Freezing Page 15

  Scott slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Doesn’t matter. Page nine might have just said, “Drive safe, boys”. Whatever it said, we’ll confirm the extension cord tonight.’

  Eric nodded. He rewound the tape and pushed Pause. ‘I’m going with “Gold for my princess” on the audio.’

  He pushed Play. The man’s voice came through more clearly this time. Now it sounded loving and triumphant: ‘Gold for my princess.’

  SIXTEEN

  A bathrobe-clad Frank Spicer first turned on his porch light and then opened his front door at 1501 Prickly Pear Close to find four people on his doorstep. They had been pounding on it for the entire minute it had taken him to get to the front of the house. Two were men holding Federal Bureau of Investigation badges open towards him. The other two were wearing Phoenix Police Department uniforms. One of the FBI people handed him some papers. The front page had WARRANT typed across it in letters big enough for Frank to read without his glasses. He did need glasses for the rest of it, so he invited the authorities into the house. After all, he had nothing to hide.

  As it turned out, the law enforcement officers did not want to search his house. It had all been a mistake, as Frank was sure it would be. They wanted to search that old van parked in front of their house, a vehicle they had nothing to do with. Frank told them that and his wife, Sally, seconded him, now that she had joined them in the front room, wearing a pink terrycloth muumuu.

  ‘That’s right, the van isn’t ours. We have a Saturn. It’s in the driveway.’

  ‘Ma’am,’ the blond FBI agent said. ‘The van has an extension cord running into your garage.’

  She reared back. ‘I beg your pardon?’ She crossed to the window, pulling her husband with her. ‘Frank, had you noticed that?’ She looked at him in wonder.

  Frank felt tired. ‘No, I sure didn’t.’

  She appealed to the four people standing like statues in her living room. ‘We’ve been out of town for a few weeks. Maybe someone was trying to steal our electricity while we were gone?’ She broke off and looked at Frank again, who shrugged. ‘We thought the van belonged to someone visiting a neighbor. I never noticed the extension cord.’

  Scott regarded Frank and Sally Spicer. Neither fit the image of the person he’d seen going into the van the previous evening. ‘Mr and Mrs Spicer, does anyone else live here with you?’

  ‘Our son, Wayne, lives with us.’ Sally sounded puzzled.

  ‘We’ll need to speak with him to determine if he’s the owner of the van. Where can we find him?’

  ‘It’s not his—’ Sally began.

  ‘Let me get him,’ said Frank. ‘It’ll be easier that way. He doesn’t like to be disturbed,’ he said over his shoulder as he began to leave the room. One of the police officers followed him.

  Scott stood across the room from Sally Spicer. She didn’t look concerned about the unfolding events, only as befuddled as would someone who had been woken up abruptly after having gone to bed for the night. She tried to fluff her short grey hair, then smiled self-consciously at him. He maintained a polite expression.

  The person who followed Frank into the room was a very good match for the tall man seen by Scott and Eric on the surveillance video. He was still wearing dark sweatpants but now had on a white vest. His body hair was long and pale and stuck to his skin in rivulets of sweat, as though he had come from a room without air conditioning.

  Scott turned to the newcomer as the two police officers quietly moved to block the doorway.

  ‘Are you Wayne Spicer?’

  ‘Yes.’ The man seemed surprised that anyone knew his name.

  ‘Do you own the van sitting in front of this property?’

  ‘Yes. It’s mine.’

  Scott noticed Sally grip Frank’s arm.

  ‘We have a warrant to search your van, sir.’

  Eric came to stand next to Scott, holding a second copy of the warrant papers they had had issued.

  Wayne’s eyes darted between Scott and the window.

  ‘Why? It’s not parked illegally. I didn’t do anything wrong.’ Wayne’s voice took on a higher pitch with every phrase.

  ‘Take a seat there, sir.’ Scott indicated the flowered sofa. ‘Here’s your copy of the warrant.’

  Eric handed the papers to Wayne. Scott expected the large man to resist in some way but he looked like he no longer heard or saw them.

  Sally pleaded, ‘Wayne?’

  He didn’t respond.

  One police officer remained in the living room with the Spicer family while Scott, Eric, and Officer Perez walked outside.

  Perez went to her cruiser, which was parked across the Spicer’s driveway, and put her spotlight full beam on the back of the van. Eric brought a camera out of an equipment bag he carried with him. Using the flash, he photographed the entire van and then took several shots of the padlock securing the rear doors. Perez arrived with a bolt cutter she had retrieved from the trunk of the cruiser and Eric photographed her actions as she cut through the padlock and removed the chain from between the door handles. She then carefully opened both doors to their widest position while Eric photographed. Scott flicked on a flashlight and surveyed the scene before him.

  The extension cord traveled up from under the bumper and into the van’s floor via a rusty hole partially ringed with short pieces of black electrical tape. Scott’s eyes followed the cord. It met another, this one white and protruding from the back of a white, mid-sized chest freezer. A grey rubber strap ran like a belt around the front of the freezer and was bolted to the wall with shiny screws that looked new. There was barely space for a path between the freezer on the right and an army cot on the left. At the far end of the van, a tarp hung from the ceiling and obscured the front seats.

  Eric photographed the van’s interior. Perez climbed in to cut through the padlock securing the freezer’s lid and then Eric traded places with her. Scott lifted the lid so Eric could photograph the inside. Scott couldn’t see in from his position, so watched Eric’s face. But Eric lowered the camera without taking a photograph.

  ‘What is it?’ Scott asked.

  ‘You gotta see this.’ Eric took three flash photographs in quick succession and jumped down.

  Scott climbed into the van and shined light into the freezer. There was a dead woman tucked inside it. She was resting on her back, held in a crouch with her head against the left wall and chin tucked down. Dark hair curled about the young face and across shoulders pushed slightly inwards by the front and back walls. Her arms were extended and crossed over her body, which was clothed in a bra and underpants. Her hands lay palms-down over her abdomen. Her appearance was innocent and peaceful, preserved intact by the cold.

  Scott locked eyes with Eric. ‘We got him. We finally got the bastard. Perez, get us hooked up with a flatbed. We’re impounding this vehicle.’

  Wayne Spicer remained silent throughout his arrest. He nodded to indicate that he understood his Miranda rights and looked dully at his parents before being led out of the house in handcuffs. Scott glanced at Frank and Sally Spicer as he left their living room. They looked as though they had fallen into the sofa and weren’t getting up any time soon. He closed the front door quietly behind him.

  Eric stayed with the van. He would maintain continuity of evidence for the transport crew from the Medical Examiner’s Office after they arrived to formally confirm death and he would wait for the police tow truck unit who would take the van away on a flatbed.

  Wayne sat in the back of the police cruiser as Officer Perez drove out of Prickly Pear Close and through the quiet streets of Mesa. He looked out of the window, taking shallow breaths and sweating. Sitting next to him, Scott was trying to keep his own breathing under control as he thought about how they would be able to use the body in the freezer against the suspect during interview. He couldn’t imagine this guy didn’t know he was going down. They would make him cough up the locations of the other women he’d killed and then he and Eric would finally close the cases in A
tlanta.

  DAY EIGHT

  Tuesday

  SEVENTEEN

  Scott and Eric left their hotel in downtown Phoenix, having decided to get the coroner’s preliminary report on the girl in the freezer before starting the interview with Wayne Spicer. Scott was aware he hadn’t yet returned Jayne’s call from the previous day and vowed to do it that afternoon. He checked the paper in his lap. Dr Bodell was the forensic pathologist on duty at the Maricopa County Medical Examiner’s Office.

  At the ME’s Office, the agents were able to stay in their street clothes by standing in the viewing room whose window overlooked the large suite where Dr Bodell was working at an autopsy table. The window took up most of the dividing wall and Scott felt as though he was in the room with the pathologist. He was startled when her voice came through a wall-mounted speaker as a tinny amplification of the rich British timbre he’d heard when they’d met in her office earlier.

  ‘Can you hear me all right?’ A Tyvek-suited Dr Bodell was directing her chin upwards to a microphone hanging from the ceiling as she looked at them through the window. The young autopsy assistant pulled the microphone slightly closer to the pathologist.

  The agents nodded even though they’d been shown how to operate the wall-mounted microphone so the pathologist could hear them.

  ‘I understand you found the body in a freezer,’ she stated. ‘Any idea how long it had been there?’

  When the agents shook their heads, Dr Bodell continued.

  ‘Well, I’ll be able to give you more information when the body’s thawed some more and we do a full post, but for now I can tell you that your Jane Doe is Caucasian, in her twenties, five-feet-six-inches tall, with a slim build, and X-ray shows a COD of broken neck.’

  Dr Bodell paused to give Eric time to take notes. She watched him, then continued. ‘I thought you’d like to know that we’ve got good material for an ID. Take a look at your screen.’

  They looked down at a video screen mounted in a console in front of them. The screen was black at first, then an image took up the whole screen, blurry and full of motion. Scott glanced at Dr Bodell, who was manipulating a pen-sized tube around the body’s mouth. The autopsy assistant moved to the nearside of the table and immediately but unwittingly blocked Scott’s view. He looked back to the screen and saw teeth as the camera moved around the mouth.

  Dr Bodell’s voice came through the speakers again. ‘There. You see the filling in the canine?’

  They replied simultaneously, ‘No.’ Then Scott remembered to press the microphone button so the pathologist could hear them. He pressed it and repeated, ‘No.’

  The pathologist chuckled and her assistant passed her an implement.

  ‘Look at your screen again.’

  They watched as a dental pick came into view and traced an oval on the outside surface of the canine.

  ‘See how it’s slightly whiter there on the labial surface?’

  They could barely discern it and said as much. Dr Bodell seemed to be enjoying herself.

  ‘A very expensive dentist somewhere would love the answers you two are giving.’ Her assistant laughed and the pathologist continued.

  ‘This is a high quality synthetic filling. Plus, there’s some bonding between the canine and the lateral incisor.’ She looked up at the two visitors. ‘That kind of work isn’t the norm for most of the Jane and John Does we get through here, so if she is in the system, the haystack just got smaller, gentlemen.’

  She looked back down at the body. ‘I can see why such good work was done on a mouth like this. Look at the teeth, the smile.’

  She was now running the camera slowly across the front teeth. Scott mentally agreed that the teeth seemed unusually uniform in size and color.

  Dr Bodell said, ‘If you’ve got the money to preserve a smile like that, you spend it.’

  Scott looked from the screen to the pathologist. At that moment, the autopsy assistant stepped to the side, affording him a view of the body again. Scott’s eyes automatically went to its mouth where metal clips now held back the corners of the upper lips. The dead woman appeared to be smiling.

  Jayne came down the stairs and followed the voices to her mother’s kitchen. Marie was wrapping sandwiches in wax paper while Steelie sat on the counter.

  Steelie looked up at her and said, ‘Your mom wants to help “cleanse” your apartment.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Jayne gave a slight shudder. ‘I’d love to paint it, actually. Just totally lose all trace that a prowler was there.’

  ‘Understood,’ Marie said as she put the wax parcels into a paper bag. She handed this to Jayne. ‘For the Agency lunch today. The vegetarian’s for Steelie of course and I want you to ask Carol how she likes my wasabi mayonnaise.’

  Jayne gave her a hug that lasted so long, Marie looked over her shoulder at Steelie and raised her eyebrows. Then she kissed her daughter. ‘Does this mean you’ll stay here a few more days?’

  Jayne smiled but only said, ‘Come on, Steelie. Carol’s going to beat us to the office at this rate.’

  As they walked to Jayne’s truck, Steelie asked, ‘Did you try to call Scott again?’

  ‘Yes, and it went to voicemail again but this time I left a detailed message.’ She gave a shrug as she rolled down her window and started down Marie’s winding driveway. ‘Who knows what’s going on out there? For all we know, the stakeout turned into a shootout.’

  Steelie glanced at her. ‘It may be Arizona but it’s not the Wild West.’ But she gauged Jayne’s mood and added: ‘Look, bad news travels fast, so if you haven’t heard anything, he’s fine.’

  Eric and Scott had been questioning Wayne Spicer for two hours in an interview room at the Phoenix police station. Wayne had waived his right to a lawyer, so Scott had started by asking about the body in the freezer, her rigid smile coming into his mind as he looked at Wayne across the table. The suspect hadn’t spoken except to ask for a soda, which he was still nursing, wiping spills from his chin with the inside edge of the shirt he’d been given to wear when the police took his clothes as evidence.

  ‘She was a nice looking woman, Spicer.’ Scott leaned on his elbows and tilted his head at the man, whose eyes closed against his voice. ‘Where’d you meet her?’ He leaned back in his chair. ‘Were you watching her for a long time?’

  Wayne’s eyelids flew open but he didn’t speak.

  ‘What’d you do with the rest of her clothes? You keep those? Hmm, Spicer? You wear ’em?’

  Wayne cupped his large hand around the soda can, swigged quickly, and wiped his chin.

  ‘Not really your size, her clothes. She was just a tiny thing.’ Scott leaned back across the table. ‘What’d you do? Trick her to come with you?’

  There was a flicker of a response in Wayne’s face but he still did not speak.

  When Eric took over questioning ten minutes later, he began by repeating questions he’d asked earlier in a different form. ‘That really is a nice van you got, Wayne, with the cot in the back. Like going on road trips?’

  No response.

  ‘You like going north? Need to get a taste of rain every now and then, eh?’ Eric chuckled and put his hands behind his head in a relaxed manner.

  ‘You like Portland? You’ve been up there, right, Wayne? How about Georgia? Savannah’s the real thing, isn’t it?’

  Scott watched from the wall. There wasn’t even a flicker in Wayne’s eyes as he looked directly at Eric.

  Scott spoke without lifting his head from the wall. ‘When were you going to cut her up?’

  Wayne jumped up, sending his chair backwards to the floor. Eric got to his feet, preparing to fend off the big man but Wayne was stumbling backwards, toward the wall behind him and pointing his finger at Scott, who was standing at the ready across the room.

  ‘I would never do that to her!’ Wayne’s voice cracked. ‘She . . . I . . .’ He faltered, his face suffusing with blood. ‘I would never do that.’ After a moment, he righted the metal chair and sat bac
k down, wrapping his hands around the soda can.

  Eric glanced back at Scott, who nodded. Eric asked, ‘Want another soda?’

  Wayne contemplated this for a moment and then nodded mutely.

  ‘OK, we’ll get you a soda.’

  The agents left the room together and asked the police officer standing outside to wait with the suspect. Once Scott closed the door, he stopped in the hallway, ran his hands through his hair, and then smoothed it all down again. Eric crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Phoenix police officers and administrative staff passed but took no notice of them.

  ‘Well, at least you got a reaction,’ Eric began.

  Scott puffed out his cheeks. ‘He doesn’t like talking about the dismemberment.’

  ‘Let’s push him on it, then.’

  Scott nodded. ‘This guy has been under the radar according to NCIC. No criminal record, no voting record, no parking tickets. Where’s he been putting the bodies? And why go back and forth between Georgia and Arizona?’

  ‘I’ll get the soda.’ Eric went down the hallway and returned a few minutes later with a can. They re-entered the interview room and the police officer left.

  This time, Scott sat at the table. He waited for Wayne to start the next soda before speaking.

  ‘Let’s talk about the cutting.’

  Wayne’s eyes flashed but he didn’t speak.

  Scott continued. ‘We know you like to cut them up.’

  Wayne frowned but remained silent.

  ‘After all, that’s what you did with Eleanor Patterson. And the others.’

  Wayne gripped the edge of the table.

  ‘Yep, we found your stuff on the side of the freeway. Thought you could hide Mrs Patterson by cutting her into pieces, didn’t ya?’

  Wayne started breathing heavily and looked first at Scott, then at Eric, who was standing by the door, and then back at Scott.

  ‘Well, she’s getting her own back. Her finger’s pointing at you, Spicer. The others will too.’

  Wayne wiped sweat from his upper lip.