The Big Mitt (A Detective Harm Queen Novel Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

little boy behind an ash can a few feet away, no more than seven years old. He held a chunk of ice like a weapon in his mittened hand. “Is she dead?” he blurted.
    “What the deuce? Why are you out here by yourself?”
    The boy took a step forward, straining around Queen to look at the girl.
    “Do you know anything about this?” Queen asked.
    He shook his dirty face and dabbed at the yellow slime that hung from his nostril.
    “Well, stay out of my way. Your mother should be ashamed of herself, letting you out alone like this.”
    “She’s sleeping. I didn’t have nothin’ to do. Jus’ wanted to play.”
    “Play somewhere else. Something bad happened here. You shouldn’t see.”
    “Too late. I already did.”
    “Did you see what happened to her?”
    “Naw, not that. Just seen the body. I also seen a white cloud. Middle of the night, I guess.”
    “A white cloud in the middle of the night, you guess, huh? Were there fairies dancing on it too?”
    “I seen it, I swear. Right over there.” He pointed to the end of the fence, close to church property. “Over a man.”
    “You saw a man?”
    “From my window. I sleep right there.” Queen looked up at the rat-trap house next to them.
    “What time?”
    “After midnight. I just heard somebody shoot and I looked outside.”
    “What did he look like? Tall, short, fat?”
    “Don’ know.”
    “And you saw her laying on the ground and didn’t tell your ma?”
    “Ma drunk too much booze last night. No point in trying.”
    “You’re an irresponsible little snipe, you know that?”
    “To hell with you, Mister.”
    Queen scowled at the kid until he retreated back to the ash can. He considered shooing him back home, but wasn’t in the mood to tilt with a tot.
    He bent down again and took one of the dead girl’s delicate hands in his. Dark raw rings circled her wrists, and her fingernails were uneven and chipped. Gently, he turned the hands over and pulled a small splinter from under a nail. He looked up. The fence was tall and unpainted. His eyes scanned for loose boards, thinking perhaps she had found an exit through the fence, but it seemed well built. Then he glanced to the top. There, farther up than he could reach, was a piece of fabric, fluttering in the breeze. He looked at her gown again, and found the tear. What had she been doing up there? Did she get the splinter from the fence? He walked its length until he found a crack and peered through.
    “This is your idea of crack detective work? Peeping through knotholes?”
    Queen turned and saw fellow cop Chris Norbeck walk up next to him. His old partner had his hands thrust deep in his coat pockets and a cigar in his mouth. He was grinning madly.
    “Damn, if my hands don’t feel like they’re gonna fall off. Forgot my gloves at home this morning.” Norbeck looked down at the girl and pushed her leg a little with his shoe. “That skeleton-bone wag-tail looks dead.”
    “Now why would you call her that?”
    “You’d rather I call her a whore?”
    “I’d rather you shut your pan and let her be.” He stared hard at Norbeck, challenging him to say more. Norbeck knew better and lowered his head a little in deference. Queen didn’t like Norbeck much for a number of reasons, besides the obvious one, which was that he was an outright ass. First, Norbeck grinned like a leering baboon at the most inappropriate of times. Second, he had a queer habit of winking knowingly, at everything and everyone. The third was the most difficult to ignore. Weeks ago, a doctor had told Norbeck he was suffering from acne rosacea. The red, veiny rash had spread across his face and deformed his nose into a bulbous mass. It looked to Queen like the bottom of a sack of potatoes too long in the cellar. Norbeck was overwrought with worry about it, and had even knocked around a handful of men who had dared to mention it in conversation. Every day Norbeck slathered a smelly ointment obsessively over the affected parts,