by J. A. Jance
“I don’t give a damn what people call you,” she said. “I’m going to call you gone. This is my case. What are you doing here?”
Ross Connors had sent in Special Homicide because of the possible connection between this victim and the five other cases we were already working. But the truth was, the body had been found in Kittitas County, and their homicide folks should have been primary. Until Detective Caldwell’s abrupt arrival, the local constabulary had been notable in their absence.
My initial instinct was to take offense at Detective Caldwell’s proprietary approach. I started to object but then thought better of it. I happened to remember how I used to feel back in the old days at Seattle PD when some arrogant piece of brass would deign to come down from on high and venture onto the fifth floor to tell me and the other lowly homicide cops how to do our jobs. Or the time when some twit of an FBI agent ended up being parachuted into the middle of one of my cases and took it upon himself to rub my nose in the concept that he was smart and I was stupid. Given all that, it made sense that Detective Caldwell might be territorial about her case. What I had to do was find a way to work with her.
“My boss, Attorney General Ross Connors, believes this case might be related to several other ones we’ve been working.”
“I don’t care who you are or where you’re from,” Detective Caldwell declared. “You’ve got no business horning in on my-”
“Play nice, you two,” Dr. Hopewell ordered. “I happen to be doing an autopsy here. How about if you cool it, Lucy? You can sort out all the jurisdictional wrangling later on. In the meantime, you need to know that our victim is female. Probably late twenties, early thirties. She’s had at least one child, and she died on or around November eighth.”
That caught my attention, and Detective Caldwell’s, too. “You can tell that from looking at this pile of bones?” Lucy Caldwell asked.
“I can tell that from looking at her watch,” Dr. Hopewell said, holding up the charred remains of a watch. “It was still on her wrist, and that’s the day it stopped running.”
Detective Caldwell nudged Bob Craft, the M.E.’s assistant, out of the way and bullied herself directly between me and the M.E. Even so, I managed to step around the detective’s stolid body long enough to take a closer look at the damaged watch.
Getting older is an interesting process. My eyesight isn’t what it used to be. I’m annoyed at times when, if I don’t want to resort to reading glasses, I have to hold menus as far away as my arms will reach. That’s the only way to make them readable. In this case, however, that peculiarity served me in good stead. It allowed me to see that although the crystal covering was broken and the strap had been burned away, the numbers across the bottom, the ones showing the date, were still clearly visible.
My first impression was that this was a reasonably expensive watch that might very well be traceable. The same thing could also be true of the ring, which had already been taken into evidence. Before I could say anything to that effect, however, Lucinda Caldwell produced an evidence bag of her own.
“I’ll take that,” she said. “Put it in here.”
And Dr. Hopewell did. By then the body was pretty much put back together except for some bits that had probably been carried off by marauding carnivores. Those pieces would most likely never be found.
Dr. Hopewell stepped back from the examining table, snapped off her gloves, and nodded to her assistant. “You can switch off the camera, Mr. Craft,” she said. As he hurried to do her bidding, she turned to Detective Caldwell and added, “I’ll have my diener make copies of the tape.”
“Diener” happens to be a highfalutin name for plain old ordinary morgue assistant. It annoyed me that the M.E. found it necessary to play that kind of cop-talk one-upmanship. I prefer using ordinary English to law enforcement jargon.
“Please give Ms. Whitman your e-mail information,” Hopewell said. “That way we can send you each a copy of my final report.”
Looking up, I noticed for the first time that an overhead camera had silently recorded all the proceedings. That was a new one to me. I wasn’t sure I wanted to live in a world where autopsies were routinely recorded in HD color and then sent out over the Internet. How long would it be before some ghoulish entrepreneur set up an Autopsies-R-Us Web site and started letting viewers log on at will? It would probably mean an end to the macabre black humor comments cops and M.E.s have long used as a coping mechanism to see their way through the routine, mind-numbing horror of human dissections.
“You’ll get her dental information entered into the Missing Person database?” I asked.
Dr. Hopewell nodded. “Once we have the X rays, Mr. Craft will see to that as well.”
With Detective Caldwell leading the way, we started down the hallway toward the lobby. It depressed me to think that the receptionist in the outer office would be in charge of distribution. It occurred to me that Detective Caldwell and I would both probably end up waiting for that e-mail for a very long time, probably about as long as…well, as long as Detective Caldwell had waited for Connie Whitman’s call to let her know the M.E. had returned to her office. I had an idea that Ms. Whitman’s receptionist’s passive-aggressive behavior wouldn’t be limited to her gatekeeping responsibilities. I also doubted she would favor one law enforcement entity over any other.
Detective Caldwell must have arrived at the same conclusion. She didn’t say a word to me until after we had stopped off at Connie’s desk and given her our e-mail information. Once we were outside, however, it was a different story.
While we had been involved with the autopsy, the coming storm had blown over the Cascades and was making its presence known. Clear skies had been replaced by lowering clouds. It was cold as hell and spitting a combination of snow and sleet. None of that did anything to cool Detective Lucinda Caldwell’s temper.
“So,” she said, turning on me, “I suppose since you work for the attorney general, you think you’re some kind of big deal?”
I had already figured out that when genes were being passed out, Detective Caldwell had missed out entirely on having a sense of humor. In our kind of work, however, that can leave you at a distinct disadvantage.
“I’m no kind of big deal,” I replied earnestly. “I actually work for S.H.I.T.”
I deliberately didn’t spell it out, and Detective Caldwell’s resulting confusion was a delight to see. She hadn’t been paying attention before and she was clearly unfamiliar with the bureaucratic faux pas that had resulted from calling our unit the Special Homicide Investigation Team. And the way she rose to the bait was gratifying. It wasn’t easy to keep a straight face, but I managed.
“I’ll have you know,” she said, “I won’t be spoken to that way. I want the name of your immediate supervisor.”
That was almost too good. Hilarious, even. “That would be Harry I. Ball,” I said in all seriousness. “Would you like his number?”
She flushed with anger. “Go to hell,” she said, and stalked away.
I hurried after her. “That’s Harry Ignatius Ball,” I told her. “He’s the commander of the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team’s second unit. We’re based in Bellevue, and we’re investigating a series of homicides that are similar to this one, deaths that may or may not be related.”
Detective Caldwell may not have had a sense of humor, but she was listening. It finally dawned on her that there might be something more to what I was saying-that I wasn’t just giving her a hard time, although I have to confess that I had enjoyed that part of our conversation immensely.
She stopped and turned back to face me. “What homicides?” she demanded.
Detective Caldwell had me there. This was a simple question that I didn’t much want to answer. I felt like a politician who thinks he can get away with saying something in one part of the country without having it go over like a pregnant pole-vaulter everywhere else. The cases in question had come from several different jurisdictions, and Ross Connors ha
d been trying to keep our involvement under the media radar. I understood that. By keeping us out of it, we left the locals to take most of the media heat. Come to think of it, a little heat would have been welcome right about then.
“How about we go by your office and discuss it.”
“You’re not going anywhere near my office,” she returned.
My Mercedes was parked right there in the front row. “How about if we go sit in my car, then?” I suggested. “Let’s at least get in out of the cold.”
I clicked open the door to let her in, and as soon as we settled inside, I knew that was a tactical blunder on my part.
“Since when does an employee of the state go cruising around in a Mercedes-Benz?”
When he started S.H.I.T., Ross Connors had made an executive decision that the organization would dispense with company cars. Having lived through Seattle PD’s brief and poorly thought-out romance with K-cars back in the eighties, I was more than happy to be able to use my own wheels. Keeping dutiful track of the mileage and turning in the resulting expense reports on time can be a pain, but it certainly beats the alternative. I’ll choose riding in my used Mercedes over being stuck in a brand-new Crown Victoria any day of the week.
“Forget about the car,” I said. “Let’s talk about cases.”
“Yes, let’s,” she said. “Which cases?”
And so I told her. Most of it, anyway, but not all the telling details. I didn’t know this woman and I didn’t really trust her to keep things quiet. What if she went running off at the mouth to some local newspaper reporter, or, even worse, to some visiting newsie from Seattle? So I made no mention of the victims’ missing teeth in the five previous cases. That was an official holdback in our investigation and I decided to keep it that way. I settled, instead, for focusing on the tarps that had been used to wrap the various bodies and on the fact that the manufacturer tags on those had all been systematically removed in what appeared to be a very similar fashion.
Despite Detective Caldwell’s previous display of attitude, she now appeared to be paying close attention. “I was there when our CSI tech found that piece of tarp,” she said. “And I was there when he put it into the evidence log. We both noticed that missing tag. What I want to know is how you found out about it.”
I didn’t know for sure how that had happened, but I had my suspicions.
“Ross Connors is a very smart man,” I said. “I would imagine that a discreet inquiry has gone out to CSI units all over Washington State and beyond asking for information on any incidents in which blue construction tarps or parts thereof were found at crime scenes.”
That statement was followed by a brief silence. I figured Detective Caldwell was about to give me another blast of temper. Instead she issued a resigned sigh. “All right, then,” she said, reaching for the door handle. “I’ve still got what’s left of the watch. I need to get it into the evidence log along with the engagement ring and the toe ring.”
“What toe ring?” I asked.
“It was in the boot,” she said. “A snakeskin cowboy boot that didn’t quite burn.”
“One boot but not two?”
“Only one,” Detective Caldwell said. “Let’s go. How about if you follow me back to the department. I’ll give you a look at what else we have. Who knows? Maybe you’ll come up with an idea or two.”
Her grudging acceptance wasn’t exactly a heartfelt apology, but it was as close to one as I was going to get.
“Great,” I said, turning on the ignition. “Lead the way.”
As far as Joanna was concerned, sending Margie Savage to rescue Guy Machett from the sand was well worth the price of admission. He had been ripped before. He arrived at the crime scene in a state of high dudgeon and without Margie Savage, who had pulled him out and then gone on her way. Considering the M.E.’s state of mind, that was probably a good thing.
“That woman’s a nutcase,” he complained as he opened the cargo door and hauled out a bag of equipment. “She absolutely floored it. She yanked me out of the sand like it was some kind of grudge match. It’s a wonder I don’t have whiplash, and look at what she did to my bumper.”
Machett was right. The minivan’s front bumper had been mangled beyond all recognition. What was left of it was rubbing up against the right front tire and would most likely have to be removed before the vehicle could be driven back to town.
“No doubt she thought you were in a hurry,” Joanna said. Just beyond Guy Machett and outside his vision, Ernie Carpenter favored Joanna with a wink and a very small grin.
“Now where the hell’s this damn body?” Machett continued.
“Out there,” she said, pointing. “Dave Hollicker laid down a trail of click-together pavers to make it easier to walk out to the body while preserving the crime scene as much as possible.”
Machett gave Dave’s plastic path a disparaging look. “You expect me to run a gurney across that?”
As a matter of fact I do, Joanna thought, but she was done. She’d had enough of Guy Machett’s temper tantrums for one day, and she didn’t need any more.
“You do whatever you need to do,” she said. “I’m sure you and Dave will be able to work it out. In the meantime, Detective Carpenter, how about if you give me a ride back out to my vehicle. I’ll leave the rest of you to it.”
“That guy’s no Doc Winfield,” Ernie said, once they had climbed into the Yukon and driven out of earshot.
The understated elegance in Ernie’s comment was enough to make Joanna smile. “No, he’s not,” she agreed.
“And he’s not going to last,” Ernie added.
That unequivocal statement was enough to make Joanna sit up and take notice. Maybe something was going on that she hadn’t heard about.
“What makes you say that?” she asked.
“Because he’s a balloon full of hot air and somebody needs to pop it-somebody who’s got his twenty years in and doesn’t have anything to lose.”
Joanna knew Ernie wanted to be the one doing the popping, but he was now one of the grand old men of her department. Having already lost the services of Frank Montoya and the good counsel of Dr. George Winfield, she couldn’t afford to be without Ernie’s time and experience.
“Ignore him,” she said. “I need you around far more than I need Machett to be taken down a peg.”
When they arrived back at the gate, Natalie Wilson’s dog pound vehicle was gone and Miller was as well. A second Crown Victoria was parked next to Joanna’s. That Crown Vic, which had once been driven primarily by Frank Montoya, had now been passed down to her three-man homicide team. Detective Jaime Carbajal was inside it, talking on the phone. When Joanna approached the vehicle, he rolled down the window and waved a piece of paper.
“The search warrant?” she asked.
He nodded. “Be right with you.” When he stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut a few moments later, the thunderous appearance on his face told Joanna something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
He let out a long breath. It sounded like air being released from an overloaded tire. “That was Debra Highsmith,” he said. “Luis got in another fight today. He’s being suspended. She’s of the opinion that whatever’s wrong with Luis is all my fault, and she wanted me to come get him. I told her I can’t. Delcia’s going instead.”
Luis Andrade was Jaime’s nephew, the son of Marcella Andrade, Jaime’s ne’er-do-well sister, a sometime prostitute who had abandoned her progeny the previous summer. Despite having a son of their own, Jaime and his wife had gone to court and petitioned for custody, which had been granted. At the time taking their nephew in seemed like a no-brainer. Luis had come across as a good, self-motivated kid who had looked after his mother more than she had looked after him. At first Luis had convinced everyone, including himself, that his mother’s disappearance was temporary. As the months went by and the loss of his mother seemed more and more permanent, he had started getting into trouble. His grades
had fallen. He’d lost interest in sports. And Joanna knew that this was the third time in as many weeks that he’d been in trouble at school for fighting.
As for Debra Highsmith, the high school principal? Joanna had done a few rounds with the woman herself. Two years earlier, one of the high school counselors had suggested that Joanna, as sheriff of Cochise County, be invited to speak to the students at a career day assembly. Joanna had been pleased to accept until she’d been told that due to the school’s zero-tolerance weapons policy, she would have to check her weapons at the door. She had complied that one time, but since then, in the aftermath of a rash of school shooting fatalities around the country, that rule had been quietly rescinded. Zero tolerance of weapons no longer applied to those carried by trained police officers. The last time Joanna had addressed a school audience, she had done so in her uniform, and no mention had been made of the fact that she’d been armed with both a Taser and a firearm.
“Is Luis all right?” Joanna asked.
“He’s not all right,” Jaime said. “He’s a long way from all right. Marcella has wrecked everything she ever touched. Why should her son be any different?”
“Anything I can do to help?”
Jaime shook his head. “Ernie and I will execute this warrant,” he said. “At least it’ll give me something to think about besides going home and trying to knock some sense into Luis’s head.”
“Don’t do that,” Joanna said. “He’s been through a lot. He’ll come around eventually.”
“I hope so,” Jaime said, but he didn’t sound convinced.
Joanna was tempted to hang around while they searched for clues in Lester Attwood’s Airstream. That sounded far more interesting than going back to her office and facing down a snarl of administrative nitty-gritty. Unfortunately, without Frank Montoya there to handle some of those issues, she had to focus more and more of her energy on day-to-day departmental issues. She knew that if she ever fell behind, she’d never catch up.
“Okay,” she said. “Good luck. I’ll head back to the office and leave you and Ernie to it.”