The First Cut

The First Cut by Dianne Emley Page B

Book: The First Cut by Dianne Emley Read Free Book Online
Authors: Dianne Emley
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Thrillers
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Her childhood turned tragic. When she was eleven, her mother was murdered in a convenience store robbery, in the wrong place at the wrong time. Debby had gone out to get milk. Frank was watching the game and asked her to pick up cigarettes for him. The store’s security camera showed Debby at the counter waiting for the clerk to get the cigarettes from the locked cabinet when the gunmen entered. If she hadn’t stopped for Frank’s cigarettes, she would have already left.
    Frank never recovered. He worked all the hours he could, then spent his time off playing pool and drinking at a local bar. His sister and mom took care of Frankie, but her aunt had her own family and her grandmother was in poor health. Frankie was often in trouble. After graduating from high school, she worked in a veterinary clinic. She liked animals but grew bored. She started a degree in criminal justice part-time at Cal State Los Angeles. She dropped it after a year, applied to the LAPD and was accepted.
    Frank Lynde was doubly proud that Frankie had pulled her life together and had followed in his footsteps. She was more ambitious than he and earned prime assignments early on. He envisioned good things for her. He’d remarried when Frankie was in high school, to a woman with four young children. He’d recently divorced but still lived in the same tract home in Azusa at the base of the foothills.
    Frankie was last seen Friday, May 20, just before midnight at XXX Marks the Spot near the Los Angeles airport. Her body was found Monday, June 6, in Pasadena. She was not reported missing until Wednesday, May 25, when she didn’t show up for work. With the LAPD’s 3/12 workweek, she worked three twelve-hour days and was off Saturday through Tuesday. Her friends said that lately it was not unusual for her to disappear on her days off.
    An artist’s rendering of the female in the chauffeur’s outfit who met Frankie at the club had been widely distributed and LAPD cataloged and tracked down thousands of leads, none good.
    Witnesses in the parking lot saw Frankie and the chauffeur running from the club into a black limousine that one witness identified as a late-model Lincoln Town Car. The chauffeur climbed into the driver’s seat and pulled onto Century Boulevard heading south. No one noted the license plate.
    “They were too busy checking out the females,” Kissick said.
    “Women wearing men’s suits…” Caspers let the comment hang.
    Early challenged him. “Women wearing men’s suits what? You find that hot, huh?”
    Caspers raised a shoulder. “I’m just saying…Chicks don’t play dress-up for each other. Where was the guy? In the back of the limo or someplace else?”
    Kissick pulled over the photograph of a Lincoln Town Car. “He sends her out while he stays in the shadows.”
    Schuyler had done a perfunctory search of limo rental companies who employed female drivers and had turned up nothing. In Southern California on a warm Friday night, hundreds of limos are likely on the streets.
    A search of Lynde’s condominium in Studio City turned up $10,000 in hundreds hidden in the wall behind her bedroom dresser. Also hidden there was a pair of diamond-and-aquamarine earrings that retailed for about $7,000. What wasn’t there was her laptop computer or datebook.
    Frank Lynde didn’t recognize the earrings or know where Frankie might have obtained the money. Prior to the past two months, her financial records showed she had trouble meeting her monthly bills.
    Schuyler told about Frankie’s neighbor Mrs. Bodek encountering a woman leaving Frankie’s condominium the Sunday before Frankie was reported missing. Mrs. Bodek found a resemblance between the woman and the drawing of Chauffeur Girl. The woman Mrs. Bodek had seen with Frankie’s keys was similarly disguised, wearing a wig and oversized sunglasses.
    Frankie’s car was stolen from the XXX Marks the Spot parking lot sometime Monday, May 23, or Tuesday, May 24. The manager noticed the

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