Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell Read Free Book Online

say it because I’m remembering fucking her in Paris.”
    Jealousy flares. Bev can’t control herself when she is forced to think of Kay Scarpetta, who is fine-looking and smart—plenty fine-looking, and smart enough for Jay. Rarely does it occur to Bev that she has no good reason to compete with a woman Jay fantasizes about chopping up and feeding to the alligators and crawfish in the bayou outside their door. If Bev could cut Scarpetta’s throat, she sure as hell would, and her own dream is to one day get her chance. Then Jay wouldn’t talk about the bitch anymore. He wouldn’t stare out at the bayou half the night, thinking about her.
    â€œHow come you have to always talk about her?”
    Bev moves closer to him and watches sweat trickle down his perfectly sculpted, smooth chest, soaking the waistband of his tight cutoff jeans. She stares at his muscular thighs, the hair on them fine and shiny as gold. Her fury heats to flashover and erupts.
    â€œYou got a damn hard-on. You chop away and get a stiff dick! Put down that meat ax!”
    â€œIt’s a cleaver, honey. If only you weren’t so stupid.” His handsome face and blond hair are wet with sweat, his cold blue eyes bright against his tan.
    She bends over and cups her thick, stubby hand around the bulge between his thighs as he calmly spreads his legs wide and leans back in the chair long enough for her to get started on his zipper. She wears no bra, her cheap flower-printed blouse halfway unbuttoned, offering him a view of heavy, flaccid breasts that arouse nothing beyond his need to manipulate and control. He rips open her blouse, buttons lightly clattering against wood, and begins fondling her the way she craves.
    â€œOh,” she moans. “Don’t stop,” she begs, moving his head closer.
    â€œWant more, baby?”
    â€œOh.”
    He sucks her, disgusted by her salty, sour taste, and shoves her hard with his bare feet.
    The thud of her body hitting the floor, her shocked gasp, are familiar sounds in the fishing shack.

B LOOD SEEPS FROM A SCRAPE on Bev’s dimpled left knee, and she stares at the wound.
    â€œHow come you don’t want me no more, baby?” she says. “You used to want me so bad I couldn’t keep you off me.”
    Her nose runs. She shoves back her short, frizzy, graying brown hair and pulls her torn blouse together, suddenly humiliated by her ugly nakedness.
    â€œWant is when I want.”
    He resumes the blows with the meat cleaver. Tiny bits of flesh and bone fly out from the thick, shiny blade and stick to the stained wooden table and to Jay’s sweaty bare chest. The sweet, sour stench of rotting flesh is heavy in the stifling air, and flies drone in lazy zigzags, lumbering airborne like fat cargo planes. They hover over the gory mother lode inside the bucket, their black and green swarming bodies shimmering like spilled gasoline.
    Bev collects herself off the floor. She watches Jay hacking and tossing flesh into the bucket, flies darting up and greedily dive-bombing back to their feast. They buzz loudly, bumping against the side of the bucket.
    â€œAnd now we’re supposed to eat off that table.” Hers is an old line.They never eat off it. The table is Jay’s private space and she knows not to touch it.
    He swats furiously at the sea gnats. “Goddamn, I hate these fucking things! When the fuck are you going shopping? And next time, don’t come back here with only two bottles of insect repellent and no pups.”
    Bev disappears into the lavatory. It is no bigger than the head on a small boat, and there is no tank to chemically store and treat human waste, which slops through a hole into a washtub between pilings that support the shack. Once a day, she empties the tub into the bayou. Her persistent nightmare is that a water moccasin or alligator is going to get her while she sits on the wooden box toilet, and at especially uneasy times, she