Read Bones of a Witch for Free Online

levels. It wasn’t long before he came back with a
smile and a terrific find.
    “Check it out,” he said, holding up a large
plastic evidence bag with a bloodstained knife inside. “I think we
found the murder weapon.”
    I took the bag. “Gee, Dominic, you
think?”
    His smile faded. “Well, yeah, I mean you can’t
say for sure without testing. You know what Tony says, things
aren’t al—”
    “Always what they seem, I know, but come on.
What are the chances this is not the murder weapon?” I held the bag
up to the light. “It’s no ordinary knife, I’ll give you that,” I
said, and Dominic agreed. The blade looked about eight-inches long,
fluted and serrated with a stainless steel mark of 924. It had a
finger-formed hilt carved from ivory and capped with a gold-plated
pommel the shape of a wolf’s head. I handed the bag back over to
Dominic. “Ever see anything like this before?”
    He shook his head no before folding the plastic
evidence bag into a larger brown paper sack. “I haven’t,” he said,
“but I have to think the killer didn’t mean to drop it. That’s
ivory and gold with a pure stainless steel blade. Can you imagine
how much it’s worth?”
    “A handsome cent, I imagine.” I looked around
the garage and spotted a number of security cameras mounted on top
of some of the concrete support columns. “What about them? Maybe
they saw something.”
    “We’ll know soon,” said Dominic. “The property
manager’s on his way. We’ve asked him to get us the video from the
cameras, as well as transactions records from the ticket vouchers
of all the cars that have come and gone from here this
evening.”
    “All right; nice work.” I slapped him on the
back and ruffled his hair up some. He hates when I do that. “That’s
exactly what I would have done.”
    “Of course,” he said, though I thought I
detected a hint of sarcasm in his tone.
    Except for my car and the black and whites, I
spotted only two other vehicles on the level. One I presumed
belonged to the victim. I pointed to both. “You check those out
yet?”
    Dominic looked over at them briefly. “Yeah, the
red one’s hers.” He nodded at our vic. “The BMW belongs to her
boss, Gerald Fisher. He’s the one who found her.” He glanced up
past my shoulder toward a man dressed in a business suit, leaning
against the fender of a black and white and drinking hot coffee
from a paper cup. “That’s him over there.”
    I turned and gave the man a look.
“Him?”
    “Yeah.”
    “The guy with the coffee?”
    “That’s right.”
    “W…where’d he get the coffee?”
    Dominic shrugged. “I don’t know. Guess one of
the uniforms got it for him.”
    “And he didn’t get me one?”
    “You?”
    “Well, us I mean.”
    “Ah, yeah, good one.”
    He seemed to think I was kidding, and went on
to tell me that Fisher and the vic worked together, but that she
left ahead of him. He said the man cried several times while giving
his statement, but I wasn’t buying it. I told him to invite Mister
Fisher back to the justice center in the morning and I’d get the
real story out of him.
    “What do you mean the real story?” Dom
asked.
    I shook my head at his naivety. “Forget it. Is
he the one who pulled the fire alarm?”
    “No, he claims he was just stepping out of the
elevator when it went off.”
    “Then who pulled it?”
    “Don’t know. We’re dusting for prints
now.”
    “Hmm, where did he say he was he coming
from?”
    Dominic gave a nod up over his shoulder. “The
office building across the street. There’s a covered pedestrian
walk on the second level connecting the two buildings.”
    “So, these two were working late?”
    “That’s what he says.”
    “All right then, guess it’s not a botched
robbery after all.”
    “No?”
    “Uh-uh, I’m thinking maybe it’s a lover’s
quarrel now; a man and woman working late together, having an
affair, she wants it to stop, he doesn’t, so he kills her. You see
it all the