Cold Day in Hell Read Online Free

back to let him pass, he gave me a game smile.
    “Welcome to the tawdry follies.” He sat down heavily next to me. “Franklin, isn’t it?”
    “Fritz,” I corrected him. “Fritz Malone.”
    “Right, right. Alan Ross.” He offered his hand, and we shook. Ross leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “I used to be legendary for my low blood pressure. Amazing what a little celebrity murder trial can do to you, isn’t it?”
    “I try to steer clear of them as often as I can,” I said.
    “Oh? Did you take a wrong turn on your way to traffic court?”
    “I was down the hall on business.”
    “Private investigation. Do I recall correctly?”
    “You do.”
    “Just couldn’t pass on the train wreck, eh?”
    I shrugged. “Guilty.”
    Judge Deveraux dismissed the clerk. He looked out over the packed courtroom, taking his time, sweeping his head slowly, like a lighthouse beam throttled down to a slow crawl. Taking hold of his mallet, he lifted it with both a solemnity and a certain degree of weariness, as if its weight over the course of the trial had been increasing daily and it had now, at this moment, reached the absolute maximum poundage that the judge would be capable of lifting.
    “Give my best to Ms. Burke, will you?” Ross said.
    I nodded. “Will do.”
    The judge’s mallet fell, making, as it always did, a sound like that of a large bone being snapped in two.
    “Order!”
     
     
    THE SLICING TOOK PLACE in Robin Burrell’s bedroom. The crimson of her pillows alone was testament to that much. Her radio alarm clock was among the numerous items found strewn on the floor next to the upturned bedside table. The clock had come unplugged from the wall: 6:48 was frozen on its face.
    Was she dead already or still dying when her body was dragged along the short hallway into the front room? I have to hope she was already dead, that’s all I’ll say about it. She was placed under the huge Christmas tree, cuffed and bent backward, the large wedge of mirror glass protruding from her throat. And then, just as in the case of the two murders for which the star of
Midnight with Marshall Fox
was currently on trial, Robin Burrell’s right hand had been placed palm down against her breast, inches above the newly stilled heart, and, as with the second of the Central Park victim’s, affixed there with a simple four-inch nail driven all the way in to its head.
     
     
    THE JUDGE ASKED that the courtroom be cleared of members of the press as well as any onlookers who did not have a direct role in the trial. A collective grumble rose from the ranks of the reporters as they made their way out of the room. Ross excused himself and squeezed past me. I was starting out of the pew when I heard my name being called above the low din.
    “Fritz!”
    It was Peter Elliott. He waved me over. “Can you stick around?”
    “You heard the judge.”
    Peter swatted the air. “Forget that. We had you on payroll. You can stay. I’m not sure how this is all going to go. If this jury disintegrates, you might have to keep me from killing myself.”
    I took a seat in the now empty front row. Across the aisle from me sat Rosemary Fox. Her extraordinary beauty was as placid and hard-edged in person as it appeared in photographs. As I watched, her husband turned from the defense table and mouthed something to her. Then he gave his trademark gesture, the one with which he had been signing off after his hour and a half on the air for three years, five nights a week, right up until the day of his arrest. He brought the fingers of his right hand to his lips for a kiss, then placed the hand softly over his heart.
    Rosemary Fox remained as still as a steel statue. I can’t even characterize the look that was likewise frozen on her face. Molten? All I can say is that it wiped Marshall Fox’s famous smirk right off his face. You’d have thought he’d just rounded the corner into the path of an oncoming train.
    Judge Deveraux had turned to