The Body Keeper

by Anne Frasier

  “He’ll be staying with me the rest of the night. Maybe longer.”

  The boy tried to perk up and lift his head from Jude’s shoulder. He failed.

  “Poor little dude.” Elliot pushed the child’s knit cap back off his eyes. “Can I help?”

  “I have to be at work in a couple of hours. Could you watch him?”

  “No problem.”

  In her living room, she tugged off the boy’s mittens, cap, boots, and jacket. He grabbed the stuffed animals, hugged them to his neck and face, inhaled, and headed straight for the bedroom and the cushion and blanket that were still on the floor in the corner. Jude made a mental note to tell Elliot not to let him near either of the cats.

  Once the boy was settled, knowing she wouldn’t be getting any more sleep, she pulled out the files Savoy had given her. Next to them on the coffee table was the letter from her lawyer that had arrived a week ago. She wasn’t one to ignore paperwork in her job, but in real life? She didn’t want to deal with it now. Instead, she opened the first folder in Savoy’s bundle. With Roof Cat beside her, Jude went through the case files for Billy Nelson. They were thick, and they covered a long period of time and various theories and suspects. Followed trails that came to abrupt dead ends.

  A whole career could pass with nothing solved. Detectives retired; new people took over. Sometimes a fresh pair of eyes helped, but after two hours, she didn’t feel she’d learned anything new. Savoy’s visit had probably been more about putting a strong period on this part of his life and what might have been an unhealthy obsession with an unsolved crime than about sharing information.

  But the letter from the lawyer was still taunting her. She picked it up, considered opening it, then walked to the kitchen and stuck it in a cupboard out of sight.

  CHAPTER 31

  Both bodies appear to have been through thawing and refreezing,” Ingrid Stevenson said. It was early afternoon, and Jude’s interrupted sleep was catching up with her. The ME had called the homicide partners to the morgue, surprising them with the presentation of two bodies in the autopsy suite, Billy Nelson, with a Y incision and full autopsy, and John Doe, not fully thawed but present for some reason Jude and Uriah had yet to learn.

  “Look at the fingers and nose and ears,” Ingrid said. “They show signs of decay. The rest of the body shows signs of freezer burn. If you’ve ever left something in a freezer too long, you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Could they have been moved from one location to another?” Jude wondered aloud. “And can you determine whether this was a onetime thaw or something that happened more than once over a period of years?”

  “I think it’s happened over a period of years.”

  Uriah straightened away from the body of Billy Nelson. Her partner looked better today. Not as pale, but Jude worried that the odors in the autopsy suite might reawaken yesterday’s nausea.

  “So, wherever these bodies were stored,” Jude said, “it most likely was an industrial freezer. And they were both frozen without bending limbs.” She’d seen bodies put in freezers, and they were usually folded. But if a freezer was big enough . . .

  “The low temperature required, along with the span of time, is mind-boggling,” Uriah said. “How low are we talking about?”

  “Zero?” Ingrid said. “I’ve seen bodies that were found frozen after ten years, and they looked like they’d died recently. So anything is possible. And if you’re trying to pinpoint dates, that’s going to be tough because we don’t have the data needed to do that.”

  “What about sexual assault?” Jude asked.

  “I wanted to talk to you about that. No overt signs of sexual trauma, but I can’t a hundred percent confirm that due to the condition of the body. But, as you know, I like to save the best for last.” She turned off an overhead swing-arm light. “I now have a solid cause of death, and it was surprisingly easy to determine. I have to admit, I’m almost disappointed. I haven’t even sliced our John Doe open yet.”

  “And?” Uriah said.

  “Carbon monoxide poisoning. Both of them. In this situation, the freezing actually helped. I ran a couple different tests just to be sure. The pink cheeks were a clue. So I dissected an artery and ran a blood sample through our analyzer to test for carboxyhemoglobin. Carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin. And it doesn’t go anywhere in a frozen body, even one that’s been frozen for years. The normal range for an adult is less than 2.3 percent. Unless you’re a smoker, then it can go up as high as eight or nine, depending upon how many cigarettes are smoked a day. Both of these bodies had extremely high levels. Ten to thirty percent, and we see the symptoms we all know about. Thirty to fifty will result in death. Nelson had a reading of sixty. And being young with smaller lungs, he probably died fairly quickly, although it’s not a pleasant death.”

  She crossed her arms. “Once I had the cause of death for Billy Nelson, I decided to see if John Doe was thawed enough for me to grab an arterial sample. Same results. Sixty percent. I’ll of course do a full autopsy once he’s completely thawed.”

  “Excellent work,” Uriah said.

  Jude added, “And that leads to the theory that these two bodies died together.”

  Ingrid nodded. “It’s highly probable, but of course unproven.”

  “You ever smoke?” Uriah asked once he and Jude were back in the prep room stripping off gowns.

  “A little bit when I was a teenager. I never went pro. You?”

  “No. But I can tell you that if I were smoking today, I’d stop right now.”

  Outside, they spotted Ingrid Stevenson leaning against the building, puffing away on a cigarette.

  CHAPTER 32

  The next day, after another evening of heavy snow, an unmoving man amid a crowd of people coming and going on the shoveled sidewalk in front of the police department caught Jude’s attention. She paused near a lamppost and pretended to focus on something in her hand while furtively eyeing him as he stood near the corner of the building looking her direction.

  City street. Light-rail train clanging, announcing its arrival at a nearby station. Midday sun shining bright as exhaust from idling cars hit the cold street and immediately froze, exacerbating the number of slow-motion pileups and fender benders. In her pretense of not noticing him, she was unable to glance up long enough to get a strong take, but she put him around thirty, white, light-brown beard and mustache, not dressed for the snow or the cold. No hat, no gloves, flimsy green jacket with a narrow white stripe down the sleeve. When he didn’t move or leave, she turned her head and looked at him directly. Like a black widow spider hit by sunlight, he scurried away, hands in his high jacket pockets, shoulders up as if to hide his face. The soles of his shoes were white. Sneakers.

  Everything about him was suspicious. He wasn’t doing anything illegal, and people—paparazzi, even Elliot, damn him—often tried to snap secret photos of her. But this felt different. She walked quickly, weaving through sidewalk traffic, increasing her speed until she was running, her technique awkward and hampered by her heavy coat and insulated boots.

  He cut down an alley. She followed. A half block between them, she unzipped her coat, giving herself access to the weapon at her waist. Just a precaution.

  She paused and shouted hello.

  He skidded to a stop. She could see he was considering two things: a conversation or running again.

  “I saw you watching me,” she said. God, that sounded like some creepy pickup line or a Taylor Swift song.

  His shoulders relaxed, but he stayed where he was, still nervous. She was near enough to see his features now. Thin face, slightly hooked nose, bristly collar-length hair, black tattoo on one side of his neck, tattoos on the fingers that he kept curling and shoving in and out of his pocket. She kept a close eye on those hands while also observing his face, especially his eyes, which could give him away if he decided to do something like pull a weapon.

  “I kinda wanted to talk to you,” he finally said. If somebody had been listen
ing to their conversation, they’d have thought they were witnessing some Tinder meet-up.

  “Okay.” Her breath was a cloud in front of her face. “Let’s get out of the cold. We can go to my office. It’s just around the corner.”

  “No.”

  It wasn’t unusual for witnesses of crimes to be reluctant to come forward. Sometimes they made a few false starts before contact. Something told her this guy might fall into the reluctant witness category. Could be he knew something about a case, old or new, or about something she had yet to know. She didn’t want to scare him off.

  He looked lower middle class, judging from his clothing, and he had a tan. Too tan for the middle of winter in Minnesota. And he had a southern accent. More like Texas than Georgia. She wanted him to talk again so she could zero in on the state. Whatever was going on, he wasn’t from the area, and he was new to cold weather. Like Paul Savoy, most everybody came to Minnesota unprepared, especially people from the South. They just couldn’t imagine weather so cold it could freeze your skin in seconds.

  She got the idea he was here on a mission.

  “Maybe we could go somewhere else,” she suggested. “Not my office. A café.” It wasn’t that cold today. About ten above zero, but dropping. He was shivering, and his nose was red, his lips pale. Nerves could also constrict the blood vessels and lower the body temperature. “There’s a café around the corner,” she said. “They have great scones and even better coffee. My treat. I was heading there anyway.”

  He was so damn nervous, though. She tried not to let it rub off on her. It was the kind of nervous that people who broke the law had around cops. And even people who didn’t. She was afraid he was ready to bolt.

  “I’d suggest a food truck and the park just down the street, but it’s a little too chilly for that.” She smiled at the shared absurdity of such an idea, sniffled, and resisted zipping her coat, keeping her hand near but not on her weapon.

  He was half a block away. It was beginning to feel like a high-noon confrontation from some Western. Somebody needed to make a move or call it off.

  “I might be that kid.”

  Texas. Or maybe Oklahoma. The word kid had been drawn out, with a bit of an e sound. The words themselves had come hard, like he’d rarely spoken them aloud to anyone. Painful, torn from him, his voice hinting of shame and awkward emotion. It took her a moment to grasp who he might be talking about.

  “Shaun Ford?”

  “Yeah.”

  Her heart began to pound. She forced herself not to appear that interested. He was still ready to bolt.

  He could be wrong. Could be a mistake. Good chance of that. Someone looking to make sense of his life and past. But he was about the right age. Hair similar to Gail Ford’s. Straight light-brown strands that could’ve darkened over the years. But hair was known to change color and even texture, especially when males reached puberty, so it wasn’t the best indicator of identity.

  “I saw the stuff on the news.” He shifted his weight, his eyes wet with emotion. “About the bodies and how at first they thought it was Shaun Ford, but it wasn’t.”

  She let her coat fall closed. “Come on.” Enough of this. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

  “I saw the mother on TV.”

  “That had to be tough.”

  “I’m probably wrong. This is probably stupid.”

  Maybe. “Never stupid,” she said. “There’s an easy way to prove it. We have Gail Ford’s DNA. If we had yours, we could see if they match.”

  She began walking slowly toward him. As she came closer, he took a few steps back, distrustful. She was going to lose him, and right now she didn’t even know his current name. “It can be done anonymously,” she assured him. “Come to a private room at the police department. I’ll take a mouth swab, label it Joe Smith, followed by a number. I’ll seal it and send it in. Nobody will have to know.”

  “I don’t like the idea of my DNA being on file.”

  Ah. He did have the jitteriness of a criminal. Maybe small-time, maybe more. “If there’s any chance you’re Shaun Ford, wouldn’t you want to know?”

  “Not sure it’d make any difference. I have my life already. I got a girlfriend.”

  He didn’t seem sure about the last part. Having problems, she’d guess. “Your mother’s been waiting for you for twenty years.”

  “She wouldn’t like the person I’ve become.”

  “Give her the chance to make that decision.”

  “You’re talking like I’m that kid. I don’t know if I am.” He frowned, looked confused. “I have these memories . . . But I don’t trust you about the DNA. I don’t want it in your system.”

  “We can circumvent that. Sign a contract. It’s called a Provision of Exculpatory DNA. We’ll promise not to share your sample for any purpose other than to determine your relationship to Gail Ford. The physical sample will be destroyed, and all data in the genetic profile pulled from that sample will be deleted and in no circumstances held any longer than thirty days.”

  If he passed on her offer, he might return after some thought, but more likely she’d never see him again. He’d vanish, go back to Texas or Oklahoma, or wherever he was from. But she couldn’t force him to do anything he didn’t want to do.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  He needed a push to make up his mind one way or the other. “I can’t help you, then.” She turned and began walking away.

  “Wait!”

  She swiveled.

  He was striding toward her, slipped, caught himself, hardly missing a beat. “I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Jude got the man from the alley into the police department building, through the metal detector, and to a private room, all with little or no attention drawn. She left him by himself long enough to print out the contract she’d promised and grab a DNA kit. Minutes later she was back, glad to see he was still there as she placed a bottle of water in front of him, telling him to refrain from drinking until she took the sample. The room was bright and hot, the smothering heat a typical problem in cold climates. You froze outdoors and melted inside. They both removed their coats.

  He was wearing a blue plaid shirt, white T-shirt underneath. His short beard was clean and trimmed. He smelled like cigarettes and maybe the alcohol he’d put away last night. Interesting, but he seemed less of a threat here, sitting close, in a private room, than he had outside.

  They both signed the contract. She’d hoped he’d use his real name. He didn’t, just signed it the man who might be Shaun Ford. A good idea, actually, and just as binding as his name.

  Taking the DNA sample put Jude physically closer to him than she wanted to be, but it also gave her a chance to gather more information. The scar on his wrist, for example, possibly a suicide attempt, but it could have been from a fight. She’d also seen similar scarring on someone who’d been kept in restraints. It didn’t look fresh, could have been years old.

  With both of them sitting at one end of the conference table, she snapped on a pair of gloves, opened the DNA sample tube, and swabbed the inside of his cheek.

  He gagged and his eyes watered.

  “Sorry.” She stuck the swab back in the vial and twisted the cap. She labeled the container with her contact information, the name Joe Smith with a number attached, and stuck it in a ziplock bag. She would personally deliver it to the crime lab.

  He was sweating. The kind of nervous perspiration that smelled strong. His eyes kept darting from the closed door to the table and the bag with the sample. He wanted to grab it and run. He opened the bottle of water and drank half of it.

  She removed her gloves and leaned back in her chair. “What do you remember? Why do you think you might be Shaun Ford?”

  “I’d rather not go into it right now.” He glanced at the sample again. “Until that comes back. I will say I don’t remember much about my childhood. And I don’t remember an abduction. I just think I recognized the woman on television. Gail Ford.”


  Definitely holding back. “If you are Shaun Ford, it might or might not be strange that you can’t remember being abducted. Trauma has a way of creating scabs, of protecting us from things. So it’s very possible you would have no accessible memory.”

  “That stuff always seemed far-fetched to me. Like an excuse to get out of something.”

  “It happens. Quite a bit. Let’s just see what this turns up. I’m going to put a rush on it, but that doesn’t mean we’ll have results right away. DNA labs are quirky. It could be days, or it could be weeks. Leave your current name, address, and phone number, and I’ll get in touch with you no matter what the results are.”

  “That’s okay.” He finished the water and got to his feet, pushing back his chair with his legs, grabbing his thin coat, and slipping it on. “You don’t need to. Just give me your number, and I’ll call you.”

  He didn’t trust her about keeping his DNA out of their databases, and he certainly didn’t want her to know his name. What had he done? Robbery? Assault? Murder?

  “DNA isn’t gathered at every crime scene, you know.” It was a misconception, perpetrated by television.

  “Thanks for sharing that, but I’d rather be cautious.”

  “Did you come to Minnesota just to meet with me?”

  “How do you know I don’t live here?”

  “Your tan. Your inappropriate clothing.” She smiled. “Your accent.”

  “I don’t have an accent.”

  “Of course not.” She got to her feet too. “Are you going back to wherever you came from?”

  “I might hang around awhile. Or I might go back.”

  He really didn’t want to give up any information. “Okay.” She gave him her card and grabbed the DNA package. “You know how to reach me. I’ll escort you out.”

  Once he was gone, Jude wondered if she’d ever see or hear from him again.

  CHAPTER 34

  Alan Reed regretted giving Detective Fontaine his DNA as soon as she’d swabbed his mouth. He’d almost grabbed the sample and run off. His girlfriend said he was crazy, just looking for some reason to explain his shitty childhood, his terrible parents.