Killer Physique (A Savannah Reid Mystery) by G. A. McKevett Read Free Book Online Page B

afoot?”
    “Wel , that sounds more like something Tammy would say, but yeah—something stinks about al this.”
    “I’l say, it does. Like a block of Limburger cheese left on Somebody You Hate’s manifold on a hot summer day.”
    “Now that sounds a lot more like you.”
    “Thank you.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    She reached over and laid her hand on his chest. For just a moment she put the troubles of recent events aside and marveled at the pleasure that simple intimacy provided.
    This business of having a husband, one she could just reach over and touch, one who touched back—and very nicely, too—was far, far sweeter than she had expected it would be.
    But the moment didn’t last long.
    The memory of Ryan’s and John’s faces chased it away.
    “What do you think Dr. Liu’s gonna find?” she asked, laying her cheek on his shoulder.
    “I don’t know.” He kissed the top of her head as he ran his fingers through her curls. “I don’t know whether to hope she finds something or just rules it an accident or natural causes.”
    “Of course, it’d be better if it was the latter.”
    “It would?”
    “Sure.”
    “If she says everything’s okay, you’re gonna believe it? Gonna feel good about it?” She didn’t have to think that over for very long at al . “No,” she said. “I know something’s wrong.”
    “Then let’s hope she finds out what.”
    “Exactly.”
    They lay quietly a few minutes more. Then Dirk broke the silence. “You figure she’s done with that autopsy yet?”
    “Done? She’s probably just begun.”
    “Figure she needs some help?”
    Savannah laughed and poked him in the ribs. “Oh, right. Doctor Jen just loves it when you drop by the morgue to ‘assist.’ ”
    “She doesn’t mind so much when I have you with me.”
    “True.”
    “And when we bring chocolate.”
    “I’ve got an unopened two-pound box of Godiva truffles in my stash.”
    “It’s not like we’re real y gonna get any sleep anyway.”
    “Let’s go.”

Chapter 6
    If Savannah had to guess what Hel ’s waiting room would look like, she would imagine a drab, gray building like the county morgue.
    “This place is so ugly and depressing,” she told Dirk, as they walked across the parking lot to the front door, passing flower beds that held only wilted and dying plants.
    The town of San Carmelita was suffering a double whammy—economic issues and a drought. So the city elders had decided that turning off the landscape sprinklers on the municipal properties would help cure the community’s il s.
    As a result, children played on parched brown lawns in the town parks, the courthouse grounds looked like a desert, and even the drought-resistant plantings around al the public buildings were giving up their little botanical ghosts.
    It only strengthened Savannah’s conviction that the morgue was a site of doom and gloom. Who would expect marigolds and California poppies to thrive in Purgatory?
    “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Dirk said. “It’s not like anything good ever happens here.” Savannah thought that over for a moment, then reconsidered. She remembered something Dr. Liu had told her a long time ago.
    When Savannah had asked the coroner how she could stand to do her job since her duties were so sad and grim. Dr. Liu had chuckled—one of those dry, semi-bitter laughs with no humor in it. Then she’d said, “How ironic that you should ask me that question. I just said the same thing last night to a friend of mine who’s an emergency room physician. I don’t know how he stands it, al the sadness, the pressure. I have the easy job. But the time they arrive here, the worst has already been done. Anything I do wil only make things easier.”
    “But sometimes you have to tel family members such terrible things.”
    “I tel them the truth. And no matter how painful it might be for them at the time to hear it, in the end, truth always makes things better.” And now, as Savannah and Dirk entered