Murder.com Read Online Free Page B

quickly.
    â€œYes. That’s her. No question about it. But why in the name of heaven was she murdered?” He spread his arms outward in a gesture of despair. “And why was she using an assumed name? And who, who … could have done such a thing?”
    â€œThat’s what Detective Bautista and the police aim to find out. And Dan, my old friend, I’m very sorry at this turn of events.”
    â€œIf you’ll excuse me,” Bautista said, “I’m going to call our forensic squad to meet us at your daughter’s apartment. I don’t know what we’ll find there, but we want to preserve any clues that exist.”
    After Luis had left the room, Daniel burst into tears. “I can’t believe this. My daughter was too smart to put herself in danger. Didn’t that cop say she was strangled? What kind of fiend would do that?
    â€œReuben, I don’t mean to sound sappy, but she was the love of my life—beautiful and smart and really caring about others. With Gretchen gone, and my stepson, Facini, a lost cause, she was all the family I had. It’s not fair. Why is God punishing me this way?”
    â€œI know it’s unfair, Dan. But I can’t answer your question about divine retribution. My only suggestion is that we, you and me, do everything we can to help Luis and his colleagues find the killer.”
    Bautista returned and explained that the forensics squad was already on the way to the Ladbroke. “Before we go, I’d like to get some basic information, if you don’t mind, Mr. Courtland.”
    â€œNo, go ahead. Ask whatever you want,” Daniel said, slumping in his chair.
    Luis, notebook in hand, drew out Marina’s basic statistics from her grieving father, and where she had gone to school and where she worked. Daniel was less helpful in describing the details of her life in the City.
    â€œAs far as I know, she was moderately religious—or at least she was around me. And I don’t believe she smoked or drank. At least she had the good grace never to do so in my presence. And unlike her half-brother, I’m sure she never used drugs.”
    Gino Facini’s drug use led to a series of questions about him. Bautista wrote down, with a question mark, that he might be in New York.
    â€œWhat about male friends?”
    â€œAs I was telling Reuben last night, she had a boyfriend a couple of years back but got rid of him.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause she found out he was a fraud.”
    A colloquy ensued about Marina’s trust fund and financial independence. The one-third/two-thirds division between Marina and Gino was explained.
    â€œIn other words, there wasn’t an even split between the two?” Bautista pressed.
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œInteresting.” The detective paused, tapping his pen on his notebook. “Getting back to the boyfriend, do you remember his name?” he continued.
    â€œI believe it was Joshua Rice, though I only met him once. And I have no idea whether he’s still here in Manhattan or what he does. As near as I could tell, he was unemployed when he was going with my daughter.”
    â€œAnything else occur to you that might be helpful?”
    â€œNothing that I can think of. Sorry.”
    Within the hour the three men had walked to the Ladbroke where three plainclothes officers, carrying a variety of forensic equipment, awaited them in the garish lobby. A nervous-­looking building superintendent, Dristan Kovafu, was with them. (Kovafu was a full-fledged American citizen, but his youthful experience under the Hoxha dictatorship in Albania had made him instinctively nervous around policemen.)
    The newcomers shook hands all around and mumbled greetings. Together, they took the elevator to the eighteenth floor and Marina Courtland’s apartment, which the superintendent opened and then tried to leave. Luis stopped him and, after warning Reuben and Daniel