Detective Carson Ryder Thriller Series Books 4-6: Blood Brother, In the Blood, Little Girls Lost - J. Kerley A.

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seven. Waltz said, “Cluff’s got to be there by now. I’ll call and see what’s –”

      The phone sounded. Waltz’s hand hit the button mid-ring, cobra speed. The line crackled as the connection wavered. Followed by Cluff’s voice in full gasping wheeze.

      “Jesus, Shelly … it’s a bloodbath over here. She’s … on the floor. I called for the medics, but … Folger’s dead, Shelly. She’s been torn apart.”

       Chapter 24

      We were outside Folger’s house in minutes, running to the door. The ME’s van was rolling up, the bus – ambulance – already there. Cluff was at the door, shaking his head, his voice labored, squeezing past pain.

      “I got here … the front door was open about an inch, I called inside. Nothing. Then I stepped in, found …”

      I stuck my head through the door. Blood. On the floor. On the walls. The air was thick with its reek. I saw Folger’s body on the floor, clothes awry, legs splayed, red with blood. The head was still attached, but the rage had been cut deep into the flesh. What remained of the face was turned toward the door, the teeth pink with blood and clenched in the rictus of misery.

      There was nothing to be done.

      “Get back,” a voice said. “Coming through.”

      Two technicians from the Medical Examiner’s office pushed into the room, one stripping the wrapping from a new thermometer. I grimaced as he plunged it beneath Folger’s ribs, deep into her liver, the temperature helping to determine time of death.

      Shelly was beside me, wanting to run to Folger, his cop instinct holding him back, letting the techs work before the dicks took over. I heard him sucking air, hard, as if hyperventilating.

      “Steady, Shelly.”

      “I can’t take much more,” he whispered. I turned to him, saw faraway eyes in a ghost-white face.

      “Shelly? Are you all right?”

      His eyes rolled up and his knees collapsed. I managed to grab around his chest and slow his fall to the floor. “Need help over here!”

      A paramedic appeared beside me, fingers against Waltz’s neck, ear tight against Shelly’s chest. “Pulse is reedy but steady. No arrhythmia. I think it’s syncope, fainting. Probably stress and anxiety.”

      Waltz’s hand whipped by my face, trying to push away my shape. He was disoriented, but returning. Tears poured into his eyes and he smeared his sleeve across his face, leaving tears and spit and mucus across his cheeks.

      “It’s a nightmare,” he moaned. “A fucking nightmare.”

      “Just rest, Shelly. Stay calm.”

      He covered his face with his hands, muttered, “… all a nightmare,” and lay still, gathering himself.

      I sat back and watched the tech pull the thermometer from the liver. A breast slipped from beneath a torn strip of what had been a blouse. I stared at it, heavy, the aureole large and brown. I rose, stepped around the red pools. My foot slipped in a patch of excrement and I slid sideways, grabbing the shoulder of the tech, nearly tumbling across the corpse.

      “Easy,” the tech said.

      I lowered myself to a crouch and gently lifted a clot of blood-soaked hair, the head following like a puppet. I slipped my gloved fingers under the chin and spun the face to mine.

      I turned to Waltz. It would later haunt me that a person’s death could give so much relief.

      “It’s not Folger, Shelly. It’s someone else.”

      Within twenty minutes a dozen detectives and evidence techs filled Folger’s house. The usual banter was gone, replaced by brutal efficiency, as if a fuse was burning. Or a clock ticking on a bomb.

      The front door opened and Bullard entered. “I just heard. What’s the word?”

      Waltz put his hands in his pockets, walked to Bullard. Something in Waltz’s eyes set off an alarm in my head and I followed.

      “It’s just a woman’s moment,” Waltz said to Bullard.

      Bullard was confused. “What you talking about, Waltz?”

      “It’s what you said when she didn’t show up at your meeting this morning. She was having a ‘woman’s moment’. You know, Bullard, one of those times when things aren’t real clear.”

      I stepped closer. Re-thought things. Stepped back and put my hands in my pockets.

      “You’re babbling,” Bullard said.

      “Folger was having her period, you said. That’s why she was late.”

      “Hey, I didn’t mean anything. I was just havin’ fun.”

      “Me too,” Waltz said, driving his fist into Bullard’s sternum.

      Bullard dropped to the floor, gasping. Every eye turned to the action. No one moved. After a few seconds everyone went back to work as if nothing had happened. Two dicks grabbed Bullard under the arms and ushered him from the house, not gently.

      Shelly returned to worrying and watching the investigation progress. Records and photographs found in the upstairs apartment showed the corpse was that of Julie Chase, a forty-two-year-old accountant for Morgan Stanley. A stairway connected the up- and downstairs. The connecting door was open.

      “There’s blood spray into the stairway,” one of the dicks said. “Like the vic heard something down here, came to check.”

      “Got taken down when she walked in?” another asked.

      “Slammed.”

      “So where’s Folger?” Waltz asked.

      No one said a word. The crew moved to Folger’s bedroom and Forensics began bagging the bedclothes for inspection for hairs, semen and other physical evidence. At the same time the print techs were pulling latents from the headboard.

      I winced, cleared my throat, looked at Waltz. “I, uh, suspect y’all might find a few of my fingerprints around the place, Shelly. Probably a little something on the sheets as well.”

      Every head turned to me.

      I retreated to the stoop. The techs had stopped talking to me, the dicks regarded me with wary eyes. Waltz stepped outside a few minutes later. His eyes were steady, hard.

      “Four million women in this city and you hit on Folger?”

      “If the past week has told you anything about me, Shelly, you know it didn’t fall like that.”

      He rubbed his eyes with his fingertips. “Sorry. It’s a shitty day, it’s been a shitty week. You’re both adults and it’s none of my business.”

      “It surprised us more than anyone. There’s about five more sides to her than most people see.”

      “She’s one smart girl. Tries to hide it, be one of the guys, but I’ve been around intelligent people. It’s in the eyes, something you can’t describe …” His voice trailed away.

      “We’ll find her, Shelly.”

      “What’s with the we? You’re officially a suspect. You’re done in the department. Nor can you leave town. You’re in limboland until you’re cleared.”

      “A suspect? That’s nuts.”

      He looked at the sky and scratched his chin. “Let’s see … a missing woman. Everything in her life was hunky-dory until she got a new boyfriend a day ago. How do you do things down in Mobile, Detective Ryder?”

      “I’d be suspect number one,” I said. “Maybe two

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