No Place to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

Julie’s father notwithstanding, I very much regretted my decision to have offered her family the opportunity to be at her bedside when the feeding tube was to be removed.
    I sat there for an hour or so, holding Julie’s hand, thinking about all of the things that I would have wanted to share with her at the end of the day, and inevitably giving free reign to the memories that so sweetly haunted my days and nights. Finally, at about three thirty, I got up from the chair, leaned over, and kissed Julie on the cheek. “I love you Jules,” I said quietly.
    Then I gently laid her hand back at her side, slipped out of the room, and made my way home alone to our empty house.

Chapter Six
    Four hours later, I climbed the stairs back up to my office in the Homicide Unit on the third floor of the police headquarters building on Washington Street in downtown Phoenix. The lieutenant’s door was standing open, and as I reached the reception area, he looked up from the report on his desk, put down his reading glasses, and waved me in.
    The lieutenant, Russ Martin, was a twenty-two-year veteran of the force and had been head of the HomicideUnit for the last five years. His hair, which had once been as thick and dark as my own, was now thinning and flecked with gray. But six mornings a week, he began his day in the gym, and even at fifty-two he remained in excellent physical shape. He pointed me toward a chair in front of his desk, and I said, “What’s up?”
    Toying with a pencil, he said, “Beverly Thompson’s picture hit the airwaves first thing this morning. So far we’ve had fourteen callers claiming to have seen her within the last twelve hours in locations from Tucson all the way up to Prescott. Patrolmen are following up on all the local reported sightings, and we’re coordinating with police and sheriff’s departments in the outlying areas. Doubtless, as the day progresses the number of calls will escalate, but we don’t have anything that looks solid yet.”
    With the pencil, he tapped the report he’d been reading. “Ballistics says the bullets we got out of David Thompson match the slugs they recovered from the elderly woman that Pierce and Chickris drew last Friday. It looks like the same shooter did both her and Thompson.”
    “Any obvious connection between the Thompsons and this other woman?”
    “None that I know of,” he sighed. “But the report just landed on my desk ten minutes ago. Obviously the cases are related, though, and the four of you will need to work them together. You’re senior; I’d prefer that you take the lead.”
    He paused for a moment, toying with his glasses and staring at the photo of his wife and three kids that sat on the edge of the cluttered desk. Then he looked back to me. “That said, Sean, I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask. Are you sure you’re up for this?”
    I’d been waiting for the question for the last couple of months and was surprised only by the fact that ithad taken him this long to ask it. Certainly it was a fair question, especially under the circumstances. The department was now confronted with a complex investigation that would inevitably attract a great deal of attention in the media, and his ass would be on the line much more so than mine. He needed to know—and had every right to demand—that his lead investigator would be tightly focused on the case and capable of performing effectively.
    I certainly understood that if I were too distracted to give the case the time and attention it demanded, my record to date would be of absolutely no consequence. The lieutenant would have to assign the overall direction of the investigation to someone else. I waited a moment myself, then looked him in the eye and gave him what I hoped was an honest answer.
    “Yeah, Lieutenant, I’m up for it. And I promise to let you know the second I feel that I’m not.”
    “Okay then,” he said. “Doyle is back from vacation tomorrow, but Riggins won’t be back from his