Strong, Sleek and Sinful - By Lorie O'Clare Page 0,148
from him. Perry looked at Goddard, whose reddened complexion made his strawberry blonde crew cut stand out and look more white than light red. His light green eyes darkened as he met Perry’s gaze.
“This whole thing turns my stomach.”
“It’s fucking sick as hell,” Perry agreed.
After glancing at the case filled with evidence bags, Perry walked around the patrol car, leaving Goddard to talk to his partner. Perry noted Goddard didn’t have blue eyes, not that he would have guessed the cop was Peter. Goddard was a churchgoing man, with a good-sized family and a sweet little wife who adored him. Criminals came in all shapes and sizes, though. Perry knew from many years on the force that attending church every Sunday didn’t mean a man wasn’t capable of murder.
“You got an extra pair of gloves?” Perry asked the officer squatting next to the body.
She glanced at Perry and then straightened, interest or at the least acknowledgment that she liked what she saw registering on her pretty face. “Sure. I know you, don’t I?” she asked, standing and making a show of smoothing her uniform before walking over to the forensics kit sitting on the asphalt not too far away.
Perry noticed how she bent over, took her time pulling out a spare pair of latex gloves, and how she straightened. She had a nice ass, narrow waist, and mousy brown hair cut short in a pageboy. Although she wasn’t his type with her tomboy figure, small breasts, and petite frame, another time Perry would take time to talk to her. He wasn’t sure he’d seen her before, but she wasn’t ugly and Perry never discriminated against a lady just because she didn’t meet his definition of a perfect 10.
“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said, accepting the gloves and donning them, then turning back to the body.
“Gracie Pierre,” she offered, making a show of offering her hand to shake but then laughing and pulling back her gloved hand, which was soiled with blood.
Something about the fact that she could make jokes and be so carefree and flirtatious while the two of them squatted over a mutilated, murdered teenage girl’s body didn’t sit right with him.
“Nice to meet you, Gracie,” he said, but then turned his attention to the body. “Any speculation on the cause of death?”
“Oh,” she said, squatting next to him, her leg brushing against his as she leaned forward and lifted the girl’s arm, which had been over her face. “I just gather any evidence off the body. I’m not a doctor and I don’t play one on TV.” Again laughing easily, obviously finding herself very amusing.
“Regardless of your role in this crime scene, you’ll learn what evidence to gather if you focus on the whole picture,” he snapped, wondering how long she’d been on the force. “The evidence you seek out would be different if someone was attacked by a dog than if they were brutalized and murdered.”
He didn’t bother checking out her reaction to his biting her head off. But the silence that grew between them told him she probably thought him a little less attractive than she had a few minutes before.
“I might just be a rookie,” she finally said, sounding more hurt than mad. “But I looked at the big picture well enough to suggest to Goddard he contact you after tagging the picture that was rolled up in her hand.”
Perry did look at Gracie then. She frowned at the dead teenager, her lips pressed into a thin line. He would guess Gracie was in her early twenties, younger than Kylie, and not as well built. It wasn’t just that her breasts were smaller; everything about her was smaller. Possibly that made her look younger. If anything, he thought, returning his glance to Lanie Swanson and reaching with his gloved hand and attempting to cover her exposed breasts with her torn and dirty shirt, Gracie didn’t look much older than their victim.
“What was rolled up in her hand?” Perry asked. “And which hand?”
“Why does it matter which hand?”
He didn’t take the question as sarcastic, even if that was how she meant it. “I don’t know if it matters or not. Was her other hand always here?” he asked, sticking his index finger into her curled fingers resting at her side.
“Yes, and her right hand was above her head, her forearm resting over her face. I’m sure it was just the position she was in when she finally gave up on life.”