Read Online Mostly Murder by Linda Ladd - Free Book Online Page A

lifted a careless shoulder and nodded. So she said, “Okay, call them in. There’s got to be a ton of trace evidence in here. Look at the blood. It’s all over the place.”
    Rene Bourdain moved back out into the front hall, his cell phone against his ear. “Okay, Zee, let’s look around and see what we can turn up. We can’t move anything until the photographer shoots this place.”
    There was a white rolltop desk in front of the windows. The top was up, and a handful of unopened mail was scattered around. Seemed like somebody had already rifled through the letters. Looking for what? Claire leaned down and read the print on the top envelope. “This’s a gas bill. Sent to Madonna Christien at this address. She lives here, all right.”
    Claire found a light switch and flipped it on. The overhead fan with blades shaped like palmetto leaves slowly started revolving, and the lights flared on in a four-pronged light fixture. Several lamps were overturned and broken, the debris scattered around on the floor. A potted palm was lying on its side with dirt spilled all around it, the huge clay pot cracked open. There was a square cocktail table, the glass top cobwebbed with cracks that streaked down to the opposite end.
    â€œLooks like the perpetrator slammed her head down on this glass top. See the impact point, Zee, the starburst thing? I think he choked her unconscious right there on that table and took her somewhere else and painted the body.”
    Zee squatted and examined the tabletop. “Blood’s accumulated down inside the hairline cracks. Lots more leaked down underneath and stained the rug.”
    Claire took a closer look. The blood in the cracks looked like a scarlet spiderweb lying on top of the table, and it had soaked into the white shag rug in a round puddle the size of a basketball. It was congealed now and looked like sticky black tar. Madonna Christien’s all-white décor made the blood spatter easy to detect. Claire found some long dark strands of hair caught in the cracks. “Looks like her hair, Zee. Hopefully, the killer left his DNA somewhere in all this mess. Notice that everything’s white in here?”
    â€œYeah, just like her gown and candles and everything else on that altar.” He stood up and looked around. “I think he slammed her up against that wall over there, too. See how the blood ran down to the floor in those little rivulets. Lord have mercy. She suffered some serious pain before she died. Nancy’s gonna find all kind of injuries on the body.”
    Claire moved to the smear of blood. “It’s about waist high. Maybe he bent her over and rammed her head into the wall.”
    â€œThat would’ve stunned her, if she was still puttin’ up a fight. And she was, by the looks of it.” Zee frowned. “He showed no mercy, that’s for damn sure.”
    Rene Bourdain was back. “They’ve got a unit on the way. Want us to take over the whole case? Just say the word, and we’ll be glad to.”
    Claire wasn’t about to do that. She had seen the victim’s injuries. She wanted this guy herself. The murder scene was inside NOPD’s jurisdiction, but they’d found the body in Lafourche Parish. They could cooperate, but no way was Bourdain taking over. “We can handle it. Thanks, anyway. I think he murdered her here, but he took her down our way to dump her. Sheriff Friedewald doesn’t appreciate that. We’ll get him.”
    Bourdain’s cell phone rang, and he took it, grimaced with annoyance, and walked back out to the foyer. Zee was on his hands and knees looking at a single red silk slipper with a five-inch spiked heel. The matching one lay atop the pillows of a black-and-white checkered couch. “Looks like she was kickin’ and fightin’ hard. Maybe he’s got some injuries, too.”
    Claire nodded. “No evidence of forced entry. She