A Cold Christmas by Charlene Weir Read Free Book Online Page A

railing, so it’s okay to go down.”
    Two paramedics lounged at the kitchen table. One gave her a shake of his head. Definitely not good. On the basement stairs, she looked at the scene. Metal panels removed from the furnace, man facedown in a puddle of blood, arms stretched straight ahead, fingers burned.
    Small entrance wound high in the back and slightly to the right. Shot. Accounted for the blood. Small smudge on back of neck. She went down and stepped closer to the body. What she’d thought was a smudge was a tattoo of a spider. Her gaze slowly scanned the basement filled with old furniture, junk, old garden tools, and piled-up boxes.
    She stood beside Osey, who, with arms crossed, was waiting for the medical examiner to arrive and pictures to be taken. The usual mildewy smell of all basements was overridden by the sickly smell of burnt flesh.
    â€œHis head and hands were in the furnace,” Osey said.
    Strange, she thought, that the hands were in the furnace too. The killer must have tried to make him impossible to identify.
    Gunny Arendal was crouching on the floor next to a jumbled pile of boxes, taking gulping breaths.
    â€œWhat’s he doing?” she asked.
    â€œTrying to gain enough control to take pictures. You want to make a bet whether he can or not?”
    Right now a bet against Gunny’s even pulling himself off the floor looked like a sure thing. Gunner Arendal was a civilian, a journalism student at Emerson College, hired to take photos for the PD. His work was excellent, gigantic leaps above what they had been getting from whatever officer was snagged to do it, but he did tend to turn green at the more ghastly subjects. Like severed limbs or decapitation after an automobile accident. She couldn’t blame him. A man with his face burned off wasn’t something you ran across every day. She assumed the body was a man from the clothing, the general size, and the build. She hoped the poor man had been dead before the flames got to him.
    â€œDoc Fisher’s on his way,” Osey said. “Riley’s outside seeing what he can find.”
    Riley had no experience in field investigations, but in these perilous times … “Pictures, Gunny,” she told the kid sitting in a curve, arms around bent legs, forehead resting on his knees.
    A slight mention that she would do it if he’d hand her his camera had him pulling himself off the floor and snapping shots. He had to stop now and then to close his eyes and take a few deep breaths.
    â€œThe little girl found him,” Osey said. “Around seven this morning. Bonnie. She’s six.”
    Susan slipped on a pair of latex gloves so she wouldn’t accidentally leave anything foreign at the scene. “Is she upset?”
    â€œDoesn’t seem to be. She says he was an evil prince. Apparently getting shoved face first in a furnace is rightful punishment for an evil prince. Her mother’s pretty shook up, though. I couldn’t get much out of her and I didn’t want to push it. I was afraid she’d lose it.”
    â€œWhere is she?”
    He pointed up. “First bedroom off the hallway. She’s herded all the kids in there and has them scared half to death by the way she’s acting.”
    â€œCrying, hysterical, what?”
    â€œNo, ma’am. Calm, kind of like wood, and very very pale. More like ashen.”
    Officer White stuck his head around the doorway at the top of the stairs. “Doc Fisher is here.”
    Owen Fisher, a barrel-chested man with an abundance of white hair and startlingly dark eyebrows, lumbered down the steps.
    â€œWhat took you so long?” she said.
    â€œI was Christmas shopping with my wife. It’s the season, in case it escaped your notice.” He stood still and looked long at the body. Most men she knew would be happy to be called away from shopping, but not many would be thrilled to be called away to view a body with its head in a