by Scott Sigler
Bryan sat on Pookie’s right, slumped in his chair, a withdrawn ghost of himself. They’d been in this same spot just over twenty-four hours ago. One day later and their world had changed.
Once again, Chief Zou sat behind her immaculate desk. And once again, in the center of that blank desk, sat a manila folder. Nothing else except for the three-panel picture frame showing her family.
Assistant Chief Sean Robertson stood on the chief’s immediate left, almost like he was waiting for her to get up and go to the bathroom so he could sit down and take over. He also held a manila folder.
To the right of Zou’s desk, Captain Jesse Sharrow sat in a chair against the wall. He, too, had a matching folder in his lap. Whatever the hell was going on, it was clear that Zou, Robertson and Sharrow were all using the same playbook. Sharrow sat ramrod straight. He definitely had something on his mind, something that didn’t make him happy. Even his usually immaculate blues looked a tad rumpled.
Chief Zou opened her folder. Pookie saw what was inside — his case report on the Oscar Woody killing from that morning. She flipped through it.
She looked up at Pookie. “It says here you two were just driving by?”
Pookie nodded. “Yes, Chief. We were just driving by. Bryan … ah … saw the blanket, so we stopped.”
She stared at him. Stared long enough for it to become uncomfortable.
“So you just stopped,” she said. “For what looked like a homeless man in an alley? I didn’t know you were such a humanitarian, Chang.”
“I smelled it,” Bryan said quietly.
Goddamit, Bryan, shut the fuck up.
Zou turned her stare on Bryan. “You smelled what, Clauser?”
Bryan rubbed his eyes. “I … I smelled something, something that—”
“Urine, Chief,” Pookie said. He flashed Byran a glance. Bryan blinked, then leaned back in his chair — he got the message: let Pookie do the talking. Pookie didn’t want Bryan to say another word. If the guy slipped up and mentioned his dreams, he’d be screwed.
“We were at the Paul Maloney scene,” Pookie said. “We smelled urine there. When Bryan smelled urine at Meacham Place, and we saw what looked like a prone guy under a blanket, we just stopped. Call it cop instincts.”
Zou again looked at the case report.
She probably just wanted to get everyone on the same page. Oscar was a kid, his murder particularly brutal, and that meant the media was all over it. The Chronicle had already done a special edition — Oscar’s high-school photo stared out from newspaper racks all over the city. Oscar’s body had been pissed on, as had Maloney’s. If word of that connection ever got out, the case would turn into a media circus.
Of course, Pookie was banking on that connection. He and Bryan had been first on the scene for Oscar. Zou would connect the two cases and give them both to her best team — which meant Polyester Rich could go fuck himself with a cactus.
Chief Zou kept reading. She seemed to be staring at the crime-scene photos for far too long.
Pookie glanced at Robertson. Robertson had the report open to the same page. He was staring intently at it, his gray glasses halfway down his nose.
And Sharrow as well, the report open on his lap, his bushy-white-eyebrowed eyes focused on the blood symbol.
The way they all stared, so intently … it was spooky.
Chief Zou looked up. “Who have you talked to so far?”
“We canvassed the area,” Pookie said. “We couldn’t find anyone who saw or heard anything that night. We talked to Kyle Souller, principal at Galileo High, where Oscar attended. We tried to speak with Oscar’s parents, but they’re too upset to talk about it yet.”
Zou’s eyes flicked to the framed picture of her twin girls. “I can only imagine how they must feel right now.”
Pookie nodded. “They were pretty shook up. We also talked to Alex Panos, who runs BoyCo, the gang Oscar was in, and to Alex’s mother, Susan. We still need to talk to Issac Moses and Jay Parlar, the other gang members.”
Zou pulled three photos from the folder and set them side by side in a neat row above the report. Pookie had included the photos from Black Mr. Burns’s gang database. Once again he looked at the details, memorizing the faces: Jay Parlar with his scraggly red goatee; Issac Moses with his crooked nose and blue eyes; the blond hair and arrogant sneer of Alex Panos.
Zou nodded, looked at the report. “And these symbols, Inspector Chang? What have you found about those?”
Sharrow and Robertson both looked up from their reports. They stared at him. Pookie felt like a lab rat with three scientists waiting to see how he would react to new stimuli.
“Uh, we searched the RISS database,” he said. “It came up with nothing.”
“Nothing?” Zou said. “Nothing at all?”
“Nothing local, I mean.”
She nodded. Three heads again bent to look at the report, at the symbols.
He’d been joking about cop instincts earlier, but they were real; they suddenly lit up like his own version of Spidey-Sense. There had been information about those symbols in the system, but that information had been deleted — Zou, Robertson and Sharrow probably had the access privileges to do just that.
At this point, it was best not to let on that Black Mr. Burns was still digging deeper. But John’s name was already in the report — if Pookie didn’t at least mention John’s work, Zou might call him to the office next.
“There was one hit,” Pookie said. “A serial killer from New York, but that case has been closed for twenty years. We showed the symbol around the neighborhood where Oscar was killed — no one has seen it before. John Smith in the Gang Task Force said it wasn’t associated with any local gangs. In short, we couldn’t find shit.”
Zou leaned back, ever so slightly. Had that information made her relax? Just a little?
“You didn’t find anything else?”
Pookie shook his head.
Zou looked at Bryan. “How about you, Clauser? Anything to add?”
Bryan also shook his head. She stared at him until the air again became uncomfortable, but Bryan didn’t look away. Finally, Zou looked back down to the report.
Pookie waited. Zou was meticulous, sure, but she had a flair for quiet drama.
Assistant Chief Robertson also waited, his folder open in his hands, his eyes fixed on Zou.
Pookie glanced at Sharrow. The white-haired captain had closed his folder. He held it in both hands. The folder trembled slightly. He still sat ramrod straight, but his eyes were closed.
What the hell was going on?
Zou looked up. “The urine,” she said. “Similar m.o. to Paul Maloney — murder, mutilated body, the perps urinated on the corpse. Inspector Chang, do you think the two are connected?”
Pookie nodded. “I’d bet my balls on it, Chief. It can’t be a copycat because the news didn’t report that someone gave Father Paul a golden shower.”
Her eyebrows rose.
“Sorry,” Pookie said. “I mean, urinated on the deceased, of course.”
She shut the folder and looked up.
“I agree,” she said. “The two cases are related. Give all your information and contacts to Rich Verde and Bobby Pigeon.”
No, he had not just heard that correctly. “Chief,” Pookie said, “shouldn’t they be giving their info on Maloney to us?”
“Did I stutter? You guys are off the case.”
“But, Chief, we were the first on the scene!”
Robertson closed his folder with an audible snap. “Just give Verde your information, Pookie.”
Not only were they not getting the Maloney gig, but now Verde would have a case that Bryan was somehow connected to? Verde was an asshole, sure, but he was good at the job. He would dig and dig hard. If he found info that could tie Bryan to this … Pookie could not let the man get this case.
“Chief,” Pookie said. “Oscar Woody is ours. We found him, we were first on the scene. Birdman just came over from Vice. He’s seen
, what, four murder cases?”
Captain Sharrow stood. He held his folder at his side. His hands had stopped shaking. “Knock it off, Chang,” he said. “Pigeon is good. And Verde was busting murderers when you were still in diapers.”
“But, Cap, we want this case!”
Chief Zou straightened the report, making sure it paralleled the desk’s edges. “Inspector Chang, that’s enough.”
“But, Chief, you—”
“Done,” she said, slicing her hand sideways like a knife through air. “Chang, this time you are going to listen and obey. This isn’t going to be another Blake Johansson situation.”
She was bringing that up? “And by Blake Johansson situation, you mean the dirty cop that I uncovered, right?”
“You were told to leave that case alone,” Zou said. “You were told that Internal Affairs would handle it, but you wouldn’t listen. John Smith almost died as a result and his career has never been the same.” She glanced at Bryan. “Blake Johansson did die.”
Pookie ground his teeth, trying to keep quiet. Internal Affairs had seemed to be part of Johansson’s payoff chain — they ignored Johansson just as Johansson ignored the gangs who paid him off. Pookie had gone for the bust — it wasn’t his fault that Johansson decided to shoot it out instead of going quietly.
At least that’s what Pookie told himself every time he saw Black Mr. Burns stuck behind a desk instead of out chasing perps.
“Inspector Chang, this time, you will listen,” Zou said. “My orders are not open to debate. Go see Verde and Pigeon, give them everything you have. If that principal you talked to finds anything, he is to call them, not you.”
She turned her stare on Bryan. “And you, Clauser, let me hear it — let me hear you understand that you guys are off this case.”
Bryan stared back at her. Other than the fact that he looked like he might vomit at any moment, his eyes showed nothing.
“We’re off the case,” he said. “Our ears work just fine.”
Zou nodded once. “Good day, gentlemen.”
Bryan walked out of the office. Pookie stood to follow him. This didn’t make sense. Even if Verde and the Birdman ran both cases, Pookie and Bryan should have been assigned to support them, not booted to the curb altogether. Did Zou know something Pookie did not? Maybe something about Bryan’s dreams?
The thought made him stop and turn. He looked back, but Captain Sharrow, Chief Zou and Assistant Chief Sean Robertson didn’t notice him doing it. They had their folders open again. All three of them were staring at the symbols.
Robin Runs the Show
Three more bodies had come in that afternoon. Two looked like natural causes, while the other one was clearly from a gunshot wound to the temple. The morgue seemed busier than ever. Even with Metz gone, his policies and training were still in place and things ran fairly smooth.
Robin finished up one of the natural causes cases, freeing her up to finally check the STR results from Oscar Woody’s killer. She walked from the autopsy room to her desk in the admin area. She sighed and looked over at her pictures of Emma. It was almost seven o’clock. Robin wanted to get out of there, get back to her apartment, crawl into bed and have Emma curl up beside her. Sure, the dog would shed all over the bedspread and probably fart something horrible, but when it came to nap time, Emma was Little Miss Lights-Out. Emma couldn’t sleep on the empty side, of course, she had to lie right on top of Robin. But that was the point, really. Robin didn’t have a man in her bed anymore — Emma’s weight, her breathing (hell, even the farts in a weird way), they were comforting beyond anything Robin knew.
She turned to her computer and called up the STR results. Yes, confirmed — the saliva sample found on Oscar Woody came from a human, as did the material taken from the hair follicles. Due to the signs of mauling there had to be a large animal involved, but there was no longer any question that a human killer had left DNA on Oscar’s body.
The computer system had automatically submitted the STR test results to the CODIS system. That check didn’t produce a match; whoever the killer was, his DNA had never been entered into the FBI’s database.
But there was something strange about the sample. In addition to a genetic fingerprint, the test also indicated a person’s sex by detecting a gene known as AMEL. AMEL is on the male and female sex chromosomes, but it isn’t quite the same on both. Men have two sex chromosomes — X and Y — while women have two Xs. The STR test didn’t show the actual chromosome, only another test known as a karyotype could do that, but it did show spikes indicating the presence and relative number of AMEL genes on each sex chromosome. If the test only showed a spike for AMEL-X, the subject was female. If it showed two equal spikes, one for AMEL-X and one for AMEL-Y, that meant the subject was male.
This sample, however, showed AMEL-X and AMEL-Y spikes that were not equal. The X spike was twice as high as the Y spike. That suggested the presence of a second X, which would mean the killer could have three sex chromosomes.
It wasn’t a contaminated sample — she had run enough parallel tests to know, for certain, that the material came from just one killer. Robin felt a rush of excitement: either the killer was XXY, or he had an even more rare condition she had yet to identify.
She heard people approaching. She looked up to see Rich Verde and Bobby Pigeon walking toward her desk. Bobby smiled at her. Rich just scowled. Good God, but Rich was a horrible dresser.
“Hudson,” Verde said. “I’m here to talk to you about the Oscar Woody case.”
She felt a deep twinge of disappointment. “I thought this case belonged to Bryan Clauser and Pookie Chang.”
Verde shook his head. “Case is mine. Covered in piss, right?”
There was a question you didn’t hear every day. She nodded.
“Mine,” Verde said. “Normally Metz would handle a case like this.”
“Well, I assure you I’m perfectly qualified to—”
“Whatever,” Rich said. “This case will run a little different than maybe you’re used to. Special deal. Call the chief right now. She’s expecting to hear from you.”
Robin’s eyebrows rose. “Call Chief Zou?”
“That’s right,” Verde said. “And make it snappy, I got shit to do.”
Metz frequently talked to Chief Zou. Robin was the temporary head of the department, so it made sense she’d be the one to answer any questions Zou might have. Robin picked up her phone, then started scanning a list tacked to her cubicle wall to find the chief’s extension.
Verde reached across her and dialed the phone for her.
“There you go,” he said.
She glared at him as she waited for someone to answer. Like he couldn’t have just told her the extension number?
“Chief Zou’s office.”
“This is Robin Hudson from the ME department. I was told—”
“One moment, Doctor Hudson, the chief is expecting your call.”
Chief Zou came on the line, her words as terse and clipped on the phone as they were in person. “Doctor Hudson?”
“Yes.”
“Rich Verde is in charge of the Oscar Woody case,” Zou said. “This case is of particular interest to me. I don’t want anything getting out to the media, understand?”
The Medical Examiner’s Office and the police department worked closely together, but Zou was not Robin’s boss. Robin tried to think of how Metz would handle the same situation. The Silver Eagle would be polite, but firm. “Chief Zou, you know we don’t release anything to the media.”
“And yet the media somehow gets information from many places,” Zou said. “Doctor Hudson, I’m not insinuating anything, I’m asking. Please limit any access to information on Oscar Woody. Move his body to the private examination room, the one Doctor Metz uses. Access to any electronic records are for Inspector Verde’s eyes only. The mayor said you can call his office if you have any questions.”
Call the mayor? Well, that was a hint and a half. If you want the top spot, play b
all. But was Chief Zou really asking for anything unusual? Maybe there was a good reason for her secrecy. Covered in piss, Verde had said. Robin again thought of Paul Maloney. Maybe her initial hunch was right and the two cases were related — a potential serial killer could be out there. Any leaked information might compromise finding that killer.
“Yes, Chief,” Robin said. “I’ll use the private room and keep things quiet.”
“Thank you for your time, Doctor.”
Chief Zou hung up. A strange call. It nagged at Robin, the way Zou seemed to be dangling the potential chief medical examiner position as a reward for playing along. Or … was it more of a threat of punishment, that not playing along would cost Robin the job?
Robin turned to Verde. A told you so sneer twisted his mouth to the left.
“You know, Rich, she’s not asking for anything crazy, so you don’t have to be such a sanctimonious dick about this.”
“When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it,” Verde said. “Just do your job, file the report, and don’t go blabbing about this case with your girlfriends at the watercooler. Come on, Bobby, let’s go.”
Verde turned to walk away. Bobby looked at him with confusion, the same confusion, probably, that Robin felt.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I found some really interesting things that will help in the investigation. Don’t you want to know what they are?”
“It was an animal attack,” Verde said. “I’ll read your report.”
“It wasn’t just an animal attack.”
He sighed. “Okay, fine, there were people involved who used the animal to kill the kid. Whatever. The death was due to mauling, and that’s that. Sammy Berzon’s preliminary crime-scene report said there was dog fur all over the body.”
“It wasn’t dog fur.” Robin said. “The hair samples were human.”
Verde’s eyes narrowed. He seemed almost … bothered by the information.
“It’s some kind of animal,” he said. “Your results are wrong.”