Suspects Read Online Free PDF

“Meanwhile, it looks like, in addition to the cutting, she’s got a bad head wound from violent contact with something more or less blunt. No visible semen anywhere on the body.” He went over his jottings. “The little girl probably died of the clean slash at the throat. No other signs of damage on her.” He looked across at his partner. “Let’s hope it was while she was still asleep.”
    LeBeau’s youngest daughter was only a year and two months older than the dead child. He said, “I’m going to drop around home, maybe get a hot meal. There’ll be more than enough for you, Nick. I’ll give Crys a call.”
    Moody was given to saying, and sometimes even believing, that if he could find a wife like Crystal LeBeau, he would settle down forever, but when in the depths of drunkenness he could identify and accept the truth, he knew he would never recognize such a woman if he did meet her. “Thanks, but you go on. Maybe I’ll get a bright idea meanwhile.”
    â€œHow about I bring you back a sandwich? If she doesn’t have some nice meat, I’ll get her to make one of those bacon-and-eggers you like, on white bread with lots of ketchup.”
    â€œSwell,” said Moody, for whom the described sandwich was a favorite only because it was one of the few dishes he could cook for himself. If a woman was feeding him, he preferred almost anything else. He knew LeBeau’s real reason for stopping off home was to tuck in his little daughter even though she was probably already asleep. When Moody had first seen the Howland child, he would have liked to keep Dennis out of the room, but there was no way that could be done, and his partner would anyway have resented the effort as an implication that his competence was at the mercy of a selfish emotion. LeBeau had three kids and would likely father more. Moody’s lone offspring, by his first wife, was a twenty-four-year-old graduate student, living with his mother in Oregon. He was a left-winger and despised the police, though he was civil enough when his father phoned him every Xmas.
    Hardly had LeBeau gone out the door when Dennis’ phone rang. If the call was important, Moody could catch him by raising the back window and yelling down to the parking lot. Homicide occupied the second floor of the Tenth Precinct stationhouse: one big shabby space full of paper-cluttered desks, with a couple of private offices for the brass up around the perimeter, a squalid locker room with adjoining shower, and two interrogation rooms in the rear.
    Moody stood up, leaned over, and seized the phone from his partner’s desk. He did not identify himself.
    The voice was female. “Denny? I found the address book.”
    â€œDaisy, it’s Nick.”
    â€œOh, well, okay,” she said with somewhat less enthusiasm. “I found their address book. Know where it was? The little girl’s room, on a shelf with kids’ storybooks.”
    â€œYou’re real good, Daze.”
    â€œI wish I could claim it was more than luck. I wasn’t looking for evidence at that point. I was just seeing if any of the books were ones I had as a girl.”
    â€œI won’t tell anybody,” Moody said, in the tone he sometimes used to cultivate the confidence of arrested felons. “Besides, you would have found it sooner or later anyhow. You’re doing great.” She was not long out of the Academy.
    â€œIt looks like the husband’s employer might be something called Glenn-Air. Here’s the number.”
    Moody took it down. “There won’t be anybody there tonight. What about relatives?”
    â€œThe book is full of names.”
    â€œI’ll run over to get it.”
    â€œI’ll drop it off,” O’Connor said. “We’re finished here. Small’s taking a few last prints, down cellar.”
    â€œI’ll be here,” said Moody.
    But it was her partner, Harry