by Toby Neal
Sophie patted the bed beside her, and Ginger lay down. Sophie wrapped her arms around the Lab’s sturdy neck, breathing in her warm doggy smell as she cried. Gradually the harsh sobs abated and her body relaxed.
The smell of pancakes and bacon, along with Ginger’s coaxing to play, finally drew Sophie out of bed. She wrapped herself in her favorite dragon-embroidered robe and shook her head as she sat down at the little dining room table in front of a plate mounded with pancakes. “Whatever have I done to deserve you as a friend?”
Marcella kissed the top of Sophie’s head, embracing her with one arm, spatula still in hand. “I’m Italian. When we’re stressed, we cook. I have some lasagna noodles started for later.”
Sophie’s belly was knotted, but she couldn’t refuse her friend’s kindness. She dug into the mountain of pancakes and Marcella joined her, biting into a crisp piece of bacon.
“Any news?”
“Nothing yet.”
The answer was enough to allow Sophie to finish eating. Marcella handed her a mug of strong tea as she cleared the empty plate. “I lied. I wanted you to eat breakfast. Dr. Fukushima wants us to come down to the morgue and identify the body.”
Sophie breathed carefully to keep her breakfast down and wrapped nerveless fingers around the mug. “Let me take a shower and get ready. I can do it. I have to see him. I have to know.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dr. Fukushima, the medical examiner, met them at the door of the morgue, opening the automatic door by hitting the button with an elbow. The ME was much as Sophie remembered from her FBI days: a small, tidy woman, self-contained, with kindly eyes above her surgical mask. Today she was engulfed by a bloodstained, wraparound rubber apron and topped by a chef’s hat.
Marcella gestured to the white paper hat. “What happened there?”
“I ordered proper head coverings, and this is what I got. The hospital wouldn’t let me return them because we couldn’t get a credit.” Fukushima shrugged. “It’s here to hold the hair back, and it works. Come see our victim.” She cut her eyes to Sophie. “Agent Ang. How are you the next of kin?”
“Just Sophie, please. I’ve left the Bureau. I don’t know that I am his next of kin. But Todd Remarkian had a very small circle of friends, no family that he ever disclosed to me…and we were dating.” Her throat closed. So much more than dating…
Dr. Fukushima fiddled with her apron tie, a nervous mannerism Sophie had never seen before. “I’m sorry to have to ask you to do this, then. Perhaps we should just go by the dental records.”
Marcella’s voice sharpened. “You have dental records?”
“They’re on the way. We wanted to rule out the occupant of the apartment, first, and it was easy to contact Todd Remarkian’s dentist—Security Solutions had the names of his medical providers on file.”
“I need to see him.” The words burst out of Sophie, pressured and harsh. Whatever the damage to his body, she’d recognize him. She had to see what remained for herself.
“I just wanted to spare you, if that was possible. But I see that it is not.” Fukushima made a gesture with her head, and the two women followed her through the open morgue area. The distinctive morgue smell, a potent blend of chemicals and decomp, clung stickily to Sophie’s throat.
Sophie smelled the burnt flesh and hair of the draped body before they reached it. Marcella ducked her head, holding up an arm to breathe into her elbow. “Phew.”
“The victim was fairly close to the blast. You won’t get much from his face, so perhaps it’s just the body you want to look at.” Fukushima glanced up at Sophie. “If you think you can recognize his body.”
“We had sex a number of times, so I think I can recognize it.” Sophie’s voice sounded flat and mechanical, even to her own ears. What a statement to describe such sublime lovemaking. Her eyes felt dry and she made herself blink.
Fukushima lifted the blue paper covering partway.
“Remove the whole thing, please.”
Fukushima pulled the covering off entirely. Marcella gasped and turned away.
The body on the table was burned over every inch. A good deal of the midsection was gone, including the groin area. An arm was missing. And the face was…simply not there.
A pulp of charred flesh covered white gleams of bone where his face should have been. A few teeth remained, unlikely pearls in a meat stew.
Sophie stepped up to the corpse, breathing shallowly through her mouth so as not to inhale the ripe odors rising from the body.
This was the only chance she would have to discover if this was really Connor.
She found it surprisingly easy to detach. She bent close, assessing.
The overall shape and size of the body were right.
The height was right, judging by the measurement markings on the side of the table.
Sophie moved in close to peer at the head.
A tuft of short, ash-blonde hair, the right color to belong to Connor, clung to the sphere of bone that remained of his skull.
Sophie moved around to the remaining arm and pointed to the hand. “Were you able to get any fingerprints?”
Fukushima grasped the arm and turned it outward so that Sophie could see that the digits were burned down to the bone. “I retrieved the missing arm, but it’s in even worse shape than this one.”
Sophie stood back, getting an overall proportional impression. She thought back to their recent, memorable night together. Connor walking toward her, naked, and rather magnificent.
No tattoos, little body hair, and no birthmarks. Wide shoulders, chiseled muscles, well-turned legs—his perfect proportions were, in themselves, distinctive.
The mutilation of the corpse before her made the body difficult to compare to that vibrant memory.
Sophie scanned down the legs to the feet.
They had spent time in bed, teasing each other, getting to know each other’s bodies, tickling each other’s feet. She shut down her mind on that tender, playful memory. If there were anything left of his toes on the right side, she’d know for sure.
The toes were gone on that side, sheared off as if with a sharp instrument.
Sophie swallowed bile for the first time. “What happened here?”
Fukushima bent, dropping magnifying lenses over her goggles. She grasped the stubs of remaining toes, and spread them, peering close. “There was a lot of very sharp debris in the apartment. I can have the crew there look for a piece of metal or glass that could have done this.” She crooked a bloody finger for Sophie to come closer, and Sophie leaned over to look at the one remaining toe.
Bone gleamed in the raw flesh.
“His foot was covered by something when we arrived at the scene. I have to check my scene photos to be sure, but I think it was the steel sink from the kitchen. It apparently sheared the toes off. And it could also explain why this area is not burned.” She pointed at the pulpy end of the stub of toe, blistered but not burned.
Marcella had gone to lean against the wall. “Do you recognize him, Sophie?” Her voice sounded tight and small.
Sophie never took her eyes off the body. She gestured toward the door. “I’ll meet you outside when we’re done, Marcella.” She barely registered the sound of the door closing.
“I can do some further tests, check this area for explosive residue. He was wearing a white martial arts robe that had plenty of residue on it.” Fukushima indicated a bloody, soot-darkened pile of white material on one of the tables. The sight made Sophie’s gut clench—that robe had been Connor’s favorite garment to wear in his apartment. “Took me forever to get the fabric remnants off the body.”
“What kind of device was it?”
Fukushima frowned. “I would tell you more if I could, but all I can say is that it was a small, well-placed and deadly bomb.”
“I understand. I forget I’m just a witness in this investigation.” Sophie straightened up. “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re not able to discern if this injury to the f
oot was pre- or post-mortem.”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“What about DNA to help identify the remains?”
“Of course, I have taken samples.” Fukushima shook her head. “But they’re only as good as a matching sample from the victim procured for comparison.”
“So, I take it there’s nothing in the FBI or HPD identification base that matches Todd Remarkian?”
“No.” Fukushima tidied the area around the body reflexively, wiping a stain, stowing implements. “I already requested, and there was nothing on file.”
Sophie couldn’t think of any biological residue Connor had left behind that would yield enough of a sample. She’d checked out of the hostel, where she might have recovered a stray hair with a root bulb. Connor had never spent the night at her Mary Watson apartment; in fact, she had hidden that address from him. But he had stayed over at her father’s apartment for an extended period when she was recovering from a gunshot. Perhaps she could find something there, if the maid wasn’t too thorough. Still, it seemed unlikely.
“I can have the fire investigators check thoroughly for any useful DNA in the apartment,” Dr. Fukushima said. “And the investigators can look in his office. But I’m pretty sure there’s not going to be a sample on record with any law enforcement agencies.”
Connor would have made sure of that. He would not want any record of his DNA on file with any agency of any kind, nothing that could tie him to the many suspicious deaths he was associated with. Nothing would be found in his apartment, either, most likely.
Sophie jerked with the suddenness of a thought. What about the “Batcave,” his second, hidden apartment next door? And…what had happened to Anubis?
“Did they find a dog’s remains in the apartment?” The thought of intelligent, elegant Anubis, burned and forgotten in the debris, knotted Sophie’s stomach as much as looking at the corpse before her.
“No. No dog.” Fukushima glanced at her curiously. “Why?”
“He had a dog.” Sophie felt tears pressing against the back of her eyes for the first time as she looked down at the body on the table. “A beautiful dog.”
“Maybe it’s at a dog sitter, if it wasn’t at the apartment.”
“I will look into that.” Sophie lifted her eyes to meet Fukushima’s. “In the meantime, can you let me know what the dental records confirm, when you get them?”
Fukushima shook out the drape and snapped it over the body with a practiced gesture. “Of course.”
Sophie left her burner number with Fukushima, and joined Marcella out in the hall. The FBI agent was on her phone, pacing the dimly lit hall outside the morgue entrance.
“Thought you were going to have the doc redo the post, with you present.” Marcella slid her phone into her pocket, and gave Sophie a steady look. “You don’t think that body is him, do you?”
Sophie did not respond. Marcella was investigating Connor for the FBI, and Sophie was investigating Connor’s death in her own way. The two were not compatible.
She needed to get rid of Marcella so she could find Anubis, and hope her friend hadn’t already thought of the missing dog. When she found the Doberman, she would know more than that charred body would ever tell her.
“I need some time alone. I hope you understand.” Sophie let some of the emotion she’d locked down show through her eyes as she met her friend’s gaze.
“Of course.” Marcella enfolded Sophie in a hug.
Sophie suppressed a twinge of guilt and closed her eyes to savor the firm support and loyal friendship she felt in that embrace, and then detached herself gently. “I’d appreciate a ride back to my place.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sophie found Anubis at the first place she looked: the same kennel she used for Ginger. The woman in the facility’s records office, whose brass plaque identified her as Bernice, frowned as Sophie showed her Security Solutions ID. “Mr. Remarkian never told me he wasn’t coming back for the dog.”
“Of course he didn’t. Nobody expects to get killed until it happens to them.” Steel in Sophie’s voice caused the woman to quickly consult her files.
“Every dog owner has to fill out an information sheet and designate a next of kin to pick up the dog in case the owner cannot return,” Bernice said, clicking away on her keyboard.
“I am aware. I keep my dog Ginger here, as well.”
“Of course!” Bernice’s manner warmed, became sympathetic. “We love Ginger.”
“That’s right. Marcella Scott is my next of kin for Ginger. I don’t know who is for Anubis, but that person should be informed of Mr. Remarkian’s death.”
Bernice tapped the line in question on her screen and looked up at Sophie over her half-glasses. “You’re Anubis’s next of kin, Sophie Ang.”
Sophie took both dogs for a run through the city from Mary Watson’s apartment down to the long swath of Ala Moana Park spanning the beach at Waikiki. She didn’t let herself think about what it meant that she was Anubis’s guardian until the dogs were loose in the fenced dog park, delighted to be reunited, cavorting and enjoying the sunshine. Anubis’s elegant carriage and dignified mien was a foil for Ginger’s uninhibited, cheerful charm, and Sophie smiled in spite of everything at the playful wrestling of the two. They seemed as happy as long-separated siblings to be reunited.
Connor had planned this.
He had chosen her to be his partner, his woman. His dog’s guardian.
She wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing wasn’t smoke and mirrors. He could be watching her right now through some hacked surveillance cam, sipping a margarita on a tropical beach in Belize.
No. Connor wouldn’t be sipping in careless comfort. He’d be tortured by regret, but he’d be watching, nonetheless. She and his dog weren’t his priorities. The Ghost was.
The FBI was getting too close, and he’d cut his losses and run.
Or, he was dead.
She was not sure which felt worse to contemplate.
Sophie sat down on the bench, looking out at the peaceful, turquoise sea, gilded with afternoon sun and ruffled by a gentle breeze. The cooing of doves and chattering of mynahs in a nearby monkeypod tree should have been soothing, but only wound the knot in her belly even tighter.
Either he had faked his death, in an elaborate scheme with multiple stages of planning, or Connor really was dead, at the hands of some unknown enemy.
What did it say about her relationship with Connor that, now that she’d picked up Anubis, she was more convinced he was faking his death than that he’d really died?
Either way, the only feeling she could muster about the body in the morgue was a numb sense of betrayal. Her response to the corpse she’d examined had been nothing but detached coldness, a clinical analysis that had raised even Dr. Fukushima’s brows.
Sophie tipped her head back and closed her eyes, trusting the dogs to warn her of any hostiles, and concentrated on what Connor would have had to do to fake his death.
He’d have had to find a body that was a virtual double of his own, keeping it frozen until the time was right. He’d have had to set up the dental records with teeth matching that of the cadaver. He’d have had to cut the toes off the corpse, eliminating the only truly individual thing about his own body, and create a plausible reason for the toes to be gone. He’d have had to deal with his money, his affairs, and his dog. He’d have had to clean out any and all DNA from his apartment and workplace and other venues, and he’d have had to build a bomb big enough to decimate his apartment, but small enough not to cause any other damage to the building.
He’d have had to thaw the body, staging it out and placing it where it would get maximum damage in an explosion. And then, he would have had to disappear after he set off the explosive, wiping all evidence of his activities and identity.
All this to avoid detection by the FBI, so he could keep being a vigilante. The part of Sophie that still hoped Connor was alive shriveled within her.
If he was
still alive, he’d fled just when she could have used his help and support, facing the threat of Assan.
And if he was capable of all of those things, of setting her up to grieve, of having to go through identifying his body, then he wasn’t someone worthy of her love.
And then there was the alternative: Connor really was dead. And while the Ghost had plenty of enemies, the one most likely to have blown him up was Sophie’s ex.
She hunched over suddenly, curling around a white-hot ball of agony that tightened her gut. Was it even a physical pain? She couldn’t tell.
“Are you all right?”
Sophie opened her eyes, still hunched over her folded arms. A woman approached her, but stopped as Anubis stepped in front of Sophie, growling, his lip raised over a row of gleaming teeth. Sophie snapped her fingers and pointed to the ground beside her, as she’d seen Connor do. The Doberman sat beside her, docile, as Ginger galloped up to the woman, wagging her tail.
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking, just a bit of bad fish last night.” The dog owner smiled back, patting Ginger’s head, and went off after her own dog.
Ginger turned to lick Anubis’s face, a gesture so like a kiss that Sophie’s heart constricted. How could Connor leave her like this, just when they were getting started as a couple?
She was cursed to live alone and die alone. She was poison to anyone who tried to love her…
The black maw of depression yawned before her, a depthless hole drawing her in. Soon she’d dive into it, and be lost.
She had one more thing to do before she gave in to its pull.
Sophie walked into the computer lab of the University of Hawaii with her laptop under her arm. Wearing Mary Watson’s floral exercise wear and a pink hoodie, she plugged in the laptop, hooked up to the data stream, and booted up DAVID.
