Free Unfallen Dead by Mark Del Franco Page A

you can get a sense of a neighborhood in ten minutes. And, of course, the coffee kept me alive. Murdock wouldn’t be caught dead in one, but I didn’t have a public image to maintain.
    Murdock pulled up in front, and I left the shop. I tossed a tattered magazine off the passenger seat and handed him a cup of coffee as I dropped into the squalor of his car.
    “That’s going to cost you,” he said, as I shoved the last bite of a glazed doughnut in my mouth.
    I smacked my lips. “There’s no other reason to go to the gym.”
    Murdock turned off the Avenue and down D Street. “Got a call down on Boston Street in Dorchester.”
    “That’s out of your jurisdiction.”
    Murdock tapped the steering wheel as we waited at a red light. “Yep. Someone thought I might be interested. Even mentioned your name.”
    Boston had absorbed the town of Dorchester years ago, but it retained its name and its smaller neighborhoods. Some were nice, and some had pockets as bad as the Weird, only guns were the threat instead of spellcasters. Boston Street off Dot Ave was one of the nicer places, young professionals, decent restaurants nearby, and working streetlights.
    We pulled up to a typical triple-decker—a three-level wooden building with bay windows that looked like it came from a Monopoly game. The usual assortment of police vehicles clogged the street. The front door of the building stood open, crime-scene tape flanking the steps. Uniformed officers kept the human normal crowd back. A plainclothes officer dressed in dark brown pants and a Red Sox jacket nodded at Murdock when she saw him get out. “Hey, Murdock, long time, no see.”
    Murdock gave her a wide grin. “Hey, Liz.” There was a subtle shifting of eye contact between them that told me all I needed to know about at least one part of their past. Murdock has a knack for loving and leaving without trailing broken hearts in his wake.
    Murdock jogged the short flight of steps. “This is Connor Grey. Connor, Liz DeJesus.”
    She shook with a firm grip I liked in anyone, man or woman. “Good to meet you. One of my guys was talking to one of yours, Murdock, and gave me a heads-up. I’d appreciate anything you can tell me on this.”
    As I joined them on the top step, the essence hit me immediately. Druidess, definitely, and a personal essence I recognized in particular. I looked over Liz’s shoulder.
    The open door revealed a small landing with a crooked area rug. To the left stood a narrow mail table, knocked askew, a vase of dried flowers on its side. To the right, a staircase went up to the second floor. Next to it, a hallway led back to an open apartment door. In front of the apartment door, the victim lay on her back like a discarded doll.
    Liz led us in. “Olivia Merced, sixty-seven years old, single. An upstairs neighbor found her like this. He remembers hearing a door buzzer about seven A.M.”
    Olivia Merced looked fit and young for her age. By her outfit, I guessed she had been dressing for the day when the door buzzer went off. She wore black dress slacks with a light blue T-shirt and a pair of fleece bedroom slippers. My stomach fluttered at the sight of scorch marks at the toes of her slippers. “Did she work?”
    Liz shook her head. “No. According to the neighbor, she did mostly volunteer work. Check out her face.”
    Her head had turned to the side when she fell. I had to press myself against the staircase to lean over her without touching her body. Slashed across her forehead were six ogham runes. “Same as our guy the other night, Murdock.”
    I pulled back and rejoined them at the threshold, trying not to think about the pain the woman must have felt. “Same killer, too. The essence matches what I felt at the warehouse.”
    Murdock’s eyebrows were drawn down. “What could a homeless man in the Weird have in common with a retired woman in Dorchester?”
    My eyes scanned the hall. “As victims, they’re too random to be random. No one kills like