The Silent Bride Read Online Free PDF Page B

devastating for Tovah's ghost. No Chinese ghost would ever be coaxed into a peaceful afterlife with such a gruesome eternal reminder of her violent end.
"And we need any other items of her clothing that were stained with her blood." The rabbi punched the air with his finger to show he meant it. The rabbi's shawl was bloody. Did that count, too? April wondered.
She felt sick. She worked for the dead but had no authority to negotiate for peace in their afterlives. The Jews clearly had a different idea from the Chinese of how their dead should be treated. What could she say? Of course they would release the body as soon as they could, possibly as early as tonight if an autopsy could be done immediately. Forensic work had to be done on the dress, however. Sometimes it took weeks, and she'd have to check that with the DA's office. Items that pertained to a crime were always kept in a secure location, introduced into evidence in court, and not released until after a trial. If a suspect wasn't apprehended, they remained in custody indefinitely. She didn't know if returning any forensic evidence before trial would be possible.
"I'll see what I can do," she promised. "Is this a religious requirement?"
"Yes, absolute requirement."
"I can contact the scientists at the lab to let them know about your time constraints," she said quickly. "But this may be an issue for the DA's office."
"The girl has to be buried with everything that came out of her. We have to have all of her there. Anything else would dishonor her memory. Can I go into my study now?"
"I'll ask," April promised.

Five
T hree hours later April finished talking with the five valets. She'd taken down names and counted forty-two women wearing wigs. She'd spoken to ten snuffling, wig-wearing women in some detail. All ten were convinced the tragedy was another Arab plot. When questioned a little more deeply on the subject, they denied any possibility of the family's doing business or being acquainted with any Arabs, so their reasoning about how the Schoenfelds might have been singled out for an Arab attack remained unclear. She did not feel it was appropriate to ask about the wigs.
As time passed and cars were swept for bombs, the guests from the wedding party went home. When all were finally gone, April and Mike marched up the steps to the tall front doors of the synagogue and entered the crime scene for the first time. Inside the doors, a carpeted lobby about ten feet deep spread across the width of the building. April slowly absorbed the site. A clump of dark stains on the light brown Berber carpet in front of the two middle inner doors suggested that blood from the victims had been carried out this far on people's shoes, or else the shooter had somehow cut himself.
To the left, well away from the bloodstains on the main entrance path, Ken and Vic had made a little "trash pile" of their used materials so that items they'd brought to the scene wouldn't be confused with articles that had been there before they arrived. Empty film packs, blood-testing materials, used gloves, and soda cans sat on a newspaper blanket in the corner, indicating the CSU team had finished out here.
To the right of the third pair of doors the lobby angled into a hallway like a backward L, wide enough to serve as a landing at the top of a sweeping circular staircase that wound back down to the ground floor. Mike chose these side doors near the stairs for his point of entry to the sanctuary.
"Okay to come in?" he called out.
"Who is it?" Vic Walters called, as if he didn't know.
"Sanchez and Woo," Mike said, smiling a little at April.
"You guys sound like some kind of fusion law firm. Yeah. But come around the other side and don't touch anything in my grid. I haven't done over there yet."
Close to Mike, April breathed in the signature cologne that wafted deliciously from his shirt and jacket and was distracted for a moment. The spicy scent that April's father complained was a hundred times too sweet for a