Free The Boric Acid Murder by Camille Minichino Page A

memorized the correlation between the zones and the lights? I seemed to have left my good habits behind, in the pocket of my old lab coat.
    The building layout ran through my mind like the video output of a camcorder. The whole first floor of Galigani Mortuary was wired to the alarm—the main front door, the back door, the parlor windows, the garage door, the door to the basement. Too many to guess which one had been violated, which little magnet in the system had sent a message to the sound box, commanding: SCREECH!
    I found the security company pamphlet in my desk drawer, grateful I had at least some organizational skills left. The furiously blinking red light was from zone four, the prep room. A partially embalmed body crying for help? My thoughts ran as wild as my pulse.
    Although I’d been expecting a response from the monitoring service, when it finally came—a telephone ring that wouldn’t startle me in other circumstances—I gasped and nearly lost my balance.
    The question was what to tell the dispatcher. Send someone immediately , and risk aggravating my neighbors even further with police sirens? Or should I say, Never mind , and take a chance on a real intrusion?
    I picked up the phone, ready with the password. Rose had let me choose it—GALILEO, whose birthday was February fifteenth, like mine. I reminded myself to remain calm.
    “Pilgrim Alarm Company,” the dispatcher said. “Your password please?”
    I took a breath, and composed myself. I thought I had myself under control.
    Until, for no reason, I screamed.
    “Help!”

EIGHT
    THE ALARM OUTSIDE my window stopped clanging almost immediately, its clamor replaced by a patrol car siren. I supposed Pilgrim Alarm deactivated the signal once the police arrived. I wasn’t ready to admit the intrusion had been real, let alone related to my embryonic investigation into the Fiore murder. But I allowed that if I continued in this career, I should learn more about the inner workings of my safeguards system.
    I watched the proceedings from my bedroom window. When two more police cars arrived and six uniformed officers fanned out around my building, I ventured into the living room and undid the chain on my door. I opened it slowly, half expecting a burst of gunfire to my chest, either from the intruder or from cops who might think I was the intruder.
    My tension was relieved significantly by a familiar face. One of the officers climbing the stairs toward me was Michelle Chan, a petite Asian woman I’d met through Matt. She and her partner trained extra-long flashlights on their path even though they’d thrown the switch for the foyer lights.
    “Gloria, what’s up?” Michelle’s tone was friendly but her posture and her partner’s expression told me they were on duty.
    “I hoped you’d have the answer to that.”
    “Nothing so far. We’d like to check inside your apartment.”
    “My door was chained.”
    “Even so,” said Michelle’s partner, a tall black man—J. Daniels, according to his ID. He waved his flashlight toward the ceiling. I pictured a burglar in black spandex hugging the
mortuary roof, ready to enter my flat through the attic. I nodded and stepped aside.
    Michelle and Daniels swept through my rooms, tapping the furniture and walls periodically with their batons, as if they were testing for a trapdoor. Nothing sprang to life.
    Fifteen minutes later I was serving coffee and biscotti to six guests, all in uniform. Party noise consisted of beeper signals, heavy footsteps, and radio static. I figured my small apartment was host to about twelve guns, six cans of pepper spray, and enough handcuffs for an X-rated flick. Some celebration. I wondered if Matt knew of the pseudo-gala and the alarm that provoked it. Outside his sphere of information, I hoped. With any luck he’d never know. He didn’t need another reason to worry about me.
    The gist of my guests’ report to me—they’d found nothing suspicious on the grounds or in the building.