Eye of the Witch Read Online Free

victim was Bridget Dean, a lawyer at Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli.”
    “ Where Ricardo Rivera works.”
    “ Exactly.”
    “ So then, Karen must have thought Rivera had something to do with Dean’s death.”
    Carlos nodded. “Why else would she have him under surveillance?”
    “ But why wouldn’t she tell somebody what she was up to?”
    Carlos eased back into his chair. “Because there wasn’t a case. The coroner ruled Bridget Dean’s death a suicide. If the captain knew she was spending department resources investigating a suicide when she should have been working the warehouse burglaries, he would have reprimanded her.”
    “ Interesting.” I picked up one of the night shots of Rivera and studied it more closely. “Hey, check it out. Is it me, or does that guy at the cafe with Rivera seem sorely out of place?”
    “ Carlos pulled up for another look. “What do you mean?”
    “ Well, look. Everyone else in the photo is wearing business attire and office dress. This man is sporting a sleeveless shirt, cutoffs and flip-flops.” I fanned the photo over the others before pitching it back onto the pile. “I’d sure like to know who he is. I mean he looks more like someone Rivera would defend, not socialize with.”
    “ Maybe he is,” said Spinelli.
    Carlos and I both looked up. “Come again?”
    “ Maybe the guy’s a criminal, or should I say accomplice?”
    “ Keen observation, Dom,” said Carlos. “It’s probably why Karen took the picture. Maybe she had the same thought.”
    “ What about the other one?” I asked.
    “ What other one?”
    “ The other suicide victim. You said there were three. Did she also work for Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli?”
    Carlos shook his head. “No, I believe she was a waitress somewhere.”
    “ But she did work in the same building.” Spinelli said.
    Again Carlos and I looked up at him. “What?”
    “ Yeah. I read that in the papers. There’s this coffee shop in the Hartman, Pierce and Petruzelli building, downstairs from the offices. The woman worked there as a waitress. I remember thinking that she had to know Bridget Dean, and how coincidental it seemed.”
    “ Maybe too coincidental,” I said. I turned to Carlos, who looked slightly embarrassed. “You didn’t know that, Carlos?”
    “ No, I didn’t,” he said, almost stuttering. “Dominic, why didn’t you point this out to me before?”
    He shrugged. “I didn’t realize you didn’t know.”
    For a while we all just stared down at the photos on the desk, scratching our heads, trying to make sense of it all. To believe that two women working in the same building committed suicide only weeks apart, but that there were no other connections between them seemed ludicrous. Unless someone had put something in the water there, our suspicions, like Karen Webber’s, drew a very different conclusion than that of the coroner’s. I tapped on the photo of Rivera and his cafe mate to get Carlos’ attention.
    “ Look, we need to know more about what Karen was working on,” I told him. “I know her surveillance of Rivera flew under the radar, but she had to have kept a record of her investigation if she ever thought it might come to prosecution. We need to see her files. She’s probably hidden clues among her caseload.”
    Carlos shook his head. “Can’t. Her files aren’t ours. Karen worked out of the First Precinct. We have some of her people here in the satellite office down the hall, but they’ve been no help.”
    “ They won’t help you?”
    “ Not that they won’t. They can’t. Her death was ruled a suicide. They had no reason to sequester her files. Her supervisor divvied up her caseload and dispersed it throughout the entire department. I’m afraid we’re starting from scratch.”
    I looked down at the photos again. At least we had those, so it wasn’t really like starting from scratch. But we did have a long uphill battle ahead of us. I turned to Carlos and then to Spinelli. Both