To Die For Read Online Free PDF Page A

filled out the request form, hoping he would at least be considered for the job.
    Greco soon realized that he needn’t have worried. The stampede of applicants for the detective’s job never materialized. The salary for detectives and street cops were identical and the move to detective was not considered a promotion within the Perris P.D., it was a lateral move. The only difference was the hours. Detectives worked 9 to 5. Patrol officers got alternating three-day weekends off.
    Greco was the sole applicant. By default, he became a detective in May 1993. The department immediately shipped him off to a two-week homicide seminar in neighboring Orange County.
    Within days, he was handed his first homicide. The victim, a prostitute and drug addict, was found spread-eagled and partially clothed behind an industrial building, by a fence at the rear property line. Animals had attacked the remains. Despite being badly decomposed, the body was spotted from the sky by recreational balloonists near the small airport in Perris. The coroner estimated that she had been dead about two weeks. She had been badly beaten, but the coroner could only guess at the instrument because of the condition of the body. The victim’s boyfriend, also an addict and probably her pimp, had reported her missing eight days after she was presumed dead. He was suspect number one. Greco worked the case the best he could, but no evidence tied the boyfriend to the murder and the case remained unsolved.
    And now this. Greco had barely sat down with his coffee that morning before his supervisor phoned him about Norma’s murder. He’d grabbed his 35 mm camera, a notebook and a tape recorder, and pointed his teal Taurus station car toward Canyon Lake, about 20 minutes southwest of Perris. Excited and nervous, he ran through mental checklist of all the things he’d learned from homicide school about preserving the crime scene and investigating the murder. But doubt invaded his thoughts. After all, he told himself, he’d failed his first time at bat. He hadn’t solved his first homicide. My god, he thought, how am I going to solve this one? Greco considered the responsibility and his stomach churned. This wasn’t some dope addict or prostitute that no one would miss. An elderly victim in an affluent community like Canyon Lake would have friends and neighbors, adult children and maybe adult grandchildren, all of whom would look to him for answers—and an arrest. It was no secret that he would have to answer to them as well as his own department, but nothing would approach the pressure Greco eventually put on himself.
    On his way to the scene, Greco passed the deserted rolling hills of Kabian Park, pushing the Taurus, carving up the twin black ribboned highway toward Canyon Lake. He felt tension creeping into his neck and shoulders and tried calming himself by going back to the homicide school checklist: maintain the crime scene, preserve and document evidence, photograph and collect everything for processing later, particularly fingerprints, blood, hair and fiber evidence. He repeated it over and over until common sense started to assert itself. First of all, he told himself, the responding officers at the scene will have already taped off the scene and kept everyone out. Secondly, the criminalists and ID techs are trained to take crime-scene photos and physically collect evidence. They have the tools and equipment to preserve fingerprints, blood and trace evidence.
    Greco knew that part of his panic stemmed from his lack of experience with murders. You don’t investigate a homicide the same way you do a car theft or a burglary or a rape. Most veteran homicide detectives have a procedure or protocol to follow—most rookies had plenty of battle-scarred older guys to follow around and ask questions. There were none on the Perris P.D. and Greco didn’t know of any he could ask for help. Without the benefit of experience or a