Supervolcano: Eruption by Harry Turtledove Read Free Book Online Page B

some was in English. The people who used English as their native tongue were up near the late Mildred Szymanski’s age. They’d liveere a long time, and hadn’t let all the changes to their town push them to places like Torrance and Redondo Beach.
    An ambulance arrived, with the coroner’s car right behind it. Dr. Ishikawa and a photographer climbed out of the car. The guys in the ambulance sat tight. They wouldn’t be able to take the body away till the police and the coroner finished their jobs. Ishikawa waved to Colin. “Another one?” he called in a harsh, grating voice.
    “Haven’t been inside yet,” the lieutenant answered. “I just got here, too. But that’s what the call sounds like.”
    A tall, skinny bald man with tufts of white hair sticking out of his ears stumped up to Colin. “You catch the son of a bitch who done this, you hear?” he said.
    “Sir, I’ll do my best,” Colin told him. What else could he say? A TV news van started sniffing for a parking space. “Keep those clowns outside,” Colin growled to Malcolm. He hurried into the apartment building, Gabe Sanchez at his heels. He hated scenes of violent death. But he hated dealing with the blow-dried vultures who gorged on them even more. And he was given to telling the truth as he saw it, which endeared him to neither reporters nor his superiors.
    A glance at the mailboxes told him Mildred Szymanski had lived in apartment 251. A glance at the body on the bedroom floor in the apartment told him the South Bay Strangler likely had struck again. Sooner or later—probably sooner—he’d have to talk to the newshounds after all.

III
     
    “W ell, we’re here,” Colin said as he pulled into the driveway. San Atanasio was only a few minutes away from LAX. Colin despised the airport. Who in his right mind didn’t? But the trip back and forth was easy enough.
    Rain drummed on the roof of his middle-aged Taurus and splashed off the windshield. In the passenger seat, Kelly Birnbaum grinned a crooked grin. “Why don’t we ever meet when it’s sunny?”
    “Hey, it’s February. Even L.A. gets rain in February. Sometimes, anyhow,” Colin said.
    “I know,” she admitted. “It was coming down even harder in Norcal, I’ll tell you that.”
    He thumbed the trunk button. “Head for the porch. I’ll grab your bag.”
    “Such a gentleman.” Her eyes twinkled.
    Several raindrops nailed his bifocals before he could get under cover himself. He wasn’t wearing a cap now, the way he had in Yellowstone. He wiped off most of the water with a hankie and undid the dead bolt and the regular lock. Then—a gentleman—he held the door open for Kelly. “Go on in.”
    She did. “It’s so big,” she marveled.
    “It’s just a house.”
    “When you’ve lived in dorms and grad-student apartments and tents as much as I have, a house looks humongous. I freak out when I visit my parents down here, and their place is smaller than this. You’ve got it all to yourself, too.”
    “Yeah,” Colin said tightly. “Marshall visits sometimes. His room still has his junk in it. The rest . . . It’s mine, all right, such as it is.”
    Kelly caught the edge in his voice. “Sorry. I’ve got foot-in-mouth disease.”
    “Don’t worry about it. If I didn’t have this place all to myself, I wouldn’t have pried your phone number out of you when we started talking there by the lake, and I’m darn glad I did.” He set a hand on her shoulder.
    She moved closer to him. “Me, too.” She looked around some more. “Everything is so neat. Books, DVDs, CDs—they’re all where they belong. I have to paw through piles of trash to find anything.”
    “Navy hangover,” he said with a shrug. “Want something wet?”
    “A beer, I think. But give me the tour first.”
    “Okay. You’ve got to remember, most of the stuff on the tables and the shelves and all is Louise’s taste.” That taste ran to sad-faced icons, enamelware boxes, and figurines that nested one