It's A Wonderfully Sexy Life by Hope Tarr Read Free Book Online Page B

you.”
    “This is a federal case, Officer Delinski, and your card on the victim’s body makes you part of the investigation. I don’t know whose call it was to send you down here, but your presence could compromise the evidence.”
    A sinking feeling hit her squarely in the stomach, making her glad she’d eaten lightly. “Hold up, my card turned up on the vic?”
    Both feds nodded. Mouth pulled into a grim line, McKinney advanced on her, and she had to resist the instinct to back up. “Yes, officer, but surely that’s no surprise to you. You must have given it to him.”
    His accusatory tone had her mentally reviewing her work activities over the previous week. She’d given out her contact information to any number of individuals, including a pimp claiming to have inside information on a drug deal about to go down. It certainly wasn’t unheard of for an informant to turn up dead, but she didn’t see why the feds would involve themselves in a local homicide case.
    Walker laid a hand on the young hotshot’s shoulder. “Let her stay. As long as she’s not left alone with any evidence, there shouldn’t be a problem. Besides, we need her to go on record as identifying the body.”
    The body . No matter how many years Mandy logged in on the force, that phrase would never lose its ominous sound.
    The attendant on duty, a gaunt young man with dark-circled eyes and a head of curly black hair, stepped inside. Hands stuffed into the pockets of his stained lab coat, he said, “Dr. Matthews, the M.E. on duty, is waiting for you in the crypt. I’ll show you to the elevator.”
    They filed out into the hallway, a stark affair of linoleum floors and gray-white walls, to the bank of elevators. The attendant punched the down arrow button, and the metal doors opened at once. The three of them stepped on, the federal agents holding back for Mandy to enter first. Gaze fixed on the light bar registering the descending floors as they dropped downward, Mandy considered that so far no one had mentioned the victim’s name, only his gender. Not knowing who he was—or rather, had been—only that he was someone with whom she’d interacted recently was a lot more anxiety-provoking than dealing with the bad news upfront.
    Stepping out into the basement hallway awash in bluish neon, she felt as if she were in Batman’s fictional Gotham City rather than Baltimore City. Quiet as a tomb, she almost blurted out to break the tension, but glancing between the agents’ stern, square-jawed profiles, she decided neither was likely to appreciate the stab at humor.
    A short, balding man dressed in a white lab coat and green surgical scrubs met them at the door. “I’m Dr. Matthews. You’re here for the Thorner case?”
    Walker answered, “Yes, Doctor, that’s correct. Only the last name is Thornton.”
    Dr. Matthews hesitated, and then nodded. “Very well, then. If you’ll follow me…”
    They stepped inside the crypt—the climate-controlled chamber where bodies awaiting autopsy or identification were stored until claimed by relatives or otherwise disposed of. Mandy had pulled morgue duty a few times before, but if she lived to be a hundred, she’d never forget the signature smell. The close air was rank with formaldehyde, Lysol and alcohol, the windowless room flanked on three of its four sides by floor-to-ceiling metal drawers that held the remains of those who had experienced their last earthly Christmas.
    The M.E. snapped on a pair of latex gloves and reached for the handle on one of the midlevel drawers. The slab slid out almost soundlessly, the victim’s body enclosed in a plastic body bag. He unzipped the bag, and Mandy braced herself. Whomever that drawer contained would be someone she knew, someone with whom she’d shared anywhere from a passing word to a relationship of days, months, or even years. Even with five years as a beat cop under her belt, she’d never gotten used to this part of the job, not entirely, and a part