Free Revenge of Innocents by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Page A

angle. Her legs were open as if she were about to give birth. Seeing her like this was worse than seeing her body at the morgue.
    Carolyn bit down on the inside of her lip, tasting her own salty blood. Whoever had done this to her sweet friend didn’t deserve to live. If she found him, she would kill him, regardless of the consequences.
    Her mind drifted into the past. She was seven years old, standing in the kitchen of her old house, peering into the oven at the chocolate chip cookies she and her mother were making. The doorbell rang and her mother went to answer it, returning and telling her it was Veronica.
    “Close your eyes,” the girl said, giggling.
    When Carolyn opened them, Veronica handed her a beautiful doll, dressed in a sparkly silver evening gown with a fake fur jacket. Earlier that afternoon, they had fought over the doll, and Veronica’s mother had sent Carolyn home in tears. When Carolyn had taken it from the shelf in Veronica’s room, she knew it was a special doll, the kind you weren’t allowed to play with. Veronica’s grandmother had sewn all the clothes by hand. She pushed the doll back toward Veronica. “I’m sorry I touched it.”
    “It’s yours now, silly,” her friend told her, refusing to take it. “Granny said I could give it to my most special friend in the world. We’re going to be friends forever. That means I’ll always be able to see it.”
    Carolyn surfaced from the past and forced herself to pick up another photo. Veronica wasn’t wearing panty hose, so the crotch of her white cotton underwear was exposed. One shoe was still attached to her foot, the other resting on the floor by the tub. She noticed what appeared to be a tan-colored cloth lying on her chest near her neck. She wasn’t certain if the crime scene officers had placed it there as a marker or the murderer used it during the crime. She sorted through the rest of the pictures, selected ten, and laid them out on the table as if she were playing a game of solitaire.
    Something looked wrong.
    Carolyn opened her notebook and powered it up, then returned her attention to the images. The tub was too clean and Veronica’s clothes didn’t appear to have any bloodstains on them. How was that possible? Mary saw her bending over the photos and sent a magnifying glass sliding across the slick surface of the table. “Thanks,” she mumbled without looking up.
    She recalled Veronica wearing an emerald-green blouse, but in the photographs it appeared darker. A moment later, she realized the blouse was wet. “The killer cleaned her up, didn’t he?”
    “Looks that way,” Mary said, holding the phone against her ear. “I’m on hold with the morgue. After he shot her, he must have soaked her in the tub to get the blood off her body and clothes. Weird, huh? He didn’t wash the blood off the wall behind her head, so why worry about the rest?”
    “Does that mean anything?”
    Mary held up a finger when the person came back on the line.
    Carolyn picked up another photograph. Veronica’s body had been turned on its side, and her blouse pulled up. It looked as if there was some kind of rash on her back. The next image showed a similar rash on her buttocks and legs.
    Mary concluded her phone call and addressed Carolyn’s question. “Charley thinks he scrubbed her with Comet. The motel maids use Comet to clean the bathrooms. He probably stole it off one of their carts.”
    “Didn’t someone hear the gunshot?”
    “The volume on the TV was turned up full blast,” Mary said, propping her head up with her fist. “As far as other guests went, most of them had either checked out or weren’t in their rooms at the time of the shooting.”
    Hank burst in, taking a position at the front of the table. Behind him was a large viewing screen. The room was also equipped with teleconferencing capabilities. Cameras were mounted along the ceiling, and in the center of the table was a microphone shaped like a pyramid. “I was going to