stealing over him. He forced himself to ignore the emotion and strolled down an aisle of metal shelves lined with cardboard boxes labeled in alphabetical order.
He went down one of the middle aisles, pulling several boxes, flipping through the manila folders until he reached one of the names he was looking for.
The first, Jessalynn Taylor, twenty-eight, reason of death, drug overdose. Jessalynn had been a heavy drug user. She’d had two children, lost them both to the state. She’d been a stripper. Not a good person by society’s standards. But she had been good before her husband left her for another woman, skipping out on her, refusing her child support. He disappeared, leaving her destitute with no real skills to survive.
So with three mouths to feed she’d turned to the one thing she could do. Strip. And then the problems snowballed from there. It wasn’t an unusual story here. Nor was her death.
Except now, he wasn’t sure.
He sorted through the pages, looking for anything. Any comments and notations that might look out of the ordinary. He did find indications of some bruising and scratches on her back and arms. But they weren’t extreme and didn’t necessarily indicate a struggle.
He moved on to another box, rifling through, to find Angela Snow’s records. She’d been the first of his friends to die. Gone almost twenty years now.
Her death had been declared an accident. A fall down the stairs in her apartment building. She’d had high levels of alcohol in her system, which had led the coroner to pronounce the death the way he had.
Yet, Vittorio couldn’t shake the image of a struggle at the top of the stairs, then Angela being shoved, her body landing in a crumpled, broken heap at the bottom of the staircase.
He went on, looking at several more files, finding nothing definitive. But then he knew the individual he suspected of murder was savvy enough to cover her tracks. She’d certainly duped him readily enough.
Finally, he went to the section of the alphabetized files he’d been avoiding since stepping into the claustrophobic room with its towering shelves and the endless records of the dead.
As he walked down the aisle, the room seemed to tighten in around him, making it hard to focus. But he forced himself to go directly to the D’s.
Da-Dae . Daf-Daj . Dak-Dap . Daq-Dat . Dau-Daw . He stared at the box he’d been seeking for several seconds before pulling it down. Crouching, he set the container on the floor and flipped off the lid.
With the faint light from the hallway filtering in through the small, square window in the door, he began to thumb through the folders, slower than he had with the others, until he found the one he was looking for—Seraph Davidson.
Date of death, December 25, 1998. God, had she really been dead ten years? He supposed it had been that long. Funny, it seemed like ages ago that he’d played keyboard for The Impalers, but just yesterday that he’d lost Seraph. He’d left New Orleans right after her death. Being here was just too hard.
He opened the folder. Pictures fell to the floor at his feet. He picked them up, making himself look at them. Pale blond hair matted around her grayish, sunken features. Her eyes closed, not showing her pale blue eyes.
He stared at them for a moment longer, then shoved them under the rest of the records. He didn’t want to remember her that way.
He moved on to the autopsy findings. The death was labeled a drug overdose. Heroin. The next form was a police report, stating she was found with drugs scattered around her body and a needle still in her arm.
At the time, he’d had no reason to question the findings. Seraph had a long-standing heroin addiction. She’d tried to get clean many times, but her other problems made that difficult.
He’d believed heroin had done the actual killing, but he’d known, even then, he’d been as much a cause of her death as any drug. He felt the same today, but now he wondered if he was to
He went down one of the middle aisles, pulling several boxes, flipping through the manila folders until he reached one of the names he was looking for.
The first, Jessalynn Taylor, twenty-eight, reason of death, drug overdose. Jessalynn had been a heavy drug user. She’d had two children, lost them both to the state. She’d been a stripper. Not a good person by society’s standards. But she had been good before her husband left her for another woman, skipping out on her, refusing her child support. He disappeared, leaving her destitute with no real skills to survive.
So with three mouths to feed she’d turned to the one thing she could do. Strip. And then the problems snowballed from there. It wasn’t an unusual story here. Nor was her death.
Except now, he wasn’t sure.
He sorted through the pages, looking for anything. Any comments and notations that might look out of the ordinary. He did find indications of some bruising and scratches on her back and arms. But they weren’t extreme and didn’t necessarily indicate a struggle.
He moved on to another box, rifling through, to find Angela Snow’s records. She’d been the first of his friends to die. Gone almost twenty years now.
Her death had been declared an accident. A fall down the stairs in her apartment building. She’d had high levels of alcohol in her system, which had led the coroner to pronounce the death the way he had.
Yet, Vittorio couldn’t shake the image of a struggle at the top of the stairs, then Angela being shoved, her body landing in a crumpled, broken heap at the bottom of the staircase.
He went on, looking at several more files, finding nothing definitive. But then he knew the individual he suspected of murder was savvy enough to cover her tracks. She’d certainly duped him readily enough.
Finally, he went to the section of the alphabetized files he’d been avoiding since stepping into the claustrophobic room with its towering shelves and the endless records of the dead.
As he walked down the aisle, the room seemed to tighten in around him, making it hard to focus. But he forced himself to go directly to the D’s.
Da-Dae . Daf-Daj . Dak-Dap . Daq-Dat . Dau-Daw . He stared at the box he’d been seeking for several seconds before pulling it down. Crouching, he set the container on the floor and flipped off the lid.
With the faint light from the hallway filtering in through the small, square window in the door, he began to thumb through the folders, slower than he had with the others, until he found the one he was looking for—Seraph Davidson.
Date of death, December 25, 1998. God, had she really been dead ten years? He supposed it had been that long. Funny, it seemed like ages ago that he’d played keyboard for The Impalers, but just yesterday that he’d lost Seraph. He’d left New Orleans right after her death. Being here was just too hard.
He opened the folder. Pictures fell to the floor at his feet. He picked them up, making himself look at them. Pale blond hair matted around her grayish, sunken features. Her eyes closed, not showing her pale blue eyes.
He stared at them for a moment longer, then shoved them under the rest of the records. He didn’t want to remember her that way.
He moved on to the autopsy findings. The death was labeled a drug overdose. Heroin. The next form was a police report, stating she was found with drugs scattered around her body and a needle still in her arm.
At the time, he’d had no reason to question the findings. Seraph had a long-standing heroin addiction. She’d tried to get clean many times, but her other problems made that difficult.
He’d believed heroin had done the actual killing, but he’d known, even then, he’d been as much a cause of her death as any drug. He felt the same today, but now he wondered if he was to
Similar Books
