The Gravedigger's Ball Read Online Free PDF

said that the reporter wanted him to lose it, to yell, to give in to his most base instincts. That look said that Lynch mustn’t do that, lest he give that reporter the chance to portray him as hotheaded and inept.
    That look was right.
    Lynch took a deep breath, held in the obscenities that were perched on his lips, and walked across the wet, winding road to talk to Sandy.
    He’d come to know her during the search for the Angel of Death, and he’d learned to admire her instinct and toughness. Sandy, after all, was much like himself—a cop who had faced all manner of naysayers both inside and outside the department. Like him, she’d managed to survive—to thrive, even—in a job where the brightest stars had to dim their own lights in order to avoid flaming out.
    “I’m glad you didn’t say what you were about to, Commissioner,” she said when he was close enough so only the two of them could hear.
    “I’m glad you stopped me,” he said, smiling quickly and humorlessly before his sad, angry expression returned. “Did you just get here?”
    “Yes, sir,” she said as sadness flashed across her face. “Smitty was—I mean, Smitty is —one of my favorite guys in the department. We go way back.”
    She looked embarrassed at her flub, but Lynch knew as well as she did that she was probably right to speak of him in the past tense.
    “Let’s hope he’s all right,” he said, feeling as disingenuous as he sounded.
    As Lynch spoke, the captain of the ninety-second district walked slowly toward them, his eyes vacant and his face devoid of color. He didn’t have to say a word. The grief on his face said it all.
    “They found him,” the captain said, his voice barely audible in the rain.
    Neither Lynch nor Sandy responded. They simply waited for him to finish.
    “He was, um, in a hole maybe two hundred yards into the woods. We probably would’ve missed him, except his gun was close by and the rain washed away the leaves that had been brushed over the hole.” The captain sighed and shook his head, the grief on his face rapidly giving way to anger. “I’m no expert, but from the looks of it, I’d say he was buried alive.”
    “Okay,” the commissioner said, turning to look at the media contingent. “Lieutenant Jackson, get me a few more cars from the sixth to secure those media barricades.”
    “Yes, sir,” Sandy said.
    The commissioner looked once more at the bank of cameras. Then he started down the hill that led into the woods.
    “Where are you going, Commissioner?” asked the captain from the ninety-second.
    “If one of my men is dead,” Lynch said with smoldering eyes, “I’m going down to see him for myself.”
    *   *   *
    Mann and Coletti never made it to the assist. They couldn’t with Lenore in the car, so they drove back to headquarters, listening to the radio transmissions that ended with the discovery of Smitty’s body.
    Lenore heard it all, and as she sat in the backseat, watching Coletti cast furtive glances in the rearview mirror, she knew, just as they all did, that the murders of Mrs. Bailey and the officer were connected. Lenore’s senses told her something more than that, though. They told her that Coletti was right; sometimes people can be involved in things and not even know it.
    Coletti called the office to find out if anyone had been able to reach Mrs. Bailey’s husband. They hadn’t, so he turned his attention back to Lenore, who was busily dialing her cell phone to leave a message for her own husband.
    When they arrived at the police administration building, Coletti and Mann escorted her into the oddly shaped figure eight known locally as the Roundhouse. They walked her down a series of curved halls and into a quiet interview room whose pale fluorescent light made most people look sickly. They marveled that it didn’t seem to do that to Lenore.
    With the exception of a scraped knee from hitting the ground after the gunshot, she looked as if she’d just stepped out