Freezing Page 23

  Steelie appeared to be choosing her words carefully, sounding more like a lawyer than ever. ‘All we’re saying is that there’s a strong possibility that the same person who was responsible for cutting off Patterson’s arms also dismembered this woman in Kigali. We don’t know who that person is and it could be that it’s actually two killers . . . though they’d be two peas in a pod.’

  ‘What, the woman was killed by some other perp King met over there, who then taught him how to do this kind of dismemberment?’

  Steelie shrugged.

  Mark had been flipping through his notes. ‘This is making sense. Listen to this: Gerrit knew that the cuts were precise, particularly compared to trauma inflicted during the genocide with a machete or scythe. He said he later developed some suspicions about people with access to the UN HQ because when they went to open a new supply kit for the morgue, about half the blades for the scalpels were missing, plus a few handles. Let’s see.’

  He scanned a page and then pointed at it. ‘Yeah, here. He said he questioned the Logistics guys but they confirmed that the supplies had arrived from the European Union boxed up on a pallet.’ Mark looked up at Scott. ‘But Gerrit stressed that his suspicion that someone had stolen from their supplies was just a personal opinion and he didn’t have any proof.’

  Scott questioned Jayne. ‘Could King have accessed a pallet?’

  ‘Easily. If you were UN personnel, you could get access to almost anything that would be legitimate. Of course, we had to sign in and out and list how much of whatever item we took.’

  ‘Was someone guarding the pallets or controlling the sign-in sheet?’

  ‘The Logs guys had way too much to deal with to be able to guard anything. The sign-in sheet hung on a clipboard at the edge of the supply area.’

  Scott swung his chair toward Mark, putting his back to the women, and lowered his voice. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think we gotta get them over to King’s house ASAP, Houston. They can see things we can’t.’ He gestured at the slide on the screen.

  Jayne called out: ‘What’s the problem with taking us to the house? That’s why you flew us out here.’

  Scott swung around again. ‘The problem is that now, we know that you know the suspect. We need to make sure our case isn’t screwed by taking you to his house.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Mark, check on whether it’s going to be a conflict to have them over there. And if you find a conflict, make it go away.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Eric felt like he was being garrotted by his seatbelt as Angie brought the Crown Victoria to a lurching halt in front of a building in a suburb of Athens. He glanced at her and saw her grin as she put the car into park.

  ‘Soft brakes,’ she said, mock-defensively. ‘Gotta stamp on ’em like that or they don’t work.’

  He released his seatbelt and twisted to lower its anchor point on the car’s frame. ‘I don’t remember you doing any “stamping” earlier.’

  ‘And I don’t remember asking you to comment on my driving.’ She leaned forward to look out of his window. ‘Looks like this one has a security system at the door.’

  Eric turned to look and saw that the only feature differentiating the façade of the brick row house from its neighbors was the discreet metal panel encompassing a doorbell and keypad alongside holes for a speaker and microphone. He got out of the car and looked up at the building, noticing the small camera mounted above the door but beneath the windows of the second story. Railings painted a glossy black flanked a staircase that led up to the front door and down to a basement. The brick on the building looked clean, as though recently sandblasted.

  They mounted the stairs together and Angie pressed the bell. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.

  ‘Yes?’

  Eric instinctively looked up at the camera above them and Angie held her badge open toward it.

  ‘Special Agents Nicks and Ramos, Federal Bureau of Investigation. May we come in?’

  ‘Just a moment.’

  They heard the lock turn and a person who reminded Eric of the nuns who had run his elementary school opened the door. This woman wasn’t wearing any religious adornment but there was something familiar in the cut of her grey dress and her air of friendly rigidity. As she inspected their badges and identity cards, he noticed a streak of white hair just to the left of the midline of an otherwise very dark brown bob. When she looked up from their badges, he saw brown eyes that were neither impressed nor curious about why they were there.

  ‘Come in.’ She held the door open, then closed it after them.

  Eric knew that the front door of most row houses would let into a hallway that would run to the back of the house, but this one had been remodeled to put them into a reception room that prevented further entry. There was a window to an office-like room that could be reached through another door flanked by its own access panel.

  The woman in grey said, ‘I’m Aviva Goldsmith, co-director of Sanctuary House. How may I help you?’

  Angie spoke. ‘We’re trying to ascertain whether you, at any time, have had a resident or visitor by the name of Eleanor Patterson. She would have come to you from Oregon.’

  Aviva Goldsmith shook her head. ‘You may not be aware that at Sanctuary House we don’t know the names of the women who seek shelter. This is done for everyone’s protection so that if their abusive partner comes here looking for them, we can protect them without deceit.’

  Angie resumed. ‘Ms Goldsmith, we’re in the midst of a manhunt for someone we believe may have harmed Eleanor Patterson. Could you look at this photograph and tell us if you recognize this woman?’

  ‘I can look at it but I won’t be able to tell you if it’s the person you’re looking for.’

  Angie brought out a copy of the photograph Eric had used in the briefing room that morning. Eric watched Aviva Goldsmith closely as she looked at the photo and thought he detected relief under her calm exterior.

  She said, ‘I don’t recognize her.’

  Jayne spent the duration of the drive from the FBI building to Mead Street training her brain to think of their destination as a site, not Gene’s house. But when Mark parked the Suburban and she looked out the tinted back window, she just saw a house. A two-story Victorian building covered in siding that was supposed to look like bricks but didn’t succeed, topped with a chimney and an attic window in the peak of the roofline. A small porch above three concrete steps fronted the house and a large police tent dominated the unkempt yard.

  Jayne got out of the car and waited for Steelie to come around from the other side. She looked down the street and saw a television crew and a small crowd of people on the other side of some yellow tape. She and Steelie joined Scott and Mark to cross the street toward the house.

  Inside the tent, a police officer and an FBI agent logged them into the Site Visitor books, then gave them protective gear to put on over their clothes and shoes. Once everyone was suited up, Mark led the way from the tent to the front porch of the house. He greeted a police officer standing sentry on the door and then he addressed Steelie and Jayne.

  ‘The electricity was turned off here. We’re working on having it restored but take these flashlights. Use them. We’ll be going straight through the house to the back; the side access is barricaded. You’ll meet the Medical Examiner and it’ll be easier if you don’t make a reference to ever having met King.’

  He handed them the flashlights and they entered the house.

  On stepping over the threshold, Jayne felt like she’d walked into another climate zone. Where it was warm and humid outside, the house was cool and smelled of old carpet. Boxes and debris crowded a narrow hallway that led past a staircase. At the top of the stairs, voices and light emanated from a room off of the landing.

  Mark called back, ‘The evidence techs are working off a generator upstairs.’

  Past the base of the stairs, rooms came off to the left of the hallway but it seemed even darker. Jay
ne swung the beam of her flashlight across the floor and up the walls to make sure she didn’t bump into anything, until they emerged out the back door into the sunlight and a strong smell of decomposing tissue.

  The back yard was narrow but long, and bare in the middle. Rangy bushes hugged the tall wood fence that separated it from the neighbors on each side. There was a concrete path leading to a clapboard garage whose double doors stood open, and Jayne could see floodlights set up on stands, their extension cords running to the generator humming on the path outside. Scott was going toward the garage but the decomposition smell was coming from the open section of the yard.

  Mark said, ‘Let me introduce you to the doc and his team.’

  Over by the right fence-line, there were four people working in different sections of a grid marked out by fluorescent pink twine suspended between stakes hammered into the ground. They were all wearing Tyvek protective suits and rubber boots. Beyond them were three more Tyvek-suited people standing at waist-high sifting trays suspended over large plastic buckets. A table near the sifting station was laden with plastic bags, paper bags, evidence labels, photograph markers and other tools needed to document evidence emerging from the excavation.

  A man was walking across to them by following plastic squares placed on the ground like stepping-stones. He pulled his mask down as he approached, revealing a lined, olive-colored face. His protective suit was baggy and slightly twisted off the mid-line of his slight frame but his voice was strong.

  ‘You must be the anthropologists. I’m Leonard Penman, the ME.’

  Mark introduced Steelie and Jayne to the Chief Medical Examiner. They shook gloved hands.

  ‘We’re not completely backwards out here,’ Dr Penman said with a smile, ‘but we’re honest enough to say that we haven’t had to deal with multiple sets of buried remains, let alone mostly skeletonized remains. Even our biggest recovery effort – the commuter jet crash last winter – was fleshed remains and we had DMORT’s help on that one.’

  Jayne nodded. She and Steelie had enormous respect for the regional Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams that were made up of forensic scientists and dispatched to scenes of mass fatalities to provide immediate human identification services.

  Dr Penman waved a hand to indicate the yard behind him. ‘As you can see, the criminalists have already put a grid over the area where we started. We’re working over there by the fence first because it’s where the soil was recently disturbed – by a dog, most likely – which exposed the remains that are putting out the stink. We’ve got Dr Greg Parker from the university here. He’s the archaeologist and it’s his grad students from the Anthropology Department over there sifting the soil. I’ve been told that you two can advise on strategy? If so, you’ve arrived just in time because we’re reaching the bigger body parts now.’

  Steelie said, ‘I guess the best thing at this stage would be for us to have a closer look at what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said Dr Penman, with something like relish.

  Scott emerged from the garage and called out, ‘Thirty-two One. I need you for a second.’

  They looked to Dr Penman, who said, ‘Go on. We’re not going anywhere.’

  Scott held a clear evidence bag with something inside it. He pointed inside the garage.

  ‘You see that cabinet against the back wall?’

  Jayne saw a metal wardrobe. A criminalist was collecting and documenting items that were on the labeled shelves.

  Scott continued. ‘OK, next to it is a huge chest freezer where King probably kept body parts. But he used that cabinet for a different bunch of mementos. This was in there.’ He held up the bag to show the large cream-colored purse inside. ‘There wasn’t much in it, but one thing it did have was an Oregon driver’s license for one Eleanor Patterson.’

  Steelie let out a low whistle.

  ‘What else is in the purse?’ Jayne asked.

  ‘Like I said, not much.’ He glanced at it. ‘An empty coin purse, an empty wallet, a powder compact, a tube of lipstick, and a, ah, sanitary pad.’ He hurried on. ‘Looks like he kept belongings from other vics on the shelves.’

  He started to go back inside but Jayne said, ‘Wait.’

  He stopped and looked at her.

  Jayne was thinking about the contents of the purse and about Patterson’s arms as they’d seen them at Critter Central. In her mind’s eye, she could see the sunspots on the forearms. ‘You told us you’d ID’d Patterson from the surgical plate on her arm. How old did they say she was?’

  ‘Fifty-one when she went missing. Why?’

  She ignored his question and held out her hand. ‘Can I see that purse?’

  He hesitated.

  She turned her hand and flicked her fingers toward her palm. ‘I know it’s evidence but you haven’t sealed the bag yet. I’m gloved.’

  He handed over the bag.

  She reached inside and pulled the purse so its open top was aligned with the top of the evidence bag. Looking inside, she could see the lipstick, compact, and the two wallets. Then she used her finger to expand the small compartment in the lining. She could see a maxi pad in there, still folded in its wrapper but the glue at the edges wasn’t holding it closed. She handed the evidence bag back to Scott.

  ‘You’re going to want to look inside the pad.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You should section it – carefully.’

  He only paused for a moment longer before gesturing for them to follow him. He called out to the criminalist working at the far end of the garage. ‘Tait.’

  Scott put on surgical gloves to pull the purse from the evidence bag and put it on the table in front of the young man. ‘Doc this inside and out.’

  The criminalist labeled the purse and photographed the exterior and interior. Once he was finished, Scott pulled the maxi pad from the inner pocket and put it on the table.

  ‘OK, now open this up.’

  Tait gave Scott a look like he thought this was a joke.

  ‘Now.’

  Tait instantly composed himself. ‘Yes, sir.’ He picked up his camera and photographed the item with an evidence label before touching it. Then he used a pair of tweezers to peel off the thin plastic wrapping.

  The pad was folded into thirds and he eased it flat before looking at Scott for direction.

  Scott turned to Jayne. ‘You said section it?’

  She nodded.

  He looked back to Tait, who used a scalpel to begin an incision on the side of the pad. Then he stopped, picked up a magnifying glass, and used it to look at the pad again. ‘There’s already a cut here, sir.’

  Scott leaned down and looked. ‘OK, peel it back from the existing cut.’

  Tait carefully pulled back several layers to reveal an object that had nothing to do with moisture absorption. It was a small piece of paper, folded many times and pressed flat as though with an iron.

  The criminalist photographed the item with a ruler and an evidence label before opening it with his tweezers. Then he stepped back to let the others see. Visible inside the folds of the paper was something written in faint pencil:

  793 Cobb /Agapanthus

  Jayne spoke. ‘You said the shelters gave the women code names. That might be a code she was trying to keep hidden.’

  Before she even finished speaking, Scott pulled his cell phone from its holster, his eyes fixed on the piece of paper. Jayne and Steelie started to leave and heard him say, ‘Eric. Is seven-nine-three Cobb an address on your list? You’re there right now? OK, check this: Patterson’s code may have been Agapanthus.’

  Just outside the garage, Scott caught up with Jayne. ‘How in hell did you know to look in the pad?’

  ‘You said Patterson was at least fifty-one years old. She was likely menopausal. So the pad didn’t fit. It was possible, but not probable.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Eric hung up from Scott’s call and regarded Aviva Goldsmith carefully as they stood in the reception
area of Sanctuary House.

  ‘We have reason to believe that you would have known Eleanor Patterson as Agapanthus.’

  Instead of looking at the photo again, Aviva Goldsmith’s eyes stayed on Eric’s and he saw her left eyelid twitch. She steadied it with a finger.

  He said quietly, ‘Please look at the photo again.’

  ‘I don’t need to. Agapanthus never arrived.’

  He pounced on her use of the past tense. ‘What do you mean, “never arrived”? So you expected her? How was she supposed to get here?’

  He felt Angie’s hand on his arm so stopped shooting questions at Aviva Goldsmith, who had been trying to get a word in.

  ‘Let me explain,’ she said. ‘Our system here is that when we’re contacted by women who need sanctuary, we don’t ask any questions of them. We only give them our address and instructions on how to get here. We don’t know their names, anything about them, or where they’re coming from, other than if they’re out of state or will be arriving with children . . . oh, and which day. We need only enough information to determine if we have enough space to accommodate them. If they’re coming from out of state, like Agapanthus . . .’

  She paused and only then looked again at the portrait in Angie’s hand. ‘We instruct them that on arrival at the airport, they should take the bus to our nearest stop at the Naval College. We tell them which number bus to take and to walk here to the house. This makes it harder for their abusers to track them because it reduces the number of people they interact with, particularly by not using taxis, and it gives them a way to get here that makes them appear to be local. They’re instructed to travel without baggage so they don’t appear to be visitors. All of this is designed to reduce their vulnerability while in transit. The bus also provides some safety in numbers.’

  Eric caught Angie’s eyes.

  Aviva Goldsmith must have noticed the exchange because she asked, ‘Is that important?’

  Angie asked, ‘You instruct them to use a bus from Atlanta airport?’