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Barely breathing, I grabbed an umbrella and crept forward. Flores followed, not exactly on my heels, but close enough.
At the archway, we both froze.
Musgrove lay supine on a woven jute rug, face ashen, lips and eyelids violet-blue. From the angle of her head, the striated bruising stark against the softness of her throat, I suspected she’d been strangled, and her neck broken.
“Oh, Christ,” Flores whispered.
Fingers shaky, I punched digits on my phone.
“Nine one one,” a female voice came on. “How may I help you?”
“I want to report a homicide!” I barked.
“I’m having trouble understanding you, ma’am. Can you lower the volume on your television?” Barely interested. “And speak more clearly.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Flores crossed to a flat screen blaring at a decibel level equal to that on an airport runway. Using a shirt tail, she lifted a remote and hit a button. The actors’ bickering voices went mute.
I kept talking. “Your SIO has been killed.”
“Please repeat.” No longer bored. “And provide your location.”
Death is my business. I see it daily. Yet here I was, acting like a rookie cop at her first murder scene.
I tried again. Slower.
“Detective Tiersa Musgrove is dead. I am Dr. Temperance Brennan. I’m at her residence. Dr. Luna Flores is with me.”
“Thesuperintendent?” the dispatcher asked, leaning into Musgrove’s title. She seemed shaken.
“Yes.” I provided a more coherent synopsis.
“Do you need medical attention?”
“No.” Jesus.
“Do you need me to stay on the line?”
“No.”
“Help is on the way.”
Dead air.
Phone pressed to my chest, I breathed deeply, and looked around.
The room was small and furnished very matchy-matchy. Sofa and side chair. Coffee and end tables. All probably ordered online.
My eyes drifted to the now silent TV.
Days of Our Lives. That accounted for the male and female voices we’d heard outside the door. This certainly was a day to remember. Funny where your brain goes in moments of stress.
My gaze returned to the battered body on the rug.
I almost wept at the irony of the dispatcher’s words.
Tiersa Musgrove was beyond whatever help was barreling our way.
The rain had stopped, so Flores and I decided to wait outside. It wasn’t long before we heard the distant whine of sirens, faint at first, earsplitting as cruisers flew around the corner and screamed up Walnut.
