Near Death by Glenn Cooper Read Free Book Online Page A

“How can you eat?” she asked contemptuously.
    “I could use a bite,” Marty said hopefully but she shot him down with a scowl. Cyrus almost felt sorry for the bastard.
    She was clutching her expensive handbag too hard, squashing one of her breasts. “You didn’t tire her out, did you? She was out like a light.”
    “Took her roller skating.”
    She ignored him. “You left a message. What did you want?”
    “I met Doctor Frost. I don’t want Tara to see her again.”
    “She’s top notch. Doctor Thorpe recommended her.”
    “She doesn’t need that kind of doctor.”
    “The experts say otherwise. Are you an expert?”
    “I’m her father.”
    “And I’m her mother!”
    Marty retreated to the safety of his iPhone while the two old adversaries glowered at each other.
    “We’re supposed to make joint decisions about these things,” Cyrus insisted.
    “This isn’t even controversial. I’m told it’s standard for patients like her.”
    “Which means what?”
    “Don’t make me say it.” She began to cry and pulled out a Kleenex before her mascara could run.
    Cyrus pushed his tray away and stood up. All he said back to her was, “Joint decisions.”
    Marty piped up, lamely trying to mediate. “Tara seems to like the lady.”
    “I say no.”
    Marian’s tears stopped, so abruptly it defied normal physiology. “Then you’d better have Allan talk to Jan about taking it to Judge Sugarman.”
    “Fine, I’ll do that. I’m going back up to say goodbye. Give me ten minutes and I’ll be gone.”
    Every call to his lawyer cost him dearly, financially and emotionally, but he might have to fight Marian hard on this one. He didn’t want Tara talking about it, didn’t want her thinking about it.
    He didn’t want death anywhere near his little girl.

Seven
    The FedEx boxes sat on the floor and their contents littered his desk. The Seabrook, New Hampshire police had made quick work of bundling and shipping all their files and evidence bags on the murder of Thomas Quinn, white male, age thirty-four.
    For the sake of speed, Cyrus and Avakian had decided to divide and conquer. Avakian took the two Massachusetts cases, and Cyrus, the two New Hampshire murders. To coordinate, they only had to liaise with each other, which meant drinks at the end of the day at the Kinsale Pub in Government Center. Avakian limited himself to a couple of beers before hitting the Pike to get back home for dinner. Cyrus had no such constraints. He would linger over a third vodka then walk the narrow lamplit streets of Beacon Hill until he figured he was safe enough to drive back to his dark apartment with its overworked microwave that smelled of popcorn and frankfurters whenever he popped the door.
    Aside from the obvious differences between Thomas Quinn and the three prostitutes, Cyrus had no doubt they were dealing with a single killer. In the Quinn case, thepolice hadn’t publicly disclosed head drilling so there was no template for a copycat crime. The timescale and proximity of the four murders together with their signature brain piercings made the linkages undeniable.
    Quinn’s body had been spotted by a motorist who had pulled off the highway to change a flat. He was already the subject of a missing person report after he failed to show up for his shift in Boston as a nurse anesthetist at the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Local police had gone to his Hampton Falls house in southern New Hampshire where they had forced entry and found nothing amiss. His postmortem showed cause of death to be a massive subdural hematoma caused by a depressed skull fracture, and had it not been for Dr. Leonard Adler’s obsessive technique, the drill wound on the opposite side of his head might have gone unnoticed. This grotesque detail was kept from the press to preserve the integrity of the investigation.
    The police had done a workmanlike job fleshing out the high points of Quinn’s life. He was single and homosexual. He was not in a steady