Page 9 of Sinful Deception

“Really?” Like the flip of a switch, her moodiness makes way for glee. “Yes, please!” She presses the murder bag to my belly and releases it so I’m forced to hold it or let it fall to the ground. Then she extends her hand, palm side up, and waits. “Gloves please, Doctor Mayet. And prepare to photograph my scene.”

I roll my eyes. But I hand her the things she asks for and shake my head when she takes off for her D.B. I’ll join her in a moment. But I look at Archer first and allow myself a chance to breathe in the scent of his cologne. “Detective Malone.”

He takes another step closer, forcing me to fold my neck to meet his eyes. “You look pretty. Good meeting this morning?”

“As good as can be expected, considering we have a killer ape roaming our city.” I lean around him and nod toward a beaming Aubree. “I think we’ve released a beast since she jumped into bed with your brother. Doctor Emeriusedto be sweet and submissive to my every uttered need. Now, she wants my job and her rightful place at the head of the Malone table. Her ego is getting a little too large to fit into one car.”

“Herrightfulplace?” Following my lead, he peeks over his shoulder and watches her for a beat. She’s the perfect professional on a crime scene. Observing a body and preparing to declare they are, in fact, dead. She orders techs around and ensures the scene remains uncontaminated. Then he brings his focus back to me. “She’s Tim’s problem now. There is no seat for her at the table, Minnnka. There’s only his knee. However they handle that, is between them.”

“And my job? Are you not concerned that I may be unemployed soon?”

“I could do with a compliant housewife, anyway. I was never interested in one of those independent, free-thinking women of the twenty-first century. The idiot who gave you a medical degree was selling you hope, when we all know, your rightful place is in the kitch?—”

“Finish that sentence, and I’ll strangle you in your sleep.” I step around him and start toward Aubree and a watchful Fletch. “Did you ever consider how confusing the word kitchen is?”

“Did I…” He hurries to keep up with me, his shoulder brushing mine. “What?”

“Well, we have abedroom, and we have abathroom.Diningroom.Laundryroom, for those who have them. But we call the room wecookin a kitchen. Why not a cooking room?”

“The wordkitchenis actually derived from the French,” Aubree inserts, listening in as we approach. “It’s literally the French translation of cooking room. So really,” she glances across and meets my eyes, “we’re all bilingual already. Initial impressions of our victim, Chief Mayet?”

I drop my gaze and study the woman laid out just three feet in front of us. Approximately forty years old, just like Archer said. Five, six. Maybe five, seven. She’s not as thin as Aubree, but she’s not large, either. She’s just… comfortable. She wears black slacks and a neat white blouse with faux pearls for buttons. “My initial impressions are that this woman was probably heading to work. She’s got her heels on, though one sits askew, as though she fell or was running. Her clothes are neat and smart-casual, which makes me think she works in the corporate sector. She has shoulder-length hair, with the beginnings of gray slipping through. Some strands are an inch or so long, which means she’s had time to deal with them, but hasn’t. That tells me she likes to look nice, but she’s not vain. She’s still wearing her jewelry—wedding bands, a gold bangle on her left wrist, and a gold chain, also on her left wrist. She’s wearing a necklace, also gold. These appear to be genuine pieces. But not gaudy. This was not a robbery gone wrong. I expect her to land within the middle-income bracket. Married, two working adults in the home, means they’re meeting their bills and have some left over at the end. She’s wearing a little color on her lips, but it’s understated,and though her brows are shaped professionally, she’s not wearing lashes or mascara. She’s just a regular woman who goes to work and likes to look nice, but she’s not obsessive about it.”

Aubree grins her approval, like she’s the teacher and I’m the student. “What else do you see?”

“An autopsy tech who is getting a little big for her britches,” I tease, eliciting a blush from the woman who would never dare usurp me. It’s not about loyalty or superiority. It’s about love. And because I love her, too, I look down again and continue. “She’s still dressed, and her clothes are not torn or disheveled. So in addition to ruling out robbery, I would also strike out this being a sexually driven crime.”

“There’s no immediate evidence of a bullet wound,” she murmurs. “Ditto, blades. I see no injury at all. No bruising. No bleeding. Without looking deeper, one could almost assume she’s having a nap on the grass.”

“You should probably rule her dead before we proceed,” Fletch jokes. “Ya know, just in case.”

“Have you searched for a pulse, Detective?” I take a step to the right, because Archer’s finger is coming dangerously close to the loop of my pants, and the media vans are beginning to fill the street outside our yellow tape. He would grab me if he thought it necessary, and of course, that image would be plastered on every news station from now until the next time they have reason to show something else. “Detective Malone?” I prompt. “Did you check for a pulse?”

He playfully scrunches his nose so I see, but no one outside of us does. “Yes, Chief. Detective Fletcher and I both checked. As did the EMTs who arrived before us. In our professional opinion, we would feel comfortable declaring death at this point.”

“So…” More curious now, I move closer and kneel over the woman’s lifeless body. She hasn’t been shot, stabbed, run overby a car, beaten, or in any noticeable way, harmed. “Could be natural causes,” I ponder. And then I think of Doctor Kirk and his case. “If she died of something naturally, why is the homicide division here?”

“Because it’s an unattended death.” Archer inches closer, placing himself at my back and casting a shadow over my shoulder. “Until we rule otherwise, homicide must attend.”

“Any witnesses?” Aubree asks. “The way I see it, she came out of her house and ran across the lawn. Running toward, or away from, something. Surely, one of the neighbors saw.”

“Uniforms are already canvassing.” Fletch hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Most everyone around here works a standard nine to five, and it’s currently,” he makes a show of checking his watch, “a little after eleven. We estimate TOD to be around ten, though we’ll defer to you good doctors to confirm. Most of the residents will have left for work between eight and nine, so our vic was here relatively alone.”

“Except the husband didn’t go to work. Right?” Aubree looks from one detective to the other. “That’s what you said.”

“Right,” Fletch answers. “He’s AWOL. Which makes him our number one person of interest, and since we’re such clever cops, we’ve already put out a BOLO on his car and face. If he’s seen anywhere, runs a red light, buys gas before fleeing town, or tries for a train station or the airport instead, uniforms will pick him up and bring him back. We can’t assume it was the husband. But we can lean that way until the evidence points us somewhere else.”

“It’s always the husband,” Aubree taunts. “Always.”

“Statistically probable,” he agrees. “But the assumption makes you a poor investigator. Your bias colors your analysis, and bias leads to a bad case and outcome.”

“Good thing I went to medical school, then, and not Donut King.”

“Jesus.” Archer coughs out a laugh and covers his mouth before the cameras catch something they really shouldn’t. “She’s aiming for everyone’s throat these days. Sharing a bed with Timothy Malone becomes you, Doctor Emeri.”

“It just keeps happening.” Giggling, she lowers to kneel across from me. “Not the bed thing,” she clarifies. “Well, that too. But the sass. It’s like I’ve suppressed pockets of it my whole life, and now it’s just spilling over. I can’t even stop the words before they’re out.”

“Because youweresuppressing things,” I rumble. “Big, huge, loaded secrets your friends could have benefited from had you been truthful.” I nod toward the vic. “Touch her and solve this. Save us all the trouble.”

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