When I touched her ankles, she moaned and twitched.
I screamed, and nearly panicked again. It took all of my willpower to keep from grabbing the trocar and bashing her head in . . . again, and again, and again. I realized then that I could still kill her. I could take up the embalming needle and strike her another blow and call it self-defense. Standing there above her, contemplating that possibility, I thought of Darryl Davis and of his grief, and of the humiliation she had brought to Stan’s decent family, and of the little Rudolph boys and their sister. What a savings it would be for the taxpayers if I killed her, what a vindication for the families she had ruined, what an evil weight off the world.
I lay the trocar down beside her and left the morgue to locate a telephone. I wanted Lewis to be the first reporter to hear the final details of the story that might bring him his journalistic “Glory Days.” But first, I had to call the police station.
“Ailey?” I said, when he answered the page. “It’s Jenny. Listen, I have a few new ideas about the case. If you’re not busy, maybe you’d like to drop by the funeral home to hear them.”