Down and Dirty

by Liliana Hart

  “I need a ride to the funeral home,” I said. “I’m running behind. I can get a deputy to drop me if you need to stay here.”

  “I’ll take you.” He grabbed his keys, but stopped just short of the door. “So what did you come away with just now?”

  Jack liked to ask my opinion on people. I didn’t like people in general, and I almost always preferred solitude over wasting my time with acquaintances who just liked to hear themselves talk instead of genuinely caring about who they were with, but it turned out my introvertedness made me a good observer and pretty accurate on the bullshit meter.

  “Something is going on with the wife,” I said. “I’m not sure what, but I don’t think it would hurt to dig a little deeper.”

  “That’ll be fun. Getting into the personal records of a Senator and his wife won’t throw up any red flags at all.”

  “I worry about the increase in your sarcasm level. I feel like I’ve become a bad influence.”

  “Only in the best ways possible,” he said, winking. “I can tell you right now if we request a warrant to start digging into the Bruces’ records that they’ll have us tied up in red tape for months and probably slap us with a lawsuit as well.”

  “What’s the point of having a friend in the FBI if he can’t help you get around all that red tape?”

  Jack rolled his eyes and his lips twitched. “Ben is my best man. It’s considered in bad taste to ask him to do something illegal before the wedding.”

  Ben Carver was one of Jack’s best friends, and he’d become a good friend of mine over the past months as well. I had no idea what exactly Ben did for the FBI. I know he was in charge of a lot of people and that he was brilliant with technology.

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind asking him,” I said, shrugging. “We have two day to shut this thing down before the wedding. I’m not above begging.”

  “Why, Doctor Graves. One would think you almost wanted to get married.”

  “It’d be a shame to spend your honeymoon sleeping on the couch.”

  “Tough words. If there wasn’t a department full of people looking in my windows right now I’d show you exactly what I can do on a couch.”

  He opened the door for me and smacked me on the behind playfully. “So what are you going to do about the Bruces?”

  “I’ll have Lewis run a cursory background check, nothing that’ll raise flags, and we’ll go from there. The Senator’s calendar is fairly well known. That’s one thing I can be thankful to the media for. Until then, maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Jack dropped me at the funeral home and gave me a quick kiss goodbye. I’d already texted Cal and let him know I was ready to roll, and he was supposed to meet me as soon as he could get free.

  I let myself into the side door and closed and locked it behind me. This side of the house was closed off to the general public because I never wanted to be in a situation where people questioned the security of their loved ones. That didn’t mean my security was infallible.

  “Jesus, Dad,” I gasped, my hand covering my racing heart. “You’ve got to stop doing that.”

  I got my phone out and started to dial Jack. My dad was a fugitive, even though no one knew it but me and Jack. And enough was enough. He kept popping in and out of my life, screwing things up just as I was starting to feel comfortable and make decisions that were completely mine—not decisions dictated by the circumstances my parents had put me in.

  “Don’t call him, honey. Just give me a couple of minutes. It’s important.”

  He looked tired. And worried. I guess being on the run wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. He was a handsome man. A little under six feet in height. His body was lanky and his complexion ruddy. I’d always wondered why I hadn’t inherited the beautiful color of his hair. It was like a deer pelt—a mix of reds and browns and golds that no salon could reproduce. Since I wasn’t actually his kid, those dreams of inheriting certain features from my parents had been wasted wishes. His eyes were hazel, but he habitually wore tortoise shell glasses so the color was hard to see.

  “Sorry, Dad. You can understand I’m a little pissed, considering you broke into our home and riffled through our things.”

  “Technically, yes. But I was riffling for things that belonged to me. There are flash drives missing out of that box, Jaye. I need them back and I need them back now.” He was tense and worried, and his color didn’t look all that great. “If those flash drives get into the wrong hands, everything I’ve done will have been for nothing. Your mother’s death will have been in vain.”

  I couldn’t trust him. He’d lied to me my entire life. But there was still that small part of me that wondered if he was telling the truth. If maybe all the wrongs he’d done had been for a greater right.

  We stared at each other in silence for several seconds. And then I said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Maybe you just need to look again.”

  His lips pursed together and he looked at me with disappointment—something a child never wants to see from their parent, no matter how old. “Maybe so.”

  There was a knock at the kitchen door and I jumped, annoyed at myself for being caught off guard twice in a matter of minutes. I didn’t have time to deal with my dad. Not with so many victims waiting.

  I turned and opened the door, letting Cal in, and by the time I turned back my dad was gone. I don’t know how he did it, but he was like a ghost, slipping in and out of my life with ease. He’d be back. I had something he wanted.

  “Woman, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I tried to smile and shook myself out of the stupor. “Sorry. I just got here myself. I’m about to put on a pot of coffee if you want some.”

  “There are two things I’ll never turn down in this life,” he said, grinning. “One of them is coffee.”

  I snorted out a laugh and went over to the coffeemaker, glad I had something to do to keep my hands busy so he didn’t see them shaking. Once the coffee was made I poured it into two mugs and then handed one to Cal. He liked his black, just like I did.

  “You don’t have any cake in the fridge, do you?”

  I narrowed my eyes and took a sip of my coffee. When I was stressed or busy I had the appetite of a college sorority girl hell bent on gaining those freshmen fifteen. I’d stopped at the bakery two days ago and bought a readymade birthday cake right out of the case.

  “You can have cake after the autopsies. No reason to waste a perfectly good cake if you end up being a weenie.”

  “I think I’m offended by that. I can hold my cake.”

  “But not your bourbon,” I said, hiding my smile in my coffee cup.

  “Ouch, Doc. You’ve grown more teeth over the years.”

  “Working in the ER made me tough.”

  “You certainly look different. It’s nice to see you without bags under your eyes and in something besides those ugly green scrubs.”

  “Thank you. I don’t know how I would’ve gone on without knowing that.”

  Cal’s smile was wide and he took his cup to the sink, running water in it. “I didn’t realize we were supposed to dress up for an autopsy,” he said, pointing to my clothes. “I like the purple. But that sweater isn’t going to be nearly so nice with brain matter all over it.”

  “A little extra brain matter never hurt anyone. I just need to make sure my skull saw is spitting in your direction so you get your fair share.”

  He laughed out loud, a big belly laugh that made me smile. “It’s good to see you, Jaye.”

  He squeezed my shoulder good-naturedly and I had to fight the urge to shrug it off. His touch was familiar, yet foreign, and it made me uncomfortable to remember the level of intimacy I’d shared with someone else. Jack’s touch was the only one I wanted. Cal must have picked up on my discomfort because he took a step back and put his hands in his pockets while he waited for me to make the next move.

  I went to the lab door and typed in the code and waited for t
he door to open.

  “Good Lord, what is that smell?” Cal asked.

  I saw him swallow a couple of times and take a step back.

  “It’s the embalming fluid. It permeates everything, so it settles during the time I’m not down there. It’ll dissipate once I turn the fans on.”

  “That’s inhumane. Nothing should smell like that.”

  “I know. Give me good old decomposition any day.”

  I turned the fans on and true to word, the smell disappeared. He followed me down to the basement. “I never pictured you coming back here,” he said, to fill the silence. “You were always adamant about getting the hell out of Bloody Mary and forging your own path.”

  “Yeah, well best laid plans and all that. I didn’t want to come back.”

  “I heard about your parents.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “Everyone’s heard about my parents. Was it the driving off a cliff in what appeared to be a double suicide that caught your attention, or the fact that they were using this funeral home to smuggle contraband inside the bodies and caskets they took in from deceased members of the military that were coming in from overseas?”

  Somewhere along the way, the shock had worn away and I’d come to peace with the kind of people my parents were. Jack had helped me heal. It was an ongoing process, but every day was better. The aches more bearable and the pain less soul crushing. Which was why it was all the more important to convince my dad to stay out of my life.

  Cal’s lips quirked. “It was certainly an attention getter. I’m surprised Hollywood hasn’t come calling wanting to tell the story.”

  “I’m still weighing my options. I want artistic control.”

  “Ha!,” he said. “Jack’s going to have his hands full with you.”

  “I certainly hope so. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

  I went to the freezer and stood inside the door, the frigid air chilling me to the bone in only moments. I grabbed the adult female and pulled her toward the table. Cal helped me transfer, and I gave him points for doing it without having to be asked.

  I still had to identify each set of remains—even though probability told me that it was more than likely Julia Connelli—and compare dental records, because the fire had made it impossible to do a visual identification.

  I suited up in my smock and apron and lab coat, fairly certain I’d protected all of my clothing, and I attached the recorder back to my lapel like I had the night before. I did a visual rundown of sex and age, also determining by the pelvic area that she’d given birth. And then I went over the body, pulling fibers and looking for distinguishing marks.

  “So marriage, huh?” Cal asked when the silence dragged on too long. He’d never been one of those people who was okay with comfortable silence. Which pretty much drove me crazy, because one of the things I loved most in life was the ability for everyone around me to shut up.

  I looked at Cal and arched a brow. “You seem surprised.”

  “You always seemed to be against marriage. I just wondered what changed your mind.”

  “No, that was you who was against marriage. I was just too busy with my career.”

  He grinned unapologetically. “Oh, right. I remember now. It was me.”

  I rolled my eyes and prepared the body for x-rays. “Here, put this on and stand over there,” I said, handing him the lead vest.

  “It’s just funny to meet the man you always talked about. I pictured him differently.”

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, distracted by the job I was doing instead of what Cal was saying. “How did you picture him?”

  I was starting to remember what our problems had been. He felt the need to fill the silence all the time and I felt the need to block him out to maintain the silence in my head that I needed to function.

  “I don’t know.” I could hear the shrug in his voice. “Uglier, for one.”

  My head snapped up at that. I thought he’d been kidding, but he was serious. “Uglier? What in the hell gave you the impression that Jack was ugly?”

  “Come on, why wouldn’t I think that? A dude is best friends with a girl his whole life and he doesn’t make a move? He’s either gay or ugly.”

  “I remember why we didn’t work out. It’s all coming back very clear.”

  He smiled again. “Because we would have driven each other crazy if we’d continued on as we were. Plus the whole fear of commitment thing.”

  I cleared away the x-ray materials and went back to the body, setting the spotlight lower and directly over the face. I wanted to look inside the mouth again.

  “Hand me that scraper on the tray, would you?” I asked, holding out my hand like I had in the ER, waiting for my orders to be answered. The cold metal handle went into my glove and I pried the mouth open a little wider.

  “Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that it’s good to see you happy. You weren’t, not really, working at the hospital and being away from your family. As much as you kept telling yourself that’s where you were supposed to be.”

  “Why have you turned into Dr. Phil in your old age? Are we going to have to hug soon and talk about our feelings?”

  “Who are you calling old? I take offense to that. I’m in my prime. And my knees hardly pop at all whenever I have to walk upstairs, and I can still sleep through the night without having to get up and go to the bathroom. That’s pretty good in my book.” He leaned over from the other side of the body so the top of our heads almost touched. “What are you looking for?”

  “I’m taking scrapings of this dental work so I can run some tests. But this is not American dental work. I can tell that just by looking. The materials are different. And also the level of decay on some of her back teeth is indicative of a place that might not have the same quality of medical care that we do here. At least thirty or forty years ago when she had these procedures done. ”

  “Russian?”

  “Could be. Let’s match up dental and make sure this is Julia Connelli.”

  I put up all the x-rays on the light board and then opened the manila envelope that contained her dental x-rays.

  “Well, that’s certainly strange,” I said, comparing the x-rays I’d taken to her medical files.

  “What’s that?” Cal asked.

  “It looks like she’s had a couple of procedures done,” I said, pointing to the scar tissue under her chin that showed up white on the x-ray film. “Liposuction under the chin. She’s had her cheekbones sculpted. See the scarring on the bone? A chin implant, rhinoplasty, and a breast augmentation. But there’s no mention of this work in her medicals. Nothing more than a bout with pneumonia she suffered almost ten years ago, and then the births of her children, which were both cesarean sections.”

  “Bring her over. Change her name and her looks. He wouldn’t want it to become public knowledge.”

  “Keeping a secret like that would be expensive. And back in those days he didn’t have that kind of money. But Anthony Connelli created the perfect wife for himself.”

  “There ain’t no such thing, Graves,” Cal said, shaking his head. “Stupid man.”

  “You’re going to have to get over this whole commitment issue you have. There are a lot of nice women out there who will put up with your bullshit. And you’re getting to that age where you’re going to need someone to feed you pudding and make sure your bowels are regular.”

  “I’ll make sure to add that to my Match.com profile. I’m sure the women will be lining up at the door. Is that why you’re marrying Jack? So you can have someone to take care of you in your old age? Don’t think I didn’t notice those two gray hairs on your head.”

  “I’m marrying Jack because I love him. And I don’t care about having someone to take care of me in my old age. I just want to grow old with him.”

  “At the risk of sounding mushy, I want you to know I really am happy for you. You’re good people, J.J. Graves. You’ve forged your own path and you’ve never looked back. That’s what people will remember. Not
where you came from.”

  A lump formed in my throat and I nodded because I wasn’t sure I could speak. I cleared my throat and broke eye contact, looking back at the x-rays on the light board.

  “Thanks for that, Cal. It means a lot. Really.” I sucked in a deep breath and held it for a few seconds. “The dental is a match,” I said, moving on so I didn’t break down and cry like a baby. “A confirmed match for Julia Connelli. No signs of abuse on the body. No fresh wounds. And there was smoke and burns in the airway.”

  “Accidental death.”

  “That’s what it looks like,” I said, biting my bottom lip.

  “That’s pretty much my thought too. That’s what it looks like, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Especially when one of them works for the DOD and the other is a Russian mail order bride. We just need to look harder.”

  The words had barely left his lips when I saw what might have been our first break. “What does that look like?” I asked, moving closer to the x-ray to get a better look.

  “I don’t know. Your head is in the way.”

  I moved back to let him see, pointing at the neck and wondering if I was just so tired I was manifesting things to get answers.

  “It looks like a pin hole,” he said. “I think.”

  “See how it tapers at the end once it enters the muscle?”

  “Kind of. Don’t laugh, but I think I need my reading glasses.” He pulled out a pair of wire-framed reading glasses from his front pocket and slipped them on, staring intently at the pin hole. “Okay, that’s better. I see it.”

  “That’s a syringe mark,” I said, the feeling of excitement starting to flow through me. “Jesus, I could’ve missed it on Cassandra Owens.”

  I ripped down Julia’s x-rays and stacked them quickly, shoving them in an envelope and putting them aside. And then I pulled out the file I’d started for Cassandra Owens and put all of her x-rays back up. It was a shot in the dark, but like Cal said, I didn’t believe in coincidences either.

  “Son of a bitch,” I murmured under my breath. “I missed it.”