J. Jance - Fire and Ice

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 Clear skies had been replaced by lowering clouds.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 had 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?”