Read The In Death Collection: Books 26-29 for Free Online Page B

the morning, guilty, the traveler offers to pay the farmer for the hospitality, but the farmer waves this off. So the traveler says he hopes he didn’t disturb the daughter in the night. ‘Unlikely,’ the farmer replies, ‘as we’re burying her today.’”
    Eve let out a snort. “Sick death humor.”
    â€œA specialty of the house. And it seemed apt under the circumstances.” He gestured toward Anders’s stubborn erection.
    â€œYeah, how about that?”
    â€œSomehow sad and enviable at the same time. I’m running tox, but unless your dead is a medical marvel, we can presuppose he was loaded with happy cock aids. Then after he achieved liftoff, the strategically placed rings trapped the blood supply at the—sticking point.”
    â€œGee, Morris, I’m just a cop. You’re confusing me with all these complicated medical terms.”
    He laughed, then removed a thin section of the liver. “We see death erections fairly routinely, particularly in stranglings or hangings, as the blood in the torso tries to obey the laws of gravity and travels down. The erectile tissue fills with it, and expands. But once the body’s moved, as our friend’s here was, it dissipates.”
    â€œYeah, and people noticed guys got boners when they were publicly hanged, back in the good old days, and thought: Hey, maybe if I choke myself during sex I’ll make really good wood. People are really stupid.”
    â€œDifficult to argue that point, as you and I often see them at their most terminally stupid. So, as to our current guest: Erotic—or auto-erotic if you’re going solo—asphyxiation decreases oxygen, and pumps up the endorphins to heighten sexual pleasure. It’s responsible for a considerable number of accidental deaths annually, and many deaths that are officially termed suicide.”
    â€œThis wasn’t suicide.”
    â€œNo, indeed.” Morris looked down on Anders. “I believe it took him between fifteen and twenty minutes to die, slowly choking. Yet, there’s no bruising on his wrists or ankles. However cushioned the rope, when a man slowly chokes to death he’ll fight, he’ll struggle, and velvet restraints or not, there would be ligature marks. Even here.” He gestured again, then offered Eve a pair of microgoggles. “Here, where the rope tightened, cut in, cut off his oxygen, there’s no evidence he fought against it, writhed, strained. The bruising here is almost uniform.”
    â€œSo he just lay there and died.”
    â€œEssentially.”
    â€œEven if a guy wants to self-terminate, the body fights it.”
    â€œExactly so. Unless—”
    â€œIt can’t. How long for the tox?”
    â€œI flagged it. But I can give you something now. Look here.”
    She bent over Anders again, scanning the bruising under the right ear until she saw it. The faint, circular mark was nearly obscured by the more traumatic bruising. “Pressure syringe.”
    â€œYes, my bright young student. An odd place for self-medicating—especially by a right-hander—which he was.”
    Shoving up the goggles, Eve put herself back in Anders’s bedroom. “Killer comes in, crosses to the bed. Sealed up, all sealed up, booties over the feet to muffle any sound. Lots of thick carpet anyway. Tranqs Anders while he’s sleeping. Quick, clean. Guy could’ve slept right through that—even if he started to wake up, a good tranq would take him under in seconds. Then you truss him up, set the scene, walk out, and leave him to die. Pick up the security discs. You’ve already shut down the system, but you take the discs. You’re either anal or hoping we’re just incredibly stupid and that’ll throw us off and make us think it was an accident.”
    â€œIncredibly stupid we aren’t.”
    â€œEither way, he’s dead.” She paced away, among the steel and