Deadly Rich (82 page)

Dan walked around to the front of the body tray.

“I’ve cleaned her hair a little—wanted you to see the way this is woven in.” The gloved hand lifted one of the girl’s braids. Something foreign glinted through dully, something that wasn’t dirt or dead cells or decayed vegetation.

Cardozo could make out a series of tiny metal links. “Looks like a jewelry chain.” Or a dime-store key chain that had been pressed into service as jewelry.

Dan nodded. “She didn’t do it herself—someone helped her.” He reached into the pocket of his rubber apron. “I found one other piece of jewelry on her person.” He placed something in the palm of his outstretched glove. It was a tiny, very tarnished metal ring.

Cardozo frowned. “That’s too small even for a pinkie.”

“It’s not a finger ring. It was in her left nipple—preserved in wax. The nipple was pierced four, five years prior to death. The other nipple didn’t get the wax treatment, so we don’t know if she had a pair of rings. I didn’t find any other ring with the bones. The lab may have found something in the hamper.”

Cardozo shook his head. “Not yet.”

“The maggots left a little marrow in the right femur—possibly I can liquefy some blood cells. Don’t get your hopes up, but sometimes even a few cells can tell us what infections she was carrying, what drugs were in her system.”

Cardozo was still for a moment. He was aware of a desolating flow of sadness inside his chest. It was an old sadness—he had been handling it for six years, he would handle it now. He wasn’t going to let sadness keep him from doing his job.

“What’s your feeling, Dan? What’s her story?”

“I hate to extrapolate from the condition this body is in.” Dan’s gloves smoothed down his surgical smock, leaving ashen tracks. “But I get a feeling she was a teen hooker—with a heavy s/m sideline.”

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Edward Stewart (1938–1996) grew up in New York City and Cuba. He was educated at Phillips Exeter Academy and at Harvard, where he edited the famed
Lampoon
humor magazine. He studied music in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and worked as a composer and arranger before launching his career as a writer. His first novel,
Orpheus on Top
, was published in 1966. He wrote thirteen more novels, including the bestselling Vince Cardozo thrillers
Privileged Lives
,
Jury Double
,
Mortal Grace
, and
Deadly Rich
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1991 by Edward Stewart

Cover design by Kathleen Lynch

978-1-4804-7062-0

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

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