Read Online Don't Forget Me by Meg Benjamin - Free Book Online Page B

down for the forensics techs, check around outside to see if the burglar left anything. Then start talking to the neighbors. Maybe somebody heard something.”
    “You have any ideas about what time it happened?”
    The chief shook his head. “Last night. Probably late. Nobody reported any suspicious activity on Main so far as I know.”
    Nando started to nod, then paused. “I walked by here last night around nine or so.”
    “Notice anything?”
    Hell, he hadn’t been thinking about anything besides Kit Maldonado. A battalion could have marched through the bookstore and he might not have noticed. “Not that I remember.”
    “Talk to the neighbors. Maybe somebody heard him smash the window.” He nudged Docia gently toward the back door.
    “Right.” Nando sighed. This definitely wasn’t the time to lose his focus. Kit Maldonado had to be filed away under Past Mistakes until he’d finished his job here.
    Processing the scene with Ham mainly meant keeping Ham from screwing up whatever evidence there was. Nando turned back to the room again, pulling his camera out of his duffel bag. The pictures wouldn’t be as high quality as the ones the county forensics people would take, but at least it would give them a record of their own at the station.
    Ham was standing at the front counter, using an amazing amount of fingerprint powder to dust it. Since most of the people who’d bought books from Docia over the past few weeks had probably leaned on the counter, his chances of getting anything useful in the way of evidence were close to zero. At least he’d pulled on vinyl gloves. Nando pulled on his own.
    “Why don’t you get started on the interviews?” Nando suggested carefully. “I can do pictures in here until the crime scene techs show up.” He wasn’t sure how much authority his new job title gave him over Ham, but getting him out of the bookstore before he could mess up any evidence seemed like a good idea.
    Ham’s jaw firmed. He gave Nando a mutinous look. “Chief said to do preliminary processing. That’s what I’m doing.”
    Nando gave a mental shrug and turned back to the vandalized store again.
    He worked his way around the room, snapping shots of everything that looked like the burglar’s doing and checking to see if any other trace evidence had been left on the floor. How come he never found helpful things like matchbooks from the criminals’ hideout the way they did on TV? Why did real life have to be so messy?
    Halfway back, he smelled something. He paused, checking beside the corners of the bookcases.
    Ham stepped up behind him. “Smells like their sewer’s backed up. Better get a plumber in here.”
    “It’s not the toilet,” Nando muttered.
    Ham stepped forward and then froze. “Oh for Pete’s sake. Is that what I think it is? Smells like poop.”
    “Smells like what it is.” Nando fumbled in his pocket for an evidence bag.
    “That’s evidence? ” Ham sounded scandalized.
    “There’s DNA in feces, just like blood and semen.” Nando took a breath and collected the sample, trying not to think about what he was doing as he did it.
    “So this guy took a crap in the bookstore and left us a sample of his DNA? Why’d anybody want to do that?” Ham gave Nando and his evidence bag a wide berth.
    “My guess is it’s a message.” Nando deposited the sample in his kit to be handed on to the forensics techs when they arrived, then turned back to the store again.
    “A message?” Ham snorted. “What kind of a message is poop?”
    Nando shrugged. “Maybe somebody really, really doesn’t like books.” Or really, really doesn’t like Docia Toleffson.
     
     
    Kit’s first morning at the Woodrose was spent trying to figure out the computerized reservation software. Ms. Morgenstern have given her a brief introduction and then disappeared, apparently a lot more confident about Kit’s computer skills than Kit was herself. She finally downloaded an on-line instruction manual so that she