Free Over Her Dead Body by Kate White Page B

stones. At around five seven or so, Jessie had a great figure—nice boobs, buff all over—but she admitted that her slightly wide hips bugged her. Her fashion strategy, she’d told me, was darks on the bottom and plenty of jewelry on top to deflect attention.
    “I’m so glad you were
here.
I just needed to be with someone—someone from work who could understand.” We gave each other an awkward hug. We were on our
way
to being friends but not totally there yet, so it was kind of weird for us to be standing in my apartment late at night with our arms around each other.
    “I can’t believe you found her,” Jessie continued, dropping her arms. “What—what had happened to her? I heard someone smashed in her skull.”
    “Yes, she’d been attacked. I’d love to talk about it, but I can’t. The police practically threatened me with incarceration if I opened my mouth.”
    “Oh, I get it,” she said. “It’s one of those ‘only the person who did it would know certain details’ kind of things. But isn’t it freaking you out—I mean, to have found her?”
    “It wasn’t pleasant. How about something to drink?” I pointed to the bottle of red wine on the dining table. “I’ve got wine. Beer. Sparkling water. And a bottle of port that someone brought as a hostess gift four years ago.”
    She smiled and thought for a moment. “Uh, just sparkling water if it’s opened. But otherwise tap is fine.”
    She followed me to my tiny kitchen, looking around as we went. “This is a great place,” she said, her eyes scanning the room.
    “Thanks. Here you go. One sparkling water. Why don’t we sit out on the terrace?”
    I pointed toward the door and then followed her out into the night. There’s something about the view from my terrace after dark that reminds me of the backdrop of a Broadway show—the inky blue black of the sky and the apartment buildings dabbed randomly with lights. It almost seems fake. I motioned for Jessie to take a seat at my patio table, and I lit a citron candle. Through the darkness, I heard her sigh.
    “It’s so beautiful out here,” she said. “Do you mind my asking—do you
own
this?”
    “Yeah, I was married once. This was the consolation prize.”
    “Gotcha. So what do you think is going to happen? You’re a whiz at all this crime stuff. Will they be able to catch the person who did this to Mona?”
    “You know, those
CSI
-type shows are really misleading. Yes, forensic medicine is amazing today, but often there’s no real evidence to analyze or what they find is totally ambiguous. Hopefully Mona will recover and be able to tell the police exactly who did this to her.”
    “Recover?” In the pale light of the candle, I saw a look of astonishment form on Jessie’s face, as if I’d just announced that Peter Pan was about to land on the wrought-iron railing in front of us.
    “Yes, people
do
come out of comas.”
    “But she’s dead—haven’t you
heard
?”
    I gasped. “Dead? How do you know that?”
    “I have a contact at St. Luke’s. I talked to him about a half hour ago and he told me that she had died from her injuries. I assumed the news was out there by now.”
    “Jesus,” I said, leaning forward in my chair. “The last I knew, she was still alive.” My mind was lurching all over the place. I wondered if Mona had ever regained consciousness and identified her attacker to the police.
    “Is there any chance it was a robber?” Jessie asked, interrupting my thoughts. “I heard that one of the cleaning people was attacked, too.”
    “Its possible, I suppose. But security seemed especially tight tonight.”
    “I know. I thought they were going to scan my pupils.”
    “You went to the party?”
    “Yeah—for just a while, though. I had another event to cover, so I left around eight. I was gone before they rounded everyone up.”
    “Who else was there from
Buzz
?” I was wondering who was still on the floor when Mona was attacked.
    “Nash. Hilary, that blond