by Ponzo, Gary
I headed in the opposite direction, trying to ignore the disaffected growling of my stomach.
Is that really what R&R did—robbed the dead of their belongings while they lay in cold storage nearby?
I thought again of those loose gems lying amid the broken glass outside the jewellery store. I wouldn’t swear in court to the fact that their numbers had diminished in the time I’d been there, but it had certainly looked that way. The trouble was, it wasn’t only R&R personnel who’d been on site. Any one of a host of other people, from the members of the dig team to the local police, could have pocketed a few stones in the time they were there. Perhaps it didn’t feel like stealing if they were lying on full view in the street?
The lock to the hall being used as a makeshift mortuary had a piece of yellow insulating tape stuck underneath it. The same colour tape had been wrapped around the head of the key. An easily recognisable system that worked irrespective of language barriers. I felt the hand of Joe Marcus in there somewhere.
The key turned noiselessly in the lock. I opened the door and slipped inside, closing it again quietly behind me. Too much noise would have seemed disrespectful to the dead.
I paused just inside. Now I was there, alone and unsupervised, should I take the opportunity to have a nosy round? I smiled in the dark, mocking my own intent.
Yeah, Fox, and just what are you expecting to find? A treasure map with a convenient X marking the spot? A document marked ‘Our Secret Plan’?
There was enough light coming in from outside that I didn’t switch on the overhead lights. The personal possessions and clothing of the victims had been placed in archive boxes, all marked with a URN, and stored in an ante room off the main hall. The army had dragged in racking that, by the faint pervasive odour of gun oil still lingered around it, had once been used in their armoury.
I pushed open the dividing door and walked in. The windows were smaller in this room, and the height of the shelving made it darker still. I wasted time groping for a light switch I couldn’t find. Eventually I gave up, standing for a moment in utter stillness, listening.
It was then I caught the thump of a full box dropping onto the hard tiled floor, and the scuffling sound of rapid footsteps.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I took a fix on the direction of the sound and started running.
It was no surprise that the noise had come from the row housing the boxed possessions of the latest victims to be found. By the time I reached the end of the racking and catapulted around it, I’d just time to see a darkened figure disappearing at the far end. Automatically, I gave chase.
In the centre of the row was a mess of spilled boxes and their contents. I had to half step, half jump over the obstacle it created. Whatever they’d been looking for, our intruder had not been tidy about it. So, the object itself was more important than hiding the search. Or was this simple robbery?
As I pounded to the end of the row some sixth sense kicked in. I skidded to a halt just as a large fire extinguisher came swinging around the end of the racking. It hit the upright of the shelving unit a fraction of second before it would have connected with me, sending a reverberating clang through the whole length of it.
The intruder had put everything into his attack, relying on the weight and momentum of his chosen weapon to do the job for him. Missing had not been in the game plan. Neither was an opponent who didn’t cower back after the first volley.
I’d learned a long time ago that even the most overwhelming odds can be successfully countered by speed and aggression. Now I used both, darting sideways and leaping to attack.
Even in the dark I managed to ram an elbow into the side of his neck just below his ear. He grunted in pain and stumbled forward. As he went down on his knees I spun, grabbed the back of his collar to locate him and kicked him in the ribs, my other arm outstretched for balance, giving it my all.
In the muted darkness I heard his breath explode out, heard the dull crack as a couple of ribs let go on his left-hand side. Still, he managed to fling his arm back, catching me low in the stomach with a clenched hammer-fist. It was only the pain from his busted ribs that took all the force out of the blow but it hurt enough to warn me to be careful of this man. He’d had training and he didn’t give up easily.
I caught his flailing arm, hooked it up and back, starting to twist it into a lock. He countered by lurching sideways, despite the ribs, pivoted and kicked for my legs. I stamped on his ankle and booted him in the ribs again, eliciting an outraged squawk.
But just when I thought I might be winning fate threw a spanner in the works in the form of the fire extinguisher he’d used originally. By rolling him I’d inadvertently put it back within his reach. With a roar of pain and effort he grasped the metal cylinder, hoisted it overhead and hurled it straight at me like a medicine ball throw.
His aim was spoiled by his sudden inability to use his stomach muscles to their full potential. Even so, the cylinder weighed close to thirty-five pounds. It hit me low—across the chest rather than in the head as he’d no doubt intended—but hard enough to send me tumbling backwards.
I tucked and rolled, got my forearms up and mostly avoiding the damn thing landing directly on top of me. The extinguisher landed just below my sternum and toppled, skimming the side of my head as it went, rebounding off into the darkness.
Nevertheless, it knocked the wind out of me sufficiently to allow the intruder time to scramble to his feet and make a bolt for it. I heard him clatter away, gasping, while I took a vital couple of seconds to drag air into my spasmed diaphragm before I could follow.
Wary now of counterattack and with my head still ringing, I ran back through into the mortuary area taking great care at the doorway. I was slaloming between the empty stainless steel tables when I caught a peripheral glimpse of a figure sliding out of cover behind me. I crouched, had already started to turn when a voice cracked out:
“Hold it!”
And without needing to be told I knew the owner of that voice was either the best actor I’d ever come across, or he was holding a gun. There are not many people who can inject that kind of authority into their tone without firepower to back it up.
I froze, letting my hands come up and away from my sides to shoulder height. It was only then, as the red mist of combat dissipated like smoke, that I recognised the voice.
I let my hands drop back to my sides and turned around fully. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Marcus?”
He was indeed holding a gun, I saw, a big .45 calibre Colt 1911. It took him a moment to bring the muzzle up off target. He straightened out of a stance, relaxed his shoulders.
“I heard noise,” he snapped. “What happened?”
“We had an intruder,” I said, barely keeping hold of my temper. “But he’ll be long gone by now.”
“What was he after?”
I jerked my head back towards the ante room. “Come and see for yourself.”
Marcus let the Colt drop alongside his leg, his finger outside the trigger guard, and followed me through. We split at the doorway—me heading left, him right. He found the switch for the overhead lights without difficulty. They rows of fluorescent tubes threw long shadows over the stacked boxes. Their significance as all that remained of the dead was suddenly very apparent to me.
I glanced along each row as I passed—saw Marcus doing the same thing at the far end—but everything was undisturbed until we came to the one housing the newest arrivals. I reached the mess of spilled boxes first and squatted on my haunches to survey the worst of it.
“This your doing?” Marcus asked.
I looked up sharply to find him approaching. He was carrying the errant fire extinguisher in one hand.
“Not exactly,” I said, getting to my feet. “Although he threw it at me, if that’s what you mean?”
Marcus put the cylinder down. It landed with a solid metallic thump on the hard floor. He moved forwards, eyes on me intently. I almost stepped back in respo
nse to the anger I saw there, had to force myself not to flinch when he reached for me.
“Let’s see that.” It was an order, not a request.
His fingers were cool against my cheek as he nudged my face to the side, angling it to the light. He wiped his thumb across the corner of my eyebrow and I felt the rasp of dried blood I hadn’t realised was there.
“We should get that looked at,” he said.
I shook myself out of his grasp. “Later. It’s nothing,” I said, ignoring the radiating headache. “It was a glancing blow. If he’d caught me full on I’d still be unconscious.”
I’d once had my life saved by just such a fire extinguisher. I reckoned this made us even.
“Would you recognise him if you saw him again?”
“Probably,” I said. “Depends if he bruises easily, but I broke at least two of his ribs, lower left. That’s going to put a crimp in his day for a while.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed as if trying to work out how much flippancy to ignore. Then he released me and nodded. “Good job.”
“No, not really,” I said grumpily. “If I’d done a good job I’d have him zip-tied face down on the floor right now and we’d know exactly what he was after.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Why go to the trouble of breaking in ’ere to steal from the dead,” Dr Bertrand demanded, “When we all know that items of value lie unguarded in the streets? It makes no sense.”
She finished applying adhesive Steri-Strips to close the small cut to my eyebrow and stepped back with a nod of satisfaction at her own handiwork.
My smile of thanks went unacknowledged, so I asked, “Do we know which boxes were disturbed?”
Joe Marcus hesitated for a moment then said, “They targeted the people found close by where we pulled Santiago Rojas out of the jewellery store. The family in the car, the couple found outside the store, a man on the sidewalk, plus two more in an art gallery on the opposite side of the street.”
“What was taken?”
He sighed. “That we don’t know. It’s all handwritten notes made by the recovery teams. Only as the victims are processed is everything photographed, formally catalogued and transferred to the computer system. There isn’t time to do it in the field.”
“Then they should make time!” Dr Bertrand said firmly. “As it is, we ’ave lost sources of valuable information. Without them, some of the identifications may be in doubt.”
She was clearly taking this as a personal affront. I knew from the dossier Mrs Hamilton had provided on the R&R staff that the doctor prided herself on her track record when it came to reconciling the dead.
“Alex, it’s close to a hundred degrees out there,” Marcus said, his voice reasonable. “The longer it takes for the bodies to be gotten back here and into cold storage, the harder time you’re gonna to have with ’em.”
She gave a very Gallic shrug, stripped off her gloves and strode away across the deserted mortuary to replace the First Aid kit.
I hopped down from the steel post-mortem examination table where I’d been perched, and hoped it was a good few years before I found myself on one again.
As Dr Bertrand made her somewhat flouncy exit, Riley appeared with a stack of three archive boxes piled so tall in his arms he had to walk sideways to see where he was going. The muscles in his stringy biceps stood out starkly with the effort.
“That’s everything gathered up,” he said, dumping the boxes onto the table I’d just vacated. “He’d even ripped the inventory sheets off the outside of the boxes. Thorough bugger, wasn’t he?”
“Not as thorough as he would have liked to be,” I said. “Let’s hope he left us something behind.”
“Wallets and purses are gone,” Riley said cheerfully. Most you’ve got is some jewellery and personal items.”
“Is there a ruby engagement ring?” I asked. “It should have belonged to the woman from outside the jewellery store.”
“Half a mo,” Riley said, unstacking the boxes and removing the lid of the bottom one. He rummaged around inside, moving bags of clothing and shoes until he came to a bunch of smaller clear plastic zip-lock bags. I saw earrings in one, a thin gold watch, and finally a ring.
“How’s that?” Riley handed it across. I looked through the plastic at the central stone. It was a beautiful deep clear red cut into a pointed oval and surrounded by smaller diamonds.
“I’m not an expert, but I’d guess that’s a marquise-cut ruby,” I said. “So if his memory was working right for that bit, we know this woman had just been into Rojas’s store. If they paid by credit card there’ll be an electronic trail with an ID at the end of it. Maybe we can trace her that way.”
Joe Marcus had been looking through the box of items taken from the male victim found nearby. The bagged jacket and shirt, I noticed, were covered in darkly dried blood that gave them a similar tone to the ruby.
“No wallet for him, either,” he said. He held another bag up for me to see. “Would you classify this as a fancy watch?”
I recognised the matte-black face and rubber strap. “I’ll say. That’s a Hublot, and they don’t come cheap—ten grand at least.”
Marcus frowned, unimpressed, and dropped the watch back into the box. “I’ll take your word on that,” he said. “Looks like we have a pair of tourists with more money than sense. Maybe somebody got wind of that and wanted what they had.”
“So why take their IDs and leave the valuables behind?”
Riley laughed. “Because they weren’t expecting to run into bloody Wonder Woman,” he said. “You really reckon you bust the guy’s ribs?”
“I heard them go.” I kept my eyes on Marcus’s face, wondering if he was going to mention the woman’s wallet first, or whether I was going to have to bring it up. The latter, it seemed. “This wasn’t the first attempt at taking the woman’s ID, was it?” I murmured. “The police commander—Peck—he tried it, too. If it wasn’t for it … falling out of his pocket when Lemon jumped up at him, it would have been in the hands of the police by now.”
Marcus regarded me with a bland expression, refusing to rise to the bait.
“I’ll contact him tomorrow and see if he remembers who she is. Meanwhile, Alex,” he called across to where Dr Bertrand was jotting down notes for the morning’s lists, “you better move these people up the priority lists. The woman especially.”
“She was first on my list for tomorrow morning in any case,” she agreed.
Marcus nodded, began to turn away when I stopped him with a question that should not have thrown him, given the circumstances.
“Does this kind of thing often—robberies from the dead?”
I saw the quick glance the three of them exchanged. It was Marcus who shook his head. “From our own morgue? Unheard of. And the curfews organised by the local police cut down on looting. Most people who break curfew are looking for missing family or pets.”
“So there haven’t been any recent cases?” I persisted.
“No.” Another exchange of brief looks, more uneasy this time. “What are you getting at, Charlie?” Marcus asked, his tone a little harsh.
“Just trying to work out if there’s a precedent,” I said mildly, recognising that now was the time to back off a little. “If it’s unusual then that makes it more significant, don’t you think?”
He rolled his shoulders but they remained stiff. “Yeah, well, maybe I’ll discuss that with Commander Peck tomorrow.” He stepped back, gestured for all of us to head for the door. “Now let’s get some rest, people. One way or another, we’re gonna need it.”
It was only as he pulled the door to the mortuary shut behind us and twisted the key in the lock that I voiced my final point.
“One thing you worth bearing in mind for tomorrow,” I said. He paused, raised an eyebrow. “When you ask Commander Peck about this mystery woman, you might want to check if any of his ribs are broken …”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I spent the following morning co
mbing another shopping district with Hope and Lemon. We discovered and marked the location of a further four bodies. There were no more live finds.
The general feeling among the dig teams was that we’d now moved on to the recovery stage of the operation. They were matter-of-fact but subdued about it. Didn’t stop them running whenever they thought there might be a possibility, though. A triumph of hope over experience.
I was expecting to put in another long day so it was a surprise when I heard rotors sweep low overhead and recognised the R&R Bell circling as Riley picked his landing spot.
He put the helo down in the middle of a car park, one side of which had disappeared into a crater, and came jogging across. In the short time I’d known the laidback Aussie, I’d never seen him look in such a hurry.
“Hey Riley,” Hope called. “Where’s the fire?”
“G’day, ladies,” he called back with a grin. “How’s it going?”
“Depends on your point of view, I think,” I said. I nodded to the line of body bags. “If you’re heading back to base we’ve four passengers for you.”
“Better make that seven,” Riley said. “Joe Marcus wants you back at the morgue right away. And Hope—and her ladyship of course.”
“What for?”
He shrugged. “I’m just the oily rag, sweetheart, not the engine driver.”
Hope appeared by my shoulder with Lemon at her side. “So, what’s the rush?” she asked. “Lem’s on a roll.”
He shrugged. “All I know is, the boss said it was urgent. And when he speaks I don’t argue.”
The on-site dig team—mostly from New Zealand where they’d gained their experience during the 2011 Christchurch quake—helped us load the body bags into the Bell. Hope and I climbed aboard without speaking and Lemon jumped in, turned around twice and plonked herself down at Hope’s feet. She seemed unfazed by her proximity to so much dead meat.