The NightShade Forensic Files: Fracture Five (Book 2)

by A. J. Scudiere

  This time Donovan sat—plopped into a seat, maybe—and put all his energy into listening. "What's weird about it? It was a medical discharge."

  Maybe she just didn't understand because she wasn't an MD. He waited.

  "Follow me here." Marina Vasquez started flipping papers. "We can account for all his time through here." She pointed to a date barely a year and a half ago. "Clean med checks, all good. He stays with whatever unit he's assigned. He has a disturbingly solid number of missions completed."

  She looked up at them. "My dad was a Green Beret. He can't tell me exactly what they did, but he did say a lot of missions go sideways. And a lot get started and then pulled back before they go sideways. Rollins' numbers—his team's numbers—are unusually high."

  The junior agent looked up as though she expected to be interrupted or disbelieved, but he didn't have any of those thoughts. Donovan figured you didn't get into the FBI for nothing, so he waited until she started up again.

  "Then, we lose him, here . . ." She showed off a series of pages that were blackened to the point of being unreadable. "All we know is that reports were filed on certain dates. But at the end, again, we get a clean bill of health. Both mental and physical. Always for Rollins. Not for all his buddies, but always for Rollins.

  "Then, this one: Fallujah. I cannot begin to figure out what our guys were doing there, but I can tell you this: Fallujah has been liberated so many times that I think they’ve faced freedom—" she made air quotes, “the same way Americans would face a rerun of Friends. It’s over in 30 minutes, but it’ll happen again tomorrow."

  Eleri nodded, her thinking frown in place as she probably tried to put the pieces together. While he'd had some geopolitical coursework in the FBI, Donovan knew he was vastly undereducated when it came to the US's foreign policies and wars.

  "So we have no idea what the mission was, but this last one goes sideways. Bad." Flipping out more pages, the junior agent no longer looked at them. Her words sped up as she told them the story she'd cobbled together from redacted paperwork. "Look. Here's the mission date, here's the return. Three days they were out.

  "It was so bad. Rollins and the three others who returned each dragged a dead body of one of their teammates into the compound."

  Donovan felt his eyebrows shoot up.

  "Yeah, dragged." Vasquez pointed to the type on the page and he saw it for himself. "My dad says they're trained to carry each other—"

  She interrupted herself as Eleri started to give her a questioning eye. "No, I didn't divulge any classified info. I ask my Dad Green Beret stuff all the time and I couched it vaguely." She turned back inward, to her story. To Rollins' story.

  "These guys are trained to carry, create sleds, you name it, but they dragged these bodies back."

  "Does that mean something in particular?"

  Vasquez nodded. "Hard to say. Maybe they were too worn out to carry them, maybe there was nothing to build a litter, maybe this was the only way to get them back. . . . Or maybe it means they were traitors."

  Donovan felt that sink in. Holy shit. These were Rollins' teammates. Special Forces. Those guys lived in each other’s pockets and depended on one another to kill for them. Shit.

  "It gets worse. During the same op, three of the guys on the team go missing." Vasquez sighed, as though she knew the implications went far beyond three missing special ops team members. "Eleven guys go out, eight return, the four dead being dragged by the four live ones."

  Donovan's brain had been chewing on the ideas. "Do you think the returning guys shot the ones they dragged? Maybe some of them turned and they had to be put down?"

  Finally, the missing pieces got to her. Marina Vasquez literally threw her hands in the air. "I have no idea! It's redacted!"

  Eleri reached her hand across the wide conference table, even though she didn't touch the other woman. "Don't worry. You did great work."

  With that, Vasquez got her shit back together. "Oh, I'm not done."

  Donovan decided then that he should have taken Eleri up on a real breakfast. But it was going on noon now and breakfast had flown the coop, along with his preconceived ideas about Rollins.

  "Check this: Cooper Rollins has a medical discharge, but no time in any of the hospitals. There's no record of what his medical ailment was. No diagnosis, no treatment. Dr. Walton Gardiner's records only said 'medical discharge,' too—I can't find anything, anywhere on what this medical problem was.

  "So I called the military hospitals this morning, flashed my credentials. No records. None of them have seen Cooper Rollins as a patient. Not only does he not have a medical reason for discharge, when I looked back through the papers, I realized he can't. Look!"

  She shoved the papers at them.

  Donovan almost bonked Eleri's head with his as he leaned in to read. But Vasquez had the right of it. There was no legitimate medical discharge.

  Cooper Rollins arrived at military gates, dragging a slain team member at 2100. He was discharged from the service before 0900 the next day.

  6

  Eleri needed food and sleep and a brain transplant. Or a good painkiller. Her head throbbed with the new information Agent Marina Vasquez had fed them at high speed after a tense night up waiting for Donovan.

  She finally begged off, standing up at the table and suggesting they get food. At which point she politely asked Vasquez to get them copies of the paperwork she'd gathered. It turned out, of course, that Vasquez hadn't slept either. She'd been up most of the night constructing a timeline, but Eleri needed to talk to Donovan alone.

  Then, of course, they found out there was no commissary. Too many options around, apparently there were just snack machines and restaurant recommendations. Eleri chose sushi.

  When Donovan balked, she retorted, "I ate the second best chili, you can find something here."

  They ended up at a hole-in-the-wall joint across from the hospital, where they checked in with a woman who spoke only enough English to seat them. Eleri ignored Donovan's raised eyebrows and asked for a table tucked against the front window. There were only a few other patrons; they should be able to talk.

  It took her barely seconds to order more sushi than she could possibly eat and Donovan got a meal before she pulled out the chopsticks from their paper wrapper. She tried to seem normal, though she felt anything but. Leaning heavily toward him, she was ready to pose her question when the drinks arrived. Soda was really bad for her, but staying awake long enough to drive home was a huge perk. For a moment, she sipped her coke and forgot what she was going to ask.

  Then she had to get back to reality. "Do we bring Vasquez to check out the scenes with us?"

  "We're checking out the scenes?" Donovan seemed to be having a mental affair with his own caffeinated beverage.

  "We need to. There's something off, and I can't put my finger on it." Eleri shook her head. It had been eluding her since last night. She'd been stuck in the car and, trying to make best use of her time, she'd occasionally walked herself through the case.

  Donovan piped in. "You're the senior agent. It's your call."

  She frowned instantly. "You're just putting this off on me? I'm only playing senior agent when I have to. Honestly, being senior agent sucks, because I get the crap if things go wrong." She sighed. "Right now, two brains are better than one."

  "Two?" He snorted. "Right now, we barely have one functioning brain between us."

  "Probably." She almost snorted back at him. "So get your half in gear and help me make a pros and cons list."

  This time he didn't hesitate. He must have already been thinking about it. "Pro—she knows the area. And she knows the culture."

  That got Eleri thinking. "There's definitely a culture here. Or a thousand of them. Okay. . . Con—you can't say what you smell or perceive in front of her."

  "That's only a partial con. I can hold it for later."

  "Sure, but you can only be so weird in front of her." She tilted her head.

  "Same for you."


  "Good point." At that, Eleri welcomed the plate of California rolls that came out and set her mouth to watering.

  "Oh, my God." Her hand flew in front of her mouth as she chewed and swallowed. "You have to try this!"

  "I'm not a fan of fish or sushi." He eyed it as though she were offering him bugs.

  "You will be." She nodded and pushed the piece at him again, then watched like a proud parent as he gingerly stuck the whole thing in his mouth and chewed. His expression changed from perturbed to pleased.

  When she'd worked with Binkley—her first senior partner—she'd been very much the junior. She was younger, spanking new when he got her, and female to boot. This was better. She might barely call Donovan 'friend,' but she hardly called anyone that. Besides, she’d been around the block enough to know a good working relationship when she found it. She smiled at him.

  "Okay. That is good." He conceded and reached for another piece. She should protest, but she didn't. Promptly forgetting about her list, she literally stuffed food in her mouth. Eleri told herself that sushi—along with the caffeine—was what was currently keeping her alive.

  It was Donovan who resumed the chore. "Con—if you see something, will you be able to hide it from her?"

  "Probably, I usually dream things."

  He looked at her for a minute, chose a different piece of sushi and clearly decided he liked it, too, before speaking again. "Sure, but as strongly as you did last time? That seemed . . . new for you."

  It took a moment to realize that he was right. "I guess it was. Things in the past came in odd chunks . . ." She wondered if that made sense, and tried to explain. "Like, I'd see just the car, or just a portion of the living room. Enough for an impression, a bump that would send me hunting in the right direction."

  "You got a lot more than that last time."

  She nodded again. He was right. The dream of the truck, the girl—it had been clear, nearly real.

  "So there's a possibility you might feel something there."

  "True, but I'm not going to shut Marina out because of that possibility." She leaned back, suddenly more full than she could have imagined. "But you likely will get information that’s useful. Are you okay signaling to me? Taking notes and telling me later?"

  "Can you get her out or I can come back if there's something I need to do?"

  "Sure. Okay, other pros, cons?"

  "Pro—" he pushed another piece into his mouth like it was popcorn. "Another set of eyes and hands."

  "Pro—she probably still knows this case better than we do."

  "Pro—it's a nice thing to do. She wants the experience, and she needs it before they'll promote her, right?"

  "Look at you." Eleri ignored the pain in her stomach. It was her own fault for overeating. "You're right. That's nice."

  "Wasn't my idea." Finally, he leaned back, too. "Any other cons? Before we call this one as a yes?"

  "Con—we are making this decision on a disturbingly small amount of sleep." She fought a yawn and missed. "Let's nap and then we'll meet up."

  Donovan surveyed the doctor's office, trying to keep his eyes on the decor, but he could feel his eyelids clench and his eyeballs bordered on stinging. That was the thing about his sense of smell. Very few things smelled bad to him, but whatever they'd cleaned this office with was one of them.

  Vasquez looked at him oddly and he just offered a tight smile in return.

  They'd pulled aside police tape that crossed the entrance from the hall. The place was nearly dead at six p.m. but not dead enough.

  They'd been questioned by a hallway neighbor the moment they'd touched the tape. They said they were PD, and luckily the neighbor didn’t ask for a badge. Having the FBI come in looked much worse than the PD coming back. So now the three of them were closed in doing an initial survey, and Donovan wondered if he should be carrying a lab notebook or at least a recorder.

  He'd mentioned that idea once to Senior Agent in Charge Westerfield, who commented in return that the memory tests they'd taken had not been without purpose. Once again, Donovan wondered just what he'd stepped into with NightShade.

  The outer office looked normal, aside from having that unused feel places got, even though this one had been shut down for less than three weeks. Donovan blinked at the pain in his eyes and nose and tried to pay attention. A desk sat in the corner far from the front door, facing into the small reception. Though it was welcoming, it made a barrier between whomever sat there and the patients that waited in a variety of recliners and other assorted chairs. On one side, the chairs gathered around a low coffee table strewn with an odd assortment of magazines. In another location they faced each other, looking as though the furniture was having conversations even without people in them. Donovan didn't see anything out here that tripped any of his sensors. So, while Eleri and Marina continued to look around, he headed for the door into the doctor's office.

  He'd seen the blueprints—the entire office consisted of only these two rooms. There was a suite like this on each floor, ideally suited to a shrink in solo practice. Other suites in the building had patient exam rooms and even some with operating capabilities. For Dr. Gardiner, being in this medical complex meant his patients were simply 'going to the doctor' and Donovan could imagine the psychological importance of that. He looked back at his partner and had the blinding thought that she'd spent several months in a mental institution. He'd always brushed it off as a breakdown brought on by her time in the FBI's profiling unit, but the fact was, she'd been committed. He wondered what she thought of this place. Then he wondered if he would—or even should—ask.

  The second room took more adjusting. This was where the doctor had died, where the scents of cleaners were the harshest.

  Vasquez came up behind him as he was working his jaw, fighting the sting that now not only watered his eyes but burned in his nose. "It was ruled an IED."

  "That's a stupid term." He blurted it out without thinking.

  "Have you seen what they can do?" She was obviously offended by his declaration.

  But he had seen. "Yes." He'd worked on more than one patient stored in a box the way the doctor had been. "I just meant that it isn't a decent classification. It's no more precise than 'bomb.' The name ‘IED’ doesn't tell us whether it was made by a professional, remotely or mechanically or even spark detonated. It doesn't say what the explosive was, if it was chemical or laced with metal shards. It just means it wasn't military issue, and that's not much help to us."

  Vasquez nodded—after all, he was right. She'd been right to be offended, too. It had sounded mean. He dropped it as Eleri stepped into the room.

  "Oh wow. I can smell the cleaners in here. You're probably about to . . . sneeze, Donovan." She must have turned to Marina behind his back, because he heard her explaining, "He has a really sensitive nose."

  Under the cleaners he could smell the flesh. There was a mild scent of char, but not much. The bomb wasn't hot, or at least it didn't sear the man as it went off. He probably never knew what had happened to him.

  The room had been thoroughly scrubbed—so as not to have rotting flesh in it—but the strong smell left it so Donovan couldn't pick up much through the harsh odors. Aside from cleaning, things hadn't been moved. The doctor's death had been enough of a mystery that the LAPD had left the room mostly alone for evidence.

  The chair was heavily damaged; he'd seen that in the report, in the crime scene photos. The back had a hole almost all the way through the heavy upholstery. The place around the hole was singed but not heavily burned. The arms were more damaged than the back.

  "Okay, let's walk it." Eleri declared as she went back out to the front room. "Patients come in here and wait. How many that day?"

  "No one waiting." Vasquez was still looking around the back room, but answering Eleri's questions as Donovan continued to search. Her words matched what he'd read.

  "Look." Eleri called from the front office and he walked out to find her at a booted laptop that had bee
n sitting on the desk. She turned it to reveal a schedule of the day the doctor died. It was full, all the way through 6pm. However, the doctor had died at approximately 3:17pm with no one in the waiting room.

  "What about the receptionist? Have you interviewed her?" This time Donovan was asking. He'd taken the police report at face value. It said she was "combative" but was ultimately declared uninvolved.

  "No. They didn't really let me out of the box until you got here." Vasquez shrugged. "The report is that she called in sick that day, and she even produced a prescription proving a doctor's visit and diagnosis of food poisoning. Dr. Gardiner was running his own schedule that day."

  "And no one showed up?"

  "Shit." Vasquez said it out loud. "Honestly, PD had this one and . . . I hate to speak ill of a fellow officer." She sighed. "The first detective that caught this was sharp and he started the investigation. But then it got handed off to another guy and he was a class A idiot." She shook her head. "If the patients were interviewed, it's not in the file."

  "Well," Eleri tilted her head, "Want the job?"

  "Sure." Vasquez seemed shocked to be offered. They really had not let her out of the box; it was like she was so unused she was still wired to the cardboard backing.

  "One thing down." He thought out loud, "Let's figure out why his patients didn't show. Back into the office."

  The three of them wandered once more into the doctor's space. Clusters of furniture faced each other. The seat the doctor had last occupied faced neither the long, soft sofa nor the easy chair, but a space in the middle.

  Donovan kept talking through his thoughts. "So the doctor died sitting in that chair." He pointed at the central one with all the damage. "He's facing neither of the others, was he talking to someone standing? Or had he swiveled it around to stand up?"

  Eleri picked up. "If he was going to stand, why didn't he? He was clearly sitting when the bomb went off."

  Sometimes when he'd been a medical examiner, Donovan had put himself in the deceased's position and tried to recreate the death to better understand the wounds. Though the chair had been cleaned of the doctor's bodily tissue, which had exploded all over it in what was commonly referred to as 'pink mist', it wasn't fit for anyone to try out the doctor's last moments.