Linda Crowder - Jake and Emma 01 - Too Cute to Kill Read Online Free

someone could have been her killer,” agreed Reggie, “though I think it’s more likely she was doing drugs and something went wrong.  People get scared if someone OD’s on them.”
    Jake liked that explanation better.  He didn’t want to think that a killer could come so close to his home and to Emma.  “When do you think you’ll know how she died?”
    “The Coroner had to send the body to Colorado for autopsy.  We’ll have their initial findings in a day or two but the lab tests can take weeks.”  Jake nodded.  Real life rarely matched the pace of television crime lab dramas.
    “She didn’t look like a meth-head,” Jake mused, “but these days you just never know.  I could smell the alcohol on her.  Did you find a car abandoned nearby that she might have come from?”
    “No, nothing like that.  A few tire tracks but too fresh.  Any tracks from a car that might have dumped her would have been buried in the snow.  Same for footprints, all we found were yours from when you checked on the body.” 
    Reggie sighed and stared out the window.  He didn’t usually have much use for lawyers, but he liked Jake.  Jake defended kids.  He took the cases of juveniles who’d gotten themselves into trouble and he represented kids whose parents were charged with abuse or neglect. 
    Their paths didn’t cross often since the Sheriff didn’t usually do investigative work.  Most of the time he rode a desk.  This case had caught his interest.  He was curious to know what happened to Jane Doe #5, as the Coroner had dubbed the woman until she could be identified.
    They didn’t have any local reports of a missing woman matching her description.  They’d sent her prints through the state database without a hit.  They were waiting for a response from the feds.  If that didn’t yield her identity, they would enter her information into the missing persons databases.
    Usually, they were able to identify someone pretty quickly.  People had to wait three days before reporting an adult as a missing person so there was often a lag time between the discovery of a body and a match with the missing persons database.  Eventually though, most bodies got identified.
    Once they knew who Jane Doe was, they could start tracking down her movements.  Most murders weren’t much of a mystery.  It would probably end up being someone she knew.  It usually was when a woman was killed.  Damn shame, thought Reggie, but there wasn’t anything he could do to change it.
    He roused himself from his thoughts and told Jake to call him if he remembered anything more.  Jake promised he would and walked with the Sheriff to the door. 
    “Let me know when you find out what happened to her.  I know you can’t talk to me during the investigation, but when it’s over, let me know.  I don’t have to tell you how much it shook us finding that body.”
    Reggie agreed to notify Jake when the case closed and left the office.  Jake returned to his desk and picked up the case file he’d been reviewing when the Sheriff arrived.  He stared at the page unseeing.
    She had been dead before her body was dumped.  That at least explained why she hadn’t been dressed for the cold.  What kind of person tosses someone out of a car on the side of the road like an unwanted piece of garbage?
    Sheriff Newsome thought she’d died of an overdose.  She was a young woman.  The autopsy would say how young but he thought early 20’s.  Her face had looked young anyway, which meant if she’d been on meth, she hadn’t been using it long. 
    Early in his career as a defense attorney, Jake had gone to the jail to meet with a new client.  She’d been arrested for possession and Jake had been shocked by her haggard appearance.  Her file said she was 26 but she looked 50.
    Drug addicts made bad friends.  If Jane Doe had been using drugs when she died, he could picture her fellow addicts driving aimlessly into the country to get rid of the