Unfinished Business - Barbara Seranella Read Online Free PDF

photograph. More scientific
methods of identification would be used in the coming days:
comparisons of ante- and postmortem X rays, dental records,
fingerprints. The autopsy the coroner's office told him, was
scheduled for the following morning. Deputy Coroner Frank Shue had
been assigned to the field investigative portion of the case and met
St. John at the address on Chenault. Even if the house turned out not
to be the murder scene, it could very well hold clues that would
assist both men in their jobs. St. John always arranged to meet the
coroner's office personnel at the scene. The last thing he wanted was
to be stuck in a car all day with one of those guys. The detective
had worked with Frank Shue on at least a dozen occasions. No matter
what hour of the day the man always looked as if he were emerging
from a three-day binge. Today was no exception. Shue's upper torso
was clothed in the incongruous mix of a tweed jacket and a plaid
flannel shirt. He had also managed to find a color of slacks that
didn't match or complement a single hue in either shirt or coat. His
two-tone saddle shoes hardly pulled the outfit together.
    The two men had spent the remainder of the morning at
the Bergman house. It was a modest home for the area, which put it in
the $900,000 price range. There was no sign of forced entry The
double garage had one car parked inside, a Mercedes. The Sunday paper
lay on the driveway.
    "This is the biggest goddamn kitchen I've ever
seen," St. John told Shue as he stood at one end and looked
across the expanse of endless counters and brand-new appliances.
    "My wife would love this," Shue said,
scratching his two-day growth of beard. "And technically what
you got here is two rooms. This part here with the table and atrium
is a breakfast nook."
    "You've got a wife?" St. John asked.
    "Yeah, why?"
    "She lets you leave the house dressed like
that?"
    "Like what?"
    " Never mind." St. John opened a shuttered
door that still smelled of fresh paint. He'd been expecting to find a
pantry or a laundry room. Instead, he discovered a desk and hutch.
"Here we go," he said. Her checkbook rested atop a stack of
bills. The most recent postmark was October 5, 1984. The envelopes
had been opened and the invoices spread flat. The body had been found
Monday morning, the eighth, so this mail must have arrived on
Saturday. It had most certainly been the last bit of mail she'd ever
picked up.
    He also found her appointment calendar, an address
book, and a stack of credit card receipts. He collected the trash
from the wastebasket under her desk, knowing how critical those
miscellaneous scraps could be, especially when attempting to
re-create the last few days of a person's life. Among the trash was
an unopened announcement of a sweepstakes winning and an
advertisement from a dating service called Great Expectations. Must
be nice, he thought, not to be in search of love or money. He filled
a cardboard box with all the various paperwork and had the
photographers chronicle the unmade bed in the master bedroom. A lot
of people who lived alone didn't bother to make their beds, but
considering the immaculate condition of the rest of the house, and
the fact that the vic was wearing only a nightgown when her body was
discovered, the bed might be important. He also ordered fingerprints
collected off all amenable surfaces.
    Photographs in expensive frames crowded small,
circular antique-looking wooden tables in the living room. Several of
the pictures showed the victim coupled with an elderly man, his arm
draped over Diane Bergman's shoulder in a proprietary manner. The man
seemed to be doing all the smiling.
    While St. John searched inside the house, three
two-man teams of uniformed cops and two pairs of major crime
detectives from the West Los Angeles station knocked on the
neighbors' doors, asking if anyone had heard or seen anything
suspicious in the last couple of nights.
    Not only had the neighbors noticed nothing
suspicious, the investigators