Homicide! (Parker & Knight Book 2) by Donald Wells Page A

might make, and it was the wussyist sound that Carla had ever heard. Needless to say, she never went out with Davey again.
    You can’t hide what’s inside. 
    ***
    D etective Rick Parker stared down at the bloated corpse while fighting his gag reflex. Whenever the breeze subsided, the odor emanating from the body was brutal and it was a smell that he knew he would never get used to, no matter how many homicides he worked.
    His partner, Detective Joanna Knight, gave him a nudge and when he looked at her, he saw that she was holding a tube of scented petroleum jelly. Judging by the shiny spot beneath her nostrils, she had already used it herself.
    “Thanks, and I’ll bet you that we just found our missing person.”
    “I think you’re right, I also think that wound in his neck looks like it was made by a knife, although, given the amount of decomp, I guess we’ll have to wait for the autopsy to know for sure.”
    Parker applied the mentholated gel on his upper lip while thinking about their missing persons case.
    A man named Charles “Chaz” Woolley went missing and his disappearance was reported by his mother, who lived nearby.
    Woolley had been a manager of Taggart’s , a bar and grill that sat on the other side of the lake.
    If the body before him was Woolley than it looked as though they now had a homicide on their hands. It also meant that they would have to question the staff of Taggart’s once more, a staff that included the very lovely Heather Jones.
    “Why the smile?” Knight said.
    Parker shrugged.
    “It was a grimace; the gel helps but that smell still gets through.”
    “Mm, hmm,” Knight said. “I thought maybe you were smiling because you were thinking of Heather Jones. If this is Woolley, we’ll have to question Taggart’s staff again, Jones included.”
    Parker stared at her.
    “How long have we been partners?”
    “About two weeks, why?”
    “We’ve only known each other for two weeks and already you can read me like a book? No wonder you’re a great detective.”
    “So, you were thinking about Jones?”
    “Yes, I admit it, but chalk it up to hormones. A girl that beautiful tends to stay on the male brain.”
    “She’s twenty-two and studying to be a doctor, I’d say that makes her a woman.”
    “A very young woman, too young for an old man like me,”
    “Forty isn’t old, Rick, you’re just feeling down because of your divorce.”
    “Speaking of relationships, did that alarm guy Hooper ever call you?”
    “He did, we had Sunday brunch together and we’ll be going out this weekend.”
    “Good, I hope things work out there.”
    The coroner, Stella Harvey, arrived, and after exchanging pleasantries with Rick and Jo, she put on a mask and gloves and began examining the body. The body and the surrounding area had already been photographed.
    “This gash on the neck looks like a knife wound and is likely the cause of death.”
    She reached into the back pocket of the body’s soiled jeans and wrenched a wallet free, a difficult task given the bloat of the corpse. She then opened it and read from the driver’s license.
    “The victim’s name was Charles Woolley,” Stella said.
    Parker nodded.
    “Our missing persons case has just become a homicide.”

2
    T he following day, Heather Jones checked her face in the car’s rearview mirror, and then tucked an errant strand of hair back in place.
    When she got out of the car, she smoothed the wrinkles from her black skirt while wondering if she should have worn the red one instead, the shorter of the two.
    She shook her head slightly, and decided that she had dressed the right way, after all, she wasn’t throwing herself at the man, she just wanted to make him interested in her.
    She smiled, while thinking of Parker, and once again wondered why she couldn’t get him off her mind.
    After opening the passenger door and grabbing the white bag off the seat, she took a deep breath and headed for the front doors of the municipal