The Cold Room Read Online Free Page B

childhood coddling, it seems.”
    Taylor smiled absently at Paula, then stepped back a few feet, taking in the full tableau. It was impressive, she’d give the killer that. Spiking the girl to the column like she was a butterfly trapped on a piece of cork was flashy, meant to shock. Meant to humiliate the victim.
    Taylor longed for the good old days, when getting called out to a homicide was straightforward—some kid had deuced another on a crack buy and gotten knifed, ora pimp had beaten one of his girls upside the head and cracked her skull. As pointless as those deaths seemed, they were driven by the basics, things she readily understood—greed, lust, drugs. Ever since Dr. John Baldwin, FBI profiler extraordinaire, entered her life, the kills had gotten more gruesome, more meaningful. More serial. Like the loonies had followed him to Nashville. And that thought scared her to death. She already had one killer who’d gotten away, a man calling himself the Pretender, who killed in her name. What was happening to her city?
    She pulled her phone from her pocket. There was no signal, so she stepped out onto the porch. Three bars, enough to make a call. She started to dial, felt McKenzie beside her. She hoped he wasn’t going to lurk at her elbow at every crime scene. Maybe he just needed some instruction. She closed the phone and turned to him.
    â€œHey, man, do me a favor. Get them—”
    McKenzie shook his head, lips compressed, eyes darting over her shoulder and back to hers with a kind of wild frenzy. She read the signs. Someone was behind her.
    She turned and bumped into a small man with brown hair parted smartly on the right. It was thick and almost bushy, stood out from his head at the base of his neck and around his ears. Her first thought was toupee. He was older, easily in his sixties. She didn’t recognize him, which wasn’t too much of a surprise. Since the housecleaning brought about by Captain Norris and the chief, there were plenty of new and unfamiliar faces at crime scenes, in the hallways, the cafeteria. The crime-scene techs were all the same, but there’d been some serious shaking up done among the detective ranks.
    The little man looked up at her. She saw his mouth start to drop open, then he closed it, the back teeth snapping together.
    â€œYou are?” he demanded.
    â€œDetective Taylor Jackson, Metro Homicide. And you?”
    â€œYou have a problem with my setup, Detective?”
    My setup? Who was this guy?
    â€œI must have missed your name,” she said.
    â€œLieutenant Mortimer T. Elm. You may call me Lieutenant Elm. I’m with the New Orleans police.”
    â€œWhat are the New Orleans police doing at a Nashville crime scene?”
    He looked confused for a moment, then said, “Who said anything about New Orleans? I’m with Metro Nashville.”
    Taylor stared at him for a second, then shrugged. “Lieutenant Elm. It’s nice to meet you. Yes, there’s a standard protocol when dealing with static crime scenes. We usually try to station the command post away from the primary scene in order to avoid contaminating the evidence that might be procured from the immediate vicinity.” She realized she sounded completely textbook and hated herself for a moment. But that’s what the demotion had done to her—forced her back into the realm of “there’s only one way to do things.” Great.
    His wave was dismissive. He had pudgy fingers, the nails bitten to the quick. Her stomach flopped. A man’s hands were the window to his soul. Lieutenant Elm’s looked tortured.
    â€œThis is going to be just fine. The crime obviously took place inside the house, not outside. This makes it more convenient for everyone. There is a threat of rain. If we move quickly, the crime scene can be wrapped in an hour.”
    Taylor almost laughed aloud. Wrapping up a homicide in an hour. This guy was from Mars. Or