Nun Too Soon (A Giulia Driscoll Mystery Book 1) by Alice Loweecey

that weren’t directly related to a call.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I got written up on average once every twelve days.”
    Sidney made an indefinable noise. “Why didn’t you go into computer programming like you got your degree in?”
    He gave her a one-shoulder shrug. “I like the analysis but I didn’t want to sit at a desk staring at a screen all day. My student loan grace period ended and I had to do something. The call center was half a step up from cleaning portable toilets for a living, which I actually considered, since I can’t cook and don’t know how to bartend.”
    “Portable toilets.” Giulia shivered. “That beats any cleaning job we got stuck with in the convent. And that’s saying something.”
    Sidney stretched her back. “You people are making me dread diaper changes, and I’ve cleaned alpaca poop for years.”
    “Zane,” Giulia said, “I’ll give you the two extra employees that aren’t on my list. You and Sidney give me reasons to keep all seven or to narrow it down to five or fewer by Friday morning.”
    “Deal.”
    “All right, go away. I’ve got piles of police reports and evidence and photographs to plow through.”
    “You used to be all shy and soft-spoken like a nun in the movies. Power has gone to your head.” Sidney’s voice broke on the last words and she giggled ’til she got the hiccups.
    Giulia face-planted on her keyboard and then made a big show of typing up a fake “Termination of Employment” notice. Zane ran to the bathroom and returned with a cup of water. Sidney choked it down, reduced the frequency of the hiccups, and hit the escape key on Giulia’s keyboard.
    Zane’s reaction to Sidney’s audacity ruined all her efforts to eradicate the hiccups. Only deep-breathing and determination kept Giulia from catching them.

Eight

      
    Two hours later, her butt numb and her fingers cramping, Giulia set down the police report on break-ins similar to the one at Fitch’s apartment. Bulleted lists filled three pages of the legal pad on her lap. Multi-colored fluorescent Post-it notes fattened the report’s right-hand side. She got to her knees to relieve the muscles in her thighs and picked up the autopsy report. The crime scene and autopsy photos, too, since lunch was long digested.
    The top photo: Loriela mostly naked and strangled on the small apartment balcony. The next, a close-up of her face and neck. The pathetic image of the soaked, draggled blouse and hair—brown according to the autopsy but looking black in the early morning rain—made Giulia’s throat close up. So vulnerable. So final. And according to the information they’d gleaned from AtlanticEdge, Loriela Gil radiated confidence and energy when she was alive.
    Frank would lecture Giulia about getting too involved with the case, with emphasis on her bleeding-heart tendencies.
    “Guilty. So what?” She bit back a smile. “Now I’m copping attitude.”
    Several more photos of Loriela’s body from different angles. Giulia divorced herself from the pathos of it and put on her detective hat. She treated the imaginary fedora like an actor putting on a costume: When she wore it, Giulia Falcone the ex-nun who was still a Franciscan at heart up to, and including, working with homeless humans and animals, took a vacation. Giulia Falcone-Driscoll, who’d started as DI’s admin and now ran the business, took her place. Professional Giulia fought for justice and made a living doing it.
    She stepped over the circle of documents and spread out the eight-by-ten photos on the floor beneath the window. If she treated them more like a PowerPoint slide show than a puzzle...
    Starting at the upper left-hand corner of the narrow end of the office, she sat on her heels and placed the photo taken at the farthest point away from the apartment. Then, as though she was walking alongside the apartment building, the photos of the footprints, of the broken barberry bushes, of Loriela’s shirt and hair