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

a scarf—and then uses some instrument like a stick inserted into the knot and uses it like a crank to twist the knot tighter and tighter."
                  Del tried in vain to moisten her dry mouth. "How do you know that happened to her?"
                  "If the killer stood over her, he would have had to pull the rope upward. That would leave marks on the underside of her jaw. She only has marks on her neck, below the jawline. Anyone strangling her from behind would either have to have been both very short and very strong, or would’ve had to have used a garrote."
                  Allie stood up and looked around the room.
                  "What if they were both standing?" said Del.
                  "Look at the dress," said Allie, walking over to the wardrobe and surveying the hangers. "If she was strangled while standing up and then placed in the chair, the back of her dress would have been bunched up. Her dress is neatly pulled behind her, as if she did so before sitting. I say it's a pretty good sign she was killed in the chair. It takes strength to strangle someone. I think we have a male killer on our hands. And no man would think to straighten the back of a dress before sitting her down. Men don’t have to deal with the problems of sitting down in dresses like that."
                  Allie looked down at the floor beneath the row of costumes. All along the tiles was a thin coat of grayish-colored grit. "What is this stuff?"
                  Del walked over and looked. "That must be from the work they were doing in here. The ceiling tiles needed replacing after one of the water pipes sprung a leak. That's probably residue from the tiles. Can we get out of here?"
                  Allie ran her foot across it and winced at the sandy sound. Then she began riffling through the clothes.
                  "Del, have a look." She picked up a blue taffeta ball gown and held it away from its hanger.
                  Del sidestepped the dead body with eyes scrunched shut. "What am I looking at?" she said through clenched teeth.
                  "This dress has a coating of that stuff on it. Like it was dropped on the floor and then picked up hastily without being brushed off. See that? Which means that this..." She removed the hanger from the rack and held it up. "This could be our murder weapon. The metal hook could be inserted into a knot and twisted easily with the leverage of the hanger arms."
                  Del made the same sickly sound in her throat and looked over at the dead girl. "I have to get out of here." She padded past the body and left the room quickly.
                  Allie looked at Sally Kane. A feeling of shame came over her. Here she was callously indulging in a game of deductive logic, while not three feet away from her was a woman who'd had the life viciously choked out of her. She replaced the dress on the hanger, hung it back up, and started to leave.
                  She paused at the threshold and turned around.
                  She leaned in, putting her face close to the dead girl's lips, and she ran her pinky across the cold lips.
                  Hesitantly, she sniffed. Coconut lip gloss. She'd used it herself in the past.
                  She picked up the champagne flute from the makeup table and held it up to the light. Crystal clear. Yet the glass was empty. If this girl had put her lips on it, there was certainly no trace of a glossy smudge on the rim.
                  She heard a commotion from outside. The cops had arrived.
                  Allie's mind shifted into overdrive.
                  No stain on the glass. The glass was empty, save for a spit's worth of champagne at the bottom. The killer made some effort to hide his tracks. That was obvious from the return