Dead of Winter

by Annelise Ryan

  She beams a smile at me and leaves.

  * * *

  “What was that all about?” Cass asks as I head back to the autopsy area.

  “She had some ideas about the case,” I say vaguely. I go back to the autopsy room one more time and find Izzy still at it.

  “What did the social worker want?” Izzy asks.

  “She had some ideas about the case. One, in particular, that might be useful.”

  I show him the candy bar. “It was in the pocket of Liesel’s jacket. Hildy, the social worker, said she saw it sticking partway out when she was in the ER.” This was essentially the truth.

  Izzy barely acknowledges me. He glances at the candy bar I’m holding up, and then just as quickly goes back to his work. “Yeah, so?”

  “The candy bar itself is no big deal,” I say. “No doubt useless for fingerprints, as there is no telling how many people may have handled it. But there is a price sticker on it that’s handwritten. How often do you see that these days?”

  Izzy doesn’t bother to look at me. He simply shrugs.

  “It points toward it coming from some small mom-and-pop kind of store, don’t you think? If we could figure out where it came from, it might help us retrace her steps.”

  Izzy looks at me now, a thoughtful expression on his face. “That’s not a bad idea,” he says. “Good thinking, Mattie.”

  “Actually, it was Hildy who had the idea. She said she saw the sticker and thought it might be relevant. That’s why she came to talk to me.”

  “Well, good for her,” Izzy says with an approving nod. “Let Richmond know ASAP.”

  “I’m heading over there now.” I glance at the bag from the ER that contains Liesel’s clothing and personal belongings and pick it up. “I’ll drop this stuff off with Arnie on the way. Have you found anything else that might be useful?”

  “Sadly, no. It’s just another case of an all-too-young life taken all too soon.” He frowns and stares at Liesel’s face, his expression morose. “I know the chances of finding her sister are small, but I hope we can.”

  “So do I,” I say. “That could be Emily on your table. Or my niece, Erika. These predators need to be stopped.” I take one last look at Liesel’s face, which looks deceptively serene. Death has stripped all the emotion out of it.

  But it has motivated me.

  CHAPTER 9

  Arnie is sitting at his desk, which is a small space nestled between myriad analytical machines, some microscopes, and an assortment of resource books, chemicals, reagents, and other laboratory paraphernalia. Arnie is focused on his computer screen, typing away on his keyboard.

  “Hey, Mattie,” he says, not bothering to look up at me. “What’s up?”

  I smile. Arnie has always been able to do this, identify who is walking into his lab without looking at them. In the beginning, it kind of creeped me out. Now I’m used to it.

  “I have some stuff from the Liesel Paulsen case for you,” I say, walking over and setting the bag down on a small bit of open countertop. “It’s her clothing, and something interesting that was in her jacket pocket.” I reach into the bag and take out the candy bar, showing it to him with the sticker side up.

  Arnie gets the significance of the sticker right away. “You don’t see many of those anymore,” he says. “I might be able to get a print or some DNA off the back of it.”

  There are likely to be any number of fingerprints on the outside wrapper of the candy bar, and I realize Hildy’s prints might be among them.

  “I’m not sure if any fingerprints you find on the outside will be helpful,” I say. “I know that at least one of the people in the ER touched it already.”

  Arnie shrugs this off. “The outside wrapper won’t be of much use, but the back of that price sticker might be.”

  I breathe a sigh of relief, wondering if I’m sticking my neck out too far for Hildy. “Can you get me a picture of it so I can show it to Richmond?”

  “Sure.” Arnie pushes away from his computer and rolls his chair to the other side of the room, where he opens a drawer and removes a camera. He wheels back, snaps a picture of the sticker, and then pushes some buttons on the camera. “I just sent the image to your e-mail,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  I start to leave, but Arnie stops me. “I’ve been chatting with some folks online about this human-trafficking stuff,” he says, turning back to his computer.

  “And?” I walk over and stand behind him, peering at the screen over his head. I see rows of instant dialogue scrolling by on the screen and it all looks like gibberish to me. As Arnie taps away at the keys, I study the top of his head instead. He wears his hair long—shoulder length—but it is thinning on top, and I notice that more of his scalp is showing through these days. I wonder how much longer he’ll be able to wear his usual ponytail, though today he has his hair pulled into a style I hate: a man bun.

  “So far all they have to offer are some theories,” he says. “But they’re going to put out some feelers.”

  “They?”

  “It’s a group of folks who monitor chat rooms for specific types of activity,” he says. “They don’t normally visit the kinds of places where you might find the folks we’re interested in, but they’re experienced at creating online personas and infiltrating certain groups. Mostly, they do it for gaming, or just for fun. But like I mentioned before, there are a few of them who are on the lookout for pervs and such, so they can warn people away, or even tip off the cops.”

  “I see.” Since I’m not familiar with the environments he’s describing, I’m not sure I really do see, but that doesn’t matter.

  “Anyway, a couple of them are going to start hanging out in the places where these traffickers advertise their wares, to see what they can pick up.”

  “By ‘wares,’ you mean children?” I say in a disapproving tone.

  He sighs and pushes back from his desk, nearly running me over with his chair. “I don’t mean to treat the issue lightly,” he says, turning around and looking up at me through his thick glasses.

  “I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that this case is bothering me more than most. It’s hard for me to stay objective.”

  Arnie nods his understanding. “I get it. And if I find anything at all, I’ll be sure to let you know right away.”

  Before departing, I give his shoulder a squeeze, my way of cementing my apology and letting him know that I appreciate his efforts.

  * * *

  The police station is only a few blocks away, so I go to the library, grab my coat and gloves, and walk there. I enter through the front door and the on-duty dispatcher, Heidi, buzzes me through to the inner sanctum with a little finger wave as she talks to someone on the phone. I wander down the hallway past office doors until I reach the one that Bob Richmond and my husband share. I find both of them seated at their desks, tapping away at the keyboards in front of their computer screens.

  “Hey, handsome,” I say, walking over and looping an arm around Hurley’s neck. I go to kiss his cheek, but he turns at the last second and we lock lips for a moment.

  “Get a room, you two,” Richmond grumbles.

  “Aw, Bob, are you feeling left out?” I say. I release my hold on my husband and walk over to give Richmond a kiss on the cheek. He blushes a flaming red and rolls his eyes.

  “For cripes sake, Mattie,” he says, but I see a hint of a smile at the corners of his mouth.

  “Should I be worried?” Hurley says, arching his eyebrows at me.

  “Naw, just a friendly kiss,” I say. “Although there is someone who’s interested in giving Bob something more than friendship,” I add in a teasing tone.

  Richmond shoots me a look that is half frown, half curiosity.

  “Do tell,” Hurley says. “I hope she’s serious, whoever she is, because he’s been a real Debbie Downer ever since he split up with that Carpenter woman.”

  “Rose and I didn’t split up,” Richmond grumbles. “She just moved a little farthe
r away.”

  “Southern California is more than a little farther,” I say. “Kind of hard to keep a long-distance relationship going with that many miles between you. She might as well have moved to Venus.”

  Richmond sighs.

  “So maybe it’s time for you to move on,” I say in a suggestive tone. “Remember that cute little social worker at the hospital, the one who’s involved in the case of our dead girl?”

  Richmond squints at me, looking clueless. It’s obvious he didn’t notice Hildy’s attempts to flirt with him.

  “She’s in her midthirties, very single, and very interested in you.”

  Richmond shakes his head, frowning again. “I’m not ready for another relationship yet.”

  “Is that because you’re so young you figure you have plenty of time to hook up?” Hurley says in a tone dripping with sarcasm. “I mean, why rush into things, right?”

  Richmond says nothing, but communicates his thoughts on Hurley’s comments with a bit of one-fingered sign language.

  “Is there any chance of you moving to Southern California to be closer to Rose?” I ask Richmond.

  He shoots me a look of disgust. “I’ve been to Southern California, and you’re right. It might as well be Venus. Never mind it being another state, it’s like another planet there. It’s no coincidence that the term ‘road rage’ started there. If you ask someone for directions, they tell you how far it is in terms of travel time rather than miles. And when the temperature gets down to sixty degrees, they drag out their sweaters and parkas and stand around shivering in the cold, clutching their ten-dollar, designer-coffee drinks, and wearing those stupid-looking boots with the funny name.”

  “UGG,” I say.

  “No kidding,” Richmond affirms.

  I start to clarify my comment, but decide to let it go. “And is there any chance Rose will move back up here?” I ask instead.

  “She says she loves it there,” Richmond grumbles. His face screws up in disgust and he adds, “Plus, she bought a house. She sent me pictures of it at Christmas, and it’s all palm trees and sunshine. What the hell kind of Christmas is that?”

  I get where he’s coming from. Our winters here can be harsh and cruel, but Christmas without cold and snow wouldn’t feel right somehow.

  “Sounds to me like the writing is on the wall,” Hurley says. “The only question now is, who’s going to take the first plunge and call it off officially?”

  Richmond lets forth with a weighty sigh. “I suppose you’re right. But I’m not ready to start all over again.”

  I’m tempted to push the matter, but decide to give poor Richmond a reprieve. “Anyway,” I say, “our Ms. Hildy came across an interesting bit of evidence that might give us a lead.” I then explain about the candy bar and show them the picture of it with the handwritten price sticker. “There can’t be that many stores that use this sort of pricing system,” I say.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Richmond says, and Hurley nods in agreement.

  “Arnie has the bar and he’s going to see if he can get a print off the adhesive side of the price sticker. He’s also working on the case from another angle.” I explain his theory about the Internet chat rooms and what he and his cronies are up to.

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Hurley says, and this time it’s Richmond who nods in agreement. “These traffickers do a lot of their recruiting online. But we have the police file from the guys who investigated the Paulsen girls’ disappearances, and they include a forensic analysis of their home computers and their online activities. Neither of them did much stuff online. They didn’t even have Internet access at their home. That’s not how they were lured in.”

  “What about school computers?” I ask.

  “It’s possible, but not likely. The guys who investigated the case talked to students and faculty at the schools, and their computers have blocks in place for certain types of Web sites. They did a search of the Internet histories on them and didn’t find anything that looked promising.”

  “What about smartphones?” I ask.

  Richmond shakes his head. “Liesel’s was never found. Lily’s was, but it didn’t show any Internet or social-media stuff that was helpful. In fact, both girls tended to be quiet loners. The only social-media app they used was Instagram, and their participation there was minimal.”

  “Still, if Arnie can get a handle on the type of people who lure these kids in, maybe it will get us closer to finding Lily,” I say hopefully.

  “It might,” Richmond says, but I get the feeling he’s saying it merely to placate me. “I’ve got some guys I know at the FBI who work with this sort of stuff, looking into local activities. Maybe they’ll come up with something. They have a task force of agents who do nothing but create online personas, pretending to be kids, hoping to lure the lurers.”

  “What are you working on now?” I ask Hurley, looking at the images on his computer screen.

  “I’ve been trying to get video footage from as many traffic cams as we can to try to track the car Liesel was in,” he says. “We were able to identify the make and model from the hospital security footage and, so far, we’ve been able to track the vehicle through town on its way to the hospital. No surprise, there’s no evidence of the accident the guy claimed happened. We got a license plate number finally, but as we suspected, it was stolen. I’m trying now to track the car out of town, maybe back trace his route. If he took the interstate, we may be able to spot him, but if he stuck to the back roads, we’re probably screwed.”

  “Fingers crossed,” I say.

  “Anything turn up in the autopsy?” Richmond asks.

  “Possibly. Liesel was pregnant. We can get a DNA profile from the fetus, but I don’t know if getting a DNA profile on the father will be helpful or not. Plus, it’s likely to take weeks to get the results, and I don’t know if Lily has that kind of time.”

  Richmond looks thoughtful. “It might help us in another way,” he says, and both Hurley and I look at him. “A pregnancy isn’t a desired outcome for these girls. I’m guessing that if anyone knew she was pregnant, they’d take steps to eliminate it, take her to someone who would abort it.”

  “But anyone performing that sort of abortion would likely be doing so unofficially,” I say. “They wouldn’t be able to just check her into a clinic somewhere. The risk of her saying something to someone would be too great.”

  “Precisely,” Richmond says with a hint of a smile. He looks over at Hurley. “Put out some feelers to some of the other agencies to see if anyone can point us toward someone in the area who does that kind of thing.” He shrugs. “Who knows? It might provide a lead.”

  Hurley nods, scribbles something on a pad on his desk, and then goes back to scrutinizing his screen.

  “I hate to interrupt what you’re doing,” I say to Richmond, “but we need to go see Mr. Paulsen, deliver the bad news, and bring him back here to ID the body.”

  Richmond makes a face. “I hate that,” he mutters, his shoulders sagging at the thought. “It seems so cruel.”

  “Sometimes it’s a good thing,” I say. “The loved ones need closure, and for some, seeing the actual body is the only way they can wrap their minds around the reality of it all. And at least Liesel’s face isn’t horribly deformed or anything. There are some bruises, but they’re minor.”

  “Whatever,” Richmond grumbles, unconvinced. He gets out of his chair and grabs his parka from a hook by the door. “Let’s get this over with.”

  I kiss Hurley again and say, “See you later,” before following Richmond through to the break room and out a back door that leads to the police station’s secure parking lot.

  * * *

  The sky outside has changed from pearly gray to the color of tarnished silver, and the wind has picked up in terms of both ferocity and bitterness. It nips at every area of exposed skin I have and I’m grateful when I climb into Richmond’s car—a nondescript, twelve-year-old sedan—and shut the door.

  “I a
pologize for the cold,” Richmond says nonsensically. I’m about to point out the ridiculousness of his statement when he adds, “I mean the cold in my car. My heater doesn’t work very well.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I say. “I have plenty of natural insulation.”

  Richmond says nothing more as he starts the car and pulls out, and he remains silent until we are on a highway outside of town. It will take us about half an hour to get to where Mr. Paulsen is now living, and at this rate, it promises to be a long and awkward drive.

  “I hope you aren’t upset with me for pushing that social worker on you,” I say finally, determined to warm up the atmosphere in the car, even if the actual atmosphere is still freezing.

  Richmond pooh-poohs this with a little pfft and a spasmodic shake of his head. “No biggie,” he says.

  “Relationships are hard,” I say. “Even when things are generally good.”

  I see Richmond shoot me a sidelong glance. “Are you and Hurley having problems?”

  “No, not really,” I say. “I mean, we get along great, and he’s a wonderful husband and father. And we love our new house. It’s got plenty of room and it fits us well. Plus, it’s ours, not his or mine.”

  “Was that an issue?”

  “For me, it was,” I admit. “Living in Hurley’s house was . . . I don’t know . . . a bit awkward, I guess. I always felt like I was visiting rather than living there. Silly, I know, but . . .” I shrug.

  “Oh, I get it,” Richmond says. There is silence for a minute or so, and then he says, “You know, Rose asked me to move in with her at one point, before she decided to go out to California.”

  “I didn’t know that. What did you tell her?”

  “I told her I wasn’t ready for that yet. My house is no big deal, but it’s mine. I’ve been a bachelor all my life, and that house is organized and situated the way I want it. It suits my lifestyle, my interests, and my tastes. The thought of giving it up to move into Rose’s place, which was just as uniquely hers, with lots of pink and lacy crap . . . Well, it made me break out in a sweat when I thought about it. And the idea of her moving into my place? That was even worse. I would have resented her presence there. I know it.”