The Green-Eyed Doll by Jerrie Alexander Read Free Book Online Page B

son respected his father. Well, not his father. He’d spent his life lying to Matt’s mother.
    ****
    Monday, July 31st, 8:00 p.m.
    En route, Matt called the Medical Examiner. Dr. Reinhardt’s reputation ranked with the best, and Julia Drummond deserved the best. Matt and his team would take pictures and secure the crime scene while waiting for the official forensic team to arrive from San Antonio.
    Onlookers lined the stretch of well-traveled interstate. Murder in a small county brought people out of the woodwork. Rey had already established crowd control to prevent them from trampling evidence into oblivion. Matt insisted the two reporters who ran to meet him stay back with the spectators. Then he pissed off the local TV reporter and her cameraman by refusing to stop and talk.
    Matt adjusted the badge clipped to his belt and then pushed his way through. “Where is she?”
    Rey led the way around the eighteen-wheeler to the body. Matt stopped at the yellow tape and slowly scanned the area. The intersection had a speed limit sign mounted on a steel post on the south corner. At the base was a body with a green plastic sheet over her. Only bare feet were visible.
    “Who covered her?”
    “I did,” Rey said, looking older than his twenty-six years. “I’ve worked shootings and bloody wrecks, seen about everything, but this is sick. This is twisted.”
    Rey slipped shoe covers over his boots. He signed the cross before he dipped under the tape. Then he carefully stepped over and uncovered Julia’s body. Matt sucked in a breath. Rey had called it. This was sick.
    Propped into a sitting position, arms hanging limp at her sides with legs crossed at the ankles, Julia was naked except for a red ribbon tied around her neck in a bow. Some kind of pale makeup covered her face, and her lips were bright red. Her raw wrists and ankles showed signs of restraint. Matt squatted and sat back on his boot heels. He looked toward the heavens before returning his gaze to her. She stared back at him, a blank nothingness behind wide-open emerald green eyes.
    “Something’s odd about her eyelids,” he said to himself more than anyone. He stood and turned to Rey. “Cover her back up.”
    “You ever see anything like this?” Rey laid the sheet over the body, taking great pains not to disturb evidence.
    “No. And I’ll be sitting across the glass when the state puts a needle in this bastard’s arm.” Matt waited for Rey to back away, noting he was careful not to disturb the surroundings. “She couldn’t have been out here long, not in this heat.”
    “Forensic team’s finally here.” Rey nodded his head toward the road.
    Anger swelled up inside. “Good. Doesn’t mean we stop filming, taking pictures, or gathering evidence. We’ll give them everything we find, but we’ll need copies.”
    Matt pushed a finger to his temple trying to ward off a headache. “Where the hell did all these people come from? Half the county is here. Vultures stretching their necks to get a look.”
    Rey glanced at the crowd and at the horizon. “Sun will set soon. Maybe then the morbid bastards will go home.”
    “Where’s the guy who found her?”
    “Sitting in my cruiser. Carl’s with him.”
    “I’ll talk to him. We need to know more about him.”
    “He’s already radioed his dispatcher, told them he’d be late with his load.”
    The ambulance arrived, followed by the medical examiner’s county car. “Let’s get Ms. Drummond out of here with a little dignity. Rey, stay with the body. Make sure none of the onlookers sneak across the road.”
    “Consider it done.”
    Jake wrote furiously in his notebook, none of those modern gadgets for him. His hand raced across the paper then stopped abruptly. He adjusted his hat. “How do you tell her parents?”
    “There’s no easy way. The collateral damage to everyone involved changes people forever.” Matt understood Jake’s reaction. He’d probably never seen anything like Julia Drummond.