In the Belly of Jonah Read Online Free

names as a reminder to keep distance between himself and most people. Bad things tended to happen to those who were close to him. Berta, on the other hand, called everyone by his or her first name, regardless of whether she was at home, in a grocery store, or at work as the chief coroner for the state of Colorado. She probably even called the governor by his first name. The thought brought a smile to his weary face.
    Her hushed whisper was reproachful. “Damn it, Streeter, it’s eight o’clock. I’m helping my kid with her math homework. Don’t you have something better to do than work?”
    “Nope,” he answered. “Are you on it?”
    “On what?”
    “The murder vic found west of Fort Collins,” he said calmly.
    She sighed. “I heard about it, but no. I didn’t see the point.”
    “The point is I need you,” Streeter said.
    “So what? So, do my kids. And my husband,” she said defensively.
    “Berta?”
    “She was assigned to Mark. He’s scheduled to start tomorrow morning after the ID.”
    “Berta,”Streeter pleaded, switching the phone to his other ear and pivoting his chair for a different view of the snowcapped Rockies in the distance.
    Her sigh of concession spoke volumes over her protests. “That’s why I hired Mark and Eddie and Shayla. They’re all capable, bright, young assistants.”
    “But they’re not you,” Streeter said.
    He could hear the young girl in the background singing a Room Five song, and he pictured her bopping to her iPod, tapping a pencil against her schoolbook. A pang of guilt stabbed his gut for having made this call.
    “All right,” she said. “But not until Hannah’s off to school in the morning.”
    “Great choice.”
    “You know I’m trying to retire, don’t you?”
    “Mmm.”
    “Jackass,” she whispered. This brought him another smile. “You know, you should think about retiring, old man.”
    “Come on, Berta. I only just hit the big 4-0.”
    He could hear Hannah croon a few more bars while Berta mulled over the situation. She finally connected the dots. “You think this has something to do with our de Milo?”
    “Don’t know for sure yet, but something in my gut says it does. I’ll be talking to the detective assigned to the case in a few minutes and I’ll know for sure. Just a hunch, but I think we may have a serial on our hands. That’s why I need you.”
    “Then meet me at ten. I should be in the middle of things by then.”
    “I’ll be there,” Streeter promised.
    “Frank’s going to kick your ass,” she promised back.
    “As he should,” Streeter said before hanging up, knowing her husband would do nothing of the sort.
    He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes, and then he raked his fingers through his butch. He could see his ghostly image in the windows and noted the similarity between himself and the snowcapped mountains. Neither seemed right being capped in white, this being June in the Rockies and he being only forty. “As old as the hills and twice as dusty,” according to his goddaughter, whom he’d seen last weekend. She couldn’t possibly know he’d gone prematurely gray—or white, as luck would have it—after Paula’s death. At least she had made her father, Tony, laugh.
    Having Berta at the table reviewing the results eased his mind. Having Tony Gates rather than Doug Brandt as the lead detective would make it even better. But that wasn’t going to happen. It wasn’t Denver Police Chief Tony Gates’s jurisdiction.
    Streeter filled his coffee cup, looked at the clock, and made the phone call to Brandt.
    “Better now?”
    “Yeah. Hey, thanks for the tip,” Brandt said, sounding more confident. “What can I do for you?”
    “I need some confirmation on a few details. The word down here is that the perp—how do I put it?—cut a window into the girl’s body. Is that true?”
    “That’s what the guy who found her keeps saying. We can’t muzzle the guy. He’s a mess. We held him for six hours going over