The Love-Haight Case Files by Donald J. Bingle Jean Rabe Read Free Book Online

this was all some horrid California dream.
    All the lights were on in the office, and they sat her at Gretchen’s desk, turning the chair so it faced the front window and the still flashing police lights. They hadn’t turned her fast enough, though. She’d seen into the very back by the conference table.
    There was a lot of blood on the floor, some on the back wall, files, papers, and pink message slips were scattered about, and a desk lamp was knocked over. Classic signs of a struggle. Technicians were fingerprinting the place; instinctively she kept her hands off Gretchen’s desk. Evelyn was good at noticing details, and she’d seen too many; her stomach churned. The police had brought her in here because they were going to ask her to “take a look around.” Otherwise they would have kept her outside, maybe in one of the squads. All that blood, that wasn’t an accident.
    Murder , she remembered one of the lookiloos saying. No question it was murder.
    “Thomas was murdered.” Evelyn doubled over and worked to keep the turkey wrap and grapes down.
    “Ma’am.” The policeman set his hand against her back. Back? Where was her backpack? Her class notes and iPad and—There it was, sitting on the floor next to her. She hadn’t remembered taking it off, guessed that one of the cops had done that for her, maybe when she’d collapsed at the front of the crowd and he’d carried it here for her. “Ma’am—”
    “Evelyn Love. My name is Evelyn. Please don’t call me ma’am.”
    “Yes, ma’ … Evelyn.” He sat a small bottle of water in front of her. She was quick to open it and take a long swallow.
    “I work here,” she said. Hadn’t she already told him that? Told one of them anyway. “I’m Thomas Brock’s legal assistant.” Was. She gestured behind her without turning around. “The desk in the middle. That one’s mine.” Was mine. She’d remembered that the blood hadn’t quite reached that far, not to her desk or Thomas’s; it was a long, narrow building.
    The cop pulled over a chair, the rollers clattering against the old wood, brought it all the way around so he was in front of Gretchen’s desk. He tapped on the desk to get her attention. He was wearing white latex gloves. Had he just put them on? No. He’d had them on when she first saw him.
    It was her chair he was in, and she almost asked him to switch; she had it at just the right height. Gretchen’s was too low. She saw him adjust the chair higher to better fit his long legs. She decided that bothered her; he’d had no right to do that. “Has anyone called Gretchen?”
    “Who?”
    “Gretchen Cain, our secretary. This is her desk.”
    “No, ma’am, not that I know of. Evelyn. But we’ll get to it.”
    “I should call her.”
    “Not yet.” He nudged the water bottle and she drank a little more.
    “When did this happen? Who called it in? Why—” It hadn’t been that long ago, the police still swarming, the crowd so interested. And yet it had been at least a little while, since they were already moving Thomas’s body. They’d been here long enough to take pictures, call the coroner. How long could that take? They could have done all that in less than an hour, she guessed. Sirens had serenaded the bus to its stop; the police had still been arriving. “How long ago—”
    He shook his head.
    Were they using anything supernatural in their investigation? A witch or a seer to mentally reconstruct the murder? It didn’t look like it, looked like only plain-old cops were here. Maybe they didn’t need anything supernatural if they already had the suspect in custody. Maybe it was too cut and dried. Evelyn knew most police in the city didn’t like relying on any supernatural elements anyway, prejudice coupled with a dogged determination to rely on human skills.
    “What about his father? Thomas’s father. Reginald Brock of Brock, Davis & Davis. He’s—”
    “Someone is going to Mr. Brock’s house now to notify