Read Online No Mercy by John Gilstrap - Free Book Online

of the place. Inside the front door to the left, every book had been pulled from the shelves of Tibor's library, his pride-and-joy collection of first editions of French and English literature. Pages were torn from the bindings and the cushions of the dark leather furniture had been slashed, with feathers and stuffing erupting from massive wounds. The same level of damage pervaded everywhere. It was as if someone had turned the house upside down and shaken it.
    Weatherby led the way as if he owned the place, marching Jonathan down the main hall into the kitchen and then a hard right into the dining room, where the police had established a makeshift command post. The detective pointed to an upholstered hardback chair. "Take a load off," he said.
    Jonathan continued to stand, not so much on principle as a need to keep examining the house. "Where did you find Ellen?"
    "Upstairs. In the bedroom."
    "I want to see."
    "I don't think you do."
    The gravity of Weatherby's tone made a connection. "Jesus, Detective, what did they do to her?"
    The cop took a long, loud breath through his nose. "Start with the worst you can imagine, and that would be only the beginning. Twenty-three years on the force, Mr. Grave, and this is the worst I've seen. Sorry to put it to you that way, but I'm shocked that she survived."
    Jonathan's mind whirled out of control. The worst he could imagine was pretty goddamn awful. His brain conjured images of Rwandan women with their breasts sliced off, and of Croatian women raped by bayonets. Surely, Weatherby assessed "the worst" on a different scale than that. "Was she raped?"
    Weatherby answered with his eyes the instant he looked away. "Savagely. Repeatedly, I would guess. And there was some torture, though I'd rather not go into the details. She was also stabbed."
    Now it was time to sit. Jonathan helped himself to the offered chair. "Who would do something like that?"
    "That's why we called for you."
    "For Christ's sake, Detective, you couldn't possibly think I had something to do with that."
    Weatherby let his guard drop an inch. "As I mentioned outside, I sort of have to, but in my gut, no, I don't believe you did. Can you account for your whereabouts last night?"
    "I was downing beers with a buddy. A priest, in fact. Father Dominic D'Angelo, pastor of the St. Katherine's parish in Fisherman's Cove." Responding to the cop's confusion, he added, "It's a community down in the NortheActually, she didn't call me , she called my office and spoke with one of my managers. At the time of the call, he hadn't been missing for more than twenty-four hours, and, frankly, I didn't much care if he was missing or not. I told Venice, the manager, to do a quick credit card trace to see what she could turn up."
    "And?"
    Jonathan shrugged. "I don't know. I woke up to the call to come here, so we haven't discussed any of it this morning." Jonathan was in the business of parsing information, and he determined that this much was easily traceable and therefore safe to relay. If he was less than forthcoming, Weatherby would know it within hours if not minutes. The rest of it--his ride home with Ellen--was nobody's business.
    "Does Mr. Rothman have any enemies that you know of?"
    Jonathan scowled. "You know what he does for a living."
    "I know he's a writer."
    "But you don't know what he writes?"
    Weatherby shook his head. "I'm pretty much a sports page guy."
    "Well, you won't find Tibor Rothman articles there. He's a syndicated columnist. A muckraker. A career killer. He'd call himself an 'investigative reporter,' but that's just code for legitimized gossipmonger. He says whatever he wants, then hides behind the First Amendment when he gets the details wrong. If you could line up every person with a reason to harm Tibor, I imagine it would take you three weeks to get through the interviews."
    "Is he political?"
    "Aren't they all? They wake up every morning and proclaim themselves to be the smartest guys in the room. If you