Free The Beholder, a Maddie Richards Mystery by David Bishop Page A

torso to prevent them from moving while her body finished its journey from rigor back to flaccidity.
    Maddie watched Rip’s left-handed assistant tie the knots left over right across the dead Abigail Knight in the same manner as the killer had tied the pantyhose over the legs of the dead Abigail Knight.
    So far, Maddie said to herself, Steve Gibbs and the pimp, Clarence Johnson, have tied knots like the killer.
    As Steve closed Abby’s eyes, Maddie said a silent prayer that the poor woman’s spirit had not seen what had happened to her body during the autopsy.
    Back in the scrub room, the doctor pulled his latex gloves off inside out.
    “The hair,” Maddie said. “You were going to show me the hair.”
    “That I was.” Rip picked up a stack of photomicrographs, spread them out on the black granite counter and said, “Pick a card, Sergeant, any card.”
    The double doors stood open. Steve stopped covering Abigail Knight to laugh at his boss’s gallows humor. An autopsy was not Maddie’s idea of a place to make jokes, not with Abby’s breastless remains still partially uncovered on the table.
    “I sometimes forget that for outsiders, what goes on in this place can seem morbid. Steve and I are here all the time. We get accustomed to it. Humor sometimes helps deal with the horror. My apology, Sergeant Richards.”
    Dr. Ripley selected the desired card himself and explained. “The numbers on the side identify this hair as flat,” Rip said, “like tape or ribbon. The experts tell us this means the hair is likely from a black male. Bill Molitor said the DNA from the follicle did not match with his or the other black member of his crime scene team. Forensics was able to rush enough of the lab work to tell us the sperm from the vaginal swab matches with the hair. It looks like we have the killer’s DNA. You just need to bring him in.”
    For Maddie, being lead on a front-page murder case was like being the cutie in a trapeze act, without the net. If you can spin around in the air and snag the guy’s arms, you’re the world’s newest heroine. Miss and you’re a temporary stain on the dirt floor inside the big tent.
    Fifteen minutes later, Maddie walked out of the examination room breathing more naturally. She had survived the cold and gore of another autopsy. She quickened her stride to get outside and when the warmth of the sun touched her cheeks, she realized what she had to do next.

Chapter 11
     
    The light summer rain, untypical for the season, dotted the hood on Maddie’s car as she started up the hill toward the home where Abigail Knight had lived until her fateful night. The neighborhood now appeared much as Maddie imagined it had the day before death had visited. From the cars she could see stabled in the opened garages, she knew her used Taurus belonged here like a mongrel belonged kenneled with show dogs.
    A young boy, his pant legs soaked from the splash off his basketball, dribbled toward the hoop over his garage. After her next turn a sudden splat of hard rain hit her windshield like dive-bombing flies wearing body armor. She hoped, but doubted, the boy had gone indoors.
    When Maddie had last been at Abigail Knight’s home, the street had been crowded with the department’s cruisers, their sirens filling the air like buzzing bees around a hive. This time she wanted to see the house in solitude, hopeful she would find something that might link Folami Stowe and Abigail Knight, something that might then triangulate to their killer.
    The red bougainvillea leaves the hot desert winds had bunched in the corners of the Knight’s front porch created the feel of an abandoned outpost, an elegant abandoned outpost.
    Inside, Maddie stared up the sloping stairway past the life-sized oil painting of Abigail Knight in her flowing white gown, the train trailing on the steps behind her. The background color of the portrait matched the staircase wall, giving the appearance Abigail was descending the stairs at that