Heat Rises by Richard Castle Read Free Book Online

here.” She indicated each with her pen as she shared with Heat. “Multiple abrasions and contusions. Painful but none fatal. No broken bones. All pretty much consistent with the B and D experience.”
    Nikki was starting to think this may have been a session gone wild, after all, but kept her mind open.
    “Three little discoveries worth testing for any significance,” said the ME. She led Heat across the room to one of the storage cabinets. She slid the glass door aside and took one of the blue cardboard evidence buckets off the shelf. Nikki remembered how, after his first visit, Rook saw one and said he’d never buy a bucket of chicken again. Lauren took a small plastic vial out of the bucket with “GRAF” on the bar code and gave it to Nikki. “See that speck?”
    The detective held it up to the light. In the bottom of the container was a dark spot about the size of a bacon bit. “Found that under a fingernail,” Parry continued. “Under a microscope it looks like a piece of leather, but it doesn’t match the leather on the wrist restraints or the posture collar.” She returned it to the bucket. “Gonna lab that puppy.”
    She then walked Nikki down to the dehumidifying closet where they placed victims’ clothes to dry, to preserve DNA for testing. Sheets of brown paper separated bloodstained clothes that hung there from numerous victims. At the nearest end, Heat could see Graf’s black clothing and his white Roman collar. “Funny thing about that collar. There’s a tiny bloody smear on it. Odd, considering that for all the abrasions on him, no skin was broken above his shoulders or on his hands.”
    “Right,” said Nikki considering the possibilities. “That could be blood from an assailant, or killer.”
    “Or dom or domme, who knows yet?” Lauren was right. It could have been from foul play but just as easily from a practitioner with a cut from the torture session who stashed the clothes and ran in panic. “We’ll also ship that down to Twenty-sixth Street for DNA testing.”
    Next Lauren called in one of the orderlies, who helped her roll the priest’s body on its side, exposing his back. It was a thatch-work of whip welts and bruises, the sight of which caused Nikki to draw a deep breath through her nose, which she immediately regretted. She held it together, though, and leaned close when the ME pointed to a geometric bruise pattern on the small of his back. “One of these contusions is not like the others,” said Lauren. Her eye for those details had helped Heat on numerous cases. Most recently, by spotting the marks left by a ring worn by a Russian thug who killed a famous real estate developer. This lower-back bruise was about two inches long, rectangular, and with evenly spaced horizontal lines.
    “Looks like a mark made by a small ladder,” said Heat.
    “I took some stills that I’ll e-mail you with my report.” Parry nodded to the orderly, who gently returned Graf to lie faceup and then left the room.
    “Sweet anomalies,” said Nikki.
    “Not done yet, Detective.” Lauren picked up her clipboard again. “Now, cause of death. I’m going with asphyxia by strangulation.”
    “You hesitated this morning, though,” Nikki reminded her.
    “Right. The signs were there, as I told you. The obvious being the circumstances, the leather collar, eyeball hemorrhaging, and so on. But I balked because I saw other indicators that could mean acute myocardial infarction.”
    Heat said, “The bluish color I saw near his fingertips and on his nose?”
    “Excuse me, who’s the ME here?”
    “I get the significance, though. A heart attack could eliminate homicidal intent.”
    “Well, guess what? He did have a heart attack. Turns out it wasn’t fatal, he was choked before it could be, but it was a hell of a footrace to see which would kill him first.”
    Heat looked at the sheeted corpse. “You did say you smelled cigarettes and alcohol.”
    “And his organs proved all that. But.” She