Jayne and Steelie - 01 - Freezing (3 page)

‘This'll be the first one. We'll have to follow protocol to the letter, Steelie.'

‘I know the rules. Unknown or suspicious circumstances only.' She indicated a manila folder on the counter. ‘I've got the Cullen file right here. I'll check it out.'

The lights suddenly dimmed and the lab computer behind them turned off, then restarted itself.

‘Shit. Brownout,' they said simultaneously.

‘We've got to get a generator, Jayne.'

‘I know. They say it's going to be a long, hot summer.'

‘It's LA. It's always a long, hot summer,' Steelie dead-panned. ‘You said our budget's strapped?'

Jayne pushed off the counter. ‘We'd have to raise the cash separately unless I'm reading the charity rules incorrectly. Maybe you can have a look also.'

When Carol announced Scott Houston on Line 1 later, Jayne answered the phone at her desk before she took her eyes off the sentence she was reading, which made her sound distracted.

‘Scott. How are you?'

‘Good, but you sound tired. We get you up too early this morning?'

‘Very funny. What's up?'

‘Well, when was the last time you ate?'

‘What are you, my mother? I'm not
that
tired.'

‘Actually, I was trying to ask you to lunch.'

‘Oh.' Jayne looked at her watch but couldn't take anything in. ‘Is it lunchtime already?'

‘Is that a ladylike way of saying, “No, thanks”?'

‘Only a more gentlemanly invitation would get you a ladylike response.' Jayne was focusing now.

‘Oh ho! I'll send round an embossed card with gold edging next time.'

‘Yeah, I'd like to see the words “In-N-Out Burger” in calligraphy.'

‘I can do better than that. Cal Plaza.'

‘Downtown?'

‘Why not? It's only ten minutes from your shop.'

‘I know. I mean, Cal Plaza's great but you moved to LA, like, a week ago. I'm surprised you've even heard of it.'

‘Hey, I get out,' he protested.

She wondered with whom.

He spoke into her silence. ‘Is that a yes?'

‘Yeah.'

‘OK, I'll be by around noon.'

‘With Eric?'

‘Nope, Eric will be eating with the Critters at the site.'

‘They're still there, then?'

‘You fishing, Jayne?'

‘No. I'm not asking you to divulge—'

‘Relax! I'll tell you all about it at lunch.'

When Jayne returned to the lab, Steelie was just hitting the
Print
key on the computer. Jayne sat on a neighboring stool. ‘Scott's going to bring me up to speed on the BP case.'

‘Cool. When?'

‘Noon.'

‘A lunch date,' Steelie chirped.

‘No one used that word.'

‘Wait, “lunch” or “date”?'

Jayne gave her a quelling look.

Steelie relented. ‘I've got something more interesting than Agent Houston right here.' She whipped the paper out of the printer tray and handed it to Jayne.

It was the ACB. It looked serious and official:

‘That looks good,' Jayne said. ‘What were Cullen's circs in the end?'

‘The cops logged him in as unknown. He had asked for a few days off work, didn't return, car found at John Wayne Airport. I think he went to do the same thing as in 'ninety-two but with something more reliable than a handgun. Pills, maybe.'

‘Go on.'

‘He flies up to Alaska, to see the ex.'

‘What ex?'

‘It's in your interview transcript: the girlfriend who left him in 'ninety-one and the reason I think he tried this number.' Steelie tapped the X-ray image of the bullet.

‘OK.'

‘He tootles up there, says goodbye or what-have-you, takes his pills, and suddenly he's Alaska's problem.'

‘Could be.'

‘Well, whatever happened to him, if he's been found and they've done a craniotomy – or even if an Anthro pulled the maxillae to X-ray the teeth – they would've been clued into the old bullet. Even if he's alive and has amnesia, this X-ray is key. The fact that the police didn't know he had a bullet in his head when they did his misper report warrants the ACB.'

‘No argument from me. You have the checklist for the protocol?'

‘Right here.'

‘OK, let's sign it so you can get this sent out.'

As they finished up, they heard Carol talking to someone at reception.

‘That'll be your lunch,' Steelie commented.

‘If it is, he's early.'

The two of them walked to the front of the building. Scott was leaning on Carol's counter. Their receptionist was finishing a sentence with, ‘. . . afford it on my salary.'

Steelie interrupted in a warning tone. ‘Don't try to tempt Carol away with your government wages, Houston.'

He stepped back from the counter with his hands raised, palms out. ‘I would never do that to the Agency. You should know that about me.'

‘Yes,' Carol began. ‘Agent Houston and I—'

‘Please call me Scott.'

‘Very well. Scott and I were just comparing the V-six and the V-eight when used in the four-wheel-drive Chevrolet Suburban.'

He looked at Jayne and Steelie. ‘You guys knew that Carol rode shotgun when her mom drove the Alaska Highway just after it opened in the forties?'

‘In a wood-panel Suburban,' Carol added with pride.

Scott leaned toward her again. ‘I look forward to continuing our discussion another time.'

Jayne thought their receptionist was on the verge of patting her hair demurely, so she propelled Scott out the front door and into the heat of the day.

THREE

T
he mist of California Plaza's fountains kept its amphitheater of granite steps cool even when the Santa Ana winds were blowing hot over Los Angeles. Every riser supported a person's back and every flat surface was a perch for buttocks and take-out sushi. Scott and Jayne had opted for hot dogs from a deli and they sat at the top step with their backs to Angel's Flight, the funicular that used to carry people up and down Bunker Hill for 25 cents. All talking had been deferred in favor of eating, so there was just the hum of others' conversation, the occasional outburst of distant laughter, and the unpredictable
ha-sisssss-fwap
of the fountains' geyser-like water jets falling back to the granite floor far below them.

Jayne popped the last bit of ketchup-drenched bun into her mouth and mumbled, ‘Now,
that
was a good idea.'

Scott murmured agreement as he wiped his mouth and held a hand out for her paper hot dog boat. Stacking it with his, he stood up and walked to a trashcan.

Jayne started to relax in the sun, admiring the openness of the plaza, until she noticed how this position on the steps, which Scott had subtly chosen, was in the only section not covered by close CCTV. Most of the cameras were mounted on the buildings clear across the way, focused on the entryways of boutiques and cell phone stores. She looked around for Scott and found him striding back, scanning the perimeter of the amphitheater.

When he was next to her again, she said, ‘All right, give me the skinny on the body parts and tell me why we had to come to the best spot in Downtown to not get overheard.'

‘Worked that out, eh?'

‘Spill.'

Scott leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and lowered his voice. ‘OK, the Bureau's directed us to move the freeway body parts over to the LA County coroner's office, where you know they're going to the bottom of their list—'

‘Wait. How come they'll go to the coroner? I thought that once the FBI has a case, that's it.'

‘Well, the boys in Virginia don't want another bunch of body parts to deal with, especially when those parts don't include a head. Not without the locals at least trying to ID them first. We get to keep the investigation into the vehicle because that could go interstate but we've been directed to move the body parts to Mission Road ASAP.'

Jayne immediately thought of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. ‘Can't you at least check the fingerprints through AFIS? Fingers were present on both hands.'

Scott seemed to glance over his shoulder. ‘I climbed up to the body parts and had a look at the cuts. They're precise. All at anatomical locations to make dismemberment easier. We know these parts were dislodged accidentally due to the drunk rear-ending the van but whoever's been carrying them around in a freezer is a pro. I don't think he'd be sloppy enough to leave us fingertips if he thought they could ID the vic through a database every cop accesses daily.'

‘I noticed the precision of the cuts, too,' Jayne said thoughtfully. ‘You wouldn't try AFIS anyway?'

‘You know that fingerprint matching only works when the victim's fingerprints are already on the system for another reason, like a criminal record, right? I would try it but the Bureau would be on me like a fly on shit if I started accessing AFIS for a case I've been told isn't the Bureau's. So AFIS has to be initiated by the coroner when
he
gets the case.'

‘Which will be when the bottom of their list makes its way to the top.'

‘Exactly. But I think your agency can help.'

She looked at him and waited. They were sitting so close that she could see hazel flecks in the green of his irises. The proximity was seriously testing her long-held resolve to remain platonic with the most attractive man she'd ever met until she could figure out how to make herself ‘whole' and thus available to him.

He was standing up. ‘Let's go over here.'

Curious, Jayne followed him across to the metal railing that overlooked Bunker Hill, glancing down the grassy slope at its homeless habitués lying on the lawn in clusters of two and three, making her think of a Manet scene. She'd never stood at this exposed railing without having a breeze whistle in her ears, so she leaned toward Scott to hear him better, bumping into him, for only an instant, but his shoulder left a warm memory on hers.

‘My theory is that those body parts have been held a long time, maybe years. They seemed to be freezer-burnt, not just frozen, so I'm betting there aren't any active investigations into those victims as missing persons. That's if there were any in the first place. I think that if those vics have family looking for them, they'll either have been to your agency, or they will be.'

‘You want us to check our database?' Jayne asked. ‘That's no problem. Just give us the autopsy or anthro report when it's ready.'

‘I was thinking that maybe you could do an anthropology exam yourself and then check it against your files.'

Jayne looked back at him in surprise. ‘But the coroner's going to want to do an autopsy. You can't precede that with anthro. And Steelie and I don't work for LA County.'

‘What if you did an external, non-invasive sort of . . . preliminary exam?'

‘Wait a minute, Scott. What is this?' When he looked away, she continued, ‘You know, ever since Eric said that solving this case had become your Holy Grail, I've been trying to work out why you never mentioned it to me. We must've talked tons of times while—'

‘I couldn't.'

She exclaimed. ‘I
do
know the meaning of sub judice, you know. I wouldn't compromise a case. But, whatever.'

‘No, Jayne, I meant I literally could not tell you. After certain . . . things happened with the case, Eric and I decided our phones weren't safe. We communicated in person or by private messaging between our BlackBerrys. Plus, we had to fly under the radar so our boss couldn't see the number of hours we were putting in on leads he considered dead ends. There were only two other agents in the office we could trust with what we were doing and I didn't talk to anyone by phone on this. Not anyone, OK?'

She took in his expression: earnest, concerned. She wanted to ask him what those ‘things' were that ‘happened' but that could wait. ‘OK, so tell me about the situation here. Do you have the same constraints you had in Georgia?'

‘Theoretically? No. New office, new supervisor. But if the body parts we saw this morning are related to the case in Georgia, we need to know ASAP. Has a Georgia serial killer gone mobile? Does California need to be on alert? Are there any clues on the Ventura Freeway that will help us solve the cases in Georgia? To get leads to answer those questions, we need ID's for the body parts.'

‘It sounds like you want us to do this external exam just because you don't want to wait for the coroner's office. Or is there something more?'

‘Listen, superficially, those body parts have characteristics that look like one of my cases, so I think of them as part of my case; doesn't matter that they turned up in LA not Atlanta. I'm ready to ID them, then the Bureau takes it out of my hands and gives it to people who've got so many bodies to ID, they've become statistics.' He tilted his head back and forth as though getting a kink out of his neck. ‘Maybe I don't like that so much.'

She almost laughed. ‘That doesn't sound like “maybe”.'

‘Yeah, well, Eric pointed out that it's no coincidence that “bureaucracy” and “Bureau” share the same Latin root.' He paused. ‘Look, we've been told to make the transfer as soon as possible. In my experience, that means we've got two days with the body parts in our custody. Can you do an exam and a report for me in that time?'