The Triumph of Katie Byrne by Barbara Taylor Bradford Read Free Book Online Page B

injured girl and came straight out. One, two, three, just like that.’
    ‘And the other girl was dead when you arrived.’ This was again a statement, not a question.
    ‘Yeah. Poor kid.’ The trooper shook his head and his eyes were suddenly sad. ‘What a lousy thing!’ he muttered and half grimaced, turned away.
    Mac sighed under his breath as he moved on towards the wood. He knew how the trooper felt. He also knew that as long as he lived he would always react strongly to violence against women. It made him want to teach the cowards who perpetrated these outrages a lesson they would never forget. Some son of a bitch had done a really foul job on two young women earlier, and the fury Mac felt brought a hard glint to his grey eyes, and his expression was grim and as cold as steel. Henever let any other emotion show on his narrow, craggy face; that’s why they called him Mac the Knife behind his back.
    Adopting a brisker pace, Mac walked down the narrow path that led to the middle of the wood where he knew a seventeen-year-old girl lay dead.
    He was also well aware that Doctor Allegra Marsh, the Medical Examiner, was already on the scene. She had arrived a short while before he had, according to two of his detectives who were in the barn. Also, her dark-green Cherokee jeep was parked next to the black van he knew came from her office.
    Mac liked Allegra Marsh, admired her. For one thing, there was no bullshit about her. She always called it the way she saw it at a crime scene, and she was very forthright in every other way. They had worked on countless cases together, and she had gone the distance for him, gone beyond the call of duty, in a sense.
    All of this aside, she was the most brilliant forensic scientist and pathologist he had ever known and worked with. In her own way, she was also a detective, just as he was; they simply used different methods. They were good friends, but it stopped there, even though he was long widowed and she was single. With Allegra there were certain boundaries, ones which he knew not to cross, although sometimes…Well, that was another story.
    Even if he hadn’t been told she was here, the intensebeams of light from her battery-operated spotlights announced her formidable presence in the wood.
    When he was about five feet away, Mac came to a standstill, and said, ‘Not a happy night, Allegra.’
    The Medical Examiner was kneeling on the ground with one of the forensic team, and she glanced up at him and shook her blonde head. ‘Hi, Mac. And you’re right, not happy at all.’ She sighed and added, ‘It was some angry man who paid a visit here earlier tonight, no doubt about that.’
    ‘What’ve you found?’
    ‘Death by strangulation. Manual strangulation. Her larynx is crushed. Very intense bruising around the neck area. A violent attack. And she was raped, but you most likely know that from your team.’
    ‘Yeah, I do.’ He was staring down at the body, and he muttered, ‘Oh God, she was so young…’
    ‘And a virgin,’ Allegra said.
    ‘She was?’
    ‘Yes, I believe so. Obviously, I’ll know for certain once I do the autopsy. But there was blood mixed in with the seminal fluid. I have a number of DNA samples from her body. Semen, blood, which I believe to be hers, hair follicles. Skin and flesh from underneath her fingernails. More hair. Different hair. And this.’
    Allegra showed him the large tweezers in her right hand, which she generally used to lift off DNA samples from a body. They now held a cigarette stub. ‘We justfound this beauty partially hidden under her body.’ She placed it carefully in the glassine envelope her assistant was now holding, and went on, ‘I’m certain the girl was not sitting around here smoking, Mac. She was running for her life. This was an oversight on the assailant’s part. He tossed it away and forgot it.’ She sat back on her heels. ‘Saliva, Mac, the perp’s saliva. I hope.’ Her dark eyes sparkled at this thought.
    He