The Sleeping Doll by Jeffery Deaver

Author:Jeffery Deaver
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Suspense, Adult, Thriller
ISBN: 9780743491587
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2007-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 29

Kathryn Dance and Winston Kellogg walked along a road covered with a thin coat of damp sand toward TJ and Michael O’Neil, who stood at the open trunk of a late-model Lexus.

Another man was there too, one of the officers from the Coroner’s Division, which in Monterey County is part of the MCSO. The balding, round deputy greeted her. “Kathryn.”

Dance introduced him to Kellogg, then peered into the trunk. The victim, a woman, lay on her side. Her legs were bent and her hands and mouth were duct-taped. Her nose and face were bright red. Blood vessels had broken.

O’Neil said, “Susan Pemberton. Lived in Monterey. Single, thirty nine.”

“Probable COD is suffocation?”

The coroner officer added, “We’ve got capillary dilation and membrane inflammation and distension. That residue there? I’m sure it’s capsicum oleoresin.”

“He hit her with pepper spray and then duct-taped her.”

The coroner officer nodded.

“Terrible,” O’Neil muttered.

Dying alone, in pain, an ignominious trunk her coffin. A burst of raw anger at Daniel Pell swept through Dance.

It turned out, O’Neil explained, that Susan’s was the disappearance he’d been looking into.

“We’re sure it’s Pell?”

“It’s him,” the Coroner’s Division officer said. “Prints match.”

O’Neil added, “I’ve ordered field prints tests done for every homicide in the area.”

“Any idea of the motive?”

“Maybe. She worked for an event-planning company. He apparently used her to get in and tell him where all the files were. He stole everything. Crime scene’s been through the office. Nothing conclusive so far, except his prints.”

“Any clue why?” Kellogg asked.

“Nope.”

“How’d he find her?”

“Her boss said she left the office about five last night to meet a prospective client for drinks.”

“Pell, you think?”

O’Neil shrugged. “No idea. Her boss didn’t know who. Maybe Pell saw them and followed.”

“Next of kin?”

“Nobody here, doesn’t look like,” the Coroner’s Division officer said. “Her parents’re in Denver. I’ll make that call when I get back to the office.”

“TOD?”

“Last night, maybe seven to nine. I’ll know more after the autopsy.”

Pell had left little evidence behind, except a few faint footsteps in the sand that seemed to lead toward the beach then were lost in the pale grass littering the dunes. No other prints or tread marks were visible.

What was in the files he’d stolen? What didn’t he want them to know?

Kellogg was walking around the area, getting a feel for the crime scene, maybe considering it in light of his specialty, cult mentality.

Dance told O’Neil about Rebecca’s idea that Pell was after a big score, presumably so that he could buy an enclave somewhere.

“ ‘Mountaintop’ was what Linda said. And the big score might’ve been the Croyton break-in.” She added her idea that maybe Pell had hidden something of Croyton’s in the getaway car.

“I think it was why he was searching Visual-Earth. To check the place out.”

“Interesting theory,” O’Neil said. He and Dance would often brainstorm when they were working cases together. They’d occasionally come up with some truly bizarre theories about the crimes they were investigating. Sometimes those theories actually turned out to be right.

Dance told TJ to check

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.