Bad Thoughts by Dave Zeltserman Page A

dressed without bothering to shower or shave.
    * * * * *
           The address DiGrazia left was typical of East Cambridge. A ratty, four-family house crammed between a street full of similarly ratty structures. Each front yard about the size of a large burial plot. Thin layers of sludge and dirty snow covered the ground. Neighbors and other passersby were standing in the street, gawking at the house. A few uniformed officers were keeping them at a distance.
           There were a half dozen patrol cars and an ambulance at the scene, all left in the middle of the narrow street, blocking off traffic. Murders were unusual in Cambridge. Shannon dumped his car in line with the others and held the collar of his coat shut as he stepped outside. The wind had picked up, making the cold even more unbearable. Up ahead, Shannon spotted Gary Aukland’s white minivan with the vanity plate, “GUTS.” Aukland was the Boston coroner and was contracted out to Cambridge when needed. For some reason Aukland thought his license plate was funny.
           Two ambulance attendants were standing by the doorway of the house enjoying a smoke. Shannon nodded as he walked by them. One of them warned him that it was a grisly one.
           The murder had taken place in the second-floor apartment. DiGrazia was standing by its front door talking to one of the patrolmen. He eyed Shannon slowly and shook his head, not bothering to disguise his disgust. “Nice of you to show up,” he said, his tone flat and without any feeling. His small, red eyes continued to stare at his partner, the disgust in his face deepening.
           “You look like a goddamn disgrace,” DiGrazia muttered softly, pulling his partner aside. “You couldn’t even shave, huh? Why don’t you at least go into the bathroom and run a comb through your hair?”
           “Nice to see you, too.” Shannon forced a smile, glanced at DiGrazia’s thick, ham-hock hands. “And if we want to talk about personal hygiene, those knuckles of yours could use a trimming. Want to go fifty-fifty on a razor?”
           “Very funny.” DiGrazia edged closer. “We’ll talk later. Don’t worry about that, buddy boy.” He paused. “Let me show you what we got.”
           He led Shannon through the apartment and to a bedroom. Lying on the bed was a woman, fortyish, her eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling. She was dressed in jeans and a white turtleneck sweater. There were long, red gashes through the sweater that ran from her chest to her belly. There were other stab wounds along her torso and legs, and a deep one in the middle of her throat. She was long dead, her skin already turning a dull blue.
           “A little like Janice Rowley,” DiGrazia said.
           “Except she’s fully dressed. Janice Rowley was naked.”
           “Yeah, but look at how she was stabbed.”
           Shannon nodded. “She didn’t seem to bleed much,” he noted mechanically as he studied her.
           “I wouldn’t quite say that,” Gary Aukland stated. He was sitting at a desk behind them, scribbling notes and sipping some coffee. He twisted his body around to face them. “She bled a lot internally. If we move her the wrong way, it will all come spilling out of her.”
           “We better not move her the wrong way then,” DiGrazia said.
           “Not unless we really want to piss off the apartment below.”
           Shannon’s eyes hardened as he turned back to the dead woman. “Is it as it looks?” he asked.
           “For the most part. She actually died of asphyxiation. Her lungs filled up with blood and she drowned. The autopsy will prove it, but you can push down along her sides and feel for yourself.”
           Shannon did just that, putting his hands under her sweater and pushing down.
           Aukland smiled. “Kind of squishy, huh?”
           Shannon nodded. “What else do you