Read Serpents in the Cold for Free Online

or maybe you don’t know this girl as well as you thought.”
    Cal imagined how the killer held her from behind and drew the knife across her neck, how she struggled and bucked against him as the blade tore into the flesh, and how her blood gushed forth as he tore through the muscle and tendon and opened her fully from ear to ear. He saw Sheila’s head lolling forward into the gluey pool of her own gore spilling down her breasts as the Butcher planted her in the ground and the temperatures in the bay froze and held her in final rigor, and her clouding pupils staring at the blinking lights of her old neighborhood and the Calf Pasture and the Edison plant beyond, with its dun smokestacks.
    “Why Tenean Beach? Why’d he leave her at Tenean Beach?”
    Fierro pulled the sheet up over the body, adjusted Sheila’s head, fixing her hair before he covered her face. “Maybe it was easy.”
    Cal scratched at his cheek. “Sheila lived in Dorchester. Isn’t that a bit strange, the only victim to be left where she lives?”
    “Might just be coincidence.”
    “Yeah, or maybe not. Maybe she knew him.”
    Fierro stamped out his cigarette and, coughing, began to light another. Cal stared at Sheila’s toe, the last part of her that lay uncovered, and at the tag strung there declaring: JANE DOE. Fierro watched as Cal lifted the bottom of the sheet and covered her completely. When he was done, he cleared his throat, reached over, and picked up his hat off the worktable. “Thanks again,” he said, and turned away.
    Fierro stamped out his cigarette, hurried between the examining tables. “Ahh, Cal?” he began, as he reached forward and touched Cal on the shoulder.
    “Yeah?”
    “Well, it’s a terrible time and all and I hate to ask but—”
    “What is it, Fierro?”
    “Do you still have those Bruins tickets?”
      
    CAL FOUND DANTE in the hallway, back against the wall, his hat crumpled in one hand, and in the other a cigarette, which he tugged at in short, painful breaths. His face was pale and he looked as if at any moment he would rush back into the bathroom to get sick all over again. When he saw Cal he straightened, wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.
    “I keep seeing her,” Dante said. “I keep seeing what he did to her.”
    “I know.”
    “Will you help me?”
    “Anything you need, Dante.”
    “Good. Help me find the fuck who killed her.”
    “Dante, slow down. The police are already on it. We should wait it out.”
    “You know they won’t do shit. You saw the tag on her. To them she’s just a Jane Doe, a whore.” His bloodshot eyes blazed. “I can’t do this by myself.”
    “I run a security company. I’m a fucking bondsman. This is police work. You have to let them handle it.”
    “I need your help. You knew her too.”
    Cal gripped Dante’s shoulder and squeezed. Desperation pulled at Dante’s mouth. “She was family, Cal. I wouldn’t ask you if I had a choice.”
    A worker pushing a gurney banged past them, whistling, and Cal dropped his hand. The whistling continued down the dimly lit hallway with the rattle of wheels reverberating off the stone walls.
    “Okay, then,” he said. “Okay. But first, let’s get you home.”

7
    _________________________
    Scollay Square, Downtown
    DANTE’S APARTMENT WA s on the third floor above the Scollay Grill and the offices of a dentist. He entered the narrow hallway. The odor of burnt hamburgers and steak and onions permeated the stairwell. Once he reached the second floor, he could smell bleach mixed with the faint metallic odor of a drill grinding into enamel. Passing by the door with a smoked-glass window —DR. FLINK—DENTISTRY— he could feel the two teeth loosened by Sully’s muscleman, a sharp pain that ran along his jaw and tapped against his eardrum.
    The door to his apartment wasn’t locked. His sister Claudia never left the apartment. He paused, the doorknob in his hand, and tried to take a deep breath, but his bruised ribs made