Free A Killing Rain by P.J. Parrish Page A

Outlaw was a drug dealer. There’s something else going on here,” Louis said, crossing his arms.
    “Then what did they want?”
    “Information. Something only Sorrell knew.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like where something or someone was.”
    “Like your friend Austin.”
    “He’s not my friend,” Louis said quickly .
    Joe’s hooded gray eyes were steady on Louis. “So, you going back to Fort Myers?”
    “Yeah, Susan is...” His voice trailed off as he shook his head. “I don’t know. I have to...I need to do something.”
    Joe hesitated then stuck the car keys back in her jacket “Let’s go,” she said, nodding in the opposite direction.
    “Where?”
    “We might as well go take a look at Wallace Sorrell while we’re here.”
    Joe led him back inside, to a small office, where a thin man in a lab coat sat at a desk, an Egg McMuffin in his hand. He looked up as Joe approached the open door.
    “Hey, it’s Joe Friday,” the man said. “What you doing here so early, Detective?”
    “Helping a friend do an ID,” Joe said. “You got a guy named Sorrell in the freezer?”
    “The dude cut up on Eighth Street?”
    “Yeah. We need to see him.”
    “Right now?”
    “Come on, Lenny, you owe me.”
    The diener reluctantly set his McMuffin down and got up. “A man can’t get any peace around here.”
    Louis and Joe followed him back down the hall to a heavy door. Lenny yanked it open and they stepped into the cold, musty air of the refrigeration unit . There were six gurneys. Louis could see the gray-pink flesh of the bodies through the heavy plastic. Except for one that was dark. Lenny went to it and unzipped the bag.
    “He’s all yours. The doc won’t get to him till later this morning,” he said.
    Joe Frye stared at the body. Louis watched her face. Not one muscle moved. He came forward.
    Other than the blood splatters, Walter Sorrell’s face didn’t have a mar k on it. But his throat had been cut so deeply Louis could see a glint of vertebra.
    “They didn’t beat him ,” Louis said.
    “Didn’t have to. Look,” Joe said, her eyes traveling down the corpse’s torso.
    Louis looked at Walter Sorrell’s forearms. The front of the skin on his left arm had been slit open from wrist to the crook of the elbow. The skin was gone, sliced off in ragged strips. The same incision had been made on the right arm, but the skin was still there, peeled back in flaps.
    “My breakfast is getting cold,” Lenny said behind him. “Zip him back up when you’re done, okay?”
    Louis heard the door of the refrigeration unit open and bang shut. He moved his gaze off the body and up to Joe. She was staring at the skinned arm.
    “Whoever did this took their sweet time,” she said.
    “Torture,” Louis said.
    Her eyes came up to meet his and she nodded. “See the bruises on his wrists. He was tied , probably to his chair. That’s where they found most of the blood. The question is, did he tell them what they wanted to know.”
    “What about the secretary? Does she have the cutting pattern on her?”
    Joe shook her head slowly. “No, I read the report. They just slashed her throat. Not another mark on her.” She bent closer to the body and stared at the flaps of skin.
    “It looks like the knife was very sharp, but there is little skill involved here,” she said softly. “It’s sloppy.”
    Louis was quiet for a moment and Joe looked up. “What are you thinking?”
    “ They’re after Austin,” Louis said.
    “How do you know?”
    “I just remembered something he said. He told Ben he was playing hooky from work. He didn’t tell his partner he was going to Fort Myers. Maybe Sorrell couldn’t tell them where Austin was, no matter what they did to him.”
    “But secretaries always know where their bosses are,” Joe said.
    Louis stared at her across the body. “Maybe she hid at first and heard what happened to Sorrell. And when they found her, she told them.”
    They were both quiet. Louis turned up the