Read Online Two Graves (A Kesle City Homicide Novel) by D.A. Graystone - Free Book Online

through him. They would take pleasure in his acts. Their support would be spiritual but support nonetheless.
    But how will they know? She’s just another slut in the trash. Who will understand? It isn’t as if your last kill made any difference.
    He had to leave a mark. But what mark could represent him? Whenever his mind played through his years of torture and terror, there was a single focus. His signature was obvious.
    Like an artist examining a sculpture, he decided on the perfect spot.
    Using his foot, he kicked her over. She landed with a wet plop in the soggy garbage. Too bad it isn’t mud, he thought, surveying her smooth slim back.
    Kneeling down, he started to cut.

Chapter 11

    “Damn it all to hell. This crime scene is three days old! There isn’t anything cordoned off let alone a body.”
    Mann stared down the alley and then backed up to look down the street, trying to picture the position of the body based on the photos. If he backed up enough, he could see the unlit sign of Jake’s Tavern. “It shouldn’t have taken so long to get to us.”
    “It’s the knife,” Tetrault explained unnecessarily. “They tossed us the case once it was IDed. If it wasn’t for the new database the tax payers bitched so much about, we never would have tied it together and Central would still have it.”
    Kesle’s divided its policing into fourteen Divisions. However, although each Division had a Detective squad handling most crimes, budget restrictions wouldn’t allow for each Division to have its own Homicide squad. Mann’s squad, operating out of Southfield Division, covered Southfield, High Park and the Bluffs.
    Central Division, covering the oldest sections of the city, buffered Southfield from Downtown. Central’s Homicide squad looked after Central and Downtown. Those two Divisions accounted for over thirty percent of the murders in Kesle, double any other Divisions. If there was an opportunity, they would dump a case in a second.
    And they got their chance when they identified the knife buried to the hilt in the victim’s back.
    “OK, give me what you have,” Mann said, still looking at the blank alley.
    Tetrault consulted his notes. He had spent the day looking at the gang angle, which Central had ignored up until then, while Kydd stayed with Gabel.
    “So far, nothing gang related in her background,” Tetrault said. “She was straight as they get. Nothing connected her with the first victim. She lived in a different area, worked near here but not really in Gabel’s turf. Gabel and his boys would have been toast if they had wandered this far east of Spinner.”
    Mann rubbed his eyes, looking from Tetrault to Kydd. “Same with your side?”
    “Nothing more on the kid. If they knew each other, I don’t know how they would. I can’t find any common ground. Nothing but the fact that she had his knife in her back.”
    “Tetrault, what was she doing here?”
    “She was having a drink with her girlfriends at Jake’s. She was supposed to have left yesterday to get married in Jamaica.”
    “Was she a regular at Jake’s?”
    “Nope, never been there before. One of her girlfriends is and suggested it.”
    “What about the fiancée? Could he be involved in some way?”
    “Central cleared him right away. He has an alibi for each killing. He’s clean as far as the gangs go. Nothing there worth a second look.”
    “Take another look. There has to be something.”
    “Just the knife.”
    “What about the knife?”
    “The rest of the Intimidators say that Gabel would have had the knife on him when he was killed,” Kydd confirmed. “He was never without it. They even described the chipped blade. Happened during a game of Mumblety-peg.”
    “How does it get from Gabel’s pocket into the girl?”
    “The same killer whacked both,” Tetrault said.
    “Why?”
    The question went unanswered and Mann stared down the alley. “What about the other three in Gabel's gang?”
    “All have good alibis.” Kydd