Free BLUE MERCY by ILLONA HAUS Page B

He’d wrapped himself around Spencer’s ankles the moment they’d stepped inside the vacant row house, clearly seeing Spence as his retirement ticket.

    It had been hot that afternoon, fourteen months ago, the July sun relentless as it beat against the pitted asphalt of Edmonson Avenue. But it had been even hotter inside the crumbling house. A hundred degrees at least.

    The smell from the second floor had hit Kay like a wall even before she’d stepped through the busted-down front door. In the car, before arriving on scene, Spence had tossed a coin to determine who would lead the case. It was the last time Kay had chosen tails.

    The first sign of maggots was on the ground floor. Hundreds had wormed through the floorboards overhead and the light fixture before dropping to the littered ground. Upstairs, the air was electric with the buzzing of flies, and if not for Spencer prying off the plywood from one window, Kay was certain she’d have been sick along with the uniform who’d discovered the remains.

    What was left of Annie Harris’s nude body rose from a pool of decomposition fluids and writhing maggots. Through the varying levels of insect activity and the rate of decomp, the ME’s office had made the rough determination that Harris’s body had been laid out for at least eight weeks. Identification wasn’t determined until the FBI labs came back with prints, carefully lifted from the hands they’d sent to Quantico. And the knife wounds to the chest had been indiscernible until the ME had slopped through the entire mess.

    Now, as Kay gave the cat a wide berth and took a Corona from the fridge, she tried to block the mental images of that afternoon.

    At the stereo she cranked the volume and tried again to surrender to the music. The movement crescendoed toits climax. In the symphony hall the music would be inescapable; it would crash over her, move through her, until there was nothing but the music. But here in her apartment, with the reality of her life surrounding her, the music was flat. Kay flipped off the CD midstrain and abandoned the stereo.

    The second bedroom served as her home office. There, Kay turned on the computer and took several long draws of her beer as she waited for the modem to dial in. She needed sleep, but knew she wouldn’t find it. Not until she’d answered the question that had burned in her thoughts since she’d reviewed Eales’s visitation records: Who was Patricia Hagen?

 
    16
     

    FINN FELT LIKE AN INTRUDER. He hadn’t used the key in over a year. Still, he’d kept it. Wishful thinking. Or maybe just a keepsake. Either way, Kay hadn’t asked for it back.

    He slid the key home, felt the dead bolt turn, and considered going back down to the car for his cell. But he knew Kay was in. He’d seen her police car at the curb on Hamburg and her 4Runner farther down the block. On the airless landing he’d already knocked for several minutes. And with each minute she didn’t answer, the worry in the pit of his gut grew.

    An hour ago he’d gone to the State Pen. After catching some sleep on the boat, then spending several hours reviewing the Eales case files and making some phone calls, Finn had concluded that if anyone needed to be interviewed about Valerie Regester’s death, it was Bernard Eales.

    Unfortunately Kay had come to the same conclusion.

    At the Administration offices Finn had seen Kay’s signature on the visitors’ log, and he’d felt the first stab of anger. He’d canceled his interview with Eales, and the anger grew as he’d left the Pen and driven south to Kay’s apartment. Only as he neared her Federal Hill address had Finn understood the real root of his anger. It wasn’t so much that Kay had gone alone, but rather that he hadn’t been able to shield her from Eales. Just as she had for the past year, Kay had refused to lean on him or turn to him.

    At the lights on Pratt Street he’d considered going home, calling her instead. But Kay could hide a