Read Online Quarantined by Joe McKinney - Free Book Online Page B

which according to the security guys wasn’t all that uncommon. The security detail checked them out of the gates at five-forty. Their destination was listed only as ‘field research.’
    “Twenty minutes between the time they check out a van and the time they leave,” Chunk observed. “Not enough time to have sex.”
    “That depends on who you ask?” I said.
    Chunk chose to ignore that one.
    “Well,” he said, “at least we know that whatever happened, happened while they were out.”
    “That’s true,” I agreed. “But we still have to explain how Emma Bradley got naked in the GZ and then made her way back here.”
    Chunk flipped the security log forward to the next page.
    “Well, it doesn’t look like she came in on Hernandez’ truck. The gate officer shows him coming in with an empty truck at ten after ten. Leaving with a full truck at eleven-twenty.”
    “What about his first run of the day? We had him at the Scar the first time at ten after eight.”
    He flipped through the log, stopped on a page towards the front, and nodded. “In at six fifty-eight, out at seven-forty. That fits.”
    “Okay,” I said. “So whatever happened to her happened between five-forty at the earliest, and eleven-twenty at the latest?”
    “Right.”
    “And Myers has an alibi for that time?”
    “Right.”
    “And it doesn’t look like Hernandez could have done it?”
    “Right.”
    “So that leaves Wade?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Damn.”
    “Yeah.”
    I shook my head sadly. “While we’re here, you want to check on the autopsy?”
    “Sure,” he said.
    “That’s not exactly what we were expecting to hear,” I told Dr. Herrera.
    He looked at us curiously. He’d thrown us a curve, and he apparently didn’t understand why. A bullet hole in the chest must have seemed perfectly obvious to him.
    “You said you found pieces of fabric inside the wound?” I asked.
    “That’s right.”
    Chunk grumbled under his breath. Herrera looked confused.
    “We had sort of assumed that she was naked when she was killed,” I explained.
    His eyebrows arched expressively. “Why in the world would you think that?”
    I rubbed a hand across the back of my neck. I was beginning to feel just as much the amateur as Lt. Treanor believed me to be.
    “We thought there was a possible sexual relationship between Dr. Bradley and Officer Wade of the SAPD Research Protection Detail.”
    He shrugged. “Well, that’s possible, I guess. It’s also possible that she was shot with his gun.”
    “How’s that?”
    “The bullet passed cleanly between the ribs. No real deformation upon entry. I was able to identify it pretty easily as a Speer Gold Dot .40 S&W, one hundred and fifty-five grain hollow point. That’s an expensive bullet. SAPD and the Bexar County Sheriff’s Office are the only ones inside the wall who still have access to them.”
    “Great,” said Chunk. “Thanks, Doc.”
    “Sure,” said Herrera, but without a trace of irony. “No problem.”
    “So somebody shot her while she was wearing her spacesuit, and then stripped her?”
    “Looks that way,” Chunk said.
    “Why?”
    “Who knows,” he said. “Doc didn’t find any bruising around the vagina. And there was no semen in her, so I guess we can rule out any freaky postmortem stuff.”
    “Thank God.”
    “Yeah.”
    Chunk drove us across the Arsenal Station parking lot and through the security desk. Two baby-faced patrolmen with machine guns waved us through.
    “But why strip her? Why bring her back here? Why not just dispose of the body out in the field somewhere?”
    “I don’t know,” Chunk said. “Maybe it’s somebody who works out of Arsenal and can’t be away too long, somebody whose absence would be noticed. They stripped her so that she could blend in with all the other bodies coming out of there.”
    “That would make sense,” I agreed. “After all, the killer would have to have access to toe tags, and only authorized people are allowed on the