‘‘Why don’t you call SID, Sergeant?’’ Boldt ordered. ‘‘Will we be digging?’’ he bluntly asked Heidi Mack.
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gles and loops of different colors were grouped in three distinct lumps. They reminded Boldt of Sarah’s crayon drawings back on his office wall. ‘‘We’ve got a good read, a good look at all three grave sites you indicated.’’ Her finger directed them to a rough yellow green at the bottom of the middle of the three. ‘‘This area is deeper and badly disturbed, especially when compared to these other two. It could possibly be explained by hand digging—shoveling, rather than a backhoe. You see how these other two are less busy? The backhoe doesn’t disturb the walls nearly as much as hand shoveling.’’
‘‘Bones?’’ Boldt asked.
‘‘Necrosearch has been burying pigs for years.’’
‘‘Pigs!’’ LaMoia blurted out.
‘‘Pigs,’’ she answered. ‘‘And working on imaging systems to identify bone mass. They’re still a long way off from anything close to perfect. About the best we can do is make educated guesses based on some of these trial experiments.’’ She waited for another LaMoia exclamation, but he withheld his comments. She continued, ‘‘Typically, bodies are buried about two feet down, and that’s the depth of the experiments. This is much trickier—six to eight feet in depth. But these shadings here, and these returns here,’’ she said, fingertip to the screen, ‘‘are your best bets. The coffin registers here: This sharp straight line and these unexplained returns are most certainly below that line. They’re not rock. Sticks, maybe. Bone, maybe.’’
‘‘Am Ipicking up reservations?’’ Boldt asked. LaMoia fired off, ‘‘You don’t need reservations to book this room!’’
The joke fell flat.
Heidi Mack answered Boldt. ‘‘Yes, Isuppose you are. Definite reservations. My problem is this. I’ve seen dozens, maybe hundreds of GPR returns on all sorts of experimental burials. You learn to spot the anomalies.’’ Again, she indicated the screen. ‘‘The problem here? The problem you’ve got? We’ve got way too many returns, and they’re layered. You see this? One . . . two . . . maybe three different strata.’’
‘‘Three?’’ Boldt whispered.
‘‘What the hell’s going on?’’ LaMoia blurted out. Boldt turned to him and said, ‘‘Ms. Mack?’’
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‘‘If I’m right,’’ Heidi Mack explained to LaMoia, ‘‘you don’t have one, you have three other bodies buried down there.’’
t
‘‘We have indications the tissue has been frozen!’’ Doc Dixon called up from the bottom of the open grave. 2:00 A.M., Saturday morning. Day twelve. Another bank of halogens to combat the multiple shadows so deep. Heidi Mack had stuck around at Boldt’s invitation—every piece of data collected would be added to the Necrosearch database in Denver. ‘‘Moderate decomposition. When was this grave dug?’’
‘‘Five weeks ago,’’ LaMoia answered.
‘‘That fits.’’
‘‘The bottom of their feet?’’ Boldt asked.
‘‘What feet? There’s little to nothing left,’’ Dixon replied. ‘‘SID will have to sift this soil for debris. You’re hoping for fish scales?’’
‘‘Be nice to find,’’ Boldt admitted.
‘‘Fish scales?’’ Mack asked.
‘‘You didn’t hear that,’’ Boldt told her, having warned her that some of what they would discover would be off-limits for a while. She nodded.
‘‘Can we have someone dig at this end?’’ Mack said, pointing on her screen to the area that lay away from the headstone. ‘‘Into that dirt wall there?’’
‘‘What’s up?’’ Boldt asked her.
‘‘Another anomaly I’d like to verify for the sake of the software. Could be anything.’’
‘‘Dixie? You mind working a shovel for a minute?’’
‘‘It’s not in the job description!’’ the medical examiner complained from the bottom of the hole. Boldt handed him down a shovel.
‘‘Where?’’ Dixon asked.
Mack returned to her equipment, walked over to the open hole and pointed out an area in the very corner. ‘‘It should only be a few inches lower than the grade where you’re standing. A foot at most.’’
Dixon planted the shovel into the mud and began digging. He
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stuck something on his second attempt. ‘‘You’re good!’’ he called up to Mack, his gloved hand reaching down and extricating the treasure.
‘‘It’s a rope,’’ he called out. ‘‘Check that,’’ he said, studying it more closely. ‘‘It’s a chain!’’ He knocked off some of the dirt and held it up for all to see.
But Boldt didn’t need to look. He’d seen it already in the digital videotape—a chain used to bind an ankle to a sewing machine.
‘‘Might have been attached to the bottommost victim,’’ Dixon hollered up, fighting the roar of the generator. ‘‘Know what Ithink?’’
‘‘What?’’ Boldt called down, excitement pulsing through him with the find. The three bodies were most certainly linked to both Jane Doe and the importation of illegals. Coughlie would have to be notified. SID were already on their way.
‘‘Ithink we were wrong before.’’
‘‘Wrong?’’ Boldt shouted back down.
Dixon looked up, still holding the chain. ‘‘I’d say we have a new candidate for our first victim.’’
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S AT U R D AY , AU G U S T 2 9
1 2 D AY S M I S S I N G
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C H A P T E R 4 3
‘‘Ms. McNeal?’’a woman’s trembling voiceinquired. Stevie recognized that voice immediately. ‘‘Ms. Klein?’’
‘‘Isaw you on TV. The reward and all.’’
Klein sounded nervous. Stevie took that to be in her favor.
‘‘Ididn’t have anything to do with a woman going missing. Iwant you to know that. But . . . what Iwas wondering . . . about that reward. If I could help you out, where would that leave me in terms of that reward?’’
‘‘If you—’’
Klein interrupted. ‘‘You’re gonna get me killed. You understand? Those people would kill me in a heartbeat.’’ She added, ‘‘So we gotta work this out, you and me.’’
‘‘I’ve tried to work this out—’’
‘‘Iknow, Iknow. My husband says I’m gonna bring a world of hurt down on this family, and my family’s everything to me, absolutely everything, and if there’s ten thousand dollars in it for me, then maybe I’m better off talking to you, on account I’m already involved with these people and all and they’ve got me scared half to death.’’
Stevie felt as if she’d swallowed a bubble of air, or eaten ice cream too fast. She spoke a little too quickly for the professional she was trying to be. ‘‘My sources are protected by the First Amendment. Better you talk to me than call the police. We can work this out. Ithink we should talk, Ms. Klein. Why don’t you start at the beginning and tell me everything you know?’’
�
��‘I’m standing at a pay phone in a mobile home park. You want to talk, you gotta come to me, on account Idon’t want to be seen in my car.’’
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‘‘Who is it you’re afraid of? Give me a name, Ms. . . . Gwen. I need something, anything, in order to know you’re telling the truth. You understand?’’ Youcould be setting a trap, she was thinking.
‘‘Forget it. I’m not doing this over the phone.’’
‘‘Then where?’’ Stevie asked. ‘‘Tell me where you are.’’
Klein described a mobile home park east of Avondale. She would be waiting.
Just before cradling the receiver, Stevie heard a click on the line. At the time, she thought it was nothing more than Klein hanging up. t
One of the sports teams had played. The traffic was bumper-to-bumper at a complete standstill. Stevie took the floating bridge to Bellevue, a fifteen-minute drive that took forty-five. She drove north toward Redmond, home of the Microsoft campus, still caught in traffic. Well over an hour since Klein had called. Residential communities had popped up everywhere in an area once predominantly second-growth forest. Condominiums, co-ops, single-family homes—cul-de-sac neighborhoods where dinner conversations centered around ‘‘bandwidth’’ and
‘‘port speed.’’ She drove through the surviving forest on Avondale Road, twilight glimpses of Bear Creek to her right, consternation mounting as she became suspicious of the constant stream of headlights behind her. An hour and a half. Any of these cars might have been following her. She pushed against her own paranoia and stuck to the job at hand: The key witness in the case had just agreed to talk. An hour forty-five.
With less than a mile to go, Stevie turned right and finally lost all the headlights.
Blood drumming in her ears from excitement, she licked her lips and spoke a few words to clear her throat.
She rechecked her note to be sure she wanted number seven, where lights burned. She climbed out. Conflicting television shows battled their laugh tracks across the asphalt, past the propane tanks and the mildewed laundry lines. A telephone rang down a ways and a woman’s voice cried out, ‘‘I’ll get it.’’
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The aluminum screen door on number seven had been hung incorrectly. It was pocked and blackened with corrosion. She banged on the frame and called out hello. The trailer’s redwood steps were slick and treacherous. The air smelled loamy, wet and dark with rot. This was a place that did not know sunlight.
She caught a whiff of propane gas coming from the trailer itself. She pressed her nose closer and confirmed this. The blinds were pulled, but the smell leaked from the slatted windows as well. Her heart lodged in her throat.
Still on tiptoe, she leaned heavily to her right and pushed her eye to a crack between the interior blinds. Two legs. A woman sitting, perhaps. She knocked again, checked back: Those legs had not moved. The surge of adrenaline seemed to start in her toes and race up toward her face, which became hot with panic. She tested the door. Locked. Pounded on the door in frustration. She jumped off the steps and hurried around the trailer, leaping to steal looks inside. On the far side of the trailer another, smaller door. Also locked. She pushed against the door, creating a gap between the cheap molding and the door itself. She used a credit card to open the latch. The door swung into the trailer, unleashing a sickening stink of propane. Her stomach wretched as she leaned away and gulped for fresh air.
‘‘Hurry!’’ she pleaded with herself.
She charged inside, aware that the slightest spark would ignite the gas. The quarters were small and cramped. Her eyes stung, her lungs ached. Klein sat in a chair, head slumped, eyes shut, her swollen tongue a black-violet rage. Stevie wretched bile, coughed and staggered. Her head swooned. She took hold of the woman’s body and pulled her violently from the chair. The body thumped onto the floor. She weighed several tons. Stevie shoved the woman out the door, got caught up with her and somersaulted down the steps, buried under the dead weight. Stevie grunted, heaved and thrust the corpse off her, that bloated tongue aimed at her cheek as if asking for a kiss. Stevie vomited again, frantically extracting herself from the mud, the cold, the ooze. She struggled for her cellphone and dialed 911.
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LaMoia found it difficult to fit his tall frame into the front seat of her 325i. All that money and so little room! The car was running, its heater going, the windows fogged. LaMoia opened his window a crack.
‘‘You stuck around,’’ he said. ‘‘We appreciate that.’’
‘‘I. . . I’ve never touched one before. You know? All my reporting, you just look. You never touch them.’’
‘‘You said she had something to tell you.’’
‘‘ She said she had something to tell me,’’ Stevie corrected.
‘‘She was claiming the reward?’’
‘‘Trying to. Yes.’’
‘‘You told her you’d protect her as a source,’’ he guessed.
‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘Who else did you tell about it?’’
‘‘No one!’’
‘‘An editor? A cameraman?’’
‘‘No one!’’
‘‘Coincidental timing?’’ he asked. ‘‘Boldt won’t like that.’’
‘‘No, Iwon’t,’’ Boldt said. He carried a hot tea, handed them each a coffee, apologizing if it wasn’t still hot, but it was. After a few needed sips, LaMoia switched places with his lieutenant. Boldt rolled up the window and LaMoia headed back to the crime scene.
‘‘She panicked and killed herself,’’ Boldt said.
‘‘You believe that?’’
‘‘No.’’
‘‘She knew they’d get her. Said as much. If I hadn’t gotten stuck in traffic. If I’d come right here instead . . .’’
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‘‘Who else did you tell?’’
‘‘No one.’’ She paused and blurted out, ‘‘You don’t believe me?’’
Her lips found the edge of the Styrofoam cup.
‘‘Doesn’t matter.’’
‘‘It does to me.’’
‘‘It isn’t relevant,’’ he said.
‘‘It is to me.’’
‘‘You’ve been sharing information with Agent Coughlie.’’ He answered her dumbfounded expression, ‘‘We hear things.’’
‘‘Ididn’t share this!’’
‘‘You sure?’’
‘‘You suspect Coughlie?’’ she blurted out.
‘‘Ididn’t say that.’’
‘‘You didn’t have to.’’
‘‘When there’s a lot of money at stake, we suspect everyone.’’
‘‘The INS? My god . . .’’
‘‘Coast guard. Our own people. The list is pretty long, I’m afraid.’’
‘‘You’re wrong about Coughlie,’’ she warned.
‘‘Ididn’t say anything about Coughlie. I
t’s just that his attorneys—the federal prosecutor’s office—tried to get hold of that video today. And since I’d heard you’d seen him . . . I thought maybe—’’
‘‘Well you thought wrong!’’
‘‘How can Ihelp if Idon’t know what’s going on?’’ Boldt asked.
‘‘You stole that tape from me.’’
‘‘Imade a bad decision,’’ Boldt said. ‘‘Let’s say I’d be willing to reverse that decision?’’
&
nbsp; ‘‘In return for?’’
‘‘A look at the videos you took from her apartment.’’ He cautioned,
‘‘And don’t tell me you didn’t. Being a reporter doesn’t allow you to lie to a cop.’’
‘‘I’m cold,’’ she complained, knowing when to cut bait.
‘‘We’ll get you home,’’ he offered. ‘‘Our officers will see you home.’’
She said, ‘‘So if it wasn’t coincidence, someone knew Iwas coming here.’’
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‘‘Is that so impossible? Do you use a walk-around phone by any chance?’’
‘‘Not at the office. She called me at the office.’’
‘‘Cellphone?’’
‘‘It was my office phone.’’
‘‘No one in the room? No other calls? Cancel a dinner, something like that?’’
‘‘Nothing!’’
‘‘So maybe it was coincidence,’’ Boldt said. He added, ‘‘But it wasn’t suicide. Wasn’t even a good try at it.’’ He informed her, ‘‘Broken blood vessels in the eyes—manual strangulation. We think he may have raped her. If he did, it was postmortem.’’
She sat paralyzed behind the wheel. ‘‘You’re trying to scare me into cooperating.’’
‘‘Not at all. I’m just reporting. Funny, isn’t it? I’m reporting. You’re here investigating.’’
‘‘It’s not funny at all.’’
‘‘We can protect witnesses,’’ he said.
‘‘They’re not coming after me, Lieutenant. Igot here too late.’’
‘‘But she contacted you,’’ Boldt reminded. ‘‘They may know that. How often do they sweep the station for surveillance devices?’’
‘‘That’s ridiculous.’’
‘‘I’m willing to trade tapes, Ms. McNeal,’’ Boldt repeated, hand on the door handle. ‘‘Offer stands. The offer of protection stands as well.’’
‘‘Someone to drive me home would be nice. I’ll take you up on that.’’
‘‘Well, that’s a start,’’ he said. ‘‘You think about the rest.’’
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The First Victim Page 23
