Unforgivable (10 page)

“How far back?”

“Almost two years. I have the case number. Detective’s name was Sandinsky.”

They passed a picnic table that looked desolate beneath a barren pecan tree. Not a lot of people opting to lunch outside in this weather.

“Lake Buchanan,” Kelsey repeated. “Some kids found her near the lake. Spring, I think it was.”

“March.” They hiked up the back steps to the building, and Mia swiped her card. “Heinz said he didn’t think we ever got an ID.”

“We didn’t.” Kelsey stepped inside and unwound a purple chenille scarf from her neck as she wiped her boots on the mat. “Remains were fully skeletonized. Disarticulated. Scattered over a quarter-mile area.”

“You were part of the recovery team?”

“I was.” They headed down a gently sloping corridor to the Bones Unit. Kelsey pressed her palm against a panel. The sliding doors parted, and they entered a section of the building where the temperature hovered around sixty degrees.

“We found almost everything,” Kelsey continued. “Only two phalanges missing, if I remember right.”

Kelsey had an amazing memory. Mia’s was pretty good, but she made notes all the time. Kelsey simply absorbed things.

She stopped at a cubicle in the osteology section and deposited the jar. “She should still be here. You have time to take a look?”

“Sure.”

Kelsey led her past the X-ray suite and into a spacious examining room with stainless-steel tables on either end of it. When they reached a storage area, Kelsey pressed her palm to a panel, and the door slid open.

“Most morgues are short on square footage,” Kelsey said, “but we’re lucky here. They modeled this room after the Smithsonian. Oodles of drawer space.”

They stepped into a narrow room lined on both sides with shallow drawers, each labeled with a number. The stacks reached well over Mia’s head.

“Do you need the case number?” Mia asked, but Kelsey was already making her way to the far end of the long room. She stopped in front of a waist-high drawer and checked the label before pulling it out.

“This is another way we’re lucky. So many places to store bones in plastic tubs or cardboard boxes. This way, we can keep them arranged properly.”

Mia stared down at the bones of a woman who had been bound with duct tape, then killed and left to rot in some wilderness.

Kelsey sighed. “I remember her.” She walked over to a nearby cart and pulled a pair of latex gloves from a box. She handed a pair to Mia.

Mia studied the skeleton as she pulled on the gloves. “Her leg was broken?”

“Actually, no. That was me. I took a wedge out of the femoral shaft to get a DNA sample. One of your colleagues tested it. We entered her in the database, but as far as I know, we never got a hit.”

“And you’re sure it’s a woman?”

Kelsey pointed to the pelvis. “The pelvic aperture
is wide and round in females, like this, but narrow for males. And it looks as though she never gave birth. Estimated age early to mid-twenties based on the partially fused epiphyseal plates—those are the growth plates near the ends of the long bones.”

So young.
Mia gazed down at the bones and felt an overwhelming sense of loneliness. Her DNA profile wasn’t in the Missing Persons Index, which meant her family hadn’t submitted a sample. Maybe she didn’t have a family. Or maybe she did, but they didn’t care. The woman might be a runaway. An illegal immigrant. A homeless person who’d lost touch with her life.

Mia gazed down the endless row of drawers. “What a terrible place to end up.”

“Yep.”

She returned her attention to the bones, which were arranged as if the ligaments were still there to link everything.

Kelsey picked up the skull and pointed to a depressed fracture. “Blunt-force trauma. It’s hard to say for sure, but based on the size, I’m guessing she was hit with a heavy tool, maybe a wrench or something similar.”

Mia shuddered. “Is that why you remember her?”

Kelsey pulled a loupe from her pocket and handed it to Mia. “Actually, what stood out to me at the time were the knife marks.” She pointed to the rib cage. “Twelve marks, all made with a serrated blade.”

Mia peered down at the ribs and the gouges Kelsey pointed out with her gloved finger.

“Under microscopic examination, you see the striations,” Kelsey said. “It’s a distinctive pattern. I confirmed it with our tool-mark examiner upstairs. We concluded it
was most likely a steak knife. Twelve of the wounds were deep enough to penetrate bone, but there could have been more that only penetrated the soft tissue.”

Mia handed back the loupe. Their gazes met across the bones, and Mia felt that kinship she sometimes had with others who worked at the Delphi Center.

“Someone’s reopening this case, aren’t they?”

“I’m hoping,” Mia said. “There’s a similar case out of San Marcos.”

“Similar how?”

“Duct tape, blunt-force trauma, piquerism.”

Kelsey shook her head.

“Good news is, this latest victim was recovered not too long after death,” Mia said. It always amazed her what passed for good news in her profession.

“Semen?”

“No, but we’ve got her clothes, her shoes. The attack was very violent. Looks like she fought hard. We’ve got an abundance of blood, and I’d be very surprised if the perpetrator managed to get away without leaving a DNA sample.”

“Good.” Kelsey snapped off her gloves. “I hope you nail him with it.”

Ric watched the white roller skate of a car coast into the driveway. Mia climbed out and clutched the strap of her computer bag to her chest while the wind whipped her coat around her bare legs. He got out of his truck as she picked her way over the sidewalk in three-inch heels.

“Careful, it’s slick tonight.”

She whirled around, clearly surprised to see him. Her cheeks were tinged pink from the cold.

“Not the best weather for stilettos.”

“These aren’t stilettos. And since when are you a fashion consultant?” She looked him up and down, taking in his jeans and T-shirt, which had been through the wash about five hundred times each. He tucked his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket and stopped in front of her.

“You look hungry.”

Her eyebrows tipped up. Whatever she’d been expecting him to say, that hadn’t been it.

“Ever been to Klein’s?” he asked.

“The grease pit just around the corner?”

“Best barbecue in three counties.”

She glanced at her house, which was dark except for the porch light. “I’m supposed to work tonight.”

“You work too much.”

“Says someone who spent his weekend at the cop shop.” The second the words were out, she looked as if she wanted them back. How had she known where he spent his weekend? She must have called the station looking for him and chatted up the receptionist. The idea of her checking up on him probably should have bugged him, but instead it made him feel good.

Another glance at the door. “I need to drop off my computer.”

Ric tugged the bag off her shoulder and hiked up the steps. “What’s in this thing? Bricks?”

“My laptop. And a few reference books. And about six weeks’ worth of reports I need to finish.”

He watched her disable the alarm. Then he stowed the bag in the hallway beside a cardboard dish box. The smell of paint thinner hit him, and he noticed the cans stacked beside the bathroom.

“Doing some redecorating?”

“Just in the bathroom,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I thought I might as well. Do I have time to change?”

“Not if we want to get a table,” Ric said. He liked her outfit, especially the shoes. “They get crowded by eight.”

She locked up again, and they headed down the sidewalk with a chilly wind gusting around them. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat and inched closer.

“You going tomorrow?” She was talking about the funeral.

“Yeah, you?”

“I was planning to, but it looks like I’m going to be tied up in court all morning.”

“Which case?” he asked.

“Miguel Sanchez.”

“The gas-station shooting,” Ric said. “SMPD worked that case. I heard it’s a slam dunk. Didn’t the perp drop a glove at the scene or something?”

“A hat. I recovered DNA from it, too, along with hair samples. But Russ Pickerton is running the defense.”

“No kidding?” Ric had yet to meet a cop who could say the name Russ Pickerton without a string of curses tumbling out. Besides being a media whore, the guy would do anything to get a client off, including paying inconvenient witnesses to recant their stories. Or so people claimed. “How’d Mendoza manage that?” Ric asked her.

“I think he’s doing it for the publicity. The whole racial-profiling angle generated some controversy. You guys pulled him over on a bum taillight or something.”

“Yeah, we have a tendency to profile drivers who’re breaking the law.”

Mia’s heel got hung up on a crack in the pavement. Ric caught her by the elbow.

“Thanks,” she said.

He kept his hand on her arm and eased her closer. “Are you ready for him?”

“Who, Pickerton?” She sneered. “What do you think? The man’s an eel. I can hardly stand to be in the same room with him.”

“He’s pretty rough on expert witnesses.”

“It’s not just that,” she said. “He’s got a mile-long list of liars for hire who will testify to damn near anything, no matter how scientifically improbable.”

“I’ve seen him in action,” Ric said. “I once watched him persuade a jury to acquit a guy based on the idea that the fingerprints on the murder weapon had been planted there by the defendant’s twin brother.”

“Twins don’t have the same fingerprints. Not even identical twins.”

“The prosecution pointed that out,” Ric said. “But he had the jury so brainwashed they actually let this guy walk. I couldn’t believe it.”

Mia huffed out a breath. “I’ve got my work cut out for me tomorrow.” She cast a worried look in his direction. “Any progress on the shooting?”

“We’re waiting on ballistics.” Ric didn’t tell her the rest of what he’d learned that day.

“What about my Jeep?”

“Still no word.”

The smoky scent of barbecue wafted toward them as they neared the weathered wooden building with neon beer signs blazing in the windows.

“Like I said, you should try to get a check from your insurance company. I doubt you’ll get it back, at least not in one piece.”

“I don’t care about that. I don’t think I could stand to drive it. I was thinking for the crime-scene techs.”

Ric pulled the door open, and they stepped into a warm room filled with the scent of spice and hickory. He took her hand and pulled her past the empty hostess stand. Twangy country music drifted from the jukebox as they made their way through the dining room to one of the many vacant booths lining the back wall.

Ric peeled off his jacket and hung it on a hook beside their booth as Mia stood there, looking annoyed. “You said they’d be crowded.”

“I’m hungry. I didn’t want to wait for you to change.”

She unbuttoned her black wool coat. He slid it off her shoulders, and her hair glided over his fingers as he got his first good look at what she’d worn to court: a pale blue blouse in some thin, silky fabric and a dark blue skirt that hugged her full hips. Ric felt a pang in his gut that had nothing to do with hunger.

“Sit down. You’re gawking.” She slid into the booth and grabbed a menu.

“Sorry.”

A young waitress stopped by, and they ordered a couple of beers. When they were alone again, Mia looked down at her menu.

“You know, I don’t get you,” she said.

“What’s that?”

She shook her head. Started to say something. Then shook her head again.

“What is it?”

“Nothing.”

The waitress delivered their beers. Mia ordered rotisserie chicken while Ric went for the rib platter. When the waitress left, Ric got to the point.

“You were asking about your case. I think we might have a vehicle.”

Hope flared in her eyes, and she leaned forward. “From the convenience store? What, was it parked there?”

“We found someone from the Minute-Mart who remembers a dark-colored sedan pulling up to the pet shop across the street around the time you were in the store. That whole strip center was closed down, so we’re thinking it could be the shooter.”

“How can you be sure of the timing?”

“We matched a credit-card transaction to a customer who was in there the same time as you and Hannigan, tracked him down for an interview. He remembers seeing you, also remembers the car.”

“Why would he remember seeing me?”

“Every man in that store remembers seeing you. You were in a nightshirt.”

She rolled her eyes. “I was in jeans and a sweater, too. Did he remember that?”

“There was also a dark sedan parked at the construction site adjacent to the zoo on Saturday. A security cam caught it.”

She leaned back, obviously alarmed by this development.
“But I thought the zoo didn’t have surveillance cameras. The director told me—”

“They don’t. The camera was at the construction site, mounted on the trailer they’ve got parked there. The construction company uses it to keep an eye on workers, keep them from sleeping on the job, stealing equipment, stuff like that. We viewed the footage yesterday, came up with a partial view of a dark-colored sedan parking at the job site about thirty minutes before you reported Sam missing. Looks like he showed up right after you did. Jonah found a gap in the fence, so he could have slipped through unnoticed.”

Ric waited for the words to sink in. From the lack of color in her face, he figured they had.

“Chances are, this wasn’t some garden-variety pervert hanging out at the zoo, trolling for kids.” He was pointing out the obvious but needed to drive his point home.

“Did you get a look at the driver?”

“Wrong angle.”

She looked away, chewed her lip.

“You notice a car like that around lately? Maybe at work or when you’ve been out?”

“No.” Anger flickered in her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier? About this connection?”

“I’m telling you now. Anyway, it’s only a possible connection. We’re still running it down.”