Faye Kellerman - Decker 06 - Grievous Sin

by Grievous Sin(lit)

  'Who are we looking for?' Decker asked.

  Annie flipped off the monitor's light switch. 'A big-boned female. Around five-ten according to the length of the femurs. The anthropologist said the marks on the long bones reflected quite a bit of pull, meaning weight. She was probably heavy as well as tall. And she was probably black.'

  'Black?' Marge asked.

  'Yep.' Annie sat down. 'Betcha the anthropologist says the same thing. Of course, he'd be basing his finding on other things. I'm basing mine on the teeth. Different ethnic groups generally conform to certain tooth alignments - not foolproof, but after a while you detect patterns. I'd be even more sure-footed if I had the front part of the face.' She rocked her wrist back and forth. 'But with a little imagination, I can extrapolate. I bet I'd find a bignathic configuration that can be typical of blacks.'

  'Black,' Marge said. 'Nobody we've talked to mentioned that Marie was friendly with a black.' She paused. 'Then again, you've got to ask the right questions.'

  Annie stood. 'This confirms what I suspected once I found the discrepancy between the finger and ring size. And it complicates the case, doesn't it?' Marge said, 'Just one more factor.' 'You've been great, Annie,' Decker said. 'We'll need your report to file into evidence.'

  'I'll write up my notes from my dictaphone and fax them to you. Is tomorrow afternoon okay?'

  'Fine,' Marge said.

  'You two want to take in a couple of drinks before calling it an evening?' Annie asked.

  'I've got to get home,' Decker said.

  'Ah, the new baby,' Annie said. 'Have fun doing the burp, Pete.'

  Decker laughed and stood. 'I'll walk you to your car.'

  'I'll bag and label evidence,' Marge said. 'Meet you in the squadroom. We can play post mortem there.'

  'Got it.'

  Decker opened the door to the lab for Hennon, both of them walking down the empty basement corridor, footsteps reverberating against the tiles. At this time of the evening, the upstairs was still busy, but the lab personnel had gone home. They took the elevator up to the first floor, Decker steering Annie clear of the activity in the lobby by going through the back entrance adjacent to booking. The evening was balmy, set under a charcoal canopy spangled with stars. It was the kind of night that invited a romantic stroll with arms wrapped around one another's waists. Decker wished he was home with Rina.

  He and Annie ambled through the parking lot in silence, both of them enjoying the air. Annie got out the keys to her four-by-four, but hesitated before unlocking the door.

  'What kind of post mortem are you talking about?'

  Decker smiled. 'She means we're going to swap our daily interviews.'

  'You don't interrogate your suspects together?'

  'No, generally we do our interviews separately.'

  'How come they always work in twosomes on TV?'

  'They don't have the budgetary constraints we do.'

  'And they couldn't do good-cop, bad-cop with only one person.'

  'There you go.'

  'Do you and Marge have a good-cop, bad-cop routine?'

  'Mostly it's just cop.' Decker held out his hand. 'Thanks again for your help.'

  Annie took it and squeezed. 'Pleasure is mine, big guy.'

  'Have fun with your wastrel.'

  'Thanks.' Annie unlocked the car. 'With a little bit of luck, I'll learn to be dissolute.'

  When Decker returned to the detectives' squadroom, Marge had checked the X-rays into the evidence room and was filling out paperwork at her desk. During daylight hours, the place looked anything but high-tech, but with all the activity going on, there wasn't much time or space to take in visuals. In the dim loneliness of night, the squadroom was downright depressing. The summer stuffiness certainly didn't bring any excess cheer, the hot air an unwelcome guest that refused to depart despite open windows and fans.

  Marge said, 'I made a pot of fresh decaf. You can pour.'

  'Usual?'

  'Two teaspoons of sugar instead of one tonight. I'm living dangerously.'

  Decker smiled and filled Marge's seashell mug with java, lacing it with whitener and sugar. He poured a black cup for himself, took the two mugs over to Marge's desk and pulled up a seat.

  'Thanks.' Marge sipped her coffee. 'Here's the evidence check receipt. Keep the original in your file since you're the primary investigator. You know, we should make a copy of the victim's teeth so we can have them in our files for immediate access.'

  'Good idea."

  'I'll do that tomorrow.' Marge crossed a T, then signed her name. 'Your John Hancock?'

  Decker scanned the report, then signed his name at the bottom. 'You want to go first?'

  'Nah, you can go ahead.'

  Decker drank half his coffee, then recapped his conversation with Dr Meecham. Marge related her talk with Tandy Roberts. By the time, they were both done, Decker's brain was a swirling cesspool of unrelated facts. Time to strain the garbage.

  'Menopause at forty.' Marge shook her head. 'Man, that would be hard for me to handle. And I'm not exactly the maternal type. But to have all my options taken away from me so suddenly..."

  Decker was quiet.

  'What it is, Pete?'

  'What you just said, Marge. Marie had her options taken away.' Decker paused. 'That's what happened to Rina. Her choice was taken away. And she has healthy children. I could imagine what this would do to a woman who didn't have children. Of course all this motivation crap still isn't going to tell us who was burned in Marie's car.'

  'You know, Pete, maybe we should get hold of a division that has one of those computer-enhancement programs... send them the dimensions of the skull and the facts we know from the body. Ask the programmer artist to put a face on top of the bones.'

  'That would take two, three weeks minimum. But we can use all the help we can get. Morrison would probably cough up expenses for a kidnapped baby. Last I heard, Toronto has a top-notch division for that kind of thing. Maybe there's a place closer to home.'

  'I'll look into it.'

  'In the meantime, let's go back to some old-fashioned brainstorming. Question number one.'

  'Who's our body?' Marge said. 'Like I said before, neither Tandy nor Paula mentioned Marie having a black friend. Should I go back and ask them about it?'

  'You think Paula's straight up?'

  'She seems on the level... unlike Sondra-Tandy Roberts.'

  Decker said. 'Call Paula. See if she knows anyone. As far as Miss Autoconversationalist goes, the less Tandy knows the better. You know, Marge, ever since Annie brought up the ring not fitting, I've been assuming that the body wasn't Marie's.'

  'Me too.'

  'So I've been thinking, who could it be? Irrespective of race, my guess is that this was someone from the hospital. Or at least someone who was in the hospital last night.'

  'Why's that?' Marge asked.

  'The blood in Marie's parking space.'

  'You're saying if it wasn't Marie's, it had to have belonged to the body. Lab should be able to check that out.'

  'Yeah, we'll call them in the morning.'

  Marge said, 'So how are you playing the scene out?'

  'Couple ways.' Decker finished his coffee. 'Scene number one, Marie freaked out and took the baby. Then a big black female saw her making off with the kid and tried to stop her. Marie killed her and covered her tracks by burning the body in her car... hoping we'd think it was her.'

  'And then we'd stop looking for her.'

  'Yeah.'

  'Pretty nafve, don't you think? She was a health professional. She must know we have ways of identifying bodies.'

  'The body was torched, the facial bones were smashed. Maybe she thought she destroyed enough and we wouldn't be able to ID the body.'

  'She left in the back teeth.'

  'It's hard to destroy them unless you yank the jaw out of the mouth. Marie was panicked. She had murdered this woman, had kidnapped a baby. She did whatever she could to cover her tracks. It just wasn't enough. So...
" Decker paused to collect his thoughts. 'So what I want to do is go back through our hospital notes and see who was working at the hospital last night.'

  'I thought we had them all accounted for.'

  'Maybe there was a slip-up.'

  Marge said, 'Maybe this black woman was a floater and not on the hospital's payroll.'

  'Yeah, Darlene mentioned floaters and temporaries. Hollander's going over the register from the night shift. We'll talk to him and tell him to look for someone black.'

  'Pete, you might want to ask Cindy about this woman. She was around the nursery more than any of us.'

  Decker groaned inwardly. 'I'm trying to wean her away from police work.' He made a face. 'It isn't working.'

  'Of course it isn't going to work. She sees her father all excited about his cases. Kids pick up on what you do, not what you say.'

  'Thank you for that psychological gem, Detective Dunn.'

  'Don't get cranky, Pete. It shows your age. Talk to Cindy.'

  'I will, don't worry.' Decker exhaled and wished he still smoked. 'I'll do anything to find the baby.'

  Marge finished her coffee. 'You want to know what I'm thinking? If Marie isn't dead, she and the baby must be somewhere. I'm betting they're out camping, probably right under our noses.'

  'Camping?'

  'Tandy said Marie was an experienced camper. Which means she could afford to lay low for a long time, long enough until we give up our search.'

  'Marie was a camper?'

  'According to Tandy, she used to go to the woods and talk to God.' Marge shook her head. 'Getting weirder by the moment.'

  'Not so weird,' Decker said. 'My father-in-law talks to God, too. He claims God answers him back. What's weird is, I actually believe him.'

  Marge stared at her partner. Decker smiled. 'What I don't buy is Marie as a camper.'

  'Why not?'

  'I went through Bellson's house and items meticulously, Marge. Nothing, but nothing gave me any indication that this woman was athletic, let alone a survivalist camper.'

  Marge said, 'She could have dashed home and taken her equipment.'

  'There were no empty spaces found in any of her closets - places where she'd store tents, sleeping bags, stow cooking implements. Camping equipment takes up room. Just ask Rina. All my gear's been moved to the garage. And there was no gear in Marie's storage bin over her parking space. Only books by old radicals.'

  'Yeah, I found a copy of a speech by a Jerry Rubin. Didn't he play guitar for the Greatful Dead.'

  'That's Jerry Garcia.' Decker tapped his foot. 'Margie, I went through Marie's clothing piece by piece. No rugged pairs of jeans, no hiking boots, no jackets, no heavy socks. Do you want to know what I found? A lot of potpourri and pink cutie-lacey things that have never been worn. I found nothing, but nothing to suggest that this woman could possibly be an outdoors person.'

  Neither of them spoke for a moment.

  Decker finally said, 'Given Tandy's history of talking to herself, I'm more likely to believe that Tandy was the one who camped and talked to God - or to herself. So you have to ask yourself, why would Tandy say that Marie was a camper?'

  Marge thought a moment, then said, 'Maybe she wants us to believe that Marie is hiding in the mountains.'

  Decker said, 'You want to hear something interesting? When you interviewed Tandy Roberts, the news agencies hadn't reported the manhunt. Remember, I asked the networks specifically to hold off announcing it until the eleven o'clock news because I didn't want spectators ruining our grid search, especially in daylight hours.'

  Marge thought a moment, then said, 'Yeah, you're right.'

  Decker took their coffee mugs over to the urn and refilled their cups. He handed the seashell back to Marge. 'So my question is this. Why would Tandy Roberts want us to believe that Marie was still in the mountains, if she couldn't have known we were searching there.'

  'A news leak.'

  'Possibly, but more likely...'

  'She knows something,' Marge said.

  'She knows something,' Decker said. 'She's trying to keep us buried in Angeles Crest when maybe we should start looking elsewhere.'

  'In what capacity do you think she's involved?'

  'Maybe only tangentially. Marie ran to her in a panic, Tandy's an old friend. Maybe she's stashed Marie and the baby somewhere.'

  'Or possibly the two of them were in it together,' Marge said. 'Remember Tandy lost a baby when she was young, too.'

  Decker nodded. 'Two women still grieving over their loss. Each one working up the other.'

  'Tandy claims she hasn't seem Marie in about a year.'

  'We can start by checking out Tandy's phone calls,' Decker said. 'See if there has been contact between her and Bellson.'

  'Should I keep a tail on her?'

  'Someone should. She hasn't bolted but as we get closer, she may suspect someone's sniffing her butt. Also, let's check to see if she was where she said she was last night.'

  'First thing tomorrow, I'll call up Tujunga Memorial.' Marge stared at her tepid coffee. A white skin had formed on top. She swirled the cup and watched it make designs. 'You said you had a couple of ways to play this out. What's your other idea?'

  'Lots of variation on this theme, but here goes. The black woman saw someone taking the baby. She interfered and was killed. Marie walked in on the action and the third party - the one who killed the black woman - forced Marie at gunpoint to take the baby and help dispose of the body. For Marie to kidnap a baby and murder and dispose of a body seems like a lot of work for one person.'

  'So in this scenario, you're saying Marie was just as much a victim as the body we found.'

  'Possibly.' Decker stood up and began fishing around in his pants pockets.

  'What is it?'

  'I took...' Decker found the bag he was looking for. He remembered changing his clothes and was glad he was smart enough to check his pockets before putting the suit in the cleaner's pile. 'I took some leaf samples.' He unbagged them, then sniffed them, backing away from the odor. He handed it to Marge. 'What does your nose say?'

  Marge smelled the foliage. 'Gasoline.'

  'Yeah. I couldn't smell anything out there but smoke. But here... know what this means?'

  'Car didn't accidentally fall over the cliff.'

  'Yep. It was doused before it was pushed over but wasn't lit. Otherwise, I would have found scorched leaves.'

  'Also, it's pretty hard to push a car over once it's on fire.'

  Decker broke into laughter. 'I knew there was a reason I kept you as my partner.' He hit his head. 'Anyone home? Anyway, someone was counting on impact to explode the car and get the fire started.'

  'Someone wasn't too bright. Not all cars explode.' Marge paused. 'Maybe the someone realized the car wasn't going to explode and threw a match at the car at the bottom of the ravine.'

  'Possibly.'

  'Pete, if this person killed the black woman, why wouldn't this person also kill Marie?'

  'Who said this person hasn't killed Marie?'

  Before killing the motor, Decker turned on the dome light of the Plymouth and made a to-do list for the next morning. After having written down all minutiae that came to mind, he finally allowed himself to turn off the work meter. Decompression was a hard state of mind.

  He shut the engine, got out of the car and walked out into perfumed darkness, the scent of citrus drifting through the air. Crickets were doing an abstract choral number, a nightingale, nested in a twenty-foot sycamore, was singing arias from The Magic Flute. The house was as still as stone when he opened the door. It took a few moments before he realized that a cot had been set up in the living room. A nightgowned figure rotated on cushions too small for its girth, then sat up. In the moonlight, Decker made out Nora, the baby-nurse. A few seconds later, Ginger's hulking shadow came into view. She recognized her boss, jumped on Decker's chest and licked his face.

  'How's it going, girl?' he whispered.

  The dog licked his face again, her
tail swinging like a feathered window-wiper.

  'Hello?' the nurse whispered.

  'It's just me, Nora,' Decker said softly. 'Sorry to wake you.'

  'That's okay, Sergeant.'

  'Is everyone asleep?'

  'We played taps 'bout ten o'clock. Your big girl was so