Silent Kills by C.E. Lawrence Page A

death, he would become part of the cycle of life, food for worms and beetles and bluebottle flies; there was nothing shameful about that.
    But he could no more grasp the death of his body than he could imagine the end of his own consciousness. If he was no longer conscious, he would not be able to observe this fact. If he no longer inhabited his body, what did it matter what happened to the tissues, once they were drained of the mysterious thing called life?
    And yet he kept trying. If he could fully inhabit death in his mind, he would know what Laura knew, experience what she had experienced. But that was another cognitive dead end. What if she experienced nothing at all? He didn’t believe in gods or devils or an afterlife. He wanted to believe in angels and destiny and spirits who walked among the living, but he couldn’t. He knew his obsession with death was perverse, but it twisted around in his mind like a body dangling at the end of a hangman’s noose, disturbing and just beyond reach.
    On this particular visit Lee and Butts were accompanied by Sergeant Sean Quinlan of the Forty-seventh Precinct, a seasoned and rather irritable officer who let his opinions fly as freely as his spit, which he evacuated in copious amounts in gutters, curbs, and sewers as he passed by.
    “Bad sinuses,” he remarked when he caught them staring at him as he hurled a wad of saliva toward the base of a Japanese maple. “Postnasal drip, y’know. Drives my wife crazy. Forgot to bring my allergy meds today.” He pulled a handkerchief from his rear pocket and dabbed his watery blue eyes. He was what Lee’s mother would call “big-boned”—a large redheaded man, with a thick neck and bulky shoulders that made his uniform appear two sizes too small. He had a foghorn of a voice, deep and rusty as old scissors. A faint remnant of County Cork clung to his consonants like a thin layer of clotted cream.
    “Allergies are a bitch,” Butts said, struggling to keep up with Quinlan’s loping stride as they walked down the broad avenue. “My son’s got ’em—has to carry an EpiPen around with him.”
    “Oh, mine aren’t that bad,” Quinlan said, brightening somewhat. “Just pollen and stuff like that. Not gonna kill me or anything—at least not in the near future,” he added glumly, eyeing a massive mausoleum across the broad lawn to their left.
    Butts read aloud from a brochure an attendant had thrust into his hand as he entered the grounds. “ ‘Dating back to 1863, many of the monuments and memorials were built by leading architects of the day. Among Woodlawn’s many illustrious residents are Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Bat Masterson, Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington.’ Wow, how about that,” he said, stuffing the brochure into his pocket.
    “This place gives me the creeps,” Sergeant Quinlan confided in a low voice as he led them through a grove of birch trees. “I been comin’ here for years for one reason or another, but it still gives me the willies.”
    “Really?” Butts replied. “I kinda like it here. It smells nice,” he said, inhaling the aroma of freshly mown grass, flowering shrubs, and pine needles.
    “We’re going in on foot so the media doesn’t follow us,” Quinlan said with a glance at Butts, who was panting as they climbed a hill through a grove of beech and evergreens. “Tryin’ to keep a low profile, long as we can, anyway.”
    Just ahead, Lee could see the yellow police tape fluttering in the breeze. The crime scene techs in their black jumpsuits emblazoned with MEDICAL EXAMINER in yellow unloaded equipment from a van. A handful of uniforms stood in a little clump, deep in conversation, their heads almost touching. They nodded to their colleague when they saw Quinlan, stepping aside to let the newcomers examine the scene.
    The girl was laid out as neatly as the first victim had been, her hands chastely folded over her stomach. She was young and fresh-faced, and wore jogging shorts and a