. I don’t see any impressions on the skin that could have been made by fingernails. You would expect her to have tried to insert her hands in the rope as it tightened. Also, nothing in this room appears to have been knocked over. Look here. There's a metal garbage pail within kicking distance of her left foot. If she had struggled, that would have been the first thing to get knocked over."
                  Del made a sickly sound. "What was that word you used again?"
                  "What word?"
                  "What you said happened to her."             
                  "Garroted? It's when someone ties something around the neck—a rope or