LITMIR.BIZ

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      He waited for her to chide him, but her grim expression never altered as she hit the elevator button, an indication to Kent that she was preoccupied. Otherwise she would most definitely have rubbed his nose in I-told-you-so’s. Murphy was the one who had cheerfully read him chapter and verse of the California crime stats on the Audi as soon as she learned he’d purchased one.

      “The Audi TT convertible?” she’d said, arching her eyebrows with wicked intent. “Nice car. Do you know how many stolen cars were reported to the LAPD last year? One thousand, one hundred and fifty-two. Know how many were sports cars? Eight hundred twelve. I predict your fancy little set of wheels will last two weeks, max.”

      Kent had managed to keep it for three whole months. Small consolation, he thought as he stepped into the elevator. If Murphy’s behavior was any indication, Kent had a pretty good hunch his missing car would be the least of his worries by the day’s end.

      “So, do we have a name?” Kent asked as the elevator climbed.

      “As a matter of fact we have two,” Murphy said. “Does the name Ariel Moore mean anything to you?”

      “Should it?”

      “Just what rock were you hiding under this week, cowboy?” Murphy asked.

      Kent just looked at her, waiting.

      “If you paid attention at the supermarket checkout line, you’d know Ariel Moore is the hottest rising star in town.”

      “And you know this how?”

      “I know this because my grandson has her poster pinned up above his desk. That, and the hotel manager filled me in. Apparently she stays here frequently in this same two-bedroom suite. The reservation was made under Ariel Harris, which is her real name. But,” she added, “here’s the interesting twist. The dead woman is Stephanie Hawke, and no one has seen Ariel Harris, aka Moore, or knows what happened to the baby that checked in with Ms. Hawke. We assume the baby was Ariel’s, since she gave birth only a week ago. Which you’d also know if you paid attention to the supermarket tabloids.”

      Their arrival at the eleventh floor halted any further conversation and they exited the elevator. The hallway was silent. As Murphy strode briskly down the carpeted corridor, she told him that all the guests on that floor had been escorted into a large conference room soon after the police had arrived. When Murphy stopped to speak to a group of uniformed officers, Kent continued to the suite.

      He was glad to see a minimal number of people in the room itself. His captain had done a good job of keeping the scene clear of extraneous badges, not always an easy task. This suspicious death had all the indications of becoming a high-profile case and Kent knew high-profile cases brought the promotion and publicity seekers out of the woodwork. He hesitated at the door of the suite and paused for a moment to clear his mind and center his focus.

      Kent had once had a university professor tell him that crimes and crime scenes were all about patterns. Find the pattern, and the answer would naturally follow. From his own experience, Kent knew that could take skill and patience. By their very nature, crime scenes were chaotic. Trying to take one in all at once would be overwhelming, so Kent liked to break it up into manageable chunks. First, he eyeballed the entire scene, committing everything to memory. These first impressions would later be compared alongside the official crime-scene photos, police logs, investigating officer notes, forensic notes, medical examiner reports and his own written log.

      Much of the official information and reports would arrive via fax or computer to his office at Chimeya. It was there, notes and photos spread around his desk, a fire blazing, Loki curled up on his favorite rug next to the hearth, that he would start the detailed and painstaking review and let the patterns emerge. When he hit an impasse, and it happened from time to time, then he talked to Susan. He was too much the scientist to believe in ghosts, spirits or the hereafter, but that never stopped him from posing questions to the one woman he had loved and who had been taken from him seven years ago. Now, as then, she could still guide him to the answers, but before there could be any answers, he had to collect the information necessary to pose the questions.

      Kent drew a deep breath and stepped into the suite, crossing to the bedroom. There was the bed, still neatly made. The curtains were drawn, a sliver of sunshine coming in through the crack between the two drapes. The television was on, but muted. In the soft glow of the bedside lamp he could just make out the figure on the floor. He moved in closer to examine the body of a young woman with dark, shoulder-length hair, fully dressed in gray slacks and a white linen shirt. She lay curled on her side as if she’d lain down there to sleep, but her eyes were half open, gazing into infinity the way the eyes of the dead sometimes did. One hand was reaching out as if to gather up the small beaded purse that had fallen to the floor beside her. Kent squatted on his heels, looking for jewelry on her person and remembering with a stab of pain how they’d tried to take Susan’s wedding band and engagement ring. How they’d nearly torn her finger off, trying to remove them…

      The memory caused his stomach to twist. After five years he still wasn’t used to this routine. He hoped to God he never got used to it. This young woman was still sporting three rings and a necklace, and he mentally ruled out robbery as a motive. He shook his head, rose to his feet and resumed scanning the room. No sign of a struggle. Nothing appeared to be out of place. He looked closer at the victim, seeing no evidence she had been restrained or physically abused. Kent jumped as a hulking figure lurched up from the other side of the bed. “Shit, T. Ray, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” T. Ray Boone laughed as he rose, and as Kent willed his heart to slow its beating, he found himself wondering how he had not seen T. Ray on the other side of the bed. The medical examiner’s bulk was not easy to miss.

      “Sorry ’bout that,” T. Ray said, his Southern accent as deep and mellow as the tupelo honey produced by his native Mississippi.

      By this time, Murphy had rejoined Kent. “What do you have, T.? Anything new?” she asked.

      T. Ray consulted the clipboard in his latex-gloved hands. “Tell you what, y’all just change the name and location and it’s the same as that lady you dragged into my carving room this morning.”

      “Not quite,” Murphy said. “According to the desk clerk, when this one checked into the hotel last evening, she was carrying an infant. The night auditor had a guest call down to complain about a baby crying shortly after midnight. Obviously, the baby is now missing.” T. Ray shook his head. “Well, I can’t speak for that, but what we have here is a female, Caucasian, age twenty-three to twenty-six, dark hair and eyes. Dead at least twelve hours, which puts time of death right around midnight. I’m going with dehydration and possible acute organ failure as a cause of death, which screams poison to me, same as that other one, but that could change with the autopsy. Maybe I’ll get lucky and find something in the blood chemistry, but I gotta warn you guys…” T. Ray’s brown eyes took on a somber look. “If this does turn out to be some kind of viral thing, you might not want to be gettin’ too close without a haz-mat suit.”

      “Thanks for the belated warning,” Kent commented. “Did you find any evidence of viral or bacterial infection in the other woman?”

      T. Ray shook his head. “Nope, I didn’t, except for the secondary pneumonia. No reason why that young thing should’ve gotten so critically sick and died all alone at night. No reason at all for her vital organs to just shut down, that I could find. That’s why I’m thinkin’ poison.”

      “But no evidence of foul play?”

      “None. Blood was clean, body was clean. If it was poison, I don’t know what the hell it was, but give me five minutes with this one in the morgue and I can tell y’all whether it’s the same as the other,” T. Ray said.

      Kent glanced around. A pacifier lay on the floor near the body. A baby blanket was draped over the desk chair. And a baby bottle

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