Unknown Victim by Kay Hadashi (classic books for 11 year olds .TXT) 📕

While Iosefa compared the photo to the tattoo, and Gina took a photo of the tattoo, Davis opened the rickety pocketknife. One blade had been snapped off, and the other had a smear of blood on it. She set it down. Gina got snapshots of that, also. “Been in a fight.”

“Better check him for wounds,” Iosefa said. The two of them rolled the dead man back and forth with his shirt up looking for fresh wounds, and then checked his legs. All they found was a Band-Aid on his belly. They picked off one side to find a small puncture and only a tiny smear of blood, not at all menacing.

“Insect bite?” Officer Davis, the blond cop, asked.

“Looks like a bite from a cane spider,” Iosefa said, sticking the Band-Aid down again.

“What’s a cane spider?” Gina asked, while taking another picture.

“Nasty things that rather hide than bite, but when they do, they take a chunk out just like that,” Iosefa said, making a few more notes.

“They must be big if they can take a bite that size.”

“The body’s not so big but the legs are long, and they can move fast when they want to. The real problem is the infection that someone gets later. Nasty stuff.”

“It doesn’t look puffy or red as though it was getting infected,” Gina said.

Officer Iosefa started snapping pictures of his own on his phone. “Probably died before it could. Who knows? Maybe he died from an allergic reaction to it?”

“There’s something peculiar about this,” Davis said. She looked at the dead man’s hands again. “A smear of blood on his pocket knife, and now he’s dead, but without any defense wounds. It’ll be interesting to see if the blood on the blade matches his own.”

Officer Iosefa got out his phone. “Let’s call for a CSI team.

The sky was mostly light by then, and a couple of pickup trucks came into the estate from the bridge. Instead of approaching, they remained at a distance with their engines running when Officer Davis went out to wave them down.

“Who’re they?” Officer Iosefa asked Gina. Felix had joined them on the porch by then. “Friends of yours here to see a body?”

“My work crew. They’re supposed to start work this morning.”

“Not today, they aren’t.”

“They’re not working on the house, just out in the fields clearing brush and marking trees and shrubs for pruning,” Gina told him. She knew she was sounding like an impatient witness rather than an officer now, by wanting her day to proceed in spite of the police activities that could easily take hours to complete. “Please?”

Officer Iosefa sent Davis to string yellow crime scene tape in a perimeter around the house.

“CSI will need to check for tire prints and footprints between here and the bridge. After last night’s rain, this soft dirt is perfect for that. They’ll collect fingerprints here at the porch. They’ll need to know everywhere you’ve gone this morning, and everything you’ve touched. They might even need to dust the interior of the house, looking for the dead man’s prints. You’d know all that, Miss Santoro, if you were a cop.”

“That’s what I thought.” Gina sent Felix out to the waiting crew to explain what was going on. A few had come closer to watch, restrained only by the yellow crime scene tape the blond cop was stringing around the area. Flor watched her with intense interest, at least until his wife noticed and put an end to it with a swat to his arm. “What if CSI takes casts of tire treads and shoe prints first? Then I could put my crew to work. I’m sure they’d promise to stay out of the way.”

“Actually, I have a detective coming,” Officer Iosefa said. “He’ll be running the show as soon as he gets here. Until then, nobody goes anywhere. Something isn’t square about this deal.”

Gina knew what was bothering him. It was bothering her also. A smear of blood on a pocketknife was never innocent, especially when found in the possession of a dead man. No money, no ID, only a snapshot in his wallet and a bottle cap found in his pocket made for a curious mystery, even if she was a gardener now and no longer a police officer.

Chapter Eight

Gina went to her work crew to explain what was happening. Felix seemed to be searching for something positive to say, Florinda looked peeved, and Clara looked to be in a panic as she rubbed a hand in circles over her belly.

“Day off with no pay?” Gabe asked, looking disappointed.

“No, not yet. I just need to get the area released by the police so we can get started, but I have to wait for the police investigator to get here for that.”

Gina needed to think fast to find something for her crew to do before they turned into an angry gang. They were only getting paid minimum wage, but they were farmers and unskilled laborers living in an expensive city, and every dollar counted. If they all lost confidence in her or the project and quit, they’d have a hard time finding other work, and she’d have a hard time finding a new crew. Gina was in a tight spot and had some fast thinking to do. She gave Felix her Tanizawa credit card and a list of things she thought they needed to get the work started.

“Go to the hardware store and get whatever you think we need. Shovels, tools, anything.” She went to Florinda and handed over the last of the cash she’d brought from home. “You and Clara go to the grocery store and get a few things. If you don’t mind, I could use something for the kitchen.”

“Better than hanging around here waiting for something to happen,” Florinda said. “What do you need?”

“If you could find me a coffeemaker and some grinds, that would make me a lot more cheerful in the morning.”

“What about him?” Clara