Faye Kellerman_Decker & Lazarus 16

by The Burnt House

  Rina plumped up her pillow before settling down into bed. “A little past eleven.”

  “You’re married to an old man.”

  “I know. I was dying to go clubbing and you spoiled everything.” She stroked his arm. “What fascinating tidbit of police-science reading had you so captivated?”

  Decker smiled in the dark and took his arm off his eyes. “I was going over a list of tenants that had resided in the now-destroyed Seacrest apartment from 1974 to 1983.”

  “You’re trying to find your Jane Doe among those names?”

  “Exactly. I’ve verified about half the people on my roster. I was just going over the rest of the names to see if something jumped out at me.”

  “Like what?”

  “A familiar person from an old high-profile case of long ago.”

  “Were you with LAPD as far back as ’74?”

  “Yes I was, but not homicide. Juvenile and sex crimes.” Again, he smiled. “As you may recall.”

  “Yes, I recall something about that.” She rolled next to him and snuggled against his arm. “Wow. It seems like ages ago that we met.”

  He put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close to his chest. “What a glorious day it was. I was doing my best Jack Webb and you didn’t appreciate it.”

  “I did so. I thought you were very handsome and charming.”

  “Really?” Decker shrugged. “I couldn’t tell.”

  “You weren’t supposed to be able to tell. I would have died of embarrassment.”

  “Then thank God I was dense.”

  Rina said, “Did any names on the list ring a bell?”

  “About a half-dozen names seemed vaguely familiar. I’ve checked those off and I’ll look them up in the police files first thing in the morning. Maybe I’ll get lucky, but I’m not harboring great hopes.”

  “And you don’t have any other way of identifying the bones?”

  “Did I tell you I spoke to Mike Hollander today?”

  “No, you didn’t.” Rina propped herself up on her elbows. “How’s he doing?”

  “Good, actually.” Decker sat up as well. “He looks the same only a bit grayer and older. I’m sure I looked the same way to him.”

  “You haven’t aged at all,” Rina said.

  “Spoken like a true wife.”

  “Did you show him the plans?”

  “Yeah, yeah, Mike was great. He told me he’ll make it a priority and get some numbers back to Cindy and Koby right away. But that’s not why I mentioned him. We got to talking about the Jane Doe and our inability to reconstruct a face directly on the bones because they’re too fragile. Anyway, he said that he saw something on a Cold Case File that he thought might work.”

  “What?”

  “Something about a computer-generated process that replicates a skull in wood or plastic. The upshot is that a forensic artist can create a face because the bony landmarks are visible in the model. I was a little confused about the process and so was he. The problem is that the tape of the episode is no longer for sale and we can’t seem to locate a copy.”

  “Does Mike remember the case?”

  “No, and that’s the problem. There was a little trailer for the episode, but it just hinted at the forensics and didn’t mention anything specific, except that the case took place in Wisconsin.”

  “I’m sure the tape exists somewhere.”

  “Hollander said the same thing. He’s trying to hunt it down. In the meantime, I have Wanda Bontemps looking up high-profile cases in Wisconsin.” Decker threw his head back and blew out air. “We’re not at desperation time yet, but we’re getting there.”

  “It’ll work out.”

  “Sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t.”

  “Maybe you should take a breather from trying to identify the victim and instead concentrate on the apartment house.”

  Decker scratched his head. “Excuse me, I’m confused. There is no apartment house.”

  “There is an apartment house, albeit crushed and burned. Walls talk, Peter, even burned ones.”

  “Sure, I have long conversations with walls all the time, especially when I’m talking to idiots.”

  “You mock, but it’s true.”

  “I’m not mocking.” Decker turned off the sarcasm. Rina didn’t offer advice that often, so it paid to listen when she did. “What do you mean?”

  Rina said, “Just because concrete, ash, and wood are inanimate objects doesn’t mean that they have nothing to say. In Judaism, we have a definite concept of walls being harbingers of messages.”

  Decker smiled. “The writing on the wall.”

  “That was literal. The Mene from the book of Daniel. In that case, the message was cryptic and volumes have been written on what it meant. But the messages are not always so mystical. Look at the laws of Tzarat…leprosy…not the bacterial kind of leprosy that we see today. Instead, it’s a spiritual leprosy. One contracts Tzarat when one does lashon harah—gossips against his fellowman. It is manifested by sores all over the body.”

  “Like when Miriam spoke against Moshe in the Bible.”

  “She wasn’t talking badly about her baby brother. She just thought he should spend more time at home with his wife. But G-d took umbrage. In that case, she was immediately stricken by Tzarat, because Miriam was a prophetess and a holy woman should not be gossiping about her brother even if it was with good intentions. There’s usually a warning system with Tzarat. First the walls of the home contract the disease as a visible sign to its inhabitants to change their ways. If these writings on the walls are ignored, the disease progresses until Tzarat is contracted corporeally by the occupants.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “Next time I find a Jane Doe, I’ll look for sores on the walls of her living room.”

  Rina kissed her husband’s hand. “You scoff, Lieutenant, but that’s exactly what you do as a detective. You scour a crime scene to help you solve a murder.”

  “Good point, Rina, except in this case, the crime scene was destroyed.”

  “Nothing is ever fully destroyed,” Rina pointed out. “Look at Jerusalem, Peter. Anytime someone excavates in the ground—like for an archaeological dig or even just to build a new foundation for a building—something is always left behind. It could be anything from modern-day trash to old coins and relics and water jugs. About ten years ago, someone discovered an ancient tomb from the Second Temple era right in the middle of the suburban area of Rahavia. Just because something was destroyed on top doesn’t mean that the underneath has no story to tell.”

  “I’m not saying that everything was destroyed. Obviously recovery has unearthed hundreds of body parts and personal effects. All I’m claiming is that the original crime scene was blasted into oblivion and the ground is basically an ashtray.”

  “Sometimes ash is a great preserver,” Rina insisted. “If you take one of those tunnel tours underneath the Western Wall, you can actually see where the Romans dismantled original stones from the Second Temple. They knocked down almost the entire structure and burned what they didn’t smash into smithereens. And they’re still finding a lot of stuff had been preserved.”

  “Jerusalem’s a lot older than Canoga Park.”

  “But L.A. has its own relics. Look at the La Brea Tar Pits…and all the stuff we’ve unearthed from the Chumash Indians.”

  “So if I find a saber-toothed tiger, I’ll concede defeat,” Decker answered.

  “Now you’re being sarcastic again.”

  Decker smiled. “Look, sweetheart, I understand what you’re saying. And I know Jerusalem is filled with history despite all the destruction. But the Second Temple area was a lot bigger than the apartment house on Seacrest. So it stands to reason that more of it would have survived.”

  “Okay, that’s true,” Rina admitted. “But it doesn’t have to be a massive structure to tell a story. Look at the Burnt House in Jerusalem. In the early seventies, archaeologists unearthed a Roman house from the Second Temple that had been
burned down. Much of was preserved by ash. Not just the structure, Peter, but also they dug up a lot of ancient artifacts. And that house wasn’t nearly as big as the apartment building on Seacrest. So what do you have to say to that?”

  Decker smoothed his mustache. “Point well taken.”

  And it was true. At a crime scene, he often wound up looking through piles of detritus to locate that one crucial nugget of evidence. Because of his conversation with Rina, he realized that he had neglected a very important aspect of the investigation. No one had actually gone down to the original crime scene—the place where recovery had found the Jane Doe—and checked it out for forensic material in person.

  “Now what are you thinking about?” Rina asked him.

  “I’m thinking that you are a very bright lady. It’s time I visited a crime scene.”

  19

  SOMETIMES L.A. SUNRISES were preceded by spectacular, awe-inspiring displays of color—brilliant oranges, royal purples, and shocking pinks. On other occasions, they consisted of an insipid, dishwater-gray light breaking through an overcast sky. Such was the case this morning. June gloom had covered the basin with a layer of lint, and it was chilly and damp: what the locals would describe as just plain yucky.

  It didn’t help that Decker was staring into a desolate area—a seven-foot Cyclone fence encircling a pit as if it were a zoo cage under restoration. Inside, several excavators and steel bins of biohazardous material stood inert and ominous. Yellow caution tape flapped in a wind pungent with the odor of charred blackness. He raised the zipper on his bomber jacket and sipped hot coffee from his thermos. Then he checked his watch. It was a little before seven. The crew wasn’t scheduled to be out until ten, and the one person he did manage to reach—an NTSB field officer named Catalina Melendez—was a mother of two school-age children and couldn’t make it down before eight.

  That was okay. It gave Decker ample time to look around and absorb what he had neglected. He capped the thermos and laid it on the sidewalk. He grasped the cold metal of the makeshift fencing and peered inside the perimeter.

  What had it been like…to have been trapped in that inferno?

  Staring into bleakness, he suddenly sensed motion from the corner of his eye. “Hey,” he yelled out. “Hey! Police!”

  A shadowed figure pivoted and took off, scaling over the fence and dropping to the ground on the opposite side from where Decker was standing, vanishing within moments. There was no way that Decker could catch up and he let it ride. The person could have been someone homeless camping out, or more likely, it was a vulture, scavenging for coins. Disaster sites were often pilfered for valuables.

  Decker scribbled down a few cursory notes, then took out a camera and began snapping pictures. By the time he had taken most of his detailed photographs, it was almost eight. Catalina Melendez showed up twenty minutes later. She was small, with mocha-colored skin, and solidly built. Wisps of curly black hair were blowing about her face and in her mouth. She pulled them from her lips with fingers topped with clipped nails. She wore black slacks, boots, and a black bomber jacket with a yellow NTSB emblazoned on back.

  “Sorry I’m late.” She pulled out a set of keys and began sorting through them. “My six-year-old had an accident involving a carton of orange juice. How long have you been waiting?”

  “Not so long,” Decker lied. “I really appreciate you coming down this early…it’s Officer Melendez, right?”

  “Yeah, but call me Cat.” Again, she pulled strands of hair from her mouth. “It looks like we’ve got a little wind and that’s not helpful. It blows the residue around. I hope you have a mask. You don’t want to be breathing in this muck.”

  Decker pulled a face mask from his jacket and put it on.

  “Here we go.” Cat opened one of the five padlocks that secured the area. “It’s Detective Decker, isn’t it?”

  “Pete is fine.”

  “You’re from local homicide.”

  “Yes…West Valley.”

  “And this is regarding the Jane Doe we found about ten days ago.”

  “That’s the story. Can you tell me where you found the body?”

  “Sure can,” Cat said. “Watch your step and try to stay on the pathway.”

  Decker looked down at a well-worn, rutted groove running through the area. He was surprised at how much powdery burned material remained and remarked upon it.

  “Yeah, we’re going through it really slowly, not only for the purpose of gathering corroborating evidence for the accident, but to make sure we don’t overlook any biological material. Technically, body parts are the coroner’s responsibility, but we’re much more used to doing this than they are.”

  “And technically, anything revolving around Jane Doe is our department because it’s pretty clear that she was a murder victim.”

  “Yeah, we all knew that the Jane Doe wasn’t our missing body from the accident—the flight attendant.”

  “Roseanne Dresden.”

  “Yes, mysterious Roseanne.”

  “Any signs that she was on the plane?”

  “You’d have to ask the coroner for details, but frankly…” Cat lowered her voice. “I think someone made a mistake…or worse.”

  Decker said, “Fraud.”

  Cat shrugged. “Insurance detectives are pretty much on the ball, but you can’t catch every liar out there. And the more time that goes by, the harder it is.”

  Decker knew it wouldn’t have been the first time that some scamster badass had disappeared after telling the spouse to make a death claim. Afterward, the two of them would ride into the sunset with the insurance money. It was possible that Roseanne and Ivan were in cahoots with the intent of defrauding insurance.

  He and Cat walked gingerly around pits and pools of the charred material. Evidence buried under the ruins, not unlike the house in Jerusalem that Rina had been talking about. An occasional wind kicked up. Swirling cinders encircled their ankles like a swarm of bees. It was a black, barren landscape of fire and smoke, yet healthy shoots of emerald-green plant matter had surfaced and stretched toward the sunlight. Ash was a terrific fertilizer. The only other colors in the lightless painting were provided by wrappers and cups from fast-food chains. Cat bent down and picked up a McDonald’s bag filled with garbage and ants.

  “Ick!” She looked around for a designated garbage bag and dropped the refuse inside. “So freaking annoying. It contaminates everything. Lucky for us, we’re almost finished.”

  A preliminary conclusion reached by at least the media was that faulty hydraulics were to blame. Decker asked her about it.

  “Not for me to say,” Cat answered. “We’ve got zillions of pieces in an airplane hangar. Engineers will sort them out and get to the bottom of it, but it takes about a year. Sometimes longer. Sometimes never.”

  Decker said, “You said you knew right away that the body wasn’t a crash victim. How’d you know if you weren’t the one who examined the body?”

  “Experience. The remains were too intact. Most of what is pulled up has been scattered and pulverized.”

  “Still, you’ve identified everyone else involved in the accident.”

  “Yes, the coroner’s office has done an amazing job. Incredible what a good team can do with a single tooth and a femur. Anyway, after you see enough accident sites, you know what belongs and what doesn’t.” Cat checked an electronic compass. “Okay, we found her right about there.” She pointed to small white chalked spot. “I entered the coordinates in my little organizer. I figured that eventually someone from homicide might want to take a look at the spot.”

  The area was near the southwest corner of the apartment building. Decker gloved up and squatted down. “Can I take a look?”

  Cat squatted next to him. “Sure. Just go slowly.”

  Using his fingers, he pushed aside ash and debris, filtering the material through his fingers, attempting to pick up anything that might have been associated with his Jane Doe. “Do you know if she was found under or
above the foundation?”

  “It’s hard to say because the collapse of the building broke through a lot of the foundation. And when we started digging around, it was hard to separate before and after. I’ll tell you this much. We always recover lots of incidentals at accident sites, especially if the integrity of the building was compromised.”

  “Like what?”

  “Money, jewelry, drugs, guns…almost anything people want to hide.”

  Decker continued sifting. He wasn’t having much luck. Things that appeared solid at first glance disintegrated through the gaps in his fingers. He scooped up more of the cinders and let them fall through his fingers, repeating the process for several minutes as he dug deeper. Abruptly, Decker touched upon something embedded in the soil. His fingers dug around the object until he loosened it from the packed ground. What he pulled up was hard and round and sooty with a hole in the middle. Despite the heat and the fire and what must have been several thousand degrees’ worth of Fahrenheit temperature, the object had managed to retain its original shape.

  “What is it?” Cat asked.

  Decker wiped the object on his bomber jacket to remove some of the soil and gave it to her.

  “A plastic ring,” she said. “Looks like something you’d find in an eight-year-old’s goody bag…or a prize that you’d find in a quarter gumball machine.”

  “Can I take a look at that again?”

  She handed the ring to him. Even though it had been scorched with dirt, Decker could make out a blue stone or piece of glass in the center. If it had been gold and the glass had been a gem, it would have resembled a cabochon sapphire in the middle of a man’s pinkie ring. He was amazed that the plastic had not melted. Perhaps it had been shielded by the body or had been buried even deeper. He held it up to the strong, midmorning sunlight. As he bathed the object in the warmth of the rays, the stone began to change from dark blue, to ice blue, to pale pink. He let out a chuckle.

  “What?” Cat asked.

  “I know what this is. It’s a mood ring.” He regarded her face. “You’re too young to remember the original fad; mood rings were really popular in the sixties and seventies. This may have belonged to my Jane Doe. Can I keep it?”