by Ray Green
He decided to start his enquiry with a visit to the Edward Mason Pathology Lab.
***
‘How can I help you, Detective?’ said the receptionist. ‘I already told the other police officer everything I know.’
‘Oh, just a few additional questions,’ said Mark, ‘… any little thing you can tell us Miss …’ He glanced at his notebook, having already forgotten her name.
‘Oh, you can call me Mary-Jane,’ she cooed. ‘We can sit down over there.’ She indicated the two white couches flanking the corner of the room.
She stood up and came around the desk, revealing that she was wearing a knee-length, figure-hugging, grey skirt, teamed with a close-fitting, white shirt cinched in by a black patent belt. She ushered Mark over to one of the couches and sat down half-facing him on the other one, hitching up her skirt to show just a little more thigh than was really necessary. She crossed her legs and leaned towards him slightly, flicking a tress of blonde, wavy hair from her cheek.
Mark was used to this sort of reaction from women: he was a good-looking guy, and his deep, mellifluous voice seemed to make many go weak at the knees. It wasn’t something he purposely exploited – well, usually at least – for Julia was the only woman he had ever truly cared for. However, the receptionist would have no knowledge of his relationship with Julia; otherwise she would surely have been more respectful.
On this occasion, though, he figured a little flirting might just help his cause.
‘Well, thank you Mary-Jane … and you can call me Mark.’
She flashed him a radiant smile, revealing two perfectly even rows of dazzling white teeth. ‘So how can I help?’
‘I understand this woman claimed to be Julia Turner’s sister?’
‘Yeah … said her name was Susan Turner.’
‘But your records didn’t indicate that Julia even had a sister?’ He knew full well that they did not.
‘That’s right … but this woman said she’d been living over on the west coast for years, having been more or less disowned by her parents. She knew the names of both of the deceased’s parents and, actually, sounded pretty genuine.’
‘But you weren’t completely convinced, right?’
She shook her head, placing a hand on Mark’s arm as she leaned in a little closer, now speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘The thing is … Mark … I have this kind of inbuilt intuition thing going for me.’
He nodded, making no attempt to shrug free of her hand.
‘I have an instinct for when someone’s lying. Even though the passport looked legit and she said all the right things, I just didn’t feel comfortable about her, particularly as the deceased was a murder victim.’
‘So, what did you do?’
‘I went to see my boss. I took her passport and explained the situation to him.’
‘And?’
‘Well, I told him I was a bit suspicious, and he said he wanted to see her himself. You see, Mr Marzetti – that’s my boss – knows how good my instincts are, and he trusts my judgement completely.’ She preened, removing her hand from Mark’s arm to flick away the errant tress of hair once more, this time running her fingers through it, before tucking it behind her ear.
‘So, what happened next?’ said Mark, now starting to get slightly irritated with the constant prompting which this woman seemed to need in order to get her to tell her story.
‘Well,’ she said, placing her hand on his arm once more as she lowered her voice, ‘just as we were coming back into the reception area, we saw her running out of the door … right there.’ She raised her hand to point at the door – a somewhat superfluous gesture, since it was blindingly obvious where the door was.
‘Did you follow her out?’
‘We called after her, but by the time we got to the door, she was nowhere to be seen; she must have run like the wind. I knew, right there and then, that I was right to be suspicious of her.’
‘And how did you discover that she’d gotten away with a copy of Miss Turner’s autopsy report?’
‘Well, you see that room over there?’ she pointed to the filing room, waiting for Mark to offer a nod of his head. ‘The door was wide open and the report was open, face-down, on the photocopier glass.’
‘Can I take a look in the room?’
‘Oh sure.’
She stood up, smoothing down her skirt and making her way over to her desk, adopting a slightly exaggerated sway to her hips. Although Mark wasn’t even slightly interested in this woman’s too-obvious overtures, he did have to admit she had a damned good figure, an asset which she was clearly well-skilled in using to maximum advantage.
‘I always keep the room locked and the key right here,’ she said opening her desk drawer and withdrawing the key, holding it aloft with a flourish.
‘So she must have taken the key from your drawer when you left the room.’
‘Yeah,’ replied Mary-Jane, ‘she must have seen me put the key back in the drawer after I locked up the room.’
‘The room was unlocked before that?’
‘Oh no … I just unlocked it to get the deceased’s file. But I put the file back and locked the room again before going to see my boss. Strict rules you see.’
Mark nodded. ‘So, can we go in please?’
‘Oh, sure.’ She stepped over and unlocked the room, standing to one side to allow Mark through, but only so far that he could not avoid brushing very lightly against her breast and inhaling her perfume as he passed her. She really was deploying all her feminine weapons now.
She followed him in. ‘That’s the filing cabinet where the deceased’s file was kept,’ she said, pointing.
The one she was indicating was the second of four identical cabinets.
‘So how would she have known where to look?’
The woman shrugged and spread her hands, somehow using the gesture to push her breasts forward at the same time. ‘I guess she must have watched me, through the open door, getting the file out or putting it back.’
‘Hmm,’ mused Mark. All of this suggested that the mystery woman was a seasoned professional: that she had planned every move ahead of time. ‘And this,’ he said, placing a hand on the machine alongside them, ‘is, I assume, the photocopier she used to copy the report?’
‘Uh, huh … but I don’t think she managed to copy the whole thing: it was open at a page about half way through. My guess is that she’d only copied about half before she heard us coming back and ran.’
‘You’re probably right,’ said Mark. ‘So, is there anything else … anything at all which you can remember which might help us identify this woman?’
‘Well, she had a slight accent … I’d say Central or South American.’
Hardly surprising, thought Mark, given her obviously Hispanic appearance in her passport photograph, but then again, many second and third generation Hispanics had no discernible accent, so this observation might indicate that she had been born and brought up outside the USA. It wasn’t definite of course, but it was a clue which might just help his investigation at some point.
‘Well, thank you Miss …’
‘Mary-Jane,’ she reminded him.
‘Yes, of course … Mary-Jane. You’ve been most helpful.’
Actually, she really hadn’t told him anything he didn’t already know, but it was always a good idea to give any witness the impression that their input had been genuinely useful.
They stepped out of the room. She dutifully locked up and replaced the key in her desk drawer.
‘Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do for you?’ she purred, with barely concealed innuendo.
He smiled. ‘I don’t think so … not right now. Like I said, you’ve been very helpful.’
‘Well, before you go, Detective Bowman … I mean Mark,’ she said, reaching towards a box of business cards on her desk, ‘here’s my card … you know, if you need go over any more details or anything.’ She grabbed a pen and scribbled something on the back. ‘That
’s my cell number … just in case it’s out of office hours. I live on my own, so you can call any time. I want to help the police in any way that I can; you guys do such a fantastic job.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’
‘Mary-Jane,’ she reminded him again.
‘Yes … thank you, Mary-Jane. I’ll be in touch if necessary.’
‘Oh, don’t hesitate,’ she cooed.
He beat a hasty retreat.
***
Back at the station, Mark reflected on what he had learned – which, in all honesty, amounted to precious little.
The woman claiming to be Julia’s non-existent sister had obviously gone to the pathology lab with the clear intention of obtaining a copy of the autopsy report. But why? What was she looking for?
Assuming she was the murderer, or at least an accomplice of the murderer, she would know precisely how Julia had been killed. What could there possibly be in that autopsy report which she didn’t already know? And then a thought struck him: perhaps it wasn’t something she needed to know; perhaps she was looking for anything in the report which might give the police some clue as to who she was.
He thought about the mysterious matter of the card with the scorpion image. His research had revealed that such cards had been left at the scenes of a number of other assassinations in the UK and the USA, all of high-profile figures, and all unsolved. The working assumption of the various police forces involved was that the same man – or woman – was responsible for all these hits. A professional assassin who, for whatever reason, liked to advertise himself – or herself. Incredibly there was absolutely no information about this shadowy figure’s likely identity.
Could the woman he was hunting be this mysterious assassin? And if so, why would she have targeted a junior journalist, when all of the other victims had been such prominent figures? If it was her, then perhaps she had been looking for something in the autopsy report which might blow her cover.
He decided to go through the report yet again to see if he could find something – anything – which the killer could have been looking for.
He steeled himself for what was to come. He knew about the horrific wounds which his girlfriend had suffered, but he needed to try to stay detached, analytical, if he was to discover the crucial clue which might help him nail the murdering bitch responsible for her death.
It didn’t work. He managed to stay strong for the first two pages, which described the details of the victim and the two gunshot wounds she had sustained. He even held it together when he turned to the third page which showed close-up photographs of the gunshot wound to the chest. When he turned to the fourth page, however, the breath was literally sucked from him. There, laid bare, was a graphic colour photograph of Julia’s face and head, with a large piece of her skull detached, exposing a bloody mess of red and grey.
A dark veil began to descend as his lungs were seized by an invisible iron fist. Yet, somehow, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the obscene image, even as he felt his consciousness slipping away.
‘Hey Mark … what is it? Are you OK?’ The voice of his colleague and good friend, Alexis Miller, penetrated his state of paralysis.
Alex had joined the force on the very same day as Mark; they had hit it off immediately. She was smart, pretty – with her button nose, big brown eyes, and dimpled cheeks – and a great sounding-board when one was needed. She and Mark had often shared a beer or two when off duty and, on one occasion, indulged in a drunken kiss and fumble at her doorstep. It might have gone much further in due course but, when Mark met Julia, he just knew that she was ‘the one’ – and Alex knew it too. They remained good friends, and always watched each other’s backs, but the budding romance was never to be.
Mark snapped the report shut, looking up her. ‘I … uh … no, not really.’
Alex came over to his desk, placing her arm around his shoulders. ‘What’s the …’ Her voice tailed off as she read the title on the cover of the report on his desk.
‘Hey, you two … get a room will you?’ came an uninvited voice from behind them.
The intrusive comment had come from Chuck Bronsky, one of the older detectives who shared the office. Tact and diplomacy were not his strengths at the best of times … and this was definitely not the best of times.
‘Go fuck yourself, Chuck,’ hissed Alex, adding, ‘’cause you sure won’t find a woman to do it.’
Bronsky raised both hands in a defensive gesture. ‘Ok, ok …just trying to inject a bit of levity into this humorless joint.’ He shrugged, turning away to return to whatever he had been doing before his interjection.
Mark had barely registered the fractious exchange: the hideous image of Julia’s ruined face was burned into his brain and he could not shake it.
Alex placed her hand on top of the report, craning around Mark to make eye contact. ‘Mark, you have to stop torturing yourself like this; it’s doing you no good. Let the other guys handle the investigation.’
He could feel the tears welling up; he fought to hold them back. ‘How can I just stand back and do nothing? She was everything to me … she was …’ His voice tailed off.
‘I know,’ said Alex, placing a hand on the side of his cheek, ‘but you have to stand back from this. Quite apart from the way it’s tearing you apart, O’Reilly’ll kill you if he finds out you’re working on this.’
Mark felt physically sick; his stomach was churning, and he could feel rivulets of perspiration coursing down his temples and forehead, stinging his eyes. ‘I’m sorry Alex, I can’t think straight right now, and I don’t feel …’
‘Go home Mark. I’ll cover for you – I’ll tell O’Reilly you’ve come down with food poisoning or something.’
He looked her directly in the eyes. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He forced a small smile as he closed the report. ‘Thanks, Alex.’
She didn’t see him slip the autopsy report inside his jacket as he left the office.
Chapter 15
Juanita got the job.
Her first day had been uneventful, verging on tedious. There had been something of a backlog of regular filing to do, a pile of letters to be franked and sent for mailing, and a couple of boxes of documents to be shredded. Still, she could hardly have expected that a temp hired for just a week would be given interesting and challenging tasks. In any case, that was hardly the point of being there: she needed to find out where the murdered journalist had been working and, more importantly, what she had been working on.
It was now just twenty-five minutes before the end of her working day. Juanita had completed all the tasks she had been assigned, so she went over to the Managing Editor, Cynthia Newman. Cynthia was a pleasant, round-faced, bespectacled woman in her fifties, with an unruly shock of curly red hair – improbably red, to be honest, but it sort of suited her. Juanita had warmed to her immediately. At Juanita’s approach she looked up from her desk; a tense frown creasing her features. The expression was only fleeting, but it spoke of a woman under far greater stress than she normally showed. Within a second or so, though, her face resumed its usual friendly, welcoming manner.
‘Hi,’ she said, laying down her pen, ‘how’s it going? Any problems?’
‘No … no problems; I just came over to let you know I’ve finished the jobs you gave me.’
Cynthia’s eyebrows rose. ‘What … all of them?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, aren’t you a find then? I thought that stuff would keep you busy for all of today … and a fair chunk of tomorrow, too.’
Juanita smiled. ‘I like to keep busy.’
Cynthia nodded, appreciatively. Glancing at her watch, she said, ‘It’s probably not worth starting on anything else now, but if you come and see me first thing tomorrow—’
‘I don’t mind staying late if that helps.’
‘Wow, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard one of our temps say that.’
Juanita smiled. ‘If there’s more of the sort of stuff I’ve been doing
today, I’m happy to work as long as necessary to get on top of it, but …’
‘But what?’ enquired Cynthia, inclining her head.
‘I just wanted to say, that I can handle more … well … demanding tasks, if that would be helpful.’
The older woman’s face broke into a beaming smile. ‘It sure would, honey. You really are a find … most of the temps I’ve had in here just want to do the minimum they can get away with to collect their pay check.’
Juanita shrugged. ‘Just trying to help as much as possible, Mrs Newman.’
‘Oh, call me Cynthia.’ She paused for a few moments, looking thoughtful as she cupped her chin between thumb and forefinger. After some seconds she stood up.
‘Come with me,’ she said, beckoning.
She led Juanita to a desk just a few yards away. It was piled high with chaotically placed papers.
‘This desk was occupied by my secretary, Penny. She left in a bit of a hurry and, as you can see, didn’t exactly leave everything in good order. I haven’t yet had a chance to go through all this and find out how she’s left things.’
‘You want me to sort this lot out … find out what’s here and put it into some sort of order?’
‘If you think you can. I mean I’ve really no idea what she’s left outstanding.’
‘I’ll give it my best shot,’ said Juanita, smiling. ‘Anything I don’t understand, I can always come and ask.’
‘Great. Well, that’s your task for tomorrow then.’
‘And, as you’re short of a secretary right now, maybe I can help with some of the other things she used to do. I’m pretty good on spreadsheets and word processing, and maybe I can take phone calls for you?’
Cynthia pursed her lips and exhaled a small sigh of relief. ‘Amazing. Gema … you’re on.’
Juanita was momentarily thrown by this remark – until she remembered that Gema was her latest false identity. It was getting kind of hard to keep up.
‘I’ll make a start on this stuff right now and let you know where I’ve got to tomorrow.’