In the Belly of Jonah Read Online Free Page A

and over his story. But we finally had to let him go.”
    “Not a suspect?”
    “Nah,”Brandt said. “And believe me, he’s an emotional basket case over this. Kept babbling about the window. We tried to keep him away from the press, but I won’t be surprised if his story hits the AP within hours.”
    “Tell me about the ‘window.’ What are they talking about?”
    Brandt’s voice became a bit shaky. “It was like someone took a cookie cutter and punched a hole right through her torso.”
    “How big?” Streeter was jotting down notes, trying to suppress the repulsion and shock that ripped through him. Remaining calm was critical to keep Brandt talking, but Streeter’s mind was already racing toward a connection with de Milo.
    “Oh, about six inches high and four inches across. Her stomach, lungs, heart were gone. Looked to me like the guy tossed her guts into the reservoir as fish bait.”
    “Why do you say that?” Streeter swallowed hard, tasting a bit of the bile that had crept up his throat.
    “I waded out into the shallows and found some bits of bone and stuff in the rocks. Too much to be fishermen gutting and deboning their catch of the day.”
    “Did you bag and tag?”
    “Uh-huh,” Brandt answered.
    “Tell me about the scene,” Streeter pressed.
    “I got there at . . . oh, I’d say about 9:30 to 9:40 am. I’d been out at the quarry talking with the vic’s boss on the missing persons call when I got the call from dispatch. That was at 9:10. The fisherman had found the vic just ten minutes before and had called it in immediately.”
    “And tell me what you saw when you arrived.”
    Brandt took a deep breath. Streeter imagined the detective was leaning back in his chair at his desk, just like he had been doing earlier. The ultimate thinking position. But now Streeter hunched over his desk and wrote as fast as Brandt was speaking.
    “It was awful. Worst crime scene I’d ever been to.” Brandt blew out a breath. Streeter didn’t fill the uncomfortable silence that followed, allowing Brandt time to gather his thoughts and composure. “Okay. The first responders had cordoned off the entire south shore of the reservoir. There were just four officers trying to keep dozens of looky-loos away from the beach. It was kind of crazy because we had some fishermen returning to the nearby dock, unaware they had slipped off in the early morning darkness right next to a gruesome murder scene.”
    “Did you question any of them?”
    “All of them were detained and interviewed at the station. We thought one of them might be the perp,” Brandt explained.
    “And now?”
    “Doubt it.”
    “Okay,” Streeter said, sketching a time line at the top of his paper. Predawn, fishermen launch. Nine ten, call taken by Brandt. Nine thirty to nine forty, Brandt arrives at crime scene.
    “Interviewing the fishermen kept us busy. Securing the crime scene tied up a bunch more of our guys’ time. So, I was the one investigating the crime scene. It was a circus out there.”
    Streeter knew Brandt was stalling. Recalling a crime scene as gruesome as this one must have been a strain, to say the least. Streeter felt sorry for the poor guy, knowing he’d need months, even years, to get to the point where the images were blurred from memory. If ever.
    “There were these cabinets near the water’s edge. Two of them.”
    “Cabinets?”This was a detail Streeter had not heard from the coroner’s office.
    “The kind that have two doors in them. One had an empty brown bottle sitting on top. We hauled all that stuff off to the lab right away to dust. Didn’t want any more commotion out there than we already had.”
    “Smart,” Streeter said. “You think the killer put the cabinets out there?”
    “Know he did,” Brandt said. “There was a stream of blood running across the rocks from the girl to the water that pooled around the base of each of the cabinets, like the guy planned it that way.”
    “All right, good