Lisa gasped as she turned at the sound of a familiar voice. There in the doorway stood Steel in his gym outfit, looking alarmed.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he rushed over to help. He caught a glimpse of Lisa, who was wearing only a bathrobe over a towel and sandals. He turned to her. “What’s going on, Lisa?”
She ran up and hugged him for support. “We found someone in the sauna, I was afraid it might have been you.”
He smiled to comfort her, and his hand resting on her cheek made her eyes close at his gentle touch.
“Okay, I think we got it, you ready, Doc?” yelled one of the engineers as they prised the door open. On opening, a massive cloud of hot steam was released, enveloping the engineers as they dived for cover.
“I don’t understand,” the instructor said, looking again at the temperature gauge. “This said it was below normal. It shouldn’t have been that hot in there.”
“Tell that to her,” the doctor said, kneeling beside the shrivelled naked remains of a woman, his words full of remorse and pity. As Lisa looked at her she couldn’t help staring at the desperate look on the woman’s face.
The woman lay on her front, the skin on her body hanging lose and sagging, as if it was a suit that was too large for her. Her outstretched right arm was reaching towards the door. Her fingers were bloody and raw, as the flesh of her fingertips had been scraped away to the bone and her nails had been ripped apart and shattered. Her expression of sheer desperation was made more poignant by the skin of her face that sagged, as if it was made from melted wax. Lisa screamed, then buried her face into Steel’s chest while he held her close.
Steel looked over to the body and then at the door. There were bloody scratches gouged into the wooden frame, with bits of fingernail fragments protruding from them. The glass on the door had been hammered by something but there had not been enough force to break it.
“How long do you think she has been in there, Doc?” Steel asked, still holding the whimpering Lisa against him.
The doctor looked up at Steel and shrugged. “Hard to say. Hours, perhaps. Let me get her back to the med lab and I’ll see what I can find out.”
Steel nodded and led Lisa away, just as Brad walked in.
“Hey, I heard there was an accident,” Brad called out. “Is my fiancée okay?” Brad then looked across at Lisa and John, his eyes flashing angrily. “Hey, why the hell are you here with my girl?”
Brad lunged forwards and ripped Lisa out of Steel arms. The ex SAS man backed off and raised his hands in a ‘slow down’ motion
“Look, Brad I just got here, okay? So calm down.”
Brad growled and swung a fist at Steel, who just leaned sideways to avoid the punch. Furious now, Brad swung several more times, and each time Steel continued to avoid the hits.
“Brad, I can do this all day—in fact it’s good exercise,” Steel told him. “But now is not the time or the place.”
When Brad refused to stop his onslaught, during his next punch, John grabbed his fist in a vice-like grip. “Now behind me we have a dead woman, and right now you need to take your girlfriend away to comfort her, because she found her. Okay?”
Brad nodded sullenly and turned to Lisa, who just shook her head at Brad and ran off crying. Steel turned back and walked back to the doctor, who was busy examining the body. “Any ideas, Doc?” Steel asked, crouching down beside him.
“It’s okay, boys, I got it from here,” he told the men in the room. “Mr. Black will assist me.”
The engineers saluted and made their way out.
“Suits me fine, Doc, I need to leave before I lose the rest of my appetite anyway,” said one of them.
Seeing they were alone, the doctor pointed out a bruised area on the dead woman’s back.
“Someone broke her back?” Steel asked, then looked back to the doctor.
The medical man tilted her right wrist. “See the burns on her hand?”
Steel noted them then looked around the room. In the corner by the door lay a stone from the sauna’s stone pile.
“Looks like she tried to smash her way out using that stone.”
“My God, it must have been red hot.”
The doctor nodded, but gave a curious look as Steel looked around the small cabin. “The killer put her up there on the top shelf where she would get the most heat,” he surmised. “I figure she was unconscious to start with but woke up.”
Steel stood up and walked through the scene. “She crawled down after realising her back was broken and passed the stone pile. Picking up a stone she made her way to the door and started to bang on the glass.” Steel stopped and looked round, playing things out in his mind as the doctor watched him, memorising his reasoning.
The investigator looked up, excited. “She must have been banging on the glass to get attention to start with.” Steel ran down towards the door and pointed out the first few scratches. “When she realised no one could hear her she started to panic and then tried to break the glass. Unfortunately she either lost grip of the rock, or found it to be useless and cast it away. Either way she resorted to clawing.” Steel looked across at the open-mouthed physician and smiled. “Sorry to be so dramatic. Too much TV, I guess.” However, Steel could see that the doctor realised he knew what he was talking about.
“How are we getting her back to the med centre?” John asked. The doctor looked grim. “Unfortunately we have to wait for the captain. After that I’ll go and get a gurney and we will take her using the service elevator.”
Steel nodded, looking uncomfortable. It didn’t take long for the First Officer to come down and see what had happened.
“Where’s the captain?” asked the doctor.
The officer looked at the doctor as he stood over the remains of the woman. “Afraid he is indisposed at the moment, so he asked me to see what had happened. So what’s your theory then, Doc?”
The First Officer stood there with his arms folded, awaiting the verdict.
“Well, the doctor reckons that the door handle was broken before she went in. Obviously didn’t notice it, and went in, but while she was in there she tripped or something and hurt her back. Made it to the door to try and get out and well...” Steel pointed with an open palm as if to offer the conclusion.
The First Officer looked across at Steel with utter disdain. “And who might you be?”
John Steel could see he wasn’t really interested in either his name or the fact that there was a dead girl in a sauna. Steel noted the man was playing with the fingers of his right hand in a nervous manner. He was clearly either missing his next fix of drugs, or he was just upset about this whole thing and simply wanted to get out of the room and throw up.
“I am just leaving,” Steel said as he started to answer the officer’s question, but swiftly got an evil look before he could finish.
“I need to get her back to the medical bay,” the doctor’s words interrupted.
“Okay, do it quickly and quietly. I’ll tell the captain and we’ll shut this room off for now—say we’re doing repairs or something.” The First Officer stormed away, passing Steel, who was sitting on a weight bench. The man didn’t stop, just gave Steel a savage look as he passed.
John stood up and walked back towards the doctor. “Wow, he wasn’t the entertainments manager was he?”
The doctor looked up, giving a brief smile. “I have to get my gurney and a bag if you can wait here?”
Steel nodded. “I have been hanging out with stiffs all night. At least this one knows how to shut up.”
The doctor looked relieved. “Thanks for helping. Is there anything I can get you?”
Steel’s eyes lit up at the offer. “Her fingerprints would be great.”
SEVENTEEN
McCall awoke and peered at the alarm clock through half open eyes as it blared out the familiar tone. She reached over, slamming a hand onto the ‘off’ switch and waited for the second alarm to sound before she stirred. The detective rolled back and stretched
off the stiffness of a good night’s sleep after staying up late with a bottle of red wine and an old movie.
Unwilling, she forced herself out of the warm comfortable bed and made her way to the kitchen to switch on the coffee machine she had prepared the night before. McCall clicked on the button and then rested her head on her arms on the counter next to the machine, as she waited for the sound of the motors and heaters to activate in a chorus of a whirring sound. Still half asleep she made for the bathroom to soak under the shower’s warm embrace, and as she entered she looked into the mirror and stared deeply at herself. Oh well, she thought. Another day. Here we go again.
After her morning ritual of breakfast in front of the TV she headed to the precinct. Her usual stop-off at the ME’s office to play catch-up had to wait, as her friend Tina was on call. In the bullpen McCall found Tony and Tooms discussing the Knicks game the night before, while Jenny Thompson was out working on her mugging-gone-wrong case.
Sam smiled to herself, recognizing that Jenny was doing well, as she knew she would.
“Morning, guys. Hard at work, I see,” she joked, making them turn round to greet her as she sat on the edge of Tony’s desk.
“So where are we with these cases?” McCall asked before taking a sip from her coffee through the safety lid of the takeaway cup.
“Well, CSU used the laser to find the trajectory of the bullet and found that the shooter was in the East River,” explained Tooms as he rocked in his chair.
Tony had moved his chair back so that he was almost sitting next to the other detective “Well, it appears that my vic decided to chew on a .45 after a deal fell through,” he told her.
McCall noted the confused look on his face. “But?”
He looked at her seriously. “But something felt off so I am checking some things out.”
McCall nodded in appreciation of their efforts.
“So what have you got?” asked Tooms, sipping coffee from an oversized mug.
“I have got an expert electrician who supposedly electrocuted himself while doing a simple job an apprentice could have done,” she said. “I have no trace evidence to show anyone had done anything apart from wiping the fuse box clean of prints. This guy was stand-up, had a good job, nice family. No, this is definitely a weird one.”
Tooms saw the frustration in her eyes. “What did the building owner say?” he asked, hoping it may jog a memory.
McCall shook her head as she stared at her own board from across the room. “He couldn’t say. He was in Boston at the time and he had given my vic the key to the shop the day before. Anyway I have got footage from his workshop and hope that brings something to the table.” She paused then turned to the two detectives. “Nice job, guys.” She stood up and walked towards her desk, wishing that she had had as much luck with her own case.
Tony picked up the vic’s file and flicked through personal and financial papers, trying to see a pattern in his day-to-day life. Bill Foster had been married for three years to Brenda, who worked in a salon part time. They had been trying for a child—their first. After Tony had left Cartwright Global, he had gone to speak with Mrs. Foster at their home. From what he could tell they were still in the honeymoon phase of marriage, and everything was going well.
The apartment was large, which suggested he had a good income, yet it wasn’t extravagant or over the top in any way, it was a home. The place was on the upper side, which meant he had to travel many subway miles each day. Apart from that, nothing stood out. His wife had confirmed that Bill had been a bit preoccupied with the new deal at work, but he never seemed anxious or upset—in fact she had the impression that he was excited about it.
Tony stood up and moved to his murder board where he started to fill in some of the blanks. He turned towards his desk as his phone began to ring, rushing over to pick up the receiver.
“Homicide, Detective Marinelli speaking,” he answered, slightly out of breath from the leap he had just made from across the room. It was the tech unit. They had looked over the footage from Cartwright Global and had flagged the last person he’d been talking to before he took his life.
“That was tech,” he told them. “They’re bringing up the footage from Cartwright Global. Apparently there’s something we need to see.”
Captain Brant, who just walked out of the elevator, heard what Tony had said and walked over to the group. “Well I sure hope it’s good news, Marinelli,” he told them. “God knows we could use some right about now.”
Tony put the receiver back on to the cradle and looked at the board. “What the hell made this guy do that to himself? And why inside the building? He could have just gone up on the roof and done it. Or jumped.” Tony shook his head as he flicked through the notes in Bill Foster’s file. He stopped for a moment then hurried through the pages, again scanning each line.
“What’s up, man, you look like you lost something?”
Tony shook his head to Tooms’s question then slapped down the file on to the desk “Where the hell did he get the gun?”
Everyone in the group turned and looked at Tony. “He never registered for a gun, ever. So, where the hell did it come from and why did he have it there?”
The elevator doors slid open and a Chinese woman got off and rushed over to Tony with a laptop lovingly cradled in her arms as if it was a child. She headed for Tony. “I need to show you this,” she said, in a soft voice.
Everyone got up and headed for the small briefing room, where a TV sat on a stand in front of a six-foot table.
“So what you got for us, Susie?” Tony asked, excited at the prospect of a break in the case.
Susie Lee was tall and her slim, and her oriental figure was draped in a baggy T-shirt and jeans. She stood in front of the stand and plugged in the cable from the back of the set, attached a wire into the laptop, and then sat the laptop on top of a holding tray that was attached to the stand.
“Okay, you ready?”
Everyone nodded as they all took a seat and waited for whatever had the tech had to show them. The screen came alive with the video from the downstairs lobby of Bill Foster’s workplace and she fast-forwarded it to the time Bill went to the lobby then let the feed run. They all watched as Bill Foster came out of the elevator and walked towards a row of seats. Susie moved the mouse and zoomed in on Bill, just as another man approached him. This man was taller and had a larger frame than Bill had.
Even though the footage was in black and white, they could see that the man had dark hair and wore a dark suit with a coat draped over his left arm. As the two men spoke, it looked as if the conversation became heated. Bill turned to walk away, but the man grabbed Bill’s arm and pulled him back. As Bill turned angrily the man held something up, a piece of paper or a photograph. This caused Bill to stumble backwards slightly, as if his knees were about to give. The man walked towards Bill and passed him something from under his coat, something that glinted for a second. The man patted Bill on his shoulder then casually left the building, leaving Bill to slowly return to the elevator and out of sight.
The detectives stood up and moved towards the large monitor, and McCall spun round to the Tech. “Please tell me you have footage from the elevator?”
Susie smiled and moved the mouse to bring up another feed that showed inside the elevator, with Bill standing with his back to the wall, looking down at the floor. Suddenly he reached inside his jacket and produced the .45 revolver.
“So that’s where he got the gun from! The guy in the lobby!” Sam said, turning towards the tech, who was now grinning. “You brought a blow up of our guy didn’t you?” she asked.
Susie pulled out three differently angled photos of the man. Even though none of them were face-on there was still a reasonable likeness, and now at least the sketch guys had something to work on.
“Oh, Susie I could kiss you!” McCall said as she rushed out, leaving the guys standing there slack-jawed, as their imaginations ran wild.
Outside in the bullpen they heard a
phone ring then McCall’s voice as she answered it. Her words were muffled by the noise of the everyday chaos of the department floor. Moments later McCall came back with a puzzled look on her face. “That was Tina, she wants us all down there to tell us something about all our cases.”
As the three detectives entered the bleak corridors of the ME’s office, they saw Jenny leaning up against the wall of Tina’s cutting room, texting.
“I see you got my text?” yelled McCall, making Jenny look up and quickly stow her phone away.
“Yeah, so what’s the big news?” asked Jenny, wide eyed and excited.
McCall returned her gaze. “I don’t know, she wouldn’t say, just that we should all get down here.”
They entered together to find Tina in her office, shuffling her feet in time with some nineties tune that blared from the radio. Tina looked up, embarrassed at being caught like that.
“Hi, Tina, you said it was important so here we are,” Sam said. “What you got?”
Tina glided over to the body of Bill Foster, the tune still making her swing her hips as she went. She pulled back the sheet to show her findings to the group. “Okay, so CSU found fragments at all the scenes and compared them. Some of them too degraded to identify, but they were able to determine that they were all shot by the same weapon.”
Everyone looked shocked, and their mouths fell open in surprise.
“What do you mean, all shot by the same weapon?” asked Tooms, confused.
“Oh, apart from your crane man. He was shot by a .330, that’s definite, they found that by using computer simulation and stuff, all too complicated for me to understand.”
McCall sat down on one of the stainless steel side tables. “And Jane Doe too?”
Tina nodded. “Her too, I am afraid. The gun left wasn’t a match to anything, it was just a plant to send us off hoping we would call it a suicide and move on.”
Sam nodded, taking in all the new data. “Anything else?”
Operation:UNITY (John Steel series Book 2) Page 21
