The Poet (Samantha Jazz Series #1) - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,44

but three members of the CSI team file in through the door, geared up in boots and cover-ups.

“Detective Jazz,” I say. “This is my scene. Wait to enter the bedroom until Officer Jackson gives you the go-ahead.” I glance at Jackson. “Hold the hallway.”

He nods and I head down the narrow, short hallway, and I’m now oblivious to the cold, a rush of adrenaline setting my heart racing. I halt at the one and only doorway. Grinding my teeth with a sense of dread—as if this scene is personal, which is crazy—I force myself to enter the bedroom. Pausing just past the doorway, I do a visual sweep of the simple room with a bed and nightstand, brown carpet throughout. And then there is, of course, the naked body of a man sitting in a chair in front of a bed.

I cross to get a better look at him, this man who is no longer a man at all. He’s just a shell. His feet and waist are tied to the wooden chair. His head has dropped forward. The floor is clean. If he was poisoned, he didn’t throw up.

Kneeling in front of him, I lean in to gain a better view of his face and suck in a breath with what I find. No, who I’ve found. It’s Dave from the coffee shop, and suddenly the medical books make sense; the foreboding feeling makes sense. I knew this was Dave’s house the minute I saw that framed image of the skeletal system on the wall.

I push to my feet and my mind replays my encounter with him yesterday, right after my poetry audio had blasted out of my cell phone speaker:

“Poetry?” he inquires, ringing up my order.

“Words for the soul,” I say automatically, something I used to say when I ran my poetry club, which became my thing only because I neglected a class in college. My professor made running the club my punishment, and extra credit, but it didn’t turn out to be a punishment at all. The puzzles in the poems intrigued me and created a bonding experience with my grandfather, who spent countless hours helping me prepare for my club meetings.

“Words for the soul?” Dave asks with a snort. “More like a bunch of nonsense words thrown together to mean nothing, but to each their own.”

“It’s an acquired taste,” I agree, as he hands me back my card. “Much like analyzing someone’s bowel habits for a living. Which we both know is in your future.”

He was killed because of that encounter.

He was killed because of me.

There’s a piece of paper in his mouth, and I grab a baggie from my field bag. I then pull the paper from Dave’s mouth and as expected, I find a portion of a poem. Two verses that I know well. They’re Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 60”:

My verse shall stand, Praising thy worth, despite his cruel hand.

I’ve analyzed this poem, as has many a scholar. To most, it’s about life and death, about the passing of time. To some, it’s about immortality.

To me, it’s about destiny again. It’s The Poet’s way of telling me this man had to die. It was necessary. It was for a greater cause: his cause.

Chapter 38

Dave is dead.

Because I walked into that coffee shop and spoke to him.

He made me a killer.

Those words rock me, slice me. I am bleeding inside. This is now personal. So very personal. Shock fades, and anger begins to burn inside me.

“Sam?”

At the voice of Hazel Lee, one of the most brilliant forensic medical examiners I’ve ever met, I jolt out of my head and back to duty and the investigation. Bagging the poem, I turn to find her in the doorway, geared up in a jumpsuit and gloves.

“Thank God you’re not Trevor,” I say, sticking the baggie in my field bag. “The last thing I need tonight is his level of difficult.”

“He’s on vacation. And yes. Thank God for us all.”

Jackson pokes his head in. “She pushed past me.” He glowers at her. “I told you to wait.”

I’d laugh another time because Jackson has no idea who he’s dealing with in Hazel, but then she’s often underestimated, though I’m not sure why. Sure, she’s youngish, in her thirties, and barely five feet, but she’s also a savvy, educated, proud second-generation Chinese American who packs the kind of pushy charm that gets her everywhere.

“He’s right,” she says, glancing up at him. “Because I’m the ME, which means I get first dibs on all