Free Passion Patrol 2 - a Sexy Police Romance Suspense Novel With a Touch of Humor: Hot Cops. Hot Crime. Hot Romance. by Emma Calin Page B

excitement. No way had she eaten that on board a truck! It was unlikely to be a restaurant meal. She had to have come from a location not too far from the scene.
    The examination continued. The weighing of her little heart, the sampling of her blood and spinal fluid, the taking of scrapings from under her finger- and toenails. Her hair was combed into a large steel bowl.
    The pathologist spoke again.
    “Presence of foreign hair fibers. Will need further analysis, probably animal such as cat, dog, etc.”
    Shannon took in the implication of these words. If these were cat or dog hairs there was a house with a link to this girl. She could taste and see that very house. She knew. She just bloody knew. The examination was coming to its end. The nameless discarded doll of a being was measured, recorded, photographed, sampled, and labeled. Plaster casts of her face and teeth were carefully made and the body slid back into a refrigerated compartment. A heavy click finalized the closing of the door.
    “Do we have a name for her?” asked the pathologist.
    Shannon thought quickly. Her own Spanish name was an accident of slavery and yet her name was her. No name meant no being. What was her own true West African name? In this moment she held the power to give this girl an identity. She remembered something she had learned on the immigration squad.
    “Kakkada Song,” she said.
    “’I like it. What’s it mean?”
    “Kakkada means the month of July in the Khmer language. There was a bird singing overhead while she was lying in the ditch,” she said.
    “That’ll be it then, forever probably,” he commented.
    She got changed. As she went to leave she saw the pathologist putting on his shoes. He was older than she had thought, maybe sixty-five. She noticed a gold ring on his wedding finger. The inscription looked like Hebrew. His hair was more or less white.
    “Thanks for taking that name for her,” she said.
    “Thanks for your input. May I ask why you wanted to come?”
    “I don’t know. She hasn’t got anyone.... I don’t want to sound pious but I want justice for her.”
    He looked up into her face and seemed to be appraising her.
    “And you’re a sleuth right?”
    “I’m the local bobby. I don’t get on the A, B, or C list as a sleuth.”
    “Well, you go girl, all the same,” he said.
    “Can I ask for your opinion, Doc?”
    “Sure, relativity and evolution are opinions,” he replied with a cheeky sparkle in his eyes.
    “Those animal hairs, what’s your guess?
    “Dog. Short-haired dark dog.”
    “Can you link dog DNA to a particular animal?”
    The pathologist laughed.
    “Well, humans are about ninety-five percent dog and vice versa. I’ve known humans who were more like dogs than dogs.”
    “So you can?”
    “Yeah. Homo sapiens, canine crapiens, it’s all the same stuff.”
    She loved this guy and warmed him with her best smile. He reached in his jacket, took out a business card, and handed it to her.
    “If you want any opinions or information give me a call. I’ll always try to help,” he said.
    She glanced at the card. “Professor Max Strauss FRCPS. D.Path. DFM.”
    “Looks like you’ve made all the A lists,” she said.
    “You’ve made my A list for caring about a stranger,” he replied.
    She could hardly contain her excitement as she drove back to Fleetworth-Green. The girl had eaten a meal. There were dog hairs on her body. She hadn’t fallen from a truck! She knew top detectives would receive the same information. No one expected her to solve it. Her job was simply to pass on any intelligence. No one would want to hear any maverick theories from a uniformed cop with a record for drama. She needed just a little bit more. Maybe she had seen that girl before? There was perhaps a way to settle her doubts—and she felt lucky.
    She checked her iPhone. There was one message and it was merely a line of four xxxx. It was enough to swell her heart remembering their kiss. He was thinking of her