The Bone House Read Online Free PDF Page A

gawkers followed the activity near the water. 'Look at the binoculars
spying on us right now. Beachfront voyeurs are always looking for people
humping by the water in the middle of the night.'
        'Well,
we've got uniforms interviewing guests in the lobby,' Lala told him. 'It's
Sunday, and half the hotel is checking out. We're trying to catch people as
they leave.'
        'Good.'
Cab eyed the narrow strip of Gulf Coast sand, which stretched along the water
like a ribbon for several miles in both directions. Even in the early morning,
there were already bathers sunning themselves up and down the beach. 'If you
strangled someone in the surf, what would you do next?' he asked Lala.
        'I'd
walk along the water and head up the beach where there are a ton of footprints
in the sand,' she said.
        'Exactly.
I hate beach bodies.' He replaced his sunglasses on his face, covering up his
sky-blue eyes. 'OK, Mosquito, what do we know so far?'
        Cab
saw her dark eyes flash with annoyance. He knew she hated it when he used her
nickname, but he couldn't resist pushing her buttons. He'd never been a master
of social graces; his mouth was always getting him into trouble. That was one
of the reasons he'd gone from the FBI to the police to private investigative
work and back to the police in half a dozen cities over the past twelve years.
His colleagues also resented his born-in-LA style. Unlike most cops working for
a pension, he had a bulging trust fund thanks to his Hollywood mother, and he
did what he did because he enjoyed it, not because he needed a paycheck. That
didn't fly with most cops, and particularly not in Naples, which was a
sun-soaked resort town of rich snowbirds and spoiled spring break college
students. If you had money, you were supposed to be on the other side of the
social divide.
        He
wasn't fooling Lala with his jokes, though. He was deliberately keeping her at
a distance, and she knew it. They'd had a brief affair not long ago that was
the equivalent of a supernova: super-charged, blindingly bright, collapsing
with a big bang. Their attraction hadn't gone away, but what was left between
them was a black hole, with both of them fighting against the pull of gravity.
        'OK, Ms Mosqueda, what do we know so far?' he asked her.
        She
had a very pretty Cuban face, but there was definitely no light escaping from
it now. Black hole.
        'A
jogger found the body before sunrise,' she told him. 'She was face down in the
water, topless, with her bikini top wrapped around her neck. He pulled her out of
the water and tried mouth-to-mouth, but she'd been dead for a while.
Preliminary estimate on time of death is between two and four o'clock. From the
ligature marks on the neck and bruising on the backs of the shoulders, it looks
like someone held her down and strangled her in the water. The ME isn't sure
yet whether asphyxiation resulted from the rope of the bikini top or the water
itself.'
        'But
she didn't just get drunk and do a bellyflop in the surf?' Cab asked.
        'No,
she definitely had help. The girl had been drinking, though. We found an empty
bottle of Yellow Tail near the body, and her teeth and tongue show
discoloration from red wine. We won't know how much she had until we get the
blood analysis back. Maybe she was drunk, maybe she wasn't.'
        'Did
she have sex?' Cab asked.
        'She
was still wearing her bikini bottom,' Lala replied in a monotone, 'and the
fabric wasn't ripped or otherwise disturbed. There was no bruising, blood, or
external injury consistent with vaginal or anal rape, at least based on a
visual inspection.'
        Cab
wasn't convinced. 'You're talking about a teenage girl who's drinking and
topless on the beach. That sure smells like sex was involved.'
        'I'm
not saying she didn't have sex, but there isn't any evidence yet of sexual
assault.'
        'Fair
enough. I get it. Did you find anything else near the