Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Melissa Sherry had been beaten until she was almost unrecognizable. The only place she wasn’t bruised was her hair, but from her head down to her feet, she’d been beaten with something very heavy, it would have to be to have done the kind of damage Celia was looking at. Her face was, in a word, pulverized.
Whoever had beaten her had then laid her on the grass with her arms and legs stretched out in an X, and she’d been staked into the ground. When Celia pulled back the sheet that the techs had thrown over the woman’s naked body, she saw the final offense.
The word WHORE had been scratched into her body in large block letters. Hopefully, she’d been dead before her body suffered that injustice Celia thought as she covered the body back up and stood to her feet.
“Let’s go check the car.” She offered though she didn’t think they would find anything in there. It looked like all the damage had been done right here on the side of the road. “I think the ME’s going to find that she was murdered sometime early this morning or late last night.”
“Sounds about right, this place is pretty much a ghost town around that time.”
“Yep, which means the killer knows the area.” They would have to, to pull a stunt like this out in the open right next to a main road, which everyone used to get in and out of town.
The street ran through Briar Reef into the bordering town and was the only main road that did. Anything else would have to be through the woods or one of the dirt tracks that would take forever to navigate.
“Did you know her, Pete?” When he didn’t answer right away, she looked up to find him blushing. “Uh-oh, did you know her officer?”
“No, what, what’re you thinking? It’s just… well, she had a kind of a reputation is all.”
“Go on!” She leaned into the car rifling through the debris in the backseat. There was nothing back there but empty soda cans and fast-food wrappers. She had a bit more luck in the glove compartment.
There was a day planner along with some loose pieces of paper, which she took and placed in an evidence bag. “What kind of reputation, Pete?” What was wrong with him this morning?
“Well, everyone in town pretty much knew she was cheating on her husband. But I don’t see him for this. Gil just isn’t the type. I went to school with him, and he’s about the nicest guy you could ever meet. She used to be too, a nice girl, I mean.”
He looked back towards the body, which the ME was now in the process of moving. “It’s just… well, after Gil lost his job, Melissa seemed to get a wild hair, started acting crazy.”
“Know who she was having the affair with?”
His face looked even more pained. “Aw heck Sparks.” She just gave him a look. “I guess it’ll come out in the wash anyway. It was Robbie, down at the mechanic shop. But those two have been going at it for months now, even Gil knew about it.”
“Okay, tell me what else you heard about this trio.”
“Nothing much, just one time Gil said how he was going to beat the stuffing out of Bobby if he didn’t stop fooling around with his wife, but nothing ever came of it.”
Just then, a car came screeching to a halt behind the ME’s truck, and a man about her age jumped out. He looked like he’d just climbed out of bed and hadn’t even had time to brush his hair. From the wild look on his face, she figured correctly that this must be the husband.
“MELISSA.” He started screaming at the top of his lungs when he saw the body being loaded into the back of the truck in the body bag. Celia moved forward quickly when it looked like the tech team was going to have a hard time holding him back.
“Sir, are you Mr. Gil Sherry?” He looked at her in a daze as if he didn’t recognize his own name.
“Is that my wife?” The words sounded like they were being dragged out of him.
“I’m sorry sir, I regret to inform you…”
Before she could finish, he tried running through her to get to the body. It took Officer Pete and two of the crime scene guys to hold him back. And the way he buckled, going down on his knees as if the life had been sucked out of him, she thought to herself that even if his wife had been cheating, he’d still loved her.
He looked gutted, lost, and sad. She bent down so that they were eye level. “Is there anyone I can call for you?” He started shaking his head, “mama, my mama would come.”