Death On the Dlist (2010) by Nancy Grace Read Free Book Online Page A

call!”
    Hadden didn’t look over his shoulder as Quinton whipped open his cell and punched in the numbers.
    “Wait a minute. Where’s my seven-fifty if I call the police?”
    “Right here, my man, right here.” Hadden gave him the rest of the money and, without missing a beat, hopped up on a retainer wall beside the door and started getting shots through a window.
    “Listen, Quinton, make the call. I gotta get these shots and get behind those bushes before the ambulance gets here.”
    Quinton chose the speaker-phone feature on his cell so Hadden could hear the whole thing, just to make sure he got the extra seven hundred fifty dollars. After punching 911, he pushed the “send” button.
    The phone rang several times, followed by an automated message warning callers not to dial 911 if they didn’t have a real emergency, and redirecting them. That way the cops could avoid, say, a mouse in the kitchen or a cat stuck up a tree.
    “911 Emergency Dispatch. What’s your emergency?” It was a female voice, crisp and cool.
    Quinton Howard paused. Was it right to make money off a dead woman? Obviously murdered? Her face was nothing but a mushy pile of pulp on one side. From the glass door, he couldn’t see the other side, but it probably didn’t fare much better. It hit him, standing there: What had he become? What had happened to his ethics, his values?
    He had a choice . . . he could hang up right now, give the money back, and walk away. Screw Frank LaGrange Hadden III and his filthy blood money. This wasn’t right, morally, religiously, or philosophically.
    Quinton pondered. It was the age-old problem first encountered in the Garden of Eden. Good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, evil vs. sublime. Eve was seduced by a talking snake, the magician Faust sold his soul for knowledge and power, and Tab Hunter, aka Joe Hardy, sold out in Damn Yankees to transform himself from a middle-aged baseball fan to a young long-ball hitter who could beat the Yankees in the World Series.
    They were all a string of bad ideas. For once, Quinton Howard could learn from the mistakes of others.
    But then . . . There was the flat-screen he wanted for his apartment.
    “Repeat . . . 911 Emergency Dispatch. What’s your emergency?”
    Quinton dug down deep. For once in his life, he had to be strong.
    “Hello? I need help. The cops need to come in a hurry. I think I see a dead girl. Her head’s blown off.”

Chapter 6
    WHERE THE HELL WERE THE COPS? EVEN AN AMBULANCE WOULD DO . It had been nearly thirty minutes and they were all no-shows. He himself had heard Quinton give the exact location, street address included. Where was this bunch of hayseeds?
    Hadden had gone from crouching behind a hedge about fifty feet back from the pool house, poised to start snapping long shots with his Nikon, to sitting flat on his rear on a pile of pine straw, peering through some azalea bushes. He wasn’t too worried about these nincompoops spotting him; they apparently couldn’t even find Saxton’s house.
    Just as he whipped out his cell to check his messages, he heard voices. Hmm. So they hadn’t used the sirens. Probably didn’t want to cause a ruckus in a neighborhood like this one.
    Hadden stuck his nose back in the azaleas. There they were. Two uniformed Hamptons cops, coming up the same walk he had. He could hear every word. Quinton was walking along with them and was explaining how he’d been picking up the trash, but was interrupted pretty quickly by the short cop. He had his back to Hadden, but Frank could still hear him clearly.
    “But why were you back here? Don’t you pick it up out front?”
    “Oh, yeah. But I do this as a favor for the Saxtons when they’re out of town, you know, so burglars won’t see the trash cans on the road for days on end and come loot the place. You know, just to be safe . . . right?”
    The cops just looked at him and started taking notes on little pads they both had. They walked up to the glass door and looked in.