Kiss Them Goodbye by Stella Cameron Read Free Book Online Page A

that, don’t they? Leave the signs each time they kill because they want people to know it’s them.”
    “Some do,” he said. “Although they don’t do much singing until they’re caught and want bragging rights behind bars. But let’s not think about this being a first killing with more to follow. Could be isolated and the perp tossed in the window dressing to throw us off.”
    “Spike.” She looked up at him. “I want you to do this, not a stranger.”
    If he had time for the luxury, he’d be flattered. “I’ll give you any personal help you’ll let me, but I have to defer to the local guys.”
    “Will you be with me when they come?”
    He groaned inwardly, anticipating Errol’s sneering displeasure. “If you want me, I’ll be there.”
    “I want you.”
    Timing had never been his friend. If he was going to be as much help as he could around here, he’d have to make sure he kept his head clear and his hormones under control. Hell, that shouldn’t be hard. He was a professional.
    He’d barely steered Vivian into the hall, and confronted Charlotte and Cyrus, when the sound of a siren reached them.
    Cyrus said, “Bad?”
    Spike nodded and said, “That’ll be a patrol car. The officers will start sealing off the—they’ll do their thing.”
    “Oh, Vivian.” Charlotte reached for her daughter, but if Vivian noticed she chose to ignore the gesture.
    What Spike felt was entirely too conflicted to be appropriate. That would change and quickly. “Let your mother help you get dry,” he said. “I need to speak with the police. Charlotte, I also need a plastic bag right now.”
    Vivian dropped her hands at once, but she shook her head, turning down any assistance from Charlotte, who didn’t waste time arguing. She sped away and returned with a self-sealing plastic bag and opened it for Spike to drop Louis Martin’s phone inside. He set it on a marble-topped demi-lune table and rested the mangled rose on top.
    “We could go into the kitchens maybe,” Cyrus said—ever the diplomat. “Get out of the hall so we don’t look like we’re hovering.”
    A young officer arrived at the door. Spike expected him to ask exact directions to the scene and to tell them they should all remain in the house. The man looked at Spike as if he knew him and said, “Detective Bonine said you’d make sure nobody leaves before he gets here.”
    He left and they turned to get out of the hall.
    They never made it to the kitchens before Errol Bo-nine clomped in without so much as a knock. “Detective Bonine,” he said, flashing his badge around. “Who found the stiff?”
    Errol watched too many big city cop shows and subtlety had never been his middle name. His partner, as slim and fit-looking as Errol was paunchy—and sloppy—looked vaguely apologetic. Spike figured Bo-nine had cowed the younger man into being no more than his errand boy.
    A few years earlier Errol had tried that on Spike and found out he had a maverick on his hands, a maverick with brains. From that day on, stomping on anyone who might make it easy for Errol to keep up his cozy arrangements with the local muscle had become Spike’s reason to live.
    Eventually Spike had taken a walk down an alley. He didn’t remember that alley so well when he woke up in hospital, beaten to a pulp. He’d been told he was fired for jeopardizing the reputation of the force, and pressured out of New Iberia.
    “Best get over the shock,” Errol said to the company, yanking his tightly cinched pants higher under his belly. He wore a heavy khaki duster which probably accounted for his redder than usual face and the sweat running from beneath his greased-back gray hair and down his shiny jowls. Errol had always loved his duster and apparently thought it turned him into a romantic figure, a cowboy cop, although he never let anyone forget he was a detective. “Givin’ in to weakness slows things down. Who found the body?”
    “I did,” Vivian said in barely a