Free Blind Sight (A Mallory Novel) by Carol O'Connell Page B

live victim. “If the other three were injected with these same drugs, the doses would’ve been tailored to weight.”
    “So every time out, he worked off a shopping list of specific victims.”
    “It would seem so.” He pointed to the first drug on Mrs. Cathery’slab report. “That one’s got a paralytic component. It’s used for tagging animals in the wild. Lethal in the wrong dose. The injected victims would’ve fallen down almost immediately. That would suggest a location that wasn’t in full view of the public or—”
    “No, it doesn’t.” One hand went to her hip to put him on notice that he was venturing into cop territory. And where did he get off doing her job? “My perp could’ve done it on the sidewalk in broad daylight. Say a pedestrian passes by, sees our guy supporting a helpless victim, helping him. Fine . No need to stop. The good Samaritan moves on . . . while the victim gets dragged away and murdered.”
    “The nun’s assault—”
    “That one needed privacy. An indoor crime scene with an exposed brick wall.” She lifted Sister Michael’s right hand as if to kiss it. “I smell bleach. The perp cleaned her fingernails.”
    Damn. He had lost his last ace. “Only one hand was—”
    “After she died,” said Mallory.
    “You can’t know that. I told you! She could’ve lingered for—”
    “ Logic. She got a piece of him.” The detective held up the doctor’s personal Polaroid, the shot taken when the nun still wore a sly smile. “She had his skin under her fingernails. She wouldn’t smile that way after the perp bleached out the evidence. So no DNA, but now we know he’s got scratches.”
    “She marked him for you, that’s obvious.” And, per the rules, no score for Kathy. “But you—”
    Oh . . . fresh hell.
    Edward Slope bowed his head as the other mystery, the most troubling one, came undone. He called himself six kinds of a fool. How could he have failed to recognize it—when the young cop beside him was the Queen of Get Even? The nun’s smile that had so disturbed him—but affected him most while he had been cutting into her—it was Kathy’s smile.

    —
    THE CHAIN - SMOKING STRANGER finished another beer, and now he considerately dumped his crushed can into the duffel bag at his feet, rather than mar Albert Costello’s coffee table with a ring from the sweaty aluminum.
    Well, somebody had raised this guy right.
    The younger man’s meaty arms spread across the back of the sofa—so at home here. It was like they had known one another for years. He had not yet tired of the mugging story, asking, “What was you doin’ out there on the street that day?”
    “Watchin’ life go by,” said Albert. “Every day I got a cravin’ for it. So I go outside. But I got nowhere to go. I lean against a lamppost for a while. I watch the people walk past me . . . the ass end of life.”
    The last cigarette in Albert’s pack had been smoked, and there was no more beer in the refrigerator. What food had remained over the past few days of his hospital stay was inedible now. And so he accepted the stranger’s offer to share a meal with him, cold beer and smokes, too.
    What a deal.
    His companion led the way down the stairs. On the ground floor, the man turned his back on the street door to open the one for the rear of the building. “I’m parked out here.”
    When Albert stepped into the alley, the sun had gone down, though there was still lots of light left to a summer evening. The air out here was cooler, invigorating, and he was not tired anymore. No, he was coming back to life. Precious life.
    —
    WHO WAS ALBERT COSTELLO ?
    The commander of the Special Crimes Unit sat in Detective Mallory’s chair, staring at one paper neatly aligned with the edges of herdesk. It was a fax cover sheet for a report from the Lower East Side precinct, but where was the report? The information on this single page was sparse; it only told him that she had blown off the priority