My Sister’s Grave by Robert Dugoni

Book Preface

Her tactical instructor at the police academy had liked taunting them during early morning drills. “Sleep is overrated,” he’d say. “You will learn to do without.”

He’d lied.

Sleep was like sex. The less you had, the more you craved it, and Tracy Crosswhite hadn’t had much of either lately.

She stretched her shoulders and neck. With no time for a morning run, her body felt stiff and half-asleep, though she didn’t remember sleeping much, if at all. Too much fast food and too much caffeine, her doctor said. Good advice, but eating well and exercising took time Tracy didn’t have when investigating a homicide, and giving up caffeine would be like cutting off gasoline from a car engine. She’d die without it.

“Hey, the Professor’s in early. Who died?”

Vic Fazzio leaned his considerable girth against Tracy’s cubicle wall. It was an old Homicide joke, but never stale when punctuated by Faz’s hoarse voice and New Jersey accent. With a salt-and-pepper pompadour and fleshy features, the Homicide section’s self-proclaimed “Italian Gumba” could have served as one of those silent bodyguards in mafia movies. Faz held the New York Times crossword puzzle and a library book, which meant the coffee had kicked in. God help anyone if they had to use the men’s room while Faz was there. He was known to stew for half an hour over his answers or when reading a particularly compelling chapter.

Tracy handed him one of the crime scene photos she’d printed out that morning. “Dancer over on Aurora.”

“Heard about it. Kinky shit, huh?”

“I saw worse working sex crimes,” she said.

“I forgot. You gave up sex for death,” he said.

“Death is easier,” she said, stealing another of Faz’s punch lines.

The dancer, Nicole Hansen, had been found hog-tied in a cheap motel room on Aurora Avenue in North Seattle. A noose was fastened around her neck and the rope threaded down her spine, binding her wrists and ankles—an elaborate setup. Tracy handed Faz the medical examiner’s report. “Her muscles cramped and eventually seized. When they did, she straightened her legs to relieve the pain. She ended up strangling herself. Nice, huh?”