Free The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde Page B

woman who because of all the threats on her life has a direct line to Dispatch—and then she goes and opens up her house to strangers?”
    Huck too found this unsettling. It didn’t make much sense, unless she had a massive Martha Stewart kind of ego.
    “What about the girl?” Ernie asked.
    Huck gave a hoot.
    “Just because she’s young and pretty?”
    “You’d have to be pretty pissed to kill your mother.”
    “Girls fight with their mothers all the time.”
    “Forget it,” said Huck. “You can write it down, but there’s no way. Let’s go back to the Coalition. Any statement from the reverend?”
    “Not yet. It’s not exactly their tactic,” said Ernie, “going in and bludgeoning someone. Seems to me that if they’d wanted to kill Diana Duprey, they would have hired a sniper. Or wired her car. Doesn’t seem the most efficient way, going into her house and smashing her head against the pool. Hey”—he tore another packet of Sweet’N Low into his coffee—“did you read that editorial he wrote a while back?”
    “Comparing abortion to genocide?”
    “I don’t get it,” said Ernie. “He says he doesn’t condone violence, and then he goes and writes something like that. Who’s he trying to win over with an argument like that?”
    Huck glanced at his watch. The restaurant was filling up, and they had to get back up to the house.
    “What about jilted lovers?” he said.
    “Piper McMahon doesn’t strike me as the type. Plus that thing was over a decade ago.”
    “Maybe Diana had a lover,” said Huck. “Maybe she dumped him, and he was pissed.”
    “We’ll check it out,” said Ernie. “Hope you didn’t make any plans for Christmas, my friend.”
    “Just dinner at your house,” said Huck.
    “As long as you bring the beer.”
    “What are you getting the kids this year?”
    Ernie’s face darkened. “Snowboards. Know how much a snowboard costs?”
    Huck shook his head.
    “Too much for what I make, that’s for sure,” Ernie declared. “Finish up.” He nodded at the rest of the muffin.
    “Be my guest.”
    Ernie finished the muffin in one bite. “How come you can eat like such a horse?”
    “I don’t,” said Huck, “when you’re around.”
    —————
    By noon that day a group of press trucks from the major networks had settled themselves in front of the Thompson-Duprey house. Already the chief of police was fending off speculation by an increasingly cynical press corps: Was this going to turn into another Templeton debacle? Didn’t Frank’s position with the DA’s office pose a conflict of interest? Would they bring somebody neutral in? The chief of police tried his best to respond with professional dignity, but when a reporter asked point-blank how he was going to avoid another screwup, he snapped—according to the reporter, he used the F-word, as referencing a certain act that that certain reporter might perform upon himself. Afterward it was agreed that certain biases ought to be toned down and a semblance of objectivity maintained. The department, after all, was under new leadership. The sins of the past were the sins of the past. Et cetera.
    Inside the house, trained investigators were busily taking photographs and searching for fingerprints, fibers, hair samples, handprints, footprints, pieces of glass, paint chips. A thorough vacuuming turned up hair and fibers—promising, but they would have to await further analysis. Outside they were looking for tire tracks and footprints mostly, but their efforts were largely hampered by the ongoing snowstorm, which had picked up again with a vengeance and long since covered up evidence of any activity the night before. And the snowplows had been out before dawn, before anyone could stop them, thus obliterating any possible tire tracks that might have remained on the side of the street.
    Huck’s job was to make sure that every square inch of the house was examined—that every fiber, every shard of glass was properly bagged