by Zoe Sharp
In the muted darkness I heard his breath explode out, heard the dull crack as a couple of ribs let go on his left-hand side. Still, he managed to fling his arm back, catching me low in the stomach with a clenched hammer-fist. It was only the pain from his busted ribs that took all the force out of the blow but it hurt enough to warn me to be careful of this man. He’d had training and he didn’t give up easily.
I caught his flailing arm, hooked it up and back, starting to twist it into a lock. He countered by lurching sideways, despite the ribs, pivoted and kicked for my legs. I stamped on his ankle and booted him in the ribs again, eliciting an outraged squawk.
But just when I thought I might be winning fate threw a spanner in the works in the form of the fire extinguisher he’d used originally. By rolling him I’d inadvertently put it back within his reach. With a roar of pain and effort he grasped the metal cylinder, hoisted it overhead and hurled it straight at me like a medicine ball throw.
His aim was spoiled by his sudden inability to use his stomach muscles to their full potential. Even so, the cylinder weighed close to thirty-five pounds. It hit me low - across the chest rather than in the head as he’d no doubt intended - but hard enough to send me tumbling backwards.
I tucked and rolled, got my forearms up and mostly avoiding the damn thing landing directly on top of me. The extinguisher landed just below my sternum and toppled, skimming the side of my head as it went, rebounding off into the darkness.
Nevertheless, it knocked the wind out of me sufficiently to allow the intruder time to scramble to his feet and make a bolt for it. I heard him clatter away, gasping, while I took a vital couple of seconds to drag air into my spasmed diaphragm before I could follow.
Wary now of counterattack and with my head still ringing, I ran back through into the mortuary area taking great care at the doorway. I was slaloming between the empty stainless steel tables when I caught a peripheral glimpse of a figure sliding out of cover behind me. I crouched, had already started to turn when a voice cracked out:
“Hold it!”
And without needing to be told I knew the owner of that voice was either the best actor I’d ever come across, or he was holding a gun. There are not many people who can inject that kind of authority into their tone without firepower to back it up.
I froze, letting my hands come up and away from my sides to shoulder height. It was only then, as the red mist of combat dissipated like smoke, that I recognised the voice.
I let my hands drop back to my sides and turned around fully. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Marcus?”
He was indeed holding a gun, I saw, a big .45 calibre Colt 1911. It took him a moment to bring the muzzle up off target. He straightened out of a stance, relaxed his shoulders.
“I heard noise,” he snapped. “What happened?”
“We had an intruder,” I said, barely keeping hold of my temper. “But he’ll be long gone by now.”
“What was he after?”
I jerked my head back towards the ante room. “Come and see for yourself.”
Marcus let the Colt drop alongside his leg, his finger outside the trigger guard, and followed me through. We split at the doorway - me heading left, him right. He found the switch for the overhead lights without difficulty. They rows of fluorescent tubes threw long shadows over the stacked boxes. Their significance as all that remained of the dead was suddenly very apparent to me.
I glanced along each row as I passed - saw Marcus doing the same thing at the far end - but everything was undisturbed until we came to the one housing the newest arrivals. I reached the mess of spilled boxes first and squatted on my haunches to survey the worst of it.
“This your doing?” Marcus asked.
I looked up sharply to find him approaching. He was carrying the errant fire extinguisher in one hand.
“Not exactly,” I said, getting to my feet. “Although he threw it at me, if that’s what you mean?”
Marcus put the cylinder down. It landed with a solid metallic thump on the hard floor. He moved forwards, eyes on me intently. I almost stepped back in response to the anger I saw there, had to force myself not to flinch when he reached for me.
“Let’s see that.” It was an order, not a request.
His fingers were cool against my cheek as he nudged my face to the side, angling it to the light. He wiped his thumb across the corner of my eyebrow and I felt the rasp of dried blood I hadn’t realised was there.
“We should get that looked at,” he said.
I shook myself out of his grasp. “Later. It’s nothing,” I said, ignoring the radiating headache. “It was a glancing blow. If he’d caught me full on I’d still be unconscious.”
I’d once had my life saved by just such a fire extinguisher. I reckoned this made us even.
“Would you recognise him if you saw him again?”
“Probably,” I said. “Depends if he bruises easily, but I broke at least two of his ribs, lower left. That’s going to put a crimp in his day for a while.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed as if trying to work out how much flippancy to ignore. Then he released me and nodded. “Good job.”
“No, not really,” I said grumpily. “If I’d done a good job I’d have him zip-tied face down on the floor right now and we’d know exactly what he was after.”
Twenty-two
“Why go to the trouble of breaking in ‘ere to steal from the dead,” Dr Bertrand demanded, “When we all know that items of value lie unguarded in the streets? It makes no sense.”
She finished applying adhesive Steri-Strips to close the small cut to my eyebrow and stepped back with a nod of satisfaction at her own handiwork.
My smile of thanks went unacknowledged, so I asked, “Do we know which boxes were disturbed?”
Joe Marcus hesitated for a moment then said, “They targeted the people found close by where we pulled Santiago Rojas out of the jewellery store. The family in the car, the couple found outside the store, a man on the sidewalk, plus two more in an art gallery on the opposite side of the street.”
“What was taken?”
He sighed. “That we don’t know. It’s all handwritten notes made by the recovery teams. Only as the victims are processed is everything photographed, formally catalogued and transferred to the computer system. There isn’t time to do it in the field.”
“Then they should make time!” Dr Bertrand said firmly. “As it is, we ‘ave lost sources of valuable information. Without them, some of the identifications may be in doubt.”
She was clearly taking this as a personal affront. I knew from the dossier Mrs Hamilton had provided on the R&R staff that the doctor prided herself on her track record when it came to reconciling the dead.
“Alex, it’s close to a hundred degrees out there,” Marcus said, his voice reasonable. “The longer it takes for the bodies to be gotten back here and into cold storage, the harder time you’re gonna to have with ‘em.”
She gave a very Gallic shrug, stripped off her gloves and strode away across the deserted mortuary to replace the First Aid kit.
I hopped down from the steel post-mortem examination table where I’d been perched, and hoped it was a good few years before I found myself on one again.
As Dr Bertrand made her somewhat flouncy exit, Riley appeared with a stack of three archive boxes piled so tall in his arms he had to walk sideways to see where he was going. The muscles in his stringy biceps stood out starkly with the effort.
“That’s everything gathered up,” he said, dumping the boxes onto the table I’d just vacated. “He’d even ripped the inventory sheets off the outside of the boxes. Thorough bugger, wasn’t he?”
“Not as thorough as he would have liked to be,” I said. “Let’s hope he left us something behind.”
“Wallets and purses are gone,” Riley said cheerfully. Most you’ve got is some jewellery and personal items.”
“Is there a ruby engagement ring?” I asked. “It should have belonged to
the woman from outside the jewellery store.”
“Half a mo,” Riley said, unstacking the boxes and removing the lid of the bottom one. He rummaged around inside, moving bags of clothing and shoes until he came to a bunch of smaller clear plastic zip-lock bags. I saw earrings in one, a thin gold watch, and finally a ring.
“How’s that?” Riley handed it across. I looked through the plastic at the central stone. It was a beautiful deep clear red cut into a pointed oval and surrounded by smaller diamonds.
“I’m not an expert, but I’d guess that’s a marquise-cut ruby,” I said. “So if his memory was working right for that bit, we know this woman had just been into Rojas’s store. If they paid by credit card there’ll be an electronic trail with an ID at the end of it. Maybe we can trace her that way.”
Joe Marcus had been looking through the box of items taken from the male victim found nearby. The bagged jacket and shirt, I noticed, were covered in darkly dried blood that gave them a similar tone to the ruby.
“No wallet for him, either,” he said. He held another bag up for me to see. “Would you classify this as a fancy watch?”
I recognised the matte-black face and rubber strap. “I’ll say. That’s a Hublot, and they don’t come cheap - ten grand at least.”
Marcus frowned, unimpressed, and dropped the watch back into the box. “I’ll take your word on that,” he said. “Looks like we have a pair of tourists with more money than sense. Maybe somebody got wind of that and wanted what they had.”
“So why take their IDs and leave the valuables behind?”
Riley laughed. “Because they weren’t expecting to run into bloody Wonder Woman,” he said. “You really reckon you bust the guy’s ribs?”
“I heard them go.” I kept my eyes on Marcus’s face, wondering if he was going to mention the woman’s wallet first, or whether I was going to have to bring it up. The latter, it seemed. “This wasn’t the first attempt at taking the woman’s ID, was it?” I murmured. “The police commander - Peck - he tried it, too. If it wasn’t for it … falling out of his pocket when Lemon jumped up at him, it would have been in the hands of the police by now.”
Marcus regarded me with a bland expression, refusing to rise to the bait.
“I’ll contact him tomorrow and see if he remembers who she is. Meanwhile, Alex,” he called across to where Dr Bertrand was jotting down notes for the morning’s lists, “you better move these people up the priority lists. The woman especially.”
“She was first on my list for tomorrow morning in any case,” she agreed.
Marcus nodded, began to turn away when I stopped him with a question that should not have thrown him, given the circumstances.
“Does this kind of thing often - robberies from the dead?”
I saw the quick glance the three of them exchanged. It was Marcus who shook his head. “From our own morgue? Unheard of. And the curfews organised by the local police cut down on looting. Most people who break curfew are looking for missing family or pets.”
“So there haven’t been any recent cases?” I persisted.
“No.” Another exchange of brief looks, more uneasy this time. “What are you getting at, Charlie?” Marcus asked, his tone a little harsh.
“Just trying to work out if there’s a precedent,” I said mildly, recognising that now was the time to back off a little. “If it’s unusual then that makes it more significant, don’t you think?”
He rolled his shoulders but they remained stiff. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll discuss that with Commander Peck tomorrow.” He stepped back, gestured for all of us to head for the door. “Now let’s get some rest, people. One way or another, we’re gonna need it.”
It was only as he pulled the door to the mortuary shut behind us and twisted the key in the lock that I voiced my final point.
“One thing you worth bearing in mind for tomorrow,” I said. He paused, raised an eyebrow. “When you ask Commander Peck about this mystery woman, you might want to check if any of his ribs are broken …”
Twenty-three
I spent the following morning combing another shopping district with Hope and Lemon. We discovered and marked the location of a further four bodies. There were no more live finds.
The general feeling among the dig teams was that we’d now moved on to the recovery stage of the operation. They were matter-of-fact but subdued about it. Didn’t stop them running whenever they thought there might be a possibility, though. A triumph of hope over experience.
I was expecting to put in another long day so it was a surprise when I heard rotors sweep low overhead and recognised the R&R Bell circling as Riley picked his landing spot.
He put the helo down in the middle of a car park, one side of which had disappeared into a crater, and came jogging across. In the short time I’d known the laidback Aussie, I’d never seen him look in such a hurry.
“Hey Riley,” Hope called. “Where’s the fire?”
“G’day, ladies,” he called back with a grin. “How’s it going?”
“Depends on your point of view, I think,” I said. I nodded to the line of body bags. “If you’re heading back to base we’ve four passengers for you.”
“Better make that seven,” Riley said. “Joe Marcus wants you back at the morgue right away. And Hope - and her ladyship of course.”
“What for?”
He shrugged. “I’m just the oily rag, sweetheart, not the engine driver.”
Hope appeared by my shoulder with Lemon at her side. “So, what’s the rush?” she asked. “Lem’s on a roll.”
He shrugged. “All I know is, the boss said it was urgent. And when he speaks I don’t argue.”
The on-site dig team - mostly from New Zealand where they’d gained their experience during the 2011 Christchurch quake - helped us load the body bags into the Bell. Hope and I climbed aboard without speaking and Lemon jumped in, turned around twice and plonked herself down at Hope’s feet. She seemed unfazed by her proximity to so much dead meat.
It didn’t take long to get back to the army base. Nowhere takes long when you can take a crow-flies route and don’t ever meet traffic. But all the way there I tried to work out the reason for this abrupt summons.
Do they know why I’m really here? And if so, how did they find out? Or did they guess?
Perhaps my question about the frequency of thefts from the dead had struck too close to home. But with no sign of obvious forced entry to the morgue or the ante room, it was looking decidedly like either a pro at work or an inside job.
I half expected to find Joe Marcus waiting on the landing pad with my kitbag at his feet and an instruction not to bother getting out because I was on my way straight back to the airport.
But the only people waiting for us when we set down were the army stretcher teams - Riley must have radioed ahead. Between us we quickly offloaded our cargo.
It was Hope who looked about her, puzzled, and said, “Are you going to go find Joe? I want to know what’s worth dragging us off site in the middle of the day. He wants his bumps feeling for that.”
I agreed, even if I wasn’t going to volunteer to be the one to do it. I asked one of the stretcher bearers if they’d seen Joe Marcus and was told he was in the morgue with Dr Bertrand.
Hope pulled a face and said she’d take Lemon to the mess hall and see what they could scrounge between them.
“You’ll come and find me when you’re done with Joe?” she asked.
I assured her I would.
I found Marcus in the mortuary as predicted, together with Dr Bertrand and, to my surprise, the police commander, Peck. The two men were standing back from one of the post-mortem exam tables, watching Dr Bertrand peeling open the chest of a lean male cadaver. His face was a mess, crushed and misshapen, the features offset as if wearing a horror mask that had badly slipped.
It was damage I recognised.
“Ah, Charlie,” Marcus said when he caught sight of me, adding dryly, “You already met Commander Peck, I unde
rstand.”
“Yes sir,” I said, holding my hand out as I approached. Automatic good manners had Peck reaching to shake it. I gave it a few hearty pumps with a friendly smile on my face, watching him for signs of discomfort. He showed only bemusement at my enthusiastic greeting.
Damn. That’s that theory out the window.
Marcus gestured to the body on the slab. “This is the guy who - “
“Was found outside the jewellery store with the woman,” I finished for him. “Yes, I know.”
He raised an eyebrow.
It was Peck who demanded, “You know this man?”
“Not his identity, no. But I got a good look at him yesterday … when you were searching the bodies after they were brought out,” I said. “It’s not a state of face you forget in a hurry.”
Dr Bertrand glanced at the body with a frown, as if unable to work out what made it memorable. I guessed she’d seen a lot worse in her time.
“That is immaterial,” she said. She indicated the gaping chest cavity with a gore-spattered glove. “What I found ‘ere is of greater concern at present. See for yourself.”
The invitation was issued in an off-hand manner with just an underlying hint of smug. She clearly expected me not to spot whatever it was she was indicating. Then I would be compelled to ask and she would have the opportunity to sledgehammer home her superior knowledge.
I moved closer, leaned over the body, remembering to breathe shallowly through my mouth. It didn’t stop the taste of death from settling on my tongue but it was better than the alternative.
Looking down, I saw the rib cage had already been cracked open and the breastplate of sternum and ribs removed in one piece. The heart and other organs still nestled in place but I noticed a blackened torn mass at the bottom edge of the left lung. I peered closer, then glanced up and met Dr Bertrand’s quickly hidden look of surprise.
“Would you mind, doctor?” I asked politely, indicating the lower triangular flap of skin that she had folded back to hide the whole of the abdomen. With disapproval in every line, she lifted it for me to inspect. I saw what I was looking for almost at once, nodded and stepped back.