The Last Clinic Read Online Free PDF

the entry the barrel was pointing down at Reverend Jimmy. They thought he might have been walking towards the vehicle. I’m thinking it was still dark, and Reverend Jimmy didn’t even see the shotgun until it was too late.”
    He looked up at the clinic entrance and stared. An SUV—a black Infinity—was parked in the driveway. “Like I said, somebody in an SUV, most likely.”
    Darla didn’t like that Tommy had let them move the body before she’d had a chance to see it. She guessed he might have even ordered it moved. Probably he was trying to speed things along so he could be on time for his singing gig. She let it go. The forensic report would tell her most of what she needed to know, as long as they had decent pictures.
    “Did you get thorough photo documentation of the body before it was moved?”
    He held up a digital camera and pointed to the picture, a shot of Reverend Aldridge stretched across the cross.
    “This is what happens when a man of God tries to keep innocent children from being murdered in the womb,” he said.
    A photo flashed across her brain, the photo of Hugh in the car, the photo she’d made Shelby show her. All those images she’d been trying to forget.
    “You have others?”
    “This ain’t my first rodeo. We got three, maybe four dozen. The whole crime scene.”
    “Any non-police take this kind of a picture?”
    “Only Josh Klein and WJAK crew. I let them shoot some stuff.”
    In exchange for some airtime, probably. She raised an eyebrow and started to speak. He cut her off, shaking his head as if she was about to overreact.
    “Hey now Detective, nothing to worry about. Josh promised it was just documentation. They ain’t going to put a shot like that on TV. Maybe up in Philadelphia but not in Jackson.”
    “They may not put it on TV but it will be all over the internet by this afternoon. ‘Abortionist Kills Protester.’ This kind of thing could go viral. We could have a serious security situation at the clinic.”
    “Guess I must have forgot about that angle,” he admitted with a cat-and-mouse grin.
    Darla got the message. He intended to stir things up. He was more than just a cop on this case. He was one of Reverend Aldridge’s faithful, a soldier in Aldridge’s religious war. God against the baby killers. So maybe he didn’t mind if the photo turned up on the internet. Didn’t mind if it ignited the political situation and pumped up political passions. Not if it served a higher purpose, forcing the clinic to close down for a few days and helping to push through House Bill 674.
    No, we won’t be buying dinettes together , thought Darla.
    They walked to the ambulance. The body was next to it on a gurney, covered. Tommy reached over and pulled back the sheet. Careful, reverential almost, in the way he did it.
    “My brother George, we lost him to leukemia a couple of years back. Reverend Jimmy was with him till the end.”
    “I should have said it earlier, Tommy. Shelby told me Reverend Aldridge was your pastor. I’m sorry for your loss.”
    He didn’t respond. Instead, he continued to stare at the body before finally covering it.
    “I couldn’t let them put him in a body bag. Just couldn’t.”
    They put my husband in one , she thought, after he bled to death in his car in a ditch by the highway. He died alone while I was home sleeping .
    “What kind of personal property did Reverend Aldridge have on him when you found him?”
    Tommy gave her the envelope—the CSI kit—zipped. “The usual. Wallet, with thirty-two bucks cash, credit cards, dry cleaning receipt, picture of his wife and daughter, and a BlackBerry.”
    She looked at the kit without opening it. Decided she’d check it out of the evidence room later and go over everything alone, then order a forensic study on the BlackBerry from the new guy out at FUSION—the kid with the funny name.
    “What did you find in his vehicle?”
    Tommy paused for a second as if he was looking for a way not to answer the