Dr. O Read Online Free Page B

that're on it now and dump it in Joe's lap, just like that. Tell me, Inspector, what does my department get for our trouble?"
    "Things work out, you and your man will get plenty of press, I can guarantee that."
    "Press... I give a shit about press."
    "I'll see that you get citations of—"
    "How about a word to my chief... I'm up for promo soon."
    "I can't make any promises on that score... but IH make a call."
    "Maybe you haven't heard, Donna, but a lot of people these days aren't taking your calls."
    She stewed a moment over this. "I'm coming back, Brian, so don't put all your eggs into one basket."
    Noone chewed on this thought before saying, "All right, you'll have Swisher on Stavros."
    Thorpe knew that Stavros must be upsetting for Swisher; that it would be the impetus for driving "Swish" straight into her hands. Noone didn't know it, but Donna Thorpe knew more about motivating Joe Swisher than his captain ever dreamed of. She had had an FBI psychological workup done on Swisher be-fore using the files stolen from Swisher's shrink. She knew what made Joey tick, what made him run, what pissed him off, and what made him vomit.
    In some ways, she knew, she was a lot like Swisher and getting closer by the day. Both of them skirted the letter of the law. Catching and punishing the guilty was uppermost in both their minds.
    Her fingers sought the small, neatly wrapped box on her desk, and, using a pair of tweezers, she removed the portion of male genitals sent her by Dr. Ovierto only recently. Even Dr. O knew that she was now in Nebraska. He would continue sending his disgusting gifts not to the Bureau, but to her, to Donna Thorpe. She lifted the desiccated, bad-smelling penis mailed to her and postmarked Elmhurst, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. The note was as nasty as the contents: Fuck yourself, Donna, honey. Tommy boy would want it that way. It's his thing.
    But she knew it wasn't part of Tom Sykes. She'd have the lab verify this fact, but somehow she knew it was not part of Tom.
    She looked again at the signature. Ovierto had used his penname: Dr. O.

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    Chicago, Illinois
    Joe Swisher looked like a professional linebacker and he stood half a head taller than Captain Noone. Noone knew that he was also sharp-witted and streetwise. Joe smelled something wrong in Noone's suddenly reassigning a case —any case—to him.
    He'd grown up on the North side of Chicago. He was thirty-seven years old. He detested being treated like a fool.
    Why did Noone really want him to handle the one case Swisher had done his very best to avoid? Officially the case was known by the victim's name: Stavros. It was more than just the nightmarish, bizarre nature of the killing, which the newspapers had leapt on, that troubled Swisher. It was the resurgence of the old horrors that he'd fought back for so many years.
    Mutilation killings disturbed him to his core. Having remained in vice for so long before taking over a homicide detail had shielded him somewhat from the ugliest of crimes. Big man on the force —afraid of nasty, splatter pictures and crime scenes that made him throw up, scenes that reminded him of Jerri's death.
    Lieutenant First Class Joseph Swisher of the Chicago Police Force paced tiger fashion before simply saying, "I don't have the experience with mutilation cases to start now."
    "Got to start somewhere."
    "Besides, I've got enough headaches! I don't need or want Stavros. Currently my team of only three are juggling some twenty-seven investigations ranging from vice to murder and back again."
    As he argued with Noone he saw Jerri's ghost over Noone's shoulder. She'd only been fifteen, his big sister. He had come home from school that day to find her dead in a grotesque pose at the end of the bannister where the killer had tied her distorted remains. Later, a neighbor's kid, aged nineteen, was arrested for Jerri's murder. It was a boy she'd known casually almost all her life.
    Back at his desk, he now could barely