Whispers of the Dead

by Kope, Spencer

  As the Special Tracking Unit’s dedicated intelligence research specialist, Diane Parker runs the office—plus, she has voodoo that Jimmy and I can only dream about. The fifty-four-year-old grandmother of two spits out criminal intelligence analysis better and faster than any three analysts half her age. Her run-of-the-mill tools include the massive public records databases CLEAR and Accurint, as well as law enforcement databases like the National Crime Information Center, the Law Enforcement Information Exchange, better known as LINX, and the Western States Information Network, along with its related Regional Information Sharing Systems.

  She also has access to the Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS, and the Next Generation Identification, or NGI, which is the FBI’s massive biometric database that includes a facial recognition component. And we’re pretty sure she has an in at the National Reconnaissance Office, because on more than one occasion classified satellite surveillance images have found their way to her desk.

  We don’t ask her how she does what she does.

  We’ve worked with her enough to trust her implicitly and without reservation. When it comes to Diane, our only real duty is to protect the mojo. This generally entails making sure her supply of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts remains constant.

  In turn, Diane plays mother hen to the STU.

  She bakes us cookies on occasion, and often waits up for us when we’re coming home late, particularly after a bad case. We’ve never asked her to, but she cleans up the mess we always seem to leave behind in the kitchen and break room, as if we were her teenage sons rather than her coworkers. She’s underpaid, overworked, and she’s the rock that anchors the unit and protects it through rough times, even when Jimmy teases her about her impending eligibility for a senior discount at the pancake house.

  As Jimmy and I enter the conference room, Diane hands each of us a two-page color bulletin from the manila folder in her hand: it’s the request for information, or RFI, on Leonardo.

  “I sent it out an hour ago,” she says. “You’ll notice I embellished it a bit. The draft you two put together was pathetic.”

  Jimmy ignores the barb.

  “This looks good,” he says as he scans the document. Diane even added a crime scene illustration showing the configuration of the body, which includes a representation of the two positions the arms and legs were placed in, and the circle Leonardo walked around each body. To the right of this artist rendering is a second image: Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. The side-by-side comparison is stunning.

  I tap the Renaissance image with my index finger. “Nice.”

  “You like it?” Diane says. “I got it off Wikipedia. Did you know they have different versions of the Vitruvian Man? I found a Storm Trooper version, and one with Homer Simpson wearing a fig leaf. There’s even one with that monster from the movie Alien, if you can believe that. Nothing’s sacred anymore.”

  Pulling two more pages from the manila folder, she says, “You’ll like this a lot less,” as she hands a single page to Jimmy and another to me. We read in silence; the words are fresh, but the story is old … and twice repeated.

  It was inevitable, I suppose.

  The eight-hundred-word article details the disappearance and homicide of Ally McCully in Fairmont, West Virginia. It attaches the name Leonardo to the unknown killer and even draws a connection to an unspecified but similar cold case in Washington; the cold case that has haunted me for eleven years: the murder of Jess Parker.

  “Damn,” I mutter.

  “Detective Graham emailed the link last night,” Diane says. “He said he was sorry, but his chief was under a lot of pressure from the media and issued a press release yesterday.” She pauses. “The Associated Press picked up the story this morning,” she adds, “so it’s only going to get more play, not less.”

  Jimmy sighs. “Guess I should have called him back.”

  “No, it’s my fault,” I say. “If I hadn’t blurted out Leonardo’s name at the crime scene they wouldn’t know about the link to Jess’s murder. I was just … shocked. It’s been over a decade and all of a sudden, bam! He’s right there on the ground in front of me.”

  “How can you be so sure it’s Leonardo?” Diane asks.

  She doesn’t know about shine.

  It was my decision when the team was first formed: Jimmy would have to know, but Diane was back in the office, she wouldn’t see me operating in the field. The longer Jimmy and I do this, however, the harder it is to explain our results—not just to Diane, but to Heather, who’s incredibly astute, and to Dex, the crime analyst at the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office. I’ve worked with Dex off and on since the STU was founded. Most of that work is focused on identifying Leonardo, but there have been other cases.

  Diane, Heather, and Dex are all incredibly shrewd, and each, in their own way, suspects that there’s more to my tracking ability than meets the eye.

  I should tell them.

  The thought is recurring and persistent. It’s a daily reminder of the ruse Jimmy and I must play on those closest to us, a deception driven by fear, and the unanswered question: Will they see me as a freak … a chimeric aberration … a monster?

  This thought has kept me silent, but its hold is weakening. Some things must be told, even when the telling is painful. I’m coming to that realization—but the time is not right, not yet.

  “It’s Leonardo,” I tell Diane. “There’s no doubt in my mind.”

  “There’s nothing we can do about it now,” Jimmy says, handing the printout back to Diane. He takes a seat at the conference table and I follow his lead. “Leonardo’s going to have to wait. We need to get this so-called Ice Box Killer sorted out.” He looks up at the manila envelope in Diane’s hand, then into her eyes. “How’s your analysis going?”

  “Done,” she says with a bit of swagger. Opening the folder, she extracts two stapled reports, complete with color photos, handing one to Jimmy and one to me. “Of the fifty-seven names you gave me I’ve whittled the list down to two.”

  “Two!” Jimmy sounds impressed.

  “It wasn’t that hard,” Diane says with a casual shrug. “A third of them were in custody when the feet showed up on the judge’s living room carpet. Another died of an overdose last month; a dozen or so have no serious criminal history, just DUIs and lesser offenses. Would you like me to go through the whole list or just skip to the two that count?”

  “Please,” Jimmy says, “skip away.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She holds the folder to her chest as she begins walking slowly around the conference room table, reciting the information from memory. “The better candidate of the two is Hector René Ortiz, DOB 2/14/82—he’s an Aquarius. He’s also an OG, or Original Gangster, with the Barrio Azteca gang. And there’s your cartel connection. The Barrio Azteca had their beginning in the El Paso jail back in the 1980s. They’re tied in pretty tightly with the Juárez Cartel and Ortiz is … well, he could be their poster child. He’s bad with a capital B.”

  “Yeah, he looks the part,” Jimmy says, staring at a series of booking photos that show full-sleeve tattoos on both arms, plus ink on his chest, back, neck, and face, leaving little room for future additions. “The guy’s a regular pincushion,” he adds. “What are the small tattoos next to his eyes?”

  “Three teardrops on his left eye,” Diane says, “which probably represent three people close to him who were killed or died … though it could also mean he’s killed three people, hard to tell for certain.”

  “And the right eye?”

  “It’s the number twenty-one.”

  “Why twenty-one?”

  “Same number-letter transposition we’ve seen before. Gangs will use the number one for A, two for B, three for C, that sort of thing. In this case, the number twenty-one represents BA, short for Barrio Azteca.”

  Jimmy’s holding the stapled report up at eye-level and tipping it first to the right, then to the left. “I can’t make this out,” he says.


  Diane walks around and peers over his shoulder. “The tattoo on the side of his head?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “It says Pelón.” Her fingers point out the five stylized letters.

  “Pelón?”

  “It means ‘bald’ or ‘baldy’ … probably because he’s bald,” she says in a bland tone. “It’s his gang moniker, his street name.” Circling the tattoo with her finger, she says, “It stands out like a neon sign, doesn’t it? That should make it easier to spot him, even for you two.”

  “So we have a felon who goes by Pelón,” Jimmy muses.

  “With a tattoo on his melon,” I add quickly.

  Jimmy grins. “His girlfriend might be Ellen.”

  “Idiots,” Diane mumbles. Jimmy just chuckles. Taking the report out of his hands, she leafs through to the picture of the severed feet in the judge’s living room, taps the image several times with her half-bent right index finger, and then hands the report back to Jimmy.

  “Buzz kill,” he mutters.

  A spontaneous laugh escapes my lips and Diane instantly casts her gaze my way. I sober my face, and say, “Carry on; please. This is fascinating.”

  She just shakes her head and tries not to smile, but she’s not fooling anyone. She’s our mother hen, queen bee, camp counselor, and personal Torquemada all rolled into one and she loves every minute of it.

  “Any idea why Ortiz would have a beef with Ehrlich?” I ask.

  Diane places the folder on the table and leans forward on both hands. Her blue eyes find me, then wander to Jimmy on the other side of the table, then back to me. “That,” she says, “was a little more difficult to dig up.”

  “Do tell,” Jimmy says.

  “I tracked down the court clerk who was present when Ortiz was tried and sentenced. Her name is Susie, and according to her, Hector Ortiz was less than impressed with Judge Ehrlich, and disrespected him in his own courtroom—during sentencing, no less. What should have been a simple slap on the wrist for a minor drug offense turned into a six-month sentence.”

  “I’m guessing Hector wasn’t happy about that?”

  “He said some choice words.”

  “Sounds like a good candidate,” Jimmy says. “What about our second guy?”

  “Lawrence Michael Wilson,” Diane begins. “DOB 6/27/67. Truck driver, though I don’t think he’s been doing too much driving the last year and a half.”

  “That sounds slightly ominous,” I say.

  “Correct you are. That’s because until last month Larry Wilson was locked up in the El Paso County jail for supposedly killing a local woman named Chelsey Lane, who lived three houses down on the same street. They found her at the bottom of some stairs with a fractured skull and multiple contusions.”

  “How’d it get laid at Larry’s feet?”

  “Neighbor remembered seeing him coming out of the house. Said he probably wouldn’t have noticed, except Larry was acting strange; looking around to see if anyone was watching, that type of thing. He later failed a polygraph and cracked during the interview, admitting to the murder.”

  “But he was acquitted?” Jimmy asks.

  “Yeah, it created quite a stir,” Diane says. “One piece of evidence after another was deemed inadmissible and Wilson claimed the confession was coerced. Ultimately the case fell apart. Frankly, I thought about taking him off the list, since it seems like he owes Ehrlich his freedom.”

  “What stopped you?” I ask.

  “Just some comments he made after the acquittal,” Diane says. “He went on a tirade about his name being dragged through the mud, called Ehrlich some names, right along with the prosecution. I don’t think the guy fully grasps that it was Ehrlich who was responsible for the acquittal.”

  “Talk about an ingrate,” I say.

  Jimmy’s strumming the table with his index fingers: left-right-left-right-left-right. I know the look: something’s bothering him and he’s working it out in his head. “Do you have the crime scene photos from the homicide, the Chelsey—what was her name?”

  “Lane. Chelsey Lane.”

  “Right; can we get whatever you have on that case?”

  “I suppose,” Diane replies, a bit puzzled. “It’ll take me a few minutes.”

  “That’s fine. Thanks.”

  As she exits the conference room and starts up the stairs to her office, I say, “What do you need the crime scene photos for?”

  “I don’t.”

  With an understanding nod, I say, “But you needed to get rid of Diane.”

  “Yeah, for two reasons: first, I think we’re forgetting that the guy with the mocha shine is the victim in all this.”

  “A victim who might be linked to Ehrlich,” I add. “I might even go out on a limb here and say with certainty that the victim is linked to Ehrlich, because—hmm—his feet were found in the guy’s living room. That just doesn’t happen without reason. Whether it’s the gangbanger Ortiz or this Wilson guy, I don’t know, but what else do we have to go on? One of them has to be Mocha.”

  “I’m not saying that Mocha’s not involved, I just have a theory that might make sense of it. We didn’t find IBK’s shine anywhere in the jail, did we; not even in the booking area?”

  “No. We didn’t.”

  “Implying … what?”

  It takes me a second. “He’s never been booked.”

  “Ding ding ding,” Jimmy says, touching the end of his nose. “So, to recap, the list you got is for a cell occupied by the victim, not the suspect—a suspect who’s never been booked, at least at that facility, yet we’re still looking for some kind of hostile link between Ehrlich and the two feet in the box. Why?”

  I don’t have an answer.

  “I’ll tell you,” he continues, using a come-hither finger motion to draw me in close so we can conspire in whispered hypotheticals. The way Jimmy’s mind works is sometimes scary-brilliant. I honestly think he could give Diane a run for her money. In hushed tones, he lays out his thoughts as if they were tangible. The words fall from his lips like pieces of a giant puzzle, landing on the table in a pattern that starts to resemble a picture. Then it suddenly makes sense—each piece of it simple and brilliant.

  We spend the next five minutes in huddled sequestration until the distinct clump-clump-clump of Diane’s heels echoes down the stairs. Jimmy and I are now on the same page. It’s a page ripped from the middle of a book, so we don’t know the beginning, nor can we guess the end, but it’s a good start.

  It’s something.

  * * *

  Just before one P.M., Diane makes a lunch run and returns with some eight-inch subs. My usual—turkey, cheese, tomato, and black olive on wheat—sits unwrapped and half eaten on the conference room table in front of me. Next to it is an eight-by-ten glossy of some severed feet. Above that, and to the right, is another eight-by-ten photo showing a close-up of Chelsey Lane’s bloody and battered head.

  It’s funny what becomes normal with repetition.

  Jimmy’s phone rings while he’s in mid-chew. It rings twice more before he can swallow. “Donovan,” he finally says, pressing the phone to his ear. A big smile cracks his face and he looks at me and points at the phone. “Hey, Tony, good to hear from you.”

  As he listens, the smile slips away and he seems to slump a little deeper into his seat. His left hand rises up and massages his forehead with just the index finger and thumb. It’s the type of rubdown you do when you’re either disturbed or when a fierce headache is creeping up on you.

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” Jimmy says.

  I can hear Tony’s voice issuing from the speaker, but I can’t make out any of his words. Jimmy pulls his notepad close and says, “Okay, give it to me,” and starts scratching away on the paper. “Repeat the last … yeah, okay. I got it.” I hear the soft buzz of Tony’s voice again. “Definitely, we’ll keep you in the loop. Okay, buddy. Take care.”

  Buddy? Since when has Jimmy ever referred to anyone as buddy? He doesn’t call me b
uddy. And I am his buddy.

  He sets his phone on the table and taps absently at the blank screen. After a few seconds he looks at Diane and says, “Can you call Les and Marty and have them get the plane ready?” She just nods and starts for her office. “One more thing, Diane: Can you send Tony the info you have on Ortiz and Wilson? I want him up to speed when we get there.”

  “We’re going to El Paso?” I say.

  “No, Tucson.”

  “Seriously? Jimmy, we just got home last night. I haven’t seen Heather in a week, and your family’s going to forget what you look like if you don’t spend some time with them.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Why Tucson?”

  He looks at me and shakes his head. “Nothing good.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Pima County Medical Examiner’s Office—September 4, 5:43 P.M.

  The autopsy room stinks of bleach and the lingering echo of that too-familiar acrid stench that seems to attach itself to dead bodies. It’s a smell I’ve never gotten used to, and one that’s followed me home on more than one occasion.

  The afterlife may be beautiful, but death stinks.

  “John Doe number one-two-three-J,” Dr. Perry Stone says as he wheels the body cart into the autopsy suite and parks it under a perch of lights. The cart is empty but for a small clear plastic bin resting alone on the stainless steel surface.

  “Déjà vu,” Jimmy says under his breath.

  “Recovered on April twenty-seventh,” Dr. Stone recites, “from the living room of a residence on Southwind Lane.” He checks the time on his iPhone and sets it on the autopsy cart. “No hit from CODIS, and we have nothing else to identify the victim.”

  “What is it with feet?” I mutter.

  “Are you sure it’s a John Doe and not a Jane Doe?” Jimmy asks.

  “Men’s sneakers,” Stone replies tersely, reaching down and removing the lid from the box. “Size twelve. A little large for your average woman, I should think.”

  “Fine,” Jimmy replies, a little terse himself. “Have you had the shoes off?”

  “Of course.”

  “But you put them back on?”