(2012) Colder Than Death by DB Gilles Read Free Book Online Page B

said to myself.
    “I'll be honest with you, Quilla. There's no love lost between Perry Cobb and me, so you won't see me defending him. But I think you're wrong about him not caring about finding the killer.”
    “Why?” she sneered.
    “Because he never had a murder case before and solving it will be a tremendous ego trip for him. He'll be doing everything in his power, pulling out all the stops because he's insecure enough to know that people will be watching him. As Chief of Police he has to be elected. No one has ever run against him because it's a nowhere job in a nowhere town that pays next to nothing. But it's all he's got. And if there's someone crazy enough to want to be Police Chief, maybe even Greg Hoxey, if Perry doesn't find your Aunt's killer, it might be just the thing that prompts somebody to take Perry on.”
    “Just because he wants to solve the case doesn't mean he has the brains to do it.”
    “The police here have all the latest technology at their disposal.”
    “We'll see,” she said sheepishly, then took a long, deep breath. “Are we almost there? I'm getting nervous about this. I've only been in a cemetery twice. When my grandparents died.”
    “Ten minutes.”
    She leaned her head against the window and stared out. She yawned. She seemed so alone in her grief. It was a feeling I'd known well.
    It was bad enough when my father died, but I felt an even deeper sense of anguish when I was eighteen and Alyssa went away. I felt as if she had died. Because we'd broken up three weeks before she left Dankworth I'd been pining for her, unable to sleep, driving past her parents' house hoping to get a glimpse of her. I didn't even know she'd gone until Chester Cobb phoned me to ask if I'd seen her. Her mother had filed a missing person report and mentioned that I'd been dating her.
    But then three days after she was reported missing a note from Alyssa had come in the mail with a New York City postmark to her parents. She apologized for leaving without saying good-bye, said that she needed to be alone and that she would be in touch. A note, also postmarked New York City, came to me too.
    Dear Del,
    I had to get away. Take care of yourself.
    Maybe some day you'll see me again.
    Alyssa
    The most confusing thing about the note was that I got it. I wasn't her boyfriend anymore. Six months later I received a postcard from her postmarked in Chicago with another brief message. While I think of Alyssa often, I seldom think of the note and postcard. Though I kept them, and even valued them, as if they were love letters, I never look at them because an overwhelming feeling of confusion overtakes me. I still don't know why she sent them to me. In my more romantic notions, I pretend that she really did love me back. In my practical moods I convince myself that she sent them to me out of pity.
    As Quilla gazed out the window in a numbed silence, I spent the remainder of the drive pondering something she had said. Specifically, would Perry be taking this murder seriously? I hadn't spoken to him about it since the day the body was found. Despite my guess that whoever was the killer knew something about cemeteries, I felt Perry would probably have nothing to go on until the victim's identity was discovered. But now that he knew, I wasn't sure what steps he would take to start an investigation.
    As I approached the main entrance to Elm Grove cemetery I decided that I would transfer the empathy I was feeling for Quilla into something constructive. First chance I had, which would probably be later in the day, I would approach Perry and ask him what, if anything, was being done about the Brandy Parker murder.

Chapter 8
    As I drove through the cemetery gates, I focused my attention on the business at hand: finding the place of burial for Brandy Parker.
    The first stop would be the Administration Office where I would have Mel or George punch up Suzanne Worthington's parents' names on the computer. Division, Section and Plot