Kissing Arizona Read Online Free

a few minutes of silent concentration,’ the doctor said, ‘before I answer any more questions. Can’t get this job done with people chattering over my shoulders! Why don’t you sleuths go through that bedroom door and talk to the techies for a while. Come back in ten minutes or so.’
    They walked into the master bedroom and almost collided with the backside of a female criminalist who was spreading black powder along the edge of a dresser. Her badge said her name was Diane.
    â€˜Whoops!’ she said. ‘Hang on while I finish this lift, will you? Only take a minute.’
    â€˜No problem,’ Sarah said, and stood still, scanning the room without moving.
    Diane peeled off the print, looked at it critically and nodded. She pasted it into her little spiral notebook, noted the place and time, and said, ‘OK, guys. I’ll go work in one of the other rooms for few minutes while you have a look. I’m not done in here yet, though, so please . . .’ She rolled her pleading eyes at them.
    â€˜Have no fear, dear,’ Jason said. ‘We are highly skilled master detectives who watch a lot of TV, so we know not to touch things.’
    â€˜Excellent plan,’ Diane said, and rewarded him with a radiant smile. She fit the spiral notebook into its place in a complex basket of tools, made a mark on a list of tasks, and left carrying the basket.
    They were in a sparsely furnished bedroom with white walls, gray carpet, blue drapes. A perfectly pieced and hand-quilted comforter in rosy colors, folded on the end of the bed, provided the one homey note. Otherwise the whole room looked as if it had been lifted, in a quick half-hour’s decision-making, out of a store display.
    Standing in one spot, Leo started a slow three-sixty turn, and the other two followed his example. Hardly less impersonal than a motel room, the bedroom had two forgettable prints on the wall. One family photograph on the dresser showed the Coopers about twenty years ago, with two grade-school-age children. Continuing the turn, Sarah saw plenty of closets and drawer space in a practical room with no books or memorabilia. One hard-looking armchair. Nobody sat in here having coffee and a chat. This was a room where you slept, got dressed quickly, and got out. It was too uncluttered to be the bedroom of a living couple.
    Maybe it wasn’t? Sarah pulled out a couple of drawers and looked in the closet.
    â€˜Only women’s clothes,’ she said. ‘Mr Cooper had his own room. Connection through the bathroom?’
    She stepped into the bathroom, which like the bedroom was clean, neat and impersonal. ‘No connecting door in here,’ she said. She came out and said again, ‘Not connected. Separate.’
    â€˜OK, Sarah, I got the picture,’ Jason said.
    They went back into the hall and stood carefully in clean patches on the carpet, like good children in school. Frank Cooper lay in a heap. His limbs were tangled except for his right hand and arm, which lay stretched out toward the weapon that must have killed him. His face looked undamaged. The back half of his head was missing.
    Still not looking up, the doctor said, ‘So?’
    â€˜Looks like he stood sideways in the hall and ate his gun,’ Leo said.
    â€˜Sure does. And dropped his big blunderbuss –’he pointed to the .357 Magnum Smith & Wessen revolver lying near the dead man’s outstretched right hand – ‘right at his feet when he fell. So convenient, right? No doubts about the weapon.’ Greenberg’s face wore a funny little sneer. Even for Moses Greenberg, Sarah thought, that’s an exceptionally dubious face.
    Jason said, ‘Sure looks like the same gun did them both, huh?’
    â€˜Well, I’ll wait till I hear what you geniuses dig out of the walls here before I venture an opinion on that. But yeah, the wounds certainly appear similar.’
    Leo asked him, ‘You going