Jayne and Steelie - 01 - Freezing (32 page)

‘So, I'm looking for the usual perimortem signs; radiating fractures, lifting and bending?'

‘Yes.' She looked at Greg, who was getting to his feet. ‘And Greg can cover what's familiar to him with postmortem breaks from the archaeological setting.'

Steelie said, jovially, ‘You guys are a dream team.'

‘Actually,' he replied. ‘I've just realized it takes two of us to do what just one of you can do.'

‘Perhaps, but neither of us can tell what's a stone tool and what's just a battered rock, nor could we analyze stomach contents.'

‘Nor would you want to,' Greg commented, as he slapped Dr Penman on the back.

Just then, Scott walked over on the step stones. ‘What's going on?'

Dr Penman explained the apparent disturbance of the burials.

Scott looked serious. ‘Do you know how many people you've got so far?'

‘A minimum number of three, based on the fifteen body parts we've exhumed so far. We've had two right clavicles with the sternal end fused and one left clavicle with a fully unfused sternal end.'

‘In English?'

Steelie answered him. ‘Collarbones. Two right collarbones, so that's two people, and they're both fused at the business end, so both people are probably over twenty-five years. Then one left collarbone from someone under twenty-five, which makes three. Minimum. Though only one cranium so far.'

‘OK,' replied Scott. ‘From the garage, we've got ID cards or driver's licenses from eight different people, all female. We're going to be working on cross-checking to see if any of them have missing person reports – besides Eleanor Patterson and the two names I recognize of local missing prostitutes. Not all the trophies may be from women he killed; there could be some assault victims we don't know about yet. But I came over here to tell you to keep looking.'

‘Say no more,' said Greg, who went to give instructions to his graduate students.

‘And I'm afraid, Doctor Penman, that I've got to take away these two ladies. They've got a plane to catch.'

The ME shook Jayne and Steelie's hands as though they'd known each other for years and then the women gained the concrete behind Scott. He turned and spoke under his breath. ‘Look at this.' He was holding a set of clear evidence bags, which he fanned out in his hands. ‘King made copies of those photos from Kigali.'

Steelie flicked on her flashlight and concentrated it on the corner of the top photograph. ‘Look at the photo board, though. The others had a UN CivPol case number. These are different.'

He turned the photos toward him. The board read
EK-001
. Scott whistled softly before translating. ‘Eugene King: first victim.'

‘A perfect trophy,' Jayne muttered.

‘Yeah,' agreed Steelie. ‘These aren't copies; they're fresh photos and anyone seeing them thinks they're legit crime scene or case photos. He can explain them away; after all, he worked for the FBI and who knows what you weird Bureau employees carry around.'

Scott dropped the photos to his side. ‘All right, I've got your ride out front. He'll take you back to your motel, drop you with some dinner, then we'll be sending an Agent Carter to take you to the airport. He'll have your boarding passes.'

Steelie detoured to say goodbye to Greg's students while Jayne preceded Scott into the house. As she mounted the back stairs, she noticed it was getting dark. She turned on her flashlight and felt the chill of that house go into her bones again. She could barely believe she actually knew the person who lived here or was responsible for what was in that yard. That partial hand bothered her. Where was the rest of that person?

She came out the front door of the house and was halted by the scene in the street directly ahead: men, women, and children, dressed in exercise clothes, school uniforms, suits. They were holding lit candles and something else . . . Jayne gradually perceived that they were photographs but only photos of women. Some portraits were big, while others were snapshots; women holding children, women laughing, women looking dubiously at the camera, women in graduation clothing. Women who were alive. Alive but missing.

Then Scott was in the doorway next to her. ‘They already know, Jayne. Or they suspect. I recognize some of the relatives of the women who went missing on my watch.' He set off for the tent.

Jayne looked at the relatives one last time. She felt they were identical to a group who'd waited for the bodies strapped down in the back of their UN truck in Kigali in 1996 after an exhumation.
Everyone is the same, everywhere
. Jayne followed in Scott's footsteps, feeling like she could be in Kigali, walking into the UN's old morgue tent, then stripping off mask, booties, gloves – just like this. Putting everything into red biohazard bags – just like this. Movements so familiar, she could have done them in her sleep back then. Now, inside this tent, she couldn't tell where she was, what year it was. She could go out and find that it was 1996 again and Gene would be there; everything was the same and the families were waiting.

She hesitated and Scott said, ‘Follow me. When I stop to talk to the relatives, keep going to my right. The black Suburban down the street has an agent in it, waiting for you. Just get in.'

Jayne followed him out into the deepening darkness. She noticed a television camera when a bright lamp came on to focus on Scott. She heard Scott announce his name and title and tell them that there was no official information yet. She kept walking, focused on the dark bulk of the Suburban in the distance. Then a hand pulled her to the side.

THIRTY

H
alf-empty pizza boxes sat in the middle of the conference table in the FBI briefing room. Agent Mark Wilson chewed anti-gas pills as he watched the CCTV tape of King's van pulling away from the airport with Eleanor Patterson in the passenger seat at 5.08 p.m. He had lost track of how many times he'd examined the footage but he kept doing it in the hope that he would glean some clue as to where King was now.

Agent Angela Nicks watched Mark from her seat at the head of the table as she tapped a pencil against the papers in front of her. She had drawn circles around King's name and the names of the missing women and what they knew about each. She was looking for ways the circles might overlap and give them a lead on where King could be hiding now. So far, it wasn't working too well. The modus operandi that King had displayed at the airport with Eleanor Patterson appeared to be the only time he had used it. They didn't know how he might have adjusted the MO when he wasn't at the airport but he had got the women back to his house somehow. Angie switched to tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the tip of her nose. She knew that sometimes worked.

Agent Scott Houston was temporarily not thinking about King as he used the computer to connect to the Internet and check on the status of the return flight Jayne was due to board that evening with Steelie. The Internet connection was slow and he waited, emptying his brain as he stared at the screen. He was about to ask Angie and Mark if the connection was always this slow these days and then he realized something.

‘Did anyone check the Agency Thirty-two One email account for the messages from King?'

He was met with silence, which was enough to get him to bail out from the airline website and switch to the Web-based 32/1 account. Mark came over with the password that Jayne had left with them and Scott typed it in. After a pause, the inbox appeared.

‘Jesus.' Scott sat up straighter.

‘What time zone is that stamp?' Mark pulled up a chair.

Angie and Eric immediately came over.

Mark explained, ‘King sent them a message today. Depending on what time zone the account's set to, he might have sent it just a few hours ago.'

Scott had clicked on the message, whose subject line was, ‘Hi from SF.' They read the message on screen.

Jayne: bk yr way nxt wk. Dinner? GK

Angie leaned in closer to the screen. ‘That's not an email; it's a text message.'

Scott gestured at the screen. ‘It's an email. It came on email.'

‘But it came from a cell phone,' she persisted. ‘Look, hit
Reply
. See what happens.'

Scott followed her instructions and the ‘To' field was filled with an email address made up of letters and enough numbers to resemble a telephone number.

‘Angie, can you—' Scott turned but she had already put her cell phone to her ear.

‘Tech Unit? I need a check on a cell number. This is Priority One.'

Standing at the dressing table in the motel room, Jayne placed the candle in her briefcase and thought about the woman who'd stopped her in the street by Gene's house. She hadn't looked very old but her skin had made Jayne think of parchment. She'd been holding a photograph, its subject obscured by her fingertips, and she'd smiled at Jayne but kept a hold on her arm until another woman joined them.

The second woman was the color of chocolate and held an unlit candle, which she offered to Jayne. She'd accepted it with a nod. Then the two smiled and turned away as though their work was done and in that moment, Jayne had no longer felt confused about what year it was or where she was. It was where she always was and where she always would be: halfway between the living and the dead, helping to work a link that transcended time and space because the need for it was timeless and crossed all borders. It existed wherever the living searched for the missing and wherever people died deprived of their names. Jayne had held the candle on the ride to the motel and now she would carry it home to Los Angeles.

She heard the knock at the door that she and Steelie had been expecting. Agent Carter had arrived to drive them to the airport. She glanced at Steelie, who was zipping up her own bag, and crossed to open the door.

The man standing there was dressed in motorcycle leathers and helmet, which was unexpected. He raised the visor and said, ‘Hello, again.' Even before she heard his voice, she recognized Gene's eyes.

She abruptly and belatedly shoved the door closed but it bounced back at her fast and she was pushed off balance. As she stumbled backwards, she was aware of Steelie charging Gene with a cry that sounded far away and of him coming across the threshold, and then her vision went gray at the edges, closing down further and further, until there was nothing.

Scott had ceded his seat in front of the computer to Mark, who'd navigated into the Settings page of the Agency 32/1 email account.

‘There.' Mark pointed to the screen. ‘The account is on Pacific time. But incoming messages could still be stamped with the time at the sender's location.' He looked up at Scott. ‘Do we believe this? That King's in San Francisco?'

Scott was standing with his arms crossed, watching Angie on the phone with the Technical Support Unit. ‘No. No way. I don't know what game he's playing but he's here in Atlanta. We tracked him here in Wayne Spicer's car.'

Eric said quietly, ‘We don't have a firm ID from the EMT's or anyone else who saw the driver of the Spicer car.'

Scott gave his partner a withering look and Eric put his hands up in surrender. Just then, Angie turned toward them, a hand raised with a finger in the air as she listened to her phone. They turned toward her expectantly.

‘OK, OK,' she said, then covered the mouthpiece of the phone as she addressed the three men. ‘The text message was sent from a cell phone today at one-oh-seven p.m.'

Scott walked up to her. ‘Is it turned on right now? Can they track it?' He all but took the phone from her hand.

‘It doesn't need to be turned on – hang on.' She listened to her phone, thanked the person on the other end and then cut the call. ‘OK, the cell doesn't need to be turned on for the phone company to ping it and get a location within one hundred feet. But first we gotta get a warrant out to the phone company.'

‘This is bullshit!' Scott fumed. ‘This is high priority, did you tell them that?'

‘We might have another way.' She exchanged a glance with Mark. ‘Look, the D's in Missings at Atlanta PD have the technology to ping cells.'

Scott looked at each of the agents in turn. ‘Missing Persons? You know any of those detectives?'

Angie's mouth was set. ‘I've got a couple of favors I can call in. It might not be enough.'

‘If they're like other detectives I know, they'll scratch you this time if you're ready to scratch them next time. What's it gonna take, Ange?' Scott implored.

‘Let me make some calls.' She turned to leave the room.

Eric was hard on her heels. ‘I'll start the warrant process in case we need it.' The door slammed behind them.

Scott gave Mark a questioning look.

Mark responded, ‘She's got some history with the head of that unit.'

‘Personal or on the job?'

‘Both, but that's not where the favors are. She helped them out on a case so she's going to be calling that favor in. But because there's some personal stuff, she's not going to like doing it. You know Angie.'

‘She left him, then?'

‘Hey, I didn't say anything.' Mark gestured at his own chest as he got up. ‘Did you hear me say something?'

‘She's not going to forget it was me that had her call in the favor, is she?' Scott grimaced to himself as he followed Mark out of the briefing room.

THIRTY-ONE

J
ayne blinked her eyes open and felt total confusion about where she was. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry. She tried to swallow and felt cloth –
a gag?
– holding her mouth open and wicking her saliva away. She instinctively raised her hands to remove it but discovered she was lying on her arms and they were bound behind her. She looked up and saw a doorway she didn't recognize. And then it all came back.
The motel
,
Atlanta, Gene. Oh, God
. She shivered convulsively and raised her head to look down the length of her body. She saw duct tape binding her ankles and then noticed movement across the room.