Three Ways to Die Read Online Free PDF Page A

apparent signs of trauma. Looks to me like she just curled up under a bush with her bottle and froze to death."
    The woman was bundled up in a ratty, men's overcoat that was at least two sizes too big for her, hugging herself, her face turned to the ground. An empty bottle of Scotch lay at her feet.
    "Any ID?" Bud asked.
    "Pockets were empty," Erno replied. "We'll roll her prints when we get back to the morgue."
    Bud leaned down and looked at her face. She didn't die peacefully, she died defiant, her eyes closed and lips drawn tight in an expression of stubborn refusal. Her skin was chalky white and perfect, her black hair short and ragged, like she'd cut it herself in a frustrated hurry with a pair of rose shears. It was probably the kind of thing she'd do.
    He hadn't seen her in two years. Nobody had.
    "You know her?" Erno asked, reading his face.
    Bud nodded, overwhelmed with sadness and dread and unanswered questions. Where had she been? Did she just come back from somewhere else, or had she been living in the city all along, managing to hide from them all?
    "I got to give the Chief a call," Bud said, his voice a barely audible rasp.
    Erno looked at the corpse, then at Bud. "She's somebody that important?"
    Bud turned up his collar against the cold, shoved his fists into his pockets, and trudged off towards his car, mumbling into the wind.
    "Just his wife."
    * * * * * *
    When Lissy Masters woke up during the night, wanting a smoke and not finding one, she'd get out of bed, grab some change off the nightstand, and walk a couple blocks to the Stop-and-Go on the corner.
    It wasn't the hour, or the walk, that unsettled people on the streets. It was that Lissy didn't bother getting dressed to do it.
    The first time she showed up naked at the Stop-and-Go, demanding a pack of Marlboros, the startled clerk didn't know whether to sell her the cigarettes, call the cops, or drag her behind the counter for his interpretation of how the market got its name.
    He sold her the cigarettes and let her walk out, a decision all the more astonishing considering the clerk was a paroled sex offender who only took the job so he'd have free access to girlie magazines.
    When the clerk found out later that she was the wife of the deputy chief of police, he considered her naked, nocturnal visits a divine test of his character, proof of God's hand at work. Later, sometime after she disappeared, he would credit her for leading him to Jesus.
    Lissy was blessed in that way. She didn't have to adjust to the world; it twisted itself all out of shape to adjust to her.
    At least, it used to.
    Bud Flanek sat in Chief Masters' office, trying to look anywhere but at Fred Masters, who stood with his back to him, staring out the window in deep contemplation.
    Chief Masters was a big, muscled man in a tailored suit who looked like he'd be much more comfortable in a loincloth, letting his abs and glutes flex in unfettered glory. No matter how well-fitted his suits were, Masters' body always seemed to be straining at the seams to break out.
    But if Chief Masters was uncomfortable, he didn't show it. He was a man who prized control, over others and over himself, which was why it was so important for him to hide his pain from Bud, and why it was so important for Bud not show he saw it.
    So Bud concentrated on the badges, awards and commendations on the walls and the one, small photo of Lissy Masters on her husband's spotless desk.
    There was something disturbingly erotic about the picture, although it was nothing more than an innocent head shot. It was a rawness to the smile, and a mischievousness in the eyes, that seemed to promise trouble, and a lot of fun making it.
    Lissy often disappeared for days at a time, only to show up again in a big way, like the time she took a Mercedes Benz on a 230-mile test drive, abandoning the car and the salesman on the side of the road in Idaho when she finally ran out of gas. Masters ended up buying the car, taking out a second