Too Many Murders Read Online Free PDF Page B

occurred about four a.m.”
    Carmine resumed. “The identity of the victim was a mystery. No one had lodged a Missing Persons for a Down’s syndrome child. Corey?”
    “At eight-oh-two we got a call from a Mr. Gerald Cartwright, whose house fronts onto the Pequot River near the Chubb Rowing Club,” said Corey, striving mightily to keep his voice dispassionate and level. “He had just returned from an overnight trip out of state to find his wife dead in their bed and their youngest son, a Down’s syndrome, missing from the house.” He stopped.
    Back to Carmine. “By this time several other things had happened. A prostitute we all know well—Dee-Dee Hall—was lying in an alley behind City Hall with her throat cut from ear to ear. That call came in four minutes before seven a.m., and was followed at seven-twelve by a call from the residence of Mr. Peter Norton, who died after drinking a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. So I left Abe to deal with Dee-Dee’s murder, Corey on the Cartwright affair, and went myself to the Norton house. I found the victim’s wife and two children—a girl aged eight and a boy aged five—basket cases, especially the wife, who behaved like she was demented. What details I got were from the little girl, who swore it was the orange juice. The glass was on the breakfast table, about half drunk. The wife squeezed it every morning, then went upstairs to wake and dress the kids, during which time—about ten minutes—the glass sat unobserved and unattended on the table. So there was a window of opportunity for an outsider to add something to the juice.”
    “I have the remainder of the juice and the glass,” Patsy said, one hand propping his chin; he looked tired. “Though I don’t have any analytical results back yet, my guess is that Mr. Norton was poisoned by a large dose of strychnine.” He grimaced. “Not a pleasant way to go.”
    “While I was at the Nortons’,” Carmine went on, “I was calledto a rape and murder out on Sycamore. I sent Corey. Mrs. Norton needed a woman cop, and we’re short on those. Report, Corey?”
    “The body was discovered by the girl’s landlord,” said Corey, managing his voice better. “Her name is Bianca Tolano. She was on the floor, naked, hands bound behind her back. She’d been tortured, and there was a pair of pantyhose around her neck. But I don’t think she died of strangulation, Carmine. I think she died from a broken bottle up the vagina.”
    “Quite right, Cor,” said Patsy. “Autopsy is still pending, but I’ve made a preliminary examination. The pantyhose was an on-again, off-again form of torture.”
    “Jesus!” cried Silvestri. “Are we under siege?”
    “It sure felt like it yesterday, sir,” said Carmine. “I was still trying to get information out of Mrs. Norton when the call came about the shooting of a black cleaning woman and two black high school students—not gang related, according to the cop who phoned them in. They happened on his beat. I passed them to Larry here. Larry?”
    A medium-brown man who had had an undistinguished but quite satisfactory career, Larry Pisano wiggled his brows ruefully. “Well, Carmine, it may have sounded ordinary enough, but believe me, it’s not. Ludovica Bereson is a cleaning woman—she does five houses between Mondays and Fridays. She’s well liked by her employers, doesn’t shirk, never gives cause for complaint. Likes a good joke and something hot for her lunch. Her employers didn’t mind the lunch because she was a good cook and always left enough for them to eat for dinner. She was shot in the head with a small-bore gun, and died instantly. No one saw it, but—and this is more interesting—no one heard it either. Cedric Ballantine was sixteen years old, a good student in line for a football scholarship to a top college. He works hard, has never been in trouble. He was shot in the back of the head by a medium-bore gun. Morris Brown was eighteen years old, an A