Back on Murder (37 page)

After a storm like this, cellular reception is spotty. Houston rain showers have been known to bring a network down. But the line is crystal clear, the ringing so loud I hold the receiver away from my ear.

“March.”

Cavallo’s voice comes out like a yawn, but I don’t apologize for waking her. Instead, I give her the news, flat and detached, and she receives it in the same spirit.

“Are you sure?”

“Not from the body,” I say. “It’ll have to be tested. But her purse is here, with her identification, so it seems like a safe bet.”

“We’ll see,” she replies. Her words aren’t a form of denial, just a professional insistence on checking off the necessary boxes. “If you’re right, then I guess it’s finally over.”

Spoken like a Missing Persons investigator, but I don’t correct her. What looks like an ending to her, though, is just a start. We have a body at long last, and a body is not an end but a beginning.

“Just get over here.”

“I’m on my way.”

After I hang up the phone, I dial another number. I don’t have to. I’m under no obligation. And it’s doubtful there is anything constructive Carter Robb can do. An identification – even from someone who knew her, even if I was perverse enough to pull back that plastic and ask him for one – isn’t going to be very easy, given the state of decomposition. Maybe the clothes would be recognizable, though Cavallo will have an inventory of what she was last seen wearing.

I call anyway, not for the sake of the case, but because I know how I would feel, just blocks away, already consumed with guilt, finding out how close I’d been without realizing. I don’t owe it to him, but I can’t help feeling that on some level I do, maybe in the way we all owe each other everything, every possible courtesy, on account of what life puts us through.

He arrives first, the officers at the end of the road flagging down his car. He’s dressed like he was last night, only he’s wearing the wadded T-shirt he used to wipe his sweat. I motion for him to come through, but he approaches slowly, stopping a good distance back, cupping his hand over his mouth, closing his eyes. And then he crumples to the ground.

“What’s this?” Nix asks.

I shrug, then start off toward Robb. “I guess we all have favors to pay back.”

CHAPTER
24

“This was an act of God in every sense of the word,” Cavallo says from behind her mask, speaking to no one in particular. Wanda Mosser glances my way, lifting an eyebrow, but I make no response out of respect for the dead.

We gather around the autopsy table, waiting for Bridger, who enters with a set of X-rays in hand, pegging them up against the light table. The enlarged negative image of a chest cavity, ribs translucent against the black background, and next to it a side view of the skull. He uses a pencil eraser to point out the light-colored blemishes.

“Here and here,” he says, indicating two cone-shaped anomalies, one in the chest and one in the abdomen. “And here we have a third.” Touching the eraser against another white cone inside the cranium.

Mosser clears her throat. “So that’s two to the chest and one to the head? Like an execution?”

A Mozambique Drill is the term she’s looking for, but I don’t correct her.

“Not exactly,” he says, moving to the body. “The angles are very different. Your people will be able to tell you more, but it looks to me like one of these chest shots was fired head-on, and the others at a steep trajectory, like she was on the ground. The head shot, as you can see from this stippling, was a contact wound, probably a coup de grace. But based on the two chest wounds, I’m guessing some time passed before the second shot, at least enough for her to fall to the ground.”

I go over to the X-rays for a closer look. “The bullets look small.”

“My money’s on .22 caliber,” Bridger says, “but we’ll know for sure in a minute.”

The official identification was made this morning using dental records. Wanda and Rick Villanueva prepared the release, but it was the chief who held the actual press conference. Thanks to the power blackouts all over the city, most people in Houston still won’t know that the body of Hannah Mayhew, the girl whose disappearance riveted the nation, is now on a slab at the medical examiner’s office where, powered by generators, her autopsy is proceeding.

Wanda wanted to be here, as did Cavallo, but by rights I’m the only one obligated. This is a homicide investigation now, and thanks to my captain’s dogged insistence on protocol, it belongs to me, the first detective on the scene. Considering my experience on the task force, the decision makes sense. Not that anybody else on the squad sees it that way.

“Time of death?” I ask.

Bridger pauses, then begins the Y-incision, ignoring my question for the moment. A technician steps forward to cut the ribs, lifting the sternum free. Next to me, Cavallo’s breath seems to catch.

“I’m only speculating,” Bridger says, “but based on the amount of decomposition, it wouldn’t surprise me if she’s been dead pretty much since the day she disappeared.”

Cavallo adjusts her mask. “Sixteen days.”

“Give or take. And based on the postmortem lividity, I’d say the body was moved after death. So she wasn’t killed in that house, I’m guessing, just dumped there.”

The plastic sheeting probably came from the work site across the street, and access to the building itself wouldn’t have been difficult. It was boarded up so long ago that the panels would have been easy enough to shift. The question is, who would think to place a body there? I’ve already canvassed the neighborhood, interviewing everyone I could find, and the contractor from the house across the street has promised me a list of employees as soon as he can find a way to charge his laptop. Of course, the killer could have driven by on a whim, noticed the location, and taken advantage of it.

By the end of the autopsy, Bridger confirms what the X-rays suggested. Hannah was killed by a .22 caliber gunshot to the head. The bullet entered at the temple. She’d already been shot twice before, once in the chest, collapsing a lung, and once in the abdomen, the second shot probably fired while she was in a prone position or possibly propping herself up.

“There’s no indication of a sexual assault?” Wanda asks.

He shakes his head.

“Well, thank God for that.”

It’s hard to muster much gratitude in the face of the desiccated husk of Hannah Mayhew, but somehow I find myself agreeing.

Out in the corridor I peel off my mask, happy to breathe freely again. Cavallo leans against the wall, then sinks down on her haunches, clenched arms extended over her knees. Wanda pats her absently on the head, then starts to go.

“I want to be in on this,” Cavallo calls after her.

“In on what, honey?”

She jabs her thumb in my direction. “This. If he can horn in on my case, then I can horn in on his.”

“Fine with me,” I say.

Wanda snaps back, “Well, it’s not up to you.” She’s done so much wrangling over the past two weeks it’s become second nature, but the flash of anger dissipates like smoke. “Suit yourself. I guess it makes sense for one of my people to keep an eye on things.”

She leaves us in the hallway. I start to say something, then stop. Cavallo gets back to her feet, peeling the scrubs off.

“I could do without this part of the job,” she says.

“So could we all.”

“What I said before, though, I think it’s true. This is an act of God. We might have never found that girl if it wasn’t for the hurricane.”

“That’s what the insurance people call it, an act of God. I had an act of God on my garage, too, and I don’t think they’re going to pay for it. Not that I’m complaining.”

She gives me a sideways look. “I don’t want to know.”

When Bridger emerges for a smoke break, we follow him out, standing on the wet curb in case he has any further observations to make. He’s silent, though, absorbed in his own thoughts. After a while, we leave him to it.

The contents of Hannah’s purse are spread out on the table between us. Nothing remarkable, really. The wallet I opened at the scene, a zippered cosmetics bag, tissues, a pack of gum, some barrettes and ponytail holders, a stray earring, the usual things. But there are two cell phones, both powered off. The pink Motorola RAZR is Hannah’s. The other, a cheap brick of black plastic, is a mystery, at least until Cavallo switches it on and checks the number.

“This is it,” she says. “The phone she was getting calls from the day she disappeared.”

“If he left it behind, then there probably won’t be any prints.”

She opens an evidence bag. “We’ll check anyway.”

“Yes, we will,” I reply, dropping the phone in.

Brad Templeton tracks me down not long after, his voice brimming with excitement, like he thinks the Hannah Mayhew murder investigation is something I personally engineered to help with his book deal. He keeps pumping me for information until he finally realizes I’m about as responsive as a cpr dummy.

“You are gonna give me something, right? We do have an understanding, don’t we?”

“This isn’t the time, Brad.”

I have to give him something, though, so I pass along Wilcox’s name, suggesting he cozy up to my ex-partner, who’s now taking the lead on Keller and Salazar. I’m trying to keep a hand in there, but IAD is a clannish outfit and since their search yielded the potential murder weapon – at least, the part of it that wasn’t swapped with Thomson’s pistol – they call the shots. For now, anyway. I haven’t given up on that one, though anything I do at this point will have to be very discreet.

“You’re pawning me off on Wilcox,” Brad says.

“I’m leading you to water,” I tell him. “It’s up to you whether you drink.”

As soon as I’m off the phone I grab my things and tell Cavallo we’re going back to the scene. Now that the immediate aftermath of the storm is behind us, people might remember things they didn’t before, and the ones who weren’t around during the initial canvass might turn up. We’re almost to the door when Jerry Lorenz steps through, blocking the path.

He looks Cavallo up and down, giving me an approving nod.

“Congratulations,” he says. “You sure landed on your feet.”

I’m not sure if he’s referring to my pretty new partner or to my case. Judging from his smile, a little of both. The strange thing is, he’s utterly genuine, offering apparently heartfelt congratulations, no hard feelings in spite of our run-in on the still-unsolved Morales case. He has no idea, since I never briefed him, on how much further I took that case, or how close Wilcox now is to busting it open.

I expect Cavallo to recoil from him, or at least to steer clear, but she pats him on the shoulder as she passes. “Congratulations yourself.”

Out in the hallway, I ask, “You know that guy?”

“Who, Jerry?”

“Jerry Lorenz, right. He’s the one I had so much trouble with.”

“Who, Jerry?” she says again, unaware of how annoying this repetition is.

“Lorenz. I know I told you his name.”

She shakes her head. “I never put it together. You don’t get along with Jerry, huh? Everybody gets along with Jerry.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s not so bad.”

“How do you know him?”

She starts to answer, then stops herself, so I repeat the question. Reluctantly, she says, “He’s in my Bible study.”

“Your what? Jerry Lorenz is in a Bible study? You’re jerking my chain – ”

“No, really. He is. There’s a group of us that meets about once a month. You should come sometime.” She frowns. “Or maybe not.”

“Why were you congratulating him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just now, you said ‘congratulations yourself.’ ”

“Oh that. I meant the baby, obviously.” She stops in her tracks, realizing I have no idea what she’s talking about. “His wife just had a baby. A little boy. Don’t tell me you work with the guy and you don’t know that?”

I shrug. “I guess it never came up.”

We drive back to the derelict house, Cavallo taking advantage of the time to theorize on what it means that I take so little interest in my colleagues’ personal lives. Ignorant of Lorenz’s baby, unaware that her fiancé is overseas. She wonders aloud what else I don’t know, and how with so little curiosity I can honestly call myself a trained observer.

“I’m only interested in people when they’re dead.”

I mean it as a joke, but it doesn’t come out funny. She grows serious, remembering whose death sparked my interest in the current investigation.

The fresh canvass yields nothing, but we do find a small crew of construction workers across the street, trying to square away the damage left by the hurricane. The toppled trailer has been righted and now awaits replacement. In the interest of thoroughness, we have a chat with them, only to discover that half the men present aren’t on the list the contractor finally handed over.

“They might not be on any lists,” Cavallo says afterward, meaning like so many in the industry, they might be illegals.

When we’re done, I take her over to the Morgan St. Café, where the power’s finally back on, treating her over iced coffee to the story of Vance Balinski’s curbside assault. I show her Thomson’s sketchbook and the enlarged cell-phone photo, and seeing her interest is piqued, I take her back to the studio for a look at his intimidating series of busts. Locking up, I’m surprised to find Balinski himself in residence next door, a fat bandage on his nose, a line of stitches running along his bottom lip.

“I’m clearing my place out,” he says. “I can’t get any work done here now, not after what happened.”

His own studio is a tidy, squared-away affair, a couple of large abstract paintings along the wall, a table and stool, an easel for work in progress, and at the back an assortment of finished pieces. I can only see the one in front, which looks to me like a solid field of orange with two fuzzy reddish lines running vertically, dividing it into thirds. It doesn’t look too hard to do, but I refrain from saying so.

“When Thomson gave you that box,” I ask, “did he explain why?”

Balinski moves the paintings on the wall over to the stack in back. “Honestly, we were both pretty baked at the time. He’d been kind of morbid recently, I don’t know how else to describe it, even more obsessive than usual about things. Something had set him off, but I don’t know what. We’d been to a couple of bars, and on the way back over here he said he wanted to give me something. I thought it was a gift at first, and I was telling him he didn’t have to do that, but he said if he didn’t, they might find it. He said they were keeping tabs on him now, because he wasn’t reliable.”