Salvage: A Shadow Files Novel

by A. J. Scudiere

  Walter thought of another thing, something else she needed but could not find the answer to on her own. Looking at GJ she asked, "How long has he been dead?"

  "Well, he's been in cold storage. He’s still below forty-degrees. Grandfather must've taken the body down to a level close to freezing for preservation. Maybe because he was leaving and he needed it to keep. You wouldn't want to hit the freezing point or below, because that could cause ice crystals that would burst the cells."

  "Not now, GJ. Just tell me time since death." And there was Walter now throwing around forensic terms almost like GJ. Quantico had changed them both.

  "Right," GJ continued. “He is very cold. The lab itself is being kept colder than usual and the body has been in and out of cold storage—I can tell. However, my grandfather left the body on the table, which I assume means he wants the decomposition process to start, though it will be incredibly slow. The cold makes it harder to determine time since death, but I’m thinking probably in the range of four to seven days."

  GJ started citing evidence and information again, things she saw on the body that made her think of this timeframe. Once again, Walter shut her up. She didn't need a full report. She took GJ’s analysis at its word.

  Shit, she thought to herself, remembering Donovan had just been called away as backup on a case. Was it related? Was it specifically because Wade had been killed?

  "Wait a minute," she told GJ. "I know what to do. Let’s call Donovan first and see what he knows."

  Thirty minutes later Donovan called back, answering the summons she had sent out via several frantic voicemails and texts. That was unlike her, but she was struggling to keep the quiver out of her voice. That was Wade on the table. Burned. Dead.

  "Walter, is everything okay?"

  "No, Donovan, it's not." She tried to keep her voice calm and regretted getting him all stirred up by way of the texts. "Long story short, I'm in Dr. Murray Marks’ basement. He’s got a huge mansion with a hidden home laboratory inside it. I’m calling from there with GJ. GJ came home and found a body on an examining table. It’s got a billfold for an FBI agent. Donovan…it's Wade."

  There was a moment of stunned silence on the other end of the line, so she said it again. "Donovan, I'm looking at the wallet. I'm looking at the ID. It's Wade."

  "I heard you." The reply came back solemnly. "I just need a minute."

  "Donovan, what can you find out? Can you figure out what's going on? If we call Westerfield, if we turn this in, we are opening a jar of I don't even know what. This is a shit show down here.”

  They hung up with a mutual promise to report back as each of them learned things. Another thirty minutes passed before Donovan called a second time. "Walter, Wade has been missing for eight days."

  13

  GJ listened as Walter held the phone up. With the speaker on, Donovan's voice came through loud and clear.

  "We have to tell Westerfield,” he said. “I don't know what's going to happen, but that body on that table is Wade. I can’t find any record of him being dead. In fact, no one quite realized that he was missing until I started checking around."

  "So, what you're saying," GJ spoke into the open air above the phone, "is that you've already alerted Westerfield that something is up with Agent de Gottardi? You raised an alarm enough to get everybody to pull all the strings so you could find out this kind of information inside of thirty minutes?"

  "Yes," Donovan agreed, his tone disturbingly flat. "I had to. It's Wade."

  "You told him we had this Agent de Gottardi’s body?" GJ asked. Walter made a look at her, as though to cut her off, to tone her down, but GJ wasn't taking it. She demanded again, "No authorities."

  This was her grandfather's lab. This was her family, her home, and it shocked her how aggressive she felt at the idea that it might be invaded, even though she knew what was going on here was wrong.

  "No," Donovan replied, and she almost found herself missing his response because of her anger.

  "What do you mean no?" Walter demanded, jumping back into the conversation.

  "I mean, no, I didn't tell Westerfield that Wade was dead. Or that you had the body. I just said I had reason to believe that something was up and I needed to contact him. I said it was urgent and that every string needed to be pulled. That was all."

  "So Westerfield doesn't know that we have the body," GJ clarified, already feeling a little better.

  Before anyone could answer, Walter chimed in. "But Westerfield does know that something is up with his agent. And he knows that something—at least something associated with Donovan—is at the heart of it. That, in some way, Donovan has become alerted to a problem with Wade."

  "Do you think he'll trace that idea back to this lab?" GJ asked Walter now, and Walter shook her head before saying no, so that Donovan could remain part of the conversation.

  "Look, I get it," Donovan said, clearly speaking to GJ this time. "You don't want your grandfather taken down. You don't want his lab dismantled. But the fact remains, that's my friend."

  "I get it, too," GJ said. "And let me tell you something Agent Heath. This laboratory is full of skeletons bearing the same anomaly that you have. The skeleton I found lying out just last week had the face pushed out. The maxilla was disjointed. The jaw was in an alternate position. And I noticed for the first time that it’s longer than normal on all the skeletons. There’s something else on the arms, indicating that this isn’t just a simple issue of double-jointedness.

  “Now, I don't know exactly what's going on with you, but I’m getting closer. And your bullshit about you not knowing what's going on with you...Well, it's just that. It's bullshit."

  A silence hung in the air for a moment before GJ continued.

  "If you bring in the authorities and they come through this lab, I don't think you're going be able to pull off your innocent act much longer."

  Wow, GJ thought. It turned out she swore like a sailor when she was angry or afraid. She hadn't been afraid when Heath and Eames had taken her into custody and handcuffed her in that hotel room. She hadn't been afraid out in the snow or stealing bones from a branch office of the FBI.

  But now? Now she was shaking in her shoes.

  "I understand that you don't want authorities in this, GJ. And you're right,” Donovan responded. “In fact, neither do I. Which is why we have to tell Westerfield. It's his agent. You think he doesn't know what's going on with me? You think he doesn't know about Wade? He knows all of it."

  Across from her, Walter looked up at the ceiling and whispered, "Thank you, baby Jesus."

  "What?" GJ looked bewildered, wondering what the hell Walter was talking about.

  Walter didn’t disappoint. Staring at GJ, she answered. "Just so you know—before Westerfield descends upon us—I think you should be brought into the loop on what we're dealing with. Westerfield specifically forbade me from telling you about Donovan."

  "What? That you're dating?" GJ looked at her. "I knew that. There’s much more going on here than the fact that you and Donovan are in a personal relationship."

  Walter shook her head; so that wasn’t it. GJ looked back and forth between her partner and the phone, wondering what the hell they were holding back. Then she caught on.

  "So, what you're telling me is this anomaly isn't simple extra flexibility. Which I'd pretty much already figured out for myself. And given the way the joints move, and the where points of attachment are on the bones...He can completely shift position, can't he?"

  Walter nodded and whispered a soft "yes."

  "Thanks, Walter," said Donovan.

  "Well then, you tell her! She really already figured it out."

  "What do you shift into?" GJ asked him, her brain racing in a variety of different directions.

  For a while, silence reigned and no one answered her.

  She demanded again, "What do you shift into?"

  She looked at the body on the table, wondering if she could manipulate the bones and get it to subtly slide o
ne way or another to give her a hint. The elongated face came back to her, the bones jutted out. The jaw, the slightly longer canines.

  Something niggled at the back of her memory, and she tried to grab onto it, but it didn't want to fit.

  "Are you ... a dog?" she asked.

  “Why would you say that?" The tone of Donovan's question caught her off guard, making her think she was close.

  "You don't want to know."

  "Tell me." The tone of his demand was flat, dry, almost angry underneath.

  Too bad, she thought, somebody should've told her these things a long time ago. "Because my grandfather used to hunt big dogs. Wolves, maybe."

  "What the fuck?” His voice came through the phone, sharp and quick. "He hunted them?"

  "He said he was a hunter," GJ replied. "But all he ever brought back were dogs…or wolves."

  The agents appeared, one by one, at her grandfather's house. Though they tried to dress casually, they didn't really pull it off. None of them looked like she’d suddenly invited over all her friends from school. It likely appeared to the staff as though GJ was impulsively throwing a party at her grandfather's estate. Only she was throwing a party for the stodgiest people she'd ever met.

  Agent Eleri Eames arrived first. Apparently, she'd been at her family's home, Patton Hall in Kentucky, and had not been too far away from Dr. Marks’ estate. Oh goody, GJ thought. Just as everything falls apart, the first person I get to see is the agent who hates me the most.

  "Janson. Fisher," Eames greeted them using Walter’s real last name.

  "Agent Eames," GJ replied, trying to be respectful. She did not want to wind up handcuffed to anything this time around. She had to admit she'd deserved it before, but right now she was standing in a laboratory over the dead body of an FBI agent that she hadn't wanted to call in. Sadly, she could easily see herself winding up in the cuffs again.

  The two women stared at each other for a moment before Walter physically stepped between them and said, "Can we please end this pissing contest? We have work to do. That's Wade on the table."

  Agent Eames visibly swallowed. That was clearly not something she wanted to hear. She and Agent De Gottardi went back for well over a decade, and as GJ watched, small tears formed in the corner of Eames’ eyes, though she fought them back. Still, it was Agent Eames who spoke first, showing herself to be the stronger woman, GJ guessed.

  "Look, I just want to clear the air. Before he hired either of you, Westerfield asked what I thought about each of you individually." She looked back and forth between Walter and GJ. "I recommended you both. I have no idea if it carried any weight, but he asked and that's what I said."

  "That’s a shocking turn of events. You handcuffed me to a safe in a hotel room," GJ replied, only a moment later wishing she hadn't let that one out of her mouth. Now was not the time to bring it up.

  "Yes, because you’re incredibly intelligent and you were likely going to run off with something else from the evidence locker if we didn’t. I had no idea how to bribe you to help and shut up or leave and shut up. It was the only option left. Motivations aside, you did good work."

  "Hmm," GJ said, before turning back to the task at hand. Unfortunately, her eyes had darted to the right, checking once again the body on the table, the body Agent Eames couldn't quite bring herself to look at.

  About forty-five minutes later, Special Agent in Charge Westerfield showed up. The three of them had only been talking, not touching anything, not sure what they should do until the boss arrived. His arrival meant another round of introductions with the staff, who were starting to get concerned looks on their faces as more and more cars pulled up. GJ wasn't sure how to explain to them that they didn't need to notify her grandfather. But saying that was probably the surest way to get somebody to pull the trigger and call him. Then they would tell him what was going on. So GJ didn't say it.

  The staff had a right to be concerned. This was their home, too. They lived on the grounds. They watched out for the house. Her grandfather sometimes left for months at a time, leaving the place entirely in their care, and though they might not care for him too much, they did care about their home. Today’s events were incredibly unusual for them.

  GJ led Westerfield into the basement laboratory, where Walter and Eleri Eames were already speaking. He looked around in a bit of wonder.

  "Holy shit, this is state-of-the-art."

  GJ only nodded. This man was, after all, her boss, and the laboratory did belong to her grandfather. She was between a rock and a hard place if there ever was one. After taking a cursory inspection of the setup, Westerfield got on the phone and called Donovan, who was already en route, only another thirty or forty-five minutes away. Donovan recommended that they begin inspecting the body without him. Though he was a former medical examiner, Eleri was a forensic scientist and had plenty of practice. She knew what she was doing.

  So did GJ. They had probably two of the nation's top forensic scientists in the room already and a Special Agent in Charge of an entire FBI division. They were more than ready to go.

  Donovan recommended they begin by taking x-rays. They would need them for a thorough record if they were going to try to leave the body in place. Given that they didn't find anything that suggested a need to do otherwise, they were going to get in and out with their analysis. Hopefully their work wouldn’t trigger anyone to call GJ's grandfather and alert him that something was up. Or leave behind any evidence that would let him know they’d been there. It was a more difficult job than it might seem at first glance. It helped that they were all trained in exactly this kind of operation.

  Westerfield wanted their work to go unnoticed, which was why only Eames and Heath were in with him. He was only pulling the agents already closest to the case. Eleri apparently had been on leave, following a lead on her sister’s case. GJ didn't know the details. She sure hadn't kept up with Agent Eames since they'd last seen each other.

  "I'm guessing there's an x-ray machine down here?" Westerfield asked, looking directly at GJ as he waved his hand at the walls behind him.

  "Of course, one second." She darted to the side of the room, trying to be helpful and quick. She did not want to blow this. Opening a cabinet, she pulled the portable machine out and then rolled the table over to where the swing arm would reach over the body. Next, she started to fire up the generator down here. It was for just this kind of thing, and GJ could only hope her grandfather wouldn’t notice all his equipment had been used.

  The x-ray machine needed the generator since the power was off. It was a slightly larger version of the one that might be found in a dentist's office. With it came much larger, digital plates than the dental versions, though he had those, too. Here however, a big-box store version of cling wrap, approximately 1,000 meters long, was used to cover and protect the plates. Apparently, her grandfather had not invested in the hospital-grade clear covers.

  It took a moment for them to get the hang of it and find a rhythm for the group to work, but all of them were familiar with the equipment except Walter. But she fell in line, doing what was needed as they asked. Bit by bit, they moved, lifted, and scanned the body. By the time Agent Heath showed up at the front door and GJ had to go fetch him, they were finishing the last of the x-rays. Given that the tech was all digital, there was no wait time needed to see the films.

  She led him downstairs to where Agent Eames, Walter, and Westerfield were all looking at the screen she'd set up for them before she ran out. Eames was examining the chest and skull.

  "I don't see any bullet wounds. I don't see anything that indicates that he was shot first. What I do see is something here on this side." Using her finger, she pointed at the screen to an anomaly on the right side of the picture. The patient’s left. GJ saw it, too. There was a change in the arc.

  "We need a different angle," she said and almost headed toward the body to get the shot.

  "Well, let's look directly." Agent Eames followed her back over to the table. For a few
moments, they’d managed to ignore the body. Agent Donovan Heath had looked at the x-ray films first, as though he couldn’t yet look at the body of his friend. Eleri had been avoiding it, too, but now she bent over, getting a close, clinical perspective on the side of the skull.

  "It is hard to see through the burn. However, it appears that there is what's probably a fatal head wound here."

  "But not bullet wound," GJ added. It looked more like the kind of damage sustained hand-to-hand. A hit with a blunt object, direct to the head.

  They proceeded to take another x-ray from a different direction which more easily illuminated the circular area that had been slightly caved. From this angle, it was clearer.

  "I don't know," GJ said it at the same time she heard the words coming out of Agent Eames mouth. They looked at each other.

  "I don't think that injury necessarily looks fatal."

  Eames agreed. So maybe GJ wasn't going to get handcuffed to anything this time. She was going to work hard to keep that the case.

  "What else is there?" Walter spoke up though she’d remained relatively quiet. This was not her forte.

  "Over here," Donovan said again having turned his back to the body in favor of looking at the x-ray films. He pointed to a fracture at an angle in the ulna of the right forearm. "Looks like a defensive wound. Maybe a knife mark?"

  Right beside the fracture where Agent Heath pointed, was a shadow on the bone. It could be the slight kind of cut that wouldn't necessarily show up well on an x-ray, but only faintly. Only when they de-fleshed the bone and examined it directly, would they know if the shadow was an old birth defect, a mutation of some kind, or perhaps, as events suggested, a defensive knife wound. Burned flesh made it difficult to distinguish and that was probably the point. Since no one else had said it, GJ said exactly that to the room at large.