Murder On The Menu: The 1st Nikki Hunter Mystery (Nikki Hunter Mysteries) Read Online Free

to prosecute the employees I’d caught stealing from them, I’d had no need to do so. Most of the police departments I deal with are very cooperative and even refer clients to me. I had heard mixed evaluations of the Redwood City men and women in blue, but, as always, I would form my own opinion.
    I opened the binder, glanced quickly at the autopsy report, and winced at the pictures of the crime scene. Laura was almost completely naked and her chest had been savaged. That, combined with the plastic bag over her head, caused my breath to catch in my throat. I closed the book and looked at Anderson.
    “Can you give me ten minutes alone? I can’t concentrate with you watching me.”
    He gave me an intense look, nodded once, and left the room. I whipped the camera out of my purse and snapped pictures of each page in the binder, front to back. There were fifteen in all. It took me about twenty seconds. I slipped the camera back into my bag and took a deep breath. I hoped I had finished before Anderson made it to the observation room. I doubted he would have asked any of his co-workers to watch me for him, so I was probably safe.
    Now that I had photos of all the data, I could take my time reading through it. I looked over the crime scene report and the interviews with local merchants and business people who populated the neighborhood where Laura had been killed. I glanced quickly at the photos of the scene, noting how few there were in the binder, and that they had all been taken from a distance. Anderson was holding back, not showing me everything.
    I started reading the autopsy report. Kate hadn’t told me the details of the murder and they hadn’t been publicized. According to the report, Laura had been suffocated, after which she had been stabbed in the chest three times. I looked more closely at the photos of her body and started feeling lightheaded. I pushed away from the table, dropping my head between my knees.
    After a minute of deep breathing I heard the door open and saw a pair of Eccos approaching.
    “Are you okay?”
    So he had been watching.
    I sat halfway up and leaned on my knees.
    “How embarrassing is this? I guess the pictures kind of got to me. Do you have time to go out for coffee?”
    That’s when I got the smile. Detective Bill Anderson has a great smile. It extends from one side of his face to the other and includes some very white teeth and those little laugh lines around the eyes that look so good on men.
    “Let’s take my car,” he said. “You’re not gonna pass out are you?”
    “God, I hope not.”
    We walked through a maze of cubicles to Anderson’s desk, where he locked up the binder. Then he escorted me through an atrium in the center of the building and out a back door to the secure parking lot. He unlocked the passenger door of a fire engine red classic Ford Mustang. I wanted to smoke, but I couldn’t bring myself to defile such a well-maintained vehicle.
    “Is this your personal car?” I asked.
    “Yes,” he said. “I can’t use it when I’m undercover. Too conspicuous.“
    We drove out through a security gate and made a right on Maple. Anderson drove to a restaurant called Otto’s on El Camino Real. I knew this place well, and I knew the coffee would be terrible. Otto is one of my regular clients.
    We seated ourselves in a booth in a corner of the restaurant where we could have some privacy, ordered coffee, and waited until it had been served.
    When we had our coffee and the waitress was out of earshot, I asked Anderson if he’d seen anything similar to Laura’s murder before.
    “No.”
    A man of few words.
    “Have you developed a profile?” I asked.
    “Based on this case, I’d say the killer has a lot of anger toward women. Probably Caucasian. The knife wounds suggest the killer may have known the victim.”
    “What do you mean based on this case?” I asked.
    “Well, I assume you watch the news.”
    I nodded. There had been another murder in Redwood City the