Before Sunrise (20 page)

They crossed the small bridge and drove down the rutted path into the woods that led to the small rock ledge overhang. The stream could be heard gurgling in the distance.

Cortez waved the team back as he bent to look at a fresh tire track. It was missing a vertical stripe, just like the suspect vehicle he'd tracked before. He indicated it to Alice Jones and her team before they walked carefully around it and toward the entrance of the cave.

The sun was high and it was warm for a late November day in the mountainous region. He didn't see anything suspicious, but as they moved closer to the cave, his stomach clenched. He ground his teeth together as a faint, unmistakable odor hit his nostrils. He knew what it was.

So did Alice Jones. She exchanged a grim look with
him. He stood aside to let her go first, indicating for the other officers to follow in his footsteps.

Only a few feet inside the overhang, in the damp cold of the wide cave, a pair of shoes came into view. They were attached to a man who was lying in the dirt.

The man was dead.

T
HE VICTIM WAS LYING
facedown; half of his face was disfigured, the rest was bloody. His own mother wouldn't have known him. There was blood around his head in a pool on the dusty ground. Splatters of blood and specks of gray tissue were visible on rocks to one side of the victim, far above the dead man. There was one visible shoe print, and brush marks where several others had been erased. The tall, thin man was dressed in an expensive suit and leather shoes that looked equally expensive. His arms were bent on either side of his head. He was stiff. Alice Jones was working deftly to arrive at an approximate time of death. Nobody paid a lot of attention to what she was doing. Death was disturbing, even to experienced investigators.

The medical examiner hadn't yet arrived. Tanner, one of Cortez's FBI crime unit guys, was walking around taking photographs of the body and the immediate surroundings. He had a camcorder in a case sitting on his car hood, which would be used as a backup to document the crime scene. Alice had already put out several colorful evidence cards near trace evidence for him to photograph. One uniformed officer from the local police department was already hard at work under Alice Jones's direction, putting down wooden stakes around the crime scene, with a ball of twine standing by to attach to them. Another officer was stationed a few yards away to preserve the integrity of the primary crime scene. Alice herself approached with a flat-mouthed shovel and a bag of other smaller tools, such as trowels, brushes, and tweezers. She looked wan and half out of humor.

“Where's the rest of the team?” Cortez asked, stunned. “I only see one other FBI agent.”

“It's Thanksgiving Day, didn't you notice?” she muttered, putting down her shovel. “Everybody has families except me and Tanner. But his specialty is photography, not forensic medicine. So here I am, all alone, except for Officer Dane over there keeping potential visitors away, and Officer Parker here, who isn't even the homicide detective. He's robbery.”

“He's all they gave you?” Cortez asked, aghast.

“His department celebrates Thanksgiving, too, Cortez, so he and Officer Dane were all they could spare,” she drawled. “Lucky you, that I don't have a husband or a lover or somebody I could claim to get me a day off!”

“Point taken,” he said on a sigh.

Jones relented. “Sorry,” she murmured sheepishly. “I'm just overwhelmed, that's all. I'm used to having at least one trained criminologist to work with me. This is going to take time and expertise.”

“Pity we don't have a forensic anthropologist,” Cortez murmured.

Alice Jones gave him a smug grin. “I'm taking Internet courses in forensic dentition,” she said helpfully.

“Jones!” he exclaimed, brightening. “You're a wonder!”

She chuckled. “Nice to be appreciated, boss. Tanner and Parker and I will get busy.” She hesitated. “But, you know, if you could get that anthropologist friend of yours back out here, it would be a help,” she said seriously. “She said she'd done forensics, and she probably knows more about excavating than I'll have time to learn. This is a big job for just one technician.” She glanced at him. “Is she squeamish?”

“I'll go ask her,” Cortez said.

“I'll recommend you for a raise,” she promised.

“It won't do any good,” he said with a heartfelt sigh. “Our budget's already showing bone.”

“It was just a hopeful thought,” she said. “Pay no mind to the fact that I'm wearing four-year-old shoes and I can't afford to replace my glasses.”

“Tell the SAC,” he advised, meaning the special agent in charge of their unit. “But don't expect much. He just said that his son was applying for a second scholarship because their college fund had to be spent to make mortgage payments.”

Jones stood up straight. “We don't need to know if monkeys sweat!” she announced belligerently.

He and Tanner, Parker and Officer Dane turned and stared at her.

She scowled. “Well, that's where our bureau budget's going, along with lots of other departments' budgets, on grants like that for studies that nobody cares about except a few researchers,” she muttered. “Congress has no sense of proportion.”

“I nominate you to do collective bargaining for our unit,” Cortez said after a minute. “Hands?” he called loudly.

Tanner raised his. But so did the local police officers.

“Hey, you're not FBI,” he called to the nonunit personnel.

“Are you sure?” Officer Parker asked wistfully. “I could check with my chief and see if he'd lie for me. I haven't had a raise for two years!”

Cortez shook his head. He gave the victim one last glance, scowling, as his mind returned to the gravity of the situation. You had to have a sense of humor in forensic work, he thought absently, or you'd go mad at the things you had to see. “I wonder who he is?” he asked aloud.

“He's victim number two in case file 45728,” Jones offered helpfully.

He gave her a speaking glance and went to get Phoebe.

 

A
LTHOUGH IT WAS
Thanksgiving, Phoebe had taken pity on foreign tourists who wanted to tour the museum. Phoebe was gathering her things and Marie was just finishing their tour when Cortez walked into the office.

The shock of seeing him after what had happened, after the way they'd parted, was like a body-blow. She couldn't quite get her breath. Little ripples of pleasure worked along her nerve endings just at the sight of him.

He was having similar problems, but he was able to hide his reaction. He'd spent a lifetime learning to conceal his deeper feelings. It helped in situations like this.

He rammed his hands into his pockets. “Are you squeamish?” he asked without preamble.

“Define squeamish,” she invited.

“Can you look at a man who's missing the front of his face and a small area behind the cerebellum and help Alice Jones excavate around the body to procure trace evidence?”

“You want me to look at a dead body?” she asked, wide-eyed.

“Well…yes,” he began hesitantly.

She was out of her desk, with her purse on her shoulder, headed out the door while he was catching his breath.

“Come on!” she called to him. “The trail will get cold!”

He followed her out to her car, past a curious Marie.

“Marie, you'll have to take care of business,” Phoebe told her, grinning. “I'm going to be a consultant for the FBI!”

“Can't I come along and consult, too?” Marie asked, glancing miserably toward a special group of tourists who were muttering about the labeling of one of the exhibits.

“Sorry, only one escape per staff member per day,” Phoebe murmured, grinning. “Close up as soon as our guests leave. I'll call you later.”

She got in on the passenger side of Cortez's car and fastened her seat belt.

He slid in under the wheel and did the same, with a wry glance at her. “And I thought I'd have to coax you.”

“Are you kidding? I've always been fascinated by forensics,” she replied. “I did several courses of it in college and I've been an occasional consultant for local law enforcement when they found skeletal remains. I've even watched an autopsy.”

He ground his teeth together. “I have, too, but not with much enthusiasm.”

“Do you know who the dead man is?” she asked.

“No, but if you ask Jones anything about him, she'll tell you that he's male and dead.”

She shook her head, smiling. “That's our Alice.”

“He's not pretty, Phoebe,” he told her.

She glanced at him. “Death never is,” she said. “A GBI senior agent from Georgia told me once that how he gets through the grisly parts is remembering that he's the last advocate for the deceased. It's up to him to make sure the perpetrator is caught and punished for his crime. I like to think of it like that.”

“So do I,” he replied gently.

 

T
HEY DIDN'T TALK MUCH
on the way to the crime scene. Phoebe was remarkably shy with him. He was feeling guilty about the way things had happened
between them. He'd never meant to rush her into a physical relationship with him.

He pulled up near the crime scene and got out first, motioning for Phoebe to follow in his footsteps. He didn't want to contaminate evidence.

Leaving her purse in the car, Phoebe moved behind Cortez into the cave where the murder victim was lying. She hesitated, just for a second, at her first sight of the dead man. But just as quickly, she forced herself to move forward.

“Thanks for coming,” Alice Jones said wearily, pausing in her slow excavation of the area around the body. It was called platforming, and each thin layer of soil had to be moved, sifted through a wire-mesh-bottomed box, and every bit and piece bagged and labeled. It was time-consuming work and, as the day began to heat up, sweaty work as well. “I really appreciate the rest of my team, now that I don't have them with me!”

“No problem,” Phoebe replied. “Hand me a trowel and tell me how you want me to proceed.”

“Take a look at the victim first, if you would,” Alice said, directing her to the single point of entry they'd agreed on to protect the crime scene. “From the angle of the wound, I've assumed that he was shot from behind while he was bending over. There's blood splattered on the rocks about where his head would have been in a
stooping posture. The wound is small behind, large in front, and the entry hole is small and precise.”

“A handgun,” Phoebe agreed, frowning as she studied the wound. “And he was shot from above and behind.”

“More than likely,” Alice agreed. “If we knew what caliber, we'd know the ejection pattern and where to look for the shell. It looks to me like one shot, with a high caliber handgun at close range. I've got Officer Parker looking for the shell casing over there with a metal detector.”

That would explain the odd humming sound Phoebe had heard when she entered the cave.

“Okay,” Phoebe said, taking off her jacket. “I'm ready when you are.”

Alice smiled grimly and handed her a trowel.

 

I
T WAS ARDUOUS
and drawn-out, processing the crime scene. Phoebe had done excavations for years, but the dead body unnerved her. It was in the midrange of rigor mortis, and just beginning to bloat in the heat of the day. There was a faint, sickeningly sweet smell coming off the victim.

Alice was examining the body for PMI, or a rough estimate of time of death. “I'd say he's been out here from twelve to eighteen hours,” she told Cortez absently, “considering the progress of rigor and internal body temper
ature. Once we autopsy him, we can be more precise, but I'd stand by that estimate.”

“That means he was killed sometime yesterday,” Cortez agreed.

“Probably last night,” Alice added. “I've already checked his internal temperature,” she murmured, glancing dryly at her colleagues, who'd looked away while she did it. “Considering that the body loses one to one and a half degrees of temperature for every hour after death, that fits the approximate time frame I've concocted. He died about eleven p.m. yesterday, give or take an hour or two considering the weather report for last night. It was about fifteen degrees below the present. I'll check with the weather guys at NOAA and get a graph and temperature readings for the area before I file my report.”

“Pack him up and have the local funeral home send an ambulance out for him. They can hold him until he can be sent to the state crime lab for analysis,” Cortez told her. “If we're lucky, the mortician will let you take some latent prints and DNA samples for our own lab, along with the local coroner.”

“With the backup at HQ, it's not going to be easy to get immediate results,” Alice reminded him.

“Now, I know you're on a first name basis with the
lab, Alice,” Cortez coaxed. “And didn't you date one of the new assistants up there?”

She cleared her throat. “Actually, boss, I knocked him over a table in the cafeteria. I don't think mentioning my name will get us ahead of the queue.”

Everybody looked at her.

She flushed. “It wasn't deliberate. He pulled out my chair for me and I tripped over my own feet and he went flying into a dish of mashed potatoes and gravy.”

“What did you do?” Phoebe asked, aghast.

“I got up and ran for my life,” she confessed, blushing even more. “I don't think I'm cut out for romance.”

“Good thing, because you're the best forensic scientist I've got,” Cortez said with a smile.

She grinned. “About that raise…?”

“Get to work.”

She saluted him, winked at Phoebe, and bent back to her task.

 

T
HERE WERE TWO PIECES
of trace evidence that raised Cortez's eyebrows when Alice showed them to him. One was a long blond hair. Another was minute traces of face powder on the man's lapel when they turned him over in order to tuck him into a body bag.