Read Online The White Carnation by Susanne Matthews - Free Book Online

unless Faye can identify the guy. The restaurant’s closed. Has been for two weeks. They’re redoing the place. Whoever Faye saw, it wasn’t a delivery guy, and God knows where the take-out bag came from. The lab techs found the bag stuffed with paper towels, the kind you get at a gas station. I hope this guy left a print or DNA or something—otherwise we’ll have a bitch of a time solving it. No one saw anyone.”
    “No one sees the Harvester, either. Hell of a thing when the invisible man’s on a murder rampage,” Rob said snidely.
    Tom chuckled. “Hey, don’t be bitter. There’s nothing we can do about it. I’ll just finish up some of the preliminary paperwork. I’ve asked New York to check out Mary Green’s place. Someone was supposed to have a look tonight. I’ll probably head home in about an hour. You should, too. We’ve been here since eight this morning, or rather yesterday morning. I’m so tired I can’t see straight, and after that little heart problem last year, my wife will have my head if I don’t get at least six hours of shut-eye.”
    Rob nodded. “I’ll finish up here and take off. I have to pick up Faye at nine. I should at least smell clean when I do.”
    “How did it go? I didn’t want to ask earlier.”
    “About as well as I expected, maybe even a little worse. We didn’t part on good terms, and it seems like the lady may still be holding a grudge.” He rubbed the scar on his chin.
    Tom’s desk phone rang, preventing any additional questions. “I hope that’s NYPD.
    “So do I. Let me look at the Green file, and then I’ll sign off on it.”
    “Good idea.” Tom reached for the file on his desk and handed it to Rob, then picked up the receiver. “Homicide, Adams speaking.”
    Rob turned away, opened the file folder, and spread the Green murder scene photos on his desk. He’d been in and out of there pretty quickly, thanks to Faye, but it looked more or less the way he remembered. The forensic photographer had been thorough. Faye’s purse lay in the puddle of blood. That peacock-blue bag had cost her a week’s salary and was on sale at that exorbitant price. He’d thought she was nuts the day she bought it, but she’d loved that bag almost as much as she’d loved the Camaro. Now, they were both gone. No doubt she wouldn’t want it or anything that had fallen out of the bag. It was a good thing she tended to carry her cell phone and keys on her.
    He stared at a bloodied carnation in the picture and scowled. Where the hell had that come from? He hadn’t noticed it when he’d been in the apartment. He checked the other pictures but didn’t see any more of them. Faye loved carnations. Could she have brought it with her? Maybe the killer had brought it as a way into the apartment. He shook his head. Most likely, the damn flower had been on the table and had been knocked to the floor in the ensuing search. It probably didn’t mean a thing, but he’d ask Faye about it in the morning ... leave no stone unturned and all that crap.
    He pulled out the yellow folder, the one marked Mary Green, and set it on his desk. Tom had placed it inside the Green murder folder, but there was no proof her mother’s murder was connected to her disappearance. Right now, Mary Green’s missing person’s case was the responsibility of NYPD and he hoped it would stay that way, but somehow he doubted it. He was pretty damn sure he’d soon inherit that folder, too.
    Children did murder their parents, but he couldn’t see Mary slitting her mother’s throat like that. He wasn’t a coroner, but he’d seen more than enough of these pictures. The person who’d cut her had been taller than Mrs. Green; the angle of the cut proved it. At five-foot-two, weighing a buck fifty, Mary wouldn’t have been able to slice down that way. No, this had been a brutal act of violence, and the amount of strength it took to slice someone like that was a hell of a lot more than Mary had.
    Frustrated, he