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

The tall one took one look and puked right onto a bush beside the walkway. It sounded like he was vomiting all the way up from the soles of his feet.
    What an embarrassment. Hadden started laughing to himself, then it turned into a coughing fit. Damn cigarettes. He could hardly laugh without coughing like a wild dingo.
    Hadden stifled it. Didn’t want to explain to cops why he was sitting out back on a freaking pine cone.
    After the tall, young one quit with the puking, the other cop just looked at him. The contempt for his weakness was barely concealed.
    The short one held his hand to a shoulder police-band radio, barked a series of numbers into it, began asking the routine questions. What time did Quinton get there, was it his usual route, blah, blah blah.
    Quinton was holding up pretty well. It was easy . . . So far he was just telling the truth. Not hard, or so you’d think.
    Thank God. Here came the EMTs. The body would soon be out on a stretcher. The cops were already fiddling with the lock on the glass doors.
    What was the hold-up? Even Hadden could jimmy a sliding glass door in no time. Then . . . They got it. The door slid open and they all walked in, including Quinton. Hey, maybe Hadden could actually enter the pool house after they all left and get inside shots.
    Within forty-five seconds, the young one was back outside puking again, this time on a different bush. Who could eat that much this early in the morning?
    Hadden couldn’t hear what the other cop was asking or what the EMTs were saying over all the puking sounds. Plus, the puking cop was obscuring his view. He finally finished, wiped off his face, and went back in to the murder scene. A man in a blue sports coat—Hadden could tell it was polyester from fifty feet away by the way the material shined in the morning light—and gray slacks reappeared. He’d walked up along with the EMTs and started taking pictures with a black camera. Not a bad piece of equipment, either. Hadden recognized it as similar to his own. Must be the detective for the Coroner’s Office.
    Hadden crouched into position, secured the long lens, and started snapping away. He was waiting on the body. They’d probably have a white sheet over the face but maybe he’d get lucky and they wouldn’t. After he got shots of the dead body being rolled out, he’d take a few beauty shots from the front yard, a couple of side shots showing the walkway around back, and of course a few shots of the pool, complete with hidden grotto. He could only imagine what went on in the grotto.
    Then, who would give him the best money? After all, it was Eric Saxton’s house. Who knew who the broad was. Whoever she was, he had plenty of shots of those legs.
    It came to him in a flash. Mike Walker with Snoop . That was the primo mag. Walker was no idiot. After a stint in the air force in Japan, he became the youngest-ever foreign correspondent for International News Service, which later became UP. He ended up as a foreign correspondent for NBC, then went for the big money with Snoop . They were the single largest-circulation mag in America. Over seventeen million readers weekly.
    Hadden was nearly giddy at the thought of Walker and Snoop . He started snapping shots even faster.
    Who knew what headline they’d attach to the story? One of Walker’s fortes was headlines. Hell, Hadden didn’t care what they printed, as long as they paid him. He could easily get fifty grand for this. He’d make sure to get a shot of the Oscar statuette, just yards away from a dead body!
    Hadden had no idea how to reach Walker directly. He’d only spoken to underlings at Snoop in the past, and in all his years, had only gotten two shots published on Snoop ’s pages.
    He could hardly wait until they rolled the body out.
    It had been over an hour now. Hadden could see the coroner’s investigator down on his knees, measuring the length from the pool house door to the body, then from the window to the body. The others were