But Not For Lust by BJ Bourg (comprehension books .txt) 📕

shock. I really thought Ty was gone, but I thought he might’ve drowned in a bayou or something and I thought my sister’s death was an accident. I never dreamed they were actually murdered. This is crazy.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to find the persons who did this and bring them to justice,” I said. I had left out the part about the torture. He would find out about that eventually, especially if the case went to trial, but he didn’t need those thoughts bouncing around in his head right now. “I won’t stop until they pay for what they did to him.”

“And Carol, right?”

“Oh yeah,” I said quickly, “and Carol.”

He thanked me and I ended the call. I turned to enter the autopsy room and almost ran into Susan. She was standing outside the door watching me with her arms folded across her breasts.

I winced inwardly, but smiled and didn’t say anything. She stared at me for a long moment and shook her head. “Clint Wolf, what am I going to do with you?”

“Well, if you want to punish me after work,” I said as I walked past her, “I’ll take it like a man.”

My playfulness vanished when I entered the autopsy room again and saw Ty’s body. The anger returned. I just watched in silence as Dr. Wong did her job.

“Well, Doc, what’s the skinny?” I asked an hour later when she was finished.

She walked toward a sink and removed her gloves. “I wish I could tell you differently, but he was alive through most of it.”

I growled in anger. I could feel Susan’s eyes boring into me, so I put a muzzle on it.

“When you say most of it—” I began, but she cut me off.

“He was alive through all of it.” She turned on me and her eyes flashed. “Whoever did that to this poor man is sadistic and deserves to die. The very last thing they did was club him over the head to finish him off, but he was alive for a long time before that merciful act was carried out. They tortured him, Clint. Whoever did this—they’re not human, and they shouldn’t be treated like humans.”

I nodded and let out a long sigh as I stared at Ty. I glanced at Susan and could see that her jaw was tight. She was angry, too, but she was trying not to let me see it. I respected what she was doing. I had jeopardized my career once in order to avenge my daughter’s murder, and she didn’t want me to do it again. While this was a most heinous act, it was much different when the victims had been my own family. In this case, I was going to let the suspects dictate how they were treated.

Of course, Susan had been there that night when I’d lost it and given Simon Parker exactly what he’d deserved. She’d seen the look in my eyes and experienced that feeling of desperation when nothing she said could get through to me.

“Thank you, Doc,” I said quietly and turned to leave. I held the door for Susan and then followed her outside. We drove straight to the La Mort Crime Lab and dropped off the fingerprint cards I’d obtained from Ty and the extension cord we’d recovered from the crime scene. Tracy Dinger wasn’t in, but the intake officer recognized me and said he’d send the evidence to be processed immediately.

“Tracy speaks very highly of you,” the young man said. “She said you were a legend when you worked here.”

I didn’t like being the center of attention and I wasn’t good at taking compliments, so I only thanked him and turned to leave.

It was late in the afternoon when Susan and I left the crime lab. The sun was going down and it was chilly. I had forgotten my jacket in my truck, and for that I was sorry. Much like the trip to La Mort, neither Susan nor I said a word on the drive back to town. Susan was the first to break the silence, but it wasn’t until she stopped in front of the police department.

“What’re you doing with the rest of your night?”

“To be honest, I don’t know what to do next.” I sat there staring straight ahead. “I could go to the jail and talk to Neal Barlow again, but I’ve got no real evidence tying him to the crime. I could bring Logan Pitre back in, but I now know for sure he didn’t use his hammer. All I’ve got on him is his fingerprint on the shed door, but he explained that away and I’ve got nothing to refute his story. I’ve already canvassed his neighborhood. I guess I could canvass the Jezebel neighborhood tomorrow, but I doubt anyone saw anything. As fast as the news is moving around town, someone from the neighborhood would’ve called by now had they seen something.”

Susan nodded, deep in thought. Finally, she put a hand on my arm. “Why don’t you just come home? Maybe you’ll think of something after a good night’s sleep.”

“I need to find the car that almost ran him over,” I said, “but I don’t know where else to look. I can get an ad put in the paper. Only, it might spook the driver.”

“You think the car’s involved?”

“Right now, it’s all we’ve got.” I shrugged. “I just don’t know how to find it. Hell, I don’t even know exactly what it looks like.”

Susan was about to say something when I cut her off.

“Hell, I don’t even know if it’s real.” I threw up my hands. “I got the information from Logan, and he lied so much yesterday that I don’t know what to believe out of him.”

“Oh, shit,” Susan said with a grunt. “I didn’t even think about it being a lie.”