‘Stuffed with a hand towel, your basic white cotton blend.’
‘Anything else?’ JD asked.
She lifted her brows. ‘Oh, I’m just getting started, Detective. I took his core temp. Fourteen degrees Celsius. That’s about fifty-eight Fahrenheit.’
JD and Stevie shared a confused glance. ‘He was frozen?’ JD asked.
Trask nodded. ‘Yes, he was.’
‘Well that shoots time of death to hell,’ Stevie grumbled. ‘How did he get the guy in the chair if he was frozen?’
‘He thawed his extremities out. Maybe in water. Kind of like when you thaw a frozen turkey in the sink and the wings and legs thaw first. That made him poseable. It would explain how the blood below his neck was washed away, because the blood on his face and scalp is still here, just dried.’
‘How long was he frozen?’ JD asked and watched Trask’s eyes grow troubled.
‘To freeze and partially thaw? A week. Maybe longer.’
‘Maybe two weeks?’ he asked quietly.
She looked down at the body, then back up again. ‘Maybe.’
Stevie sighed. ‘The length of time you were gone. You get back last night, and this morning this dead guy just happens to end up in the park along your jogging route.’
‘Dressed like your friend,’ JD added, ‘who you often found sitting in the same spot and often returned to his home.’
‘Not good,’ Stevie murmured. ‘Not good at all. Lucy, you said you were just getting started. What else?’
Carefully Trask lifted the body, just enough for them to glimpse the victim’s back, and JD squinted. ‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘Cigarette burns,’ she said, ‘in a very definite pattern. Done pre-mortem. Tap the top of that computer monitor on the counter. I took a digital before you got here.’
JD did as she asked and the screen saver disappeared, revealing the photo. A single thought hit him hard as he absorbed what he saw. Maybe I haven’t seen worse.
Stevie bent to study the screen. ‘It’s a letter I.’ She looked over her shoulder at JD, her mouth tight. ‘Or a Roman numeral I. We could be looking at more.’
He looked at Trask, saw that she’d already come to the same conclusion. ‘Get those implants out of his cheeks, Doc. We need to know who this guy is.’
Monday, May 3, 9.55 A.M.
‘Not what I wanted to hear, people.’ Lieutenant Peter Hyatt stood at the window in his office, glaring down at the street. He was a burly man who rarely smiled and seemed to get a charge from making the clerks in the office jump at his commands.
Stevie had told him that Hyatt’s bark was worse than his bite. Still, JD didn’t think he liked his new CO. Of course, liking the man had nothing to do with anything. What mattered was whether the big guy would support them when they needed it.
JD thought about the victim. I. They would need all the support they could get.
Hyatt turned from the window, worry etching lines around his mouth. ‘But then again, I don’t want to hear about ninety-eight per cent of what’s said to me. So you think the ME was supposed to find this guy? Why?’
‘We don’t know,’ Stevie said. ‘Yet.’
‘This Trask . . .’ Hyatt perched on the corner of his desk, folding his arms across his massive chest. ‘Tell me about her.’
‘She’s good,’ Stevie said. ‘She’s got an eye for detail and a logical mind. And she doesn’t have a protocol broom stuck up her ass like some of the other MEs.’
Hyatt shook his head. ‘You paint such pretty pictures, Stevie. What about her private life? Boyfriends, irate fiancés? Any reason to think this could be personal?’
Stevie frowned. ‘I don’t think she’s involved with anyone. But I don’t know her outside work. She’s kind of a private person.’
JD didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath. Not involved. That was good. ‘I got that as well,’ he said. ‘She figured out that the victim wasn’t the man she knew because his feet were too small. Which she knew because she’d cared for the old man’s feet this winter when he wandered out of his house without shoes. But she didn’t want to tell me that. I had to pry it out of her and I’m not sure why.’
Hyatt frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. Find out why. If she was squirrely about revealing that, she could have other secrets, ones that might be reason enough to set her up to find a body. So does she know the vic? What’s his name?’
‘Christopher Jones,’ Stevie answered. ‘Trask removed the cheek implants and called it in while we were waiting. She says she’s never heard of him.’
Hyatt’s gray brows lifted. ‘Did you believe her?’
‘Yes,’ JD said, probably a little too quickly, earning him a sharp glance from Hyatt. Feeling his face heat, he shrugged. ‘I saw her expression when she thought she knew the guy. I don’t think she’s lying.’
Stevie nodded her agreement. ‘She’s cooperating, Peter. We don’t have any reason to think she had anything to do with this.’
‘Other than being set up to find the body,’ Hyatt said sarcastically. ‘Which is just a tiny little detail. What do we know about the vic?’
‘Lives in Columbia,’ Stevie said. ‘We’re going out there after we brief you.’
‘So Mr Jones was a doctor?’
‘No,’ JD said. ‘A divorce attorney, which bothers us.’
‘Divorce attorneys bother me too, every month when I write two alimony checks. But I suspect you’re more bothered that your dead attorney wore a med school ring.’
‘And a Rolex that said “Thanks for the mammaries”,’ JD said.
Hyatt snorted a surprised laugh, then cleared his throat. ‘Sorry. Hadn’t heard that detail yet.’ He pulled a sober look back to his face. ‘Go check out Lawyer Jones. Find out why he was wearing a doctor’s ring and why he’s dead. And find out how he connects to Dr Trask. Even if it’s an answer you don’t like.’ He gave Stevie a pointed look. ‘You two friends? Is this going to be a problem for you?’
She shrugged. ‘Lucy and I are not unfriendly, but no we’re not best friends or anything. So no, it’s not going to be a problem for me.’
Hyatt turned his gaze to JD. ‘And you? You were quick to defend her.’
JD shook his head, feeling more like he was defending himself. He didn’t like that. ‘I spoke to her for the first time today. So no, not a problem for me either.’
Which he hoped was true. But when he remembered the way she’d looked at him when he’d entered the morgue and the way it had sent his pulse scrambling, he knew it would be a very big problem for him.
‘Then go. Find out why there’s a “I” burned into his back. If I have to tell the brass that we have a serial on the loose, I want as much detail as I can get.’
Monday, May 3, 10.20 A.M.
‘You rang?’
Lucy looked up from the microscope. Dr Craig Mulhauser had stuck his head in the door to the lab. Her boss now, he’d been one of her professors in med school and one of the myriad of reasons she’d chosen pathology.
It had either been pathology or busking on a downtown street corner.
And wouldn’t that have made her mother so proud? Lucy could almost hear her mother’s wailing lament. All those years of music lessons, gone to waste! Playing show tunes for nickels like a beggar on the street. Lucy had almost chosen busking for the drama alone. She thought of the club that was her second home. In a way, she had.
She motioned Craig into the lab. ‘I’m not seeing what I should be seeing.’
He pointed to the microscope. ‘The John Doe you found this morning?’
‘Christopher Jones. He had a core temp of fifty-eight degrees.’
Craig’s shaggy brows shot up. ‘That’s something you don’t see every day.’
‘Exactly. His arms and legs, hip joints – all thawed. I should have realized something was different when he went down on the chess table. Now I remember the way his body went . . . thunk. Not . . . squish.’
Craig’s lips twitc
hed. ‘Thunk and squish?’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘You know what I mean.’
‘I usually do, which kind of scares me. Seriously, though, you thought it was a friend. That you didn’t pick up on thunk versus squish is understandable. So what are you not seeing that you should?’
She gestured him to look through the microscope. ‘No desiccation,’ she said as he peered through the lens. ‘I thought I’d see cellular damage to a much greater extent.’
‘But you don’t,’ he murmured. ‘Where did you take the sample from?’
‘His thigh, but samples from his abdomen and arm showed the same absence of damage. There should be damage.’ Any time the water in human cells was frozen and thawed, there was evidence of crystallization and dehydration. But here there was none.
Craig glanced up. ‘And?’
‘He was frozen,’ Lucy said, ‘but not conventionally. I know this sounds crazy, but it looks like this guy was flash frozen. Like frozen corn.’
‘Doesn’t sound crazy at all. Flash freezing takes the temp down so fast that there would be minimal dehydration. Which is kind of the point of it. No cellular damage, flavor is retained. In corn, anyway,’ he added. He leaned against the counter. ‘But you’re talking one hell of a large piece of equipment.’
‘I know. The victim was five eleven.’ She shrugged. ‘At least it’s a lead. How many gargantuan flash freezers can be lying around?’
‘I’m more interested in why the victim was frozen to begin with.’
‘Detective Fitzpatrick believes the killer targeted me to find the victim. That’s why Mr Jones was sitting at the chess table, dressed like my friend. I’ve been out of town for a few weeks and I guess the body wouldn’t keep. So he froze him.’
Craig’s face went dark as if all the pieces had just fallen together. ‘Why would a killer do that? Target you? Why you?’
She fought the urge to childishly fidget. ‘Probably because he figured an ME finding the body would give him more attention. I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s not like I actually knew the victim.’
‘True, but why you? And how did the killer even know about you? You’re not a celebrity, Lucy. You’ve never even been on the news. I’m always the one to go to press conferences. How would this guy even know you exist? That you run in the park? That you were out of town. How?’
She thought about the people who knew what she did for a living, the ones who’d known she’d gone away from home. Her apartment building. Here at the morgue. The university at which she’d spoken the week before. The hotel where she’d attended a training session the week before that.
And the club. She couldn’t forget the club.
‘Lots of people knew I was out of town. Lots of people know I’m a pathologist.’
‘But who knew you ran every morning? Who knew the old man was your friend?’
‘I don’t know.’ And she honestly did not. Lots of people knew a few details of her life, but there were only a handful who’d know every detail. Unless that person had made it his business to know.
‘I want you to be careful,’ Craig said, his voice low and urgent.
‘I will be. I am. You’re giving me the creeps.’
‘Good.’ With a weary sigh he stood. ‘Call me when you get home tonight.’
She hesitated. ‘It’ll be late. I don’t want to wake Rhoda.’
‘You won’t. She sleeps like the dead.’ He shook his head. ‘Sorry. Bad pun.’
Lucy smiled. ‘You’ve been making bad puns for as long as I’ve known you and you’re only apologizing now?’
Craig didn’t smile back. ‘I’m serious. You call me when you get home. Even if it’s late. Call from the landline in your apartment, not your cell. And don’t text. I’m old-fashioned enough to want to hear your voice, to be sure that you’re home safely.’
She sighed. She’d planned to text from her cell from the club. Guess that’s out. ‘Okay. I’ll call. From home,’ she added when he glared.
‘All right.’
Monday, May 3, 10.35 A.M.
‘This is the place,’ Stevie said, looking out the passenger window. JD had driven to Christopher Jones’s house while Stevie had navigated the telephone maze of departments at the university. After four transfers and fifteen minutes of elevator music – which JD was more than a little disturbed to find she actually enjoyed – Stevie had been connected with the right person with access to the right university records.
Christopher Jones had not attended the university’s med school.
JD pulled to the curb. ‘There’s a wheelchair ramp in front.’
‘And a handicapped tag on the van in the driveway,’ Stevie noted. She pulled a coin from her pocket to flip for the chore of notifying next of kin. ‘Heads or tails?’
‘Heads.’
She flipped and made a sympathetic face. ‘Tails. You want me to take this one?’
JD shook his head with a frown. ‘I’m no welcher, Mazzetti. Let’s do this.’
They went up to the house and JD pressed the bell. The door opened, revealing a middle-aged man in a wheelchair. His hair was streaked with gray, his nose a little off-center. ‘Yes? Can I help you?’
‘I’m Detective Fitzpatrick and this is my partner, Detective Mazzetti. We’d like to speak to Mrs Christopher Jones.’
‘I’m Mr Christopher Jones. What’s this about?’
JD blinked in surprise and from the corner of his eye saw Stevie do the same. ‘You’re Christopher Jones?’ he asked.
The man rolled his eyes. ‘I don’t have time for this.’
‘Wait.’ JD put his hand on the door when the man started to close it. ‘Sir, your name has come up in a homicide investigation. May we come in?’
The man’s face drained of color. ‘Oh my God. He did it. He really did it. I thought he was just blowing smoke, trying to get her to back off on her custody claim. I didn’t think he’d really . . .’ His shoulders sagged. ‘When? When did he kill her?’
Again JD blinked. ‘Sir, I think you’ve misunderstood. Your name came up in our investigation as the deceased.’
The man narrowed his eyes. ‘But I’m not dead.’
‘We can see that,’ JD said. ‘May we come in, Mr Jones?’
Christopher Jones backed his chair into a large foyer, still frowning. ‘Please.’
‘Mr Jones, have you ever had plastic surgery on your face?’ JD asked.
Jones touched his face, the gesture a self-conscious one. ‘Yes. I was in a car accident five years ago. Crushed my face and severed my spinal cord. Why?’
‘Did you have cheek implants?’ JD persisted.
‘Yes. I did. Why?’ Jones repeated testily.
‘Because implants registered to you were found in a body discovered this morning.’ JD studied the man’s face, watching surprise flicker in his eyes.
‘It’s a mistake,’ Jones said. ‘I still have my implants, thank you very much.’
‘Who did your surgery?’ Stevie asked.
‘Dr Russell Bennett,’ Jones said. ‘He has a practice downtown.’
‘We’ll talk to him,’ JD promised. ‘Thank you.’ He opened the door to let them out, but Stevie didn’t move. She was looking at Christopher Jones.
‘Sir,’ she said, ‘this isn’t our business – yet. But just now you seemed like you really thought your client’s husband had killed her. Even if you think he’s blowing smoke, your client should report the threat. I’d hate for it to become our business.’
Jones nodded reluctantly. ‘I’ll suggest she does that.’
‘Thank you,’ Stevie said. ‘You have a good day.’
As soon as they got to the car, Stevie was back on the phone, dialing the university. After a few transfers she got their answer and flipped her phone closed. ‘Russell Bennett graduated from University of Maryland’s medical school.’
‘A plastic surgeon who went to Maryland. He could be our vic.’ JD started the car. ‘But if we get there and he’s still alive, what??
?s Plan B? If he goofed and switched implants, he could get into trouble. He’s going to be cagey about answering questions.’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Stevie pulled down her visor mirror and studied her reflection. ‘You think I have enough wrinkles to make Bennett believe I’m there for a consult?’
JD choked on a laugh. ‘I think I’m taking the Fifth on that one.’
‘Probably a wise move on your part.’ She peeked down her blouse, then looked over at him with a grin. ‘Let’s throw in a boob job. That he’ll believe.’
He had to grin back. Stevie’s smile was infectious. ‘What’s my role?’
‘You’re my spouse. Rich, indulgent, and dissatisfied with my lack of curves.’
JD sobered abruptly. ‘Paul wasn’t dissatisfied with a single thing about you.’
Her smile faltered. ‘I know. I was lucky.’
‘Anyone who knew him was.’ There weren’t many who’d met Paul Mazzetti who hadn’t counted him a friend.
Except for the punk who’d killed him. Paul had been shot down in cold blood for being in the wrong place, wrong time and having the nerve to disobey a convenience store robber’s commands in order to protect his child. A pregnant Stevie had buried her husband and son, and it was only the knowledge that the child she carried needed her that helped her go on. Five year old Cordelia never met her father.
Stevie had persevered, using the tragedy to help others. The grief support groups she sponsored for cops changed lives. Including mine. JD owed Stevie one hell of a lot. Maybe his very life.
Stevie’s lips tipped up sadly. ‘Let’s go meet Dr Bennett, unless we already have.’
He was about to pull away from the curb when his cell buzzed. ‘Fitzpatrick.’
‘Detective, this is Lucy Trask.’
Reflex had him sitting straighter in his seat. ‘Yes, Dr Trask. What do you have?’
‘I think the victim was flash frozen. Are you familiar with that?’
‘Like they do to vegetables?’ he asked. ‘Flash frozen,’ he said to Stevie.
‘Exactly,’ Trask said. ‘The freezer would have to be huge – industrial-sized. If I were you, I’d start with food packaging plants.’