Read Online Murder One by Robert Dugoni - Free Book Online

flipped open his notebook and wrote the time of his arrival beneath the time he received the call from his detective sergeant: 3:22 A.M.
    “Rise and shine, sunshine, we have a homicide.”
    Beneath the time, Rowe had written “ANONYMOUS” in capital letters, underlining it twice.
    He wedged the notebook at the small of his back beneath the windbreaker, and ducked beneath the strand of yellow police tape strung across the road. A uniformed officer handed him the crime-scene log and a pen, and Rowe dutifully signed his name and noted his badge number and time of entry. Anyone who stepped beneath the yellow tape would have to do the same.
    Handing back the pen, he made his way toward the cluster of dark shadows standing in the street. His partner, Tracy Crosswhite-Jones, held a notebook and talked with the sergeant supervisor, Billy Williams, who had likely reported the homicide to their detective sergeant.
    “Long time no see,” Crosswhite said. She and Rowe had left the Justice Center together.
    “I knew I’d see you in the middle of the night sooner or later, Professor.”
    Everyone in the unit referred to her as either Crosswhite or Professor, the latter a reference to the fact that she had taught chemistry at a local high school for fifteen years. After a divorce she decided she needed to change more than just the man in her life. Having competed in pistol-shooting contests into her late teens, she enrolled in the police academy.
    Rowe noted the Prius parked outside a second strand of tape strung chest-high across the street, halfway down the block. “I see you got the first pick from the motor pool.”
    She groaned. “I feel like I’m driving a sewing machine.”
    The detective team on call took a car home from the motor pool. Everyone else was supposed to drive a personal vehicle, but some kept the cars longer than necessary, and the pickings got slim. The Prius was last choice. Crosswhite had little room to complain as the low woman on the homicide-detective totem pole, having been recently elevated to one of the highly coveted positions. An openingin the fifteen-person unit was rare, the promotion of a woman rarer still—Crosswhite being the first and only. In seven months, Rowe was already her third partner. The first, a veteran of thirty-two years, flat-out declined to work with a woman. The second relationship lasted until her partner’s wife met Crosswhite at a party and couldn’t deal with her husband being professionally wed to a tall, athletically built blonde who looked more like a fashion model than a police officer. Rowe’s wife had expressed similar reticence but solved the matter diplomatically: she told Rowe she’d kill him if he screwed around.
    “If there’s not a dead body, this is a cruel practical joke,” Rowe said.
    Crosswhite pointed in the direction of the residence.
    “The body is in a room off the patio at the back of the house. Shooter apparently shot through the sliding-glass door.”
    “Through it?”
    “So I’m told,” she said, indicating Williams.
    “Who was first in?” Rowe asked, meaning the first officer to respond.
    She checked her notes. “Adderley. He’s waiting on the porch down the drive.”
    The sloping aggregate driveway forked as they descended. The straight shot continued along the east side of the property, where Rowe could make out the strand of yellow tape strung between trees. The other path turned right and led to the residence. As Rowe pulled out his notebook to write down the address, his right foot slipped on a patch of moss, and pain shot from his hip, causing him to stop and grimace.
    “You okay?” Crosswhite asked.
    He removed the bottle from his windbreaker, shook out two anti-inflammatory tablets, and chewed them.
    Crosswhite winced. “Jesus, Sparrow. I hate it when you do that. Why can’t you swallow them like the rest of the world?”
    Most thought his nickname a derivation of his last name, but he had actually received it while