by Kathy Reichs
A picture of Harry with an Irish wolfhound and her current squeeze. One was named Bruce, the other Albert. I’d no idea who was who.
An Exercise After Forty newsletter.
Nothing from Katy. Good. No cancellation.
Unable to sit still, I raced up the stairs two at a time. Exercise after forty.
Returning to the bathroom mirror, I dabbed on mascara and blush.
As though Katy would notice.
More after-forty exercise down to the kitchen. A refill on coffee, then I rechecked Skype.
No change. 8:42 here. 5:12 there.
I rolled my chair sideways and plucked an issue of JFS from the shelf above the desk. Scanned the table of contents.
Crossover immunoelectrophoresis for discovery of blood proteins in soil. Confocal microscopy for examination of fired cartridges. STR melting curve analysis for genetic screening. Detection of meglumine and diatrizoate from bacillus spore samples.
Though scintillating topics, nothing held my attention.
Time check. Nine twenty. Still no Katy.
Easy, Brennan. Bagram Air Force Base is the safest location in Afghanistan.
So Katy had assured me. Ditto Pete.
I sipped my tepid coffee and stared at the unchanging screen. Willing my daughter to appear.
9:40.
10:05.
Stomach knotted, I thought about the Jane Doe in the MCME cooler.
Maybe the girl’s mother was drinking coffee as I was, trusting that her daughter was somewhere safe.
Easy.
Back to the journal.
No go.
For the millionth time I wondered about Slidell. I knew he’d go all Dirty Harry about a kid being killed on his patch. That he’d pursue every lead. But he had his priorities.
The disappearance of a hard-working single mother who was locally known forced the death of an unknown probable illegal and possible hooker onto the back burner.
On screen, the digits in the upper corner changed to 10:22.
She’s calling from a USO center, I told myself. Dozens lined up for the Internet. Troops talking to their wives, their husbands, their kids, their mothers. Lingering over good-byes.
Keep busy. Do your job.
I reduced Skype to the dock and entered a series of keystrokes.
In 2005, recognizing a need to address the dual problems of missing persons and unidentified remains, the National Institute of Justice held a giant meeting in Philadelphia called the Identifying the Missing Summit. Later, a deputy attorney general created the National Missing Persons Task Force and charged the U.S. Department of Justice with identifying and developing tools to solve missing-person and unidentified-decedent cases. The task force recommended the creation of a centralized data bank.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUs, resulted from that recommendation. NamUs is free, online, and available to everyone.
The NamUs home page appeared on my screen, with links to three databases: Missing Persons, Unidentified Persons, Unclaimed Persons. Hoping someone had reported my Jane Doe missing, I chose the first.
Search parameters appeared. I entered sex as female, race as white, age as adolescent. Leaving the category “ethnicity” blank, I filled in Date Last Known Alive, Age Last Known Alive, and State Last Known Alive. Then I hit search.
And got zero matches.
I changed the age descriptor to late teen/young adult.
Still no matches.
I entered Hispanic/Latino for ethnicity.
Nada.
Changed the age descriptor back to adolescent.
Nothing.
Disappointed but not surprised, I did the only thing I could. Taking information from my copy of the girl’s ME file, I entered her into the Unidentified Persons database. Physical, medical, and personal descriptors. Clothing. Accessories. A brief summary of the circumstances surrounding her discovery.
There was so little to enter. No scars. No tattoos or piercings. No dental work. No implants. No deformities.
Just a normal, healthy teenager. Dead.
10:40. Still no ring from Skype.
Head to the office and get on with the mummy bundles?
I decided to give Katy a few more minutes.
I logged in to the Doe Network, the International Center for Unidentified and Missing Persons.
Same result.
I was finishing up when my iPhone sounded.
“Yo. Doc.” Slidell was chewing on something.
“Yes.” Staring at a picture of Katy taken two summers back at the Outer Banks. Wind-tossed and caught by late-afternoon sun, her long blond hair shimmered like gold.
“Spent some time with the brain trust out on Old Pineville Road. These dipshits couldn’t find their own assholes if—”
“Did you learn anything useful?”
“You kiddin’ me? Checked out a party junk store, a U-store facility, a garden center looked like it specialized in mold, and a dozen other shitholes holding on by suction cups. Welding shop was my personal favorite. Chick at the desk must’ve spent a whole lotta time sucking fumes. Could’ve waltzed the corpse in with me and Dumbella wouldn’t have taken notice.”
“No one recognized the photo?” I’d sent Slidell a copy of my cooler Polaroid.
“No one knew shit.”
“Did you visit a convenience store called the Yum-Tum?”
“Yeah. That was a treat.”
“Did you ask about security tapes?”
“Camera’s broke because the owner’s broke. Fuckwit actually said that.”
“Did any other businesses have CCTV or security cameras? Maybe one that might have caught the road, maybe even the accident?”
“Same story everywhere. The tapes are reused every twenty-four hours.”
“What about the vehicle? Did you get a lab report back on the paint?”
“Oh, yeah. They put it right at the top of the priority list and sent the report over by limo.”
“Did you try body shops? Ask if anyone brought in a car with damage consistent with a pedestrian hit?”
“You been drinking a lot of coffee this morning?”
Ignoring that, I told Slidell about my NamUs and Doe Network searches.
“No surprise there. Larabee sent her through every system on the planet. I checked MP cases. No one’s reported a kid missing that fits her profile.”
“How far back did you go?”
“Far enough. Clearly she ain’t local.”
“She could be a runaway.”
For several beats no one said anything. I could hear muted traffic noises in the background. Slidell spoke first.
“The kid’s moving under the radar. Carrying no papers. No keys. Nothing. The odds we hang a name on her ain’t real good. What are ya gonna do?”
“We’ve still got to try.”
“Chief’s got my balls in a sling with this woman’s gone missing.”
“Double task, detective.”
Slidell made a noise, then disconnected.
11:02. So much for Skype.
I typed an e-mail to Katy. Sorry to miss you. Everything okay? Suggest another time. Love, Mom.
On to the dogs.
But instead of heading upstairs to get dressed, I got more coffee and returned to my desk.
What are ya gonna do?
I dialed the SBI Crime Lab in Raleigh. Asked for Josie Cromwell in the Forensic Biology and DNA section. After a short delay she picked up.
“Ms. Cromwell.”
“Hey, Josie. Tempe Brennan.”
“How you doing, girl?”
“Good. And you?”
“Can’t complain. Still know where all the bodies are buried?”
“A few. Are you busy up there?”
“Just sitting around, keeping my nails clean.”
We both laughed. It was a quote from a man she’d recently beaten out for a project manager spot.
“How’s it feel being boss?” I asked.
“Sadly, no. I’m calling to ask a favor.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’ve got a young girl, midteens, a hit-and-run victim. Struck from behind and left to die.”
“Lord in heaven.” I could see Josie shaking her head, short black dreads bobbing with the motion.
“I’m not sure how committed the lead detective is. He thinks she’s illegal, probably in the life.”
“Just another dead hooker.”
“We’ve got prints, but the kid’s not in any system. We can’t find an MP with her profile. We swabbed for DNA, of course.”
“Which is useless until you have a name so we know who to contact for comparison.”
“Exactly. But the pathologist found semen. We’re hoping that might lead somewhere.”
“I hear you. But the backlog here is freaking out those higher up the pay scale.”
“Any chance you can goose my girl up the queue?”
“I’ll do what I can. Which is probably not much.”
“Tim Larabee is submitting the samples.” I gave her the pertinent case information. “I’m in your debt.”
“You better believe it.”
Still, I didn’t log out to head to the lab.
I returned to my e-mail and opened the picture I’d scanned and sent to myself and Slidell the previous night. The girl lay in her body bag, pale and still.
I wondered how she’d looked in life, when her spirit still lived in her face, and her quirks and mannerisms made her unique. The squint of an eye, the tilt of a brow, the lopsided upturning of one lip.
I opened a file labeled MCME 580-13, and saved the image to it. Then I attached and e-mailed a copy to Allison Stallings, a crime reporter at the Charlotte Observer. A few years back, Stallings had followed a string of satanic killings I was working.
Actually, Stallings had stalked Slidell and me. But she’d reported the facts accurately and fairly. In the end, I’d liked her.
After waiting ten minutes, I dialed Stallings’s number.
“Who is she?” she said by way of greeting.
I repeated what I’d told Josie Cromwell, adding a few more specifics about time of death and the body recovery site.
“What do you want?”
“Can you run the picture and a short article? Might scare up a witness, or someone who knows her.”
“Hang on.”
I did. Far down the line, indecipherable snippets sounded like chatter from another galaxy. Stallings was back in less than five minutes.
“Sorry. My editor says not yet. If your kid’s still a Jane Doe a week from now, he’ll reconsider. But nothing front page.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.”
We traded good-byes and disconnected.
Okay. Dogs.
As I was pulling on jeans, a blouse, and ballet flats, my brain posted an image of Slidell talking disdainfully of wetbacks and hookers.
Was he right? Was she illegal?
What are ya gonna do?
Firing back downstairs, I e-mailed the girl’s photo to Luther Dew at ICE. Another long shot, but it couldn’t hurt.
I sat a moment, thinking. About Slidell and his missing single mom. About my phone conversation with Luther Dew.
And I realized the obvious.
For my Jane Doe to have a name, I’d have to take the initiative.
I added text to the girl’s photo and sent my work to the printer.
Flyers in hand, I set out.
THE ONLY CAR IN THE Yum-Tum’s lot was the grungy Ford Escort from the night before, probably Shannon King’s.
Grabbing a handful of flyers from the passenger seat, I got out and walked toward the door. A car rattled by behind me. Gravel crunched underfoot.
In daylight I could identify some of the neighbors. A tool and die company, an outfit with its lawns full of cast concrete, a screen printer’s shop, a crumbling sprawl that looked like an old Motel 6 converted to apartments.
No phone, no pool, no pets . . .
Thanks, Mr. Miller.
The Yum-Tum’s front window was blanketed with notices, some fresh, most yellowed and curling at the corners. I stopped to read a few through the grimy glass.
Missing cats and dogs, one parakeet. Good luck with that. An ad for a wet T-shirt contest at some bar probably long since belly-up. An author hawking her self-published book, Mind over Weight. Seriously? At Fat Cells R Us?
King was behind the counter, thumbing through a copy of OK! magazine. The clotted lids lifted when I jingled through the door.
“Hi, Shannon.”
“Hey.” Noncommittal.
“Wondered if I might post some of these?” I handed her a flyer.
She eyed the picture, read the few details I’d included about the accident, the victim, my contact information at the ME office, Slidell’s at the CMPD.
“Okay.” She hooked a thumb in the direction of the Motel 6. “Creepoids from the apartments might have seen something.”
She dug below the counter, produced a roll of tape with hairs curling from the sticky side.
“Put it in the window.”
“May I also hang one on the door?”
The dark brows puckered.
“You have my card. If the manager objects, tell him to call me,” I said.
“What the fuck. I’ll tell him the coroner insisted.” She placed the flyer to one side of the counter, facing out. “I’ll keep one here, you know, watch how people react. If they look, like, guilty or something.”
Great. I had a kid in a cooler and my daughter in a war zone. I didn’t need a bimbo junior investigator.
“That’s fine, Shannon. But just observe. Don’t engage anyone in conversation.”
“You think I’m a moron?”
“Of course not.”
I felt goth eyes on my back as I posted the notices and left.
The day was warming, the cloud cover starting to fragment. The sun’s brief appearances warmed my shoulders and hair.
After removing my jacket, I drove to the Motel 6.
The complex, called the Pines, consisted of a long, rectangular box that appeared to have little motivation to remain standing. Paint that had once covered the cinder-block walls now looked like irregular bloodred sores. Each of the ten units had a single curtained window and faded blue door.
Rooms to let fifty cents . . .
I guessed that tenants at the Pines were mostly short-term, either hoping to move up or dropping down hard.
A few battered cars waited on the strip of pavement fronting the rectangle, like swayback horses tied outside a saloon. I nosed mine into the herd and got out.
No one answered my knock at the first six units. I slipped flyers under the doors and moved on.
Numbers 7 and 8 were opened by dark-skinned women claiming no comprendo. Ditto when I posed my questions in Spanish. Eyes fearful, they took their flyers and quickly withdrew.
At unit 9, a bare-chested man cracked, then slammed the door before I could speak. At 10, a voice bellowed, “Get the fuck gone!”
I did.
Driving Old Pineville and the small network of arteries surrounding Rountree, I tacked the girl’s picture to trees, fences, and utility poles, to a barrier leading into woods where the Rountree pavement ended. I left her image at every business Slidell had visited. Most accepted my handiwork with skepticism. A few asked questions. The majority did not.
Discouraged, I worked my way along South Boulevard, then hit the three light-rail platforms closest to the spot where the girl had died.
I was wheep-wheeping my Mazda when my iPhone announced an incoming call.
“Temperance Brennan.” Sliding behind the wheel and clicking the belt with my free hand.
“Luther Dew.”
“How can I help you, Agent Dew?”
“I had hoped you would be in your office.” Reproachful?
“I’m on my way now.”
“I wonder if I might stop by, perhaps in half an hour?”
“I haven’t completed my analysis of the mummy bundles.”
As in, I haven’t started.
“Have you done radiography?”
“Yes.” I’d asked Joe Hawkins to X-ray the crap out of everything.
“I’m wondering if I might have the films to aid me in composing my report.”
“You’re welcome to take photographs, but our office must retain the originals.”
“That will be sufficient.”
“Do you know where the MCME facility is located?”
“Yes. Half an hour, then.”
Dead air.
And you have a nice day, too, Agent Dew.
As my palm smacked the gearshift, a warning growl rose from my gut.
Quick time check. Almost two. I’d catch a bite when Dew left. Maybe hop out for a burger and fries.
Who was I kidding? The chance of lunch was less probable than that of finding Birdie in an apron cooking dinner tonight.
Grab something at the Yum-Tum? I wasn’t that hungry. Never would be.
I popped in a Scott Joplin CD, cranked the volume, and tapped the wheel to the beat of the “Maple Leaf Rag.”
• • •
Twenty minutes and a Circle K stop later, I swung into the MCME lot. Mrs. Flowers buzzed me through, smiling as always.
I waited for her usual decorous briefing.
“You have no new phone messages. Dr. Larabee is out. No one else has requested time with you.” The “i” in time was three miles long.
“Thank you. Someone from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be here shortly. Special Agent Luther Dew.”
“The mummified dogs?” The penciled brows lifted a millimeter on the powdered forehead.
“Has Joe completed the X-rays?”
“He placed them in the small autopsy room.”
“Thanks. Please give me a heads-up before sending Dew back.”
“Of course.”
En route to my office, I glanced at the case board. Nothing new for me.
I was checking my inbox when the phone rang.
Great.
“Your special agent is here.” No tremble, no quivery breathing.
Point of information. Though as refined as any Daughter of Dixie, in the presence of the tall, dark, and handsome, Mrs. Flowers not only blushes, she goes all Marilyn breathless.
So. Dew wasn’t much to look at.