Faye Kellerman - The Burnt House

Decker added, “Since the material is synthetic, my vote is with a jacket. T’s and sweatshirts are usually cotton.”

“I agree,” the pathologist said.

Marge continued to peruse the cloth. “There’s a lot of lettering on a single patch, and usually jackets don’t have long messages on the back. And the way the partial words are stacked on top of one another…” She got up from her hunched position. “To me that suggests some kind of list.”

Oliver said, “So what kind of list would be on the back of a jacket?”

Decker’s brain fired up. “Margie, let me see your notes for a second.” After reading her pad, he hit the paper with the back of his hand. “It’s like doing a gridless crossword without any clues. Still, if you do enough crosswords, your mind fills in the blanks. V-e-s-t-o-n. If I say it instead of spell it, it helps. Veston. How about the city, Galveston. For o-p-e-k, how about Topeka. D-i-a-n could be lots of things, but if we’re in that part of the country, I’d say Indianapolis.”

“Maybe that’s the a-p-o-l,” Marge suggested.

Decker said, “In any case, I think we’re looking at a tour jacket.”

“Sweet,” Marge said. “Unfortunately, we don’t know whose tour jacket. But we know that it was once pink. I’m betting it’s a girl group, a group with a girl as its lead singer or a solo girl.”

“Madonna?” Darwin said. “She was really popular.”

“She’s been around for a long time,” Marge said. “I bet there’s some nut out there who’s an expert on Madonna’s tours.”

“You picture Madonna going to Galveston?” Oliver asked.

“What’s wrong with Galveston?” Marge countered.

“Nothing,” Oliver said. “I’m sure it’s a great city except in hurricane season. Superficially, it just doesn’t seem like her crowd.”

“A country star,” Decker said.

“With Topeka and Galveston, I’d say that’s a good guess.”

Decker said, “How old do you think the jacket is?”

Darwin shrugged and the small lab fell silent. So many unanswered questions.

Oliver bent over and looked into the eyepieces, adjusting the lens for stereoscopic vision. He shifted the cloth to the upper-left corner, reading the letters aloud. “A-j-o-r. These letters are bigger and not stacked. I don’t think this word is part of the list of cities. So the question is…” He looked up. “What are these letters and I’m saying…that maybe the letters indicate the band.”

“Ajor,” Marge said out loud. “Maybe major?”

“Shit!” Oliver hit his head. “Oh man! What about Priscilla and the Major?”

“Now there’s a blast from the past,” Decker said.

“Who?” Marge and Darwin asked simultaneously.

“They were a singing duo in the seventies. They played soft rock, if I had to categorize it, but they were very popular with the country circuit because he was a retired army major and very patriotic.”

“He played guitar, but she was the star,” Oliver said. “They were big in their time.”

“True,” Decker said, “although I don’t think I ever bought one of their albums.”

“Albums,” Marge said. “Now you’re really dating yourself.”

“They came in somewhere between acid rock and disco,” Oliver told her. “They were a nostalgic group even in those times.”

“You know a lot about them,” Marge told Oliver.

“My ex liked them,” Oliver said. “Me? I never bought any of their albums, either, but I remember Priscilla as being a fox. That’s old-speak for being a hottie.”

L ET ME THINK out loud for a moment.” Decker sat at his desk. Across from him were Marge and Oliver, awaiting further instructions. “Two cases: Jane Doe and Roseanne Dresden. Jane is a homicide…Roseanne?” He shrugged. “We’re reserving judgment on her. Recovery’s still digging, but it’s been a while. Someone has to talk to the husband.”

“And ask him what?” Oliver asked. “Did you kill your wife?”

Decker answered, “The fact is we don’t know if she’s even dead. We do suspect that the Dresden marriage was in trouble. David Rottiger and Arielle Toombs said that the couple was headed for divorce. Plus, Arielle told me that Roseanne had broken up with a paramour named Raymond Holmes six months prior to her death. She said he didn’t take it well. For all we know, he could be involved.”

A pause.

“We have to approach Ivan Dresden in a nonthreatening way. I think it’s far more likely that he’ll talk to us if he thinks we’re investigating a missing person rather than a homicide. So far that’s true.”

Marge said, “If the guy is as money hungry as all say, we can tell him insurance won’t settle until they find a body.”

“That’s probably true,” Oliver said.

“Up to a point,” Decker said. “Anyway, we can tell him that the police are investigating her whereabouts for insurance purposes. Since her body hasn’t turned up, we’re thinking that she may be alive.”

Oliver said, “What are we after, Loo?”

Decker said. “First, we need to hear his story. Second, it would be helpful if we could obtain his permission to pull phone records, credit-card receipts, bank records, to see if there’s been any activity since she disappeared. We can tell Ivan that it will be an important part of the insurance investigation.”

“Do we bring up the old flame, Ray?” Marge asked.

“Use your discretion.”

Marge said to Oliver, “You call up Ivan or should I?”

“You can do it. I’d rather call up Ivan’s lap-dancer friend.”

“Lap-dancer friend?” Decker asked.

“Yeah, David Rottiger told me Ivan had a thing for a lap-dancer friend of his. Ivan met her at one of Rottiger’s parties.”

“Interesting.” Decker nodded. “Do you have name?”

“No, Rottiger wouldn’t give it to me, and at the time, there was no reason to push. But I know where she works and I’d be happy to conduct a field interview with her.”

“I bet.” Decker smiled. “Actually, she may be a legitimate source of info later on. But first talk to Ivan. And see if you can conduct the interview in his condo because it’ll give you an opportunity to see the way he’s living. Get on his good side. We’re trying to wrest permission from him to look at Roseanne’s paperwork. Once we sort through all the credit slips, the bank statements, and the phone records, we’ll get a clearer idea about her last days.”

Oliver said, “Have you told Farley Lodestone about the latest developments?”

“Not yet.” Decker sighed. “This is not going to improve his trust in the justice system. If he wasn’t so bereaved, I’m sure he’d gloat.”

Marge said, “You know, if Roseanne was on flight 1324, there could be someone who worked the gate that remembers seeing her board the plane. I’d like to go down to WestAir’s airport counter next week and talk to the desk people.”

“They’re only going to refer you to the task force,” Oliver said.

“Maybe woman-to-woman, I can get some information. Now that Roseanne’s been missing for so long, I’d like to take one more crack at it.”

Decker said, “I think it’s a good idea. So we’ve got some strategies mapped out with Roseanne. Let’s move on to problem number two-our skeletal Jane Doe, who was probably a homicide. We need to identify the body and we can’t put a face on the bones because the bones are too delicate to mess with. So what can we do? We can find out when the apartment building went up. We can also locate someone involved with Priscilla and the Major to see if we can date the jacket.”

“Wanda Bontemps is on the computer trying to get a bead on the singing duo,” Marge said. “I did manage to Google them right before the meeting. Over five hundred thousand references, but no official Web site. How old would either of them be?”