Freezing Read online

  ‘OK, I’m leaning toward root canal but I’d put a note about the possibility of a post. We simply don’t have enough information to do more than that.’

  Steelie pulled a magnifying glass from a jar on the counter. She used it to look at the X-ray again. Jayne walked to the end of the room and started rummaging through a drawer.

  After a while, Steelie turned on her stool. ‘What on earth are you looking for?’

  ‘Didn’t we have some candlestick holders in here from when the power was always going out?’

  ‘Oh, you mean in the days before a generator?’ Steelie was expansive. ‘Who even remembers those days?’

  ‘Seriously. And where did you move that candle the women in Atlanta gave me?’

  ‘They’re both in the top drawer of the other cabinet.’ She turned back to the light box.

  Jayne pulled open that drawer and brought out a holder. She put the candle in but it was too narrow to stand up on its own. She lit a match to warm the wax so that it would stick to the holder and she could see the wick inside. Then she remembered Scott saying something about the wick going all the way through.

  They had been in the Sunkist parking lot – that first reunion. He had been right, both about the wick and about how the two of them were at opposite ends of the same effort. They were all identifying people, whether starting with a body or a missing person. Watching the wax melt, Jayne decided Scott was right about a lot of things and the memory of their embrace on the side of the road surged forward in a rush – his hands in her hair, her mouth on his, the desire.

  And the desire was now only part of it. When she’d become aware of Scott lifting her up from that disgusting, bloody motel floor, she’d felt truly alive. But she hadn’t been able to make any words come out. Later, when she’d asked Angie where Scott was, she’d explained that he was logging evidence and offered to take him a message. But by then, Jayne just wanted to show him how she felt. They’d talked enough. She’d held off calling him, just waiting – in excruciating, deeply pleasurable anticipation – for him to return to LA.

  The telephone rang and Steelie called out ‘My turn,’ as she rolled over on her stool to answer it.

  ‘Scott!’

  Jayne turned around, half expecting to see him in the doorway. But Steelie was listening intently to the phone and gave her a thumb’s up sign. ‘Hang on, Houston, let me put you on speaker.’

  Jayne put the candle down and came to stand by Steelie, who pressed a button and turned up the volume while telling Jayne, ‘They’re still in Atlanta. You gotta hear this.’

  ‘Scott?’ Steelie called out. ‘Tell Jayne what you just told me.’

  After a pause, Scott said, ‘Jayne.’

  It gave her a jolt to hear his voice. ‘Scott, hi.’

  ‘Hi. So, what I said was, we’ve got a full confession from King on the Georgia cases, plus the BP’s on the Ventura Freeway.’

  She and Steelie called out questions simultaneously. Scott used broad brushstrokes to describe how King had preyed on the women who worked in Atlanta’s red light district and posed as a shuttle driver to pick up Eleanor Patterson. ‘He had also stopped a woman while dressed as a cop. But not you, Steelie. At least, he denies it so far.’

  Jayne stared at Steelie, who looked suddenly anxious. ‘I never thought it was Gene . . .’

  Jayne said, ‘And if it wasn’t, that means there’s someone else out there posing as a cop and assaulting people.’

  Scott replied, ‘We’ve checked in with LAPD and the Sheriff’s Department on this and it turns out that people posing as cops happens in LA County more than you might think. Most of the time, the ruse is part of a shakedown for cash. Sometimes sexual assault. But it doesn’t generally result in murder and the local guys have caught a fair few of the perps. Then there are a few cops who’ve abused their badges. But Steelie? Don’t worry about your guy right now. They’ll catch up with him eventually. As for King, the prosecutors are dealing with him by rolling some charges together in exchange for getting locations on body parts he’s dropped across the country.’

  Jayne immediately thought of how she and Steelie were bruised but alive while the families waiting outside Gene’s house might soon have answers of a different sort.

  Jayne asked, ‘What’s he said about Kigali?’

  ‘Nothing yet. He won’t be drawn on the details. I’m sure he doesn’t want to see the inside of a prison overseas. So we’re talking to Gerrit Leuven, seeing if he can get the UN involved.’ He paused. ‘Leuven’s got a lot of good things to say about both of you. Of course, I cautioned him that his information was ten years out of date.’

  She laughed and was rewarded by hearing a laugh come back through the speaker. She pictured his lips curving into his usual half-grin and said, ‘Thanks for giving us the low-down, Scott.’

  ‘Well, we owe you . . . for a number of things on this case.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Bringing me to the next point. Let me get Eric over here.’

  Eric’s enthusiasm was in his voice when he came on the line. He intoned, ‘Ladies . . .’ like a DJ in a hazy nightclub.

  ‘You sound good, Agent Ramos,’ Steelie remarked, starting to go through the mail, which Jayne had dropped on to the counter.

  ‘Just a little de-mob happy.’

  ‘When are you guys actually demobilizing?’ Jayne asked, simply wanting to know when Scott would be back in Los Angeles.

  ‘Good question,’ Eric replied. ‘The Bureau won’t spring for us to stay out here for more than a week—’

  ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ exclaimed Steelie as she slid a square envelope addressed to Jayne in her direction.

  ‘Actually, they would, but Houston and I would have to double up and trust me, no one wants that.’

  Scott cut in. ‘Can we get back on point? Jayne, Steelie, our supervisor, Craig Turner, has asked us to draft an MOU with your agency, for this and future cases.’

  Jayne paused in the act of opening the envelope and saw that Steelie’s eyebrows were raised about as high as her own. She clarified, ‘You’re saying the FBI wants a Memorandum of Understanding with our nonprofit organization so we can help you again?’

  ‘Yes, as you just did on this case, minus the personal endangerment. This is on the up-and-up. It would be an official agreement for implementation on an ad hoc basis. And Turner’s already got a request for you in the hopper. We need better antemortem info on our missing prostitutes, since King’s ensured that their remains are going to come in as separate bones from different places. A couple of the family members out here are already asking after you. They were pretty surprised to see two women and such quote-unquote, young women, walking out from the crime scene at King’s house.’

  The sound of the bells jangling on the Agency’s front door traveled back to the lab. Jayne addressed the phone. ‘Look, someone’s at the door and Carol’s off, so we gotta go. We’ll . . . get back to you on that offer.’

  ‘All right, Thirty-two One,’ Scott sounded amused. ‘Sounds to me like you’re playing hard to get, but you should know that two can play that game.’

  Jayne had to bite her lip to stop from smiling as she hung up.

  Steelie made for the hall, asking, ‘Who’s that from?’

  Jayne finally looked at the envelope she was holding. No return address, an Atlanta postmark, and something with a shiny border inside. Her heart started to pound. Scott? She slid out the card. It was a gilt-edged invitation to dinner with him at In-N-Out Burger that Friday.

  This time, her grin was so broad and came on so quick that she couldn’t hide it from Steelie, who rolled her eyes and set off down the hallway. Jayne enjoyed the bursting-with-happiness sensation for a full thirty seconds. Then she went to join Steelie and meet the next client of Agency 32/1.

  A NOTE FOR THE READER

  Although Agency 32/1 does not exist, it should.

  It is based on the Missing Persons Identification Resource Center, a California non-profit founded by the autho
r to link families of missing persons with coroners holding thousands of unidentified bodies.

  – The plot and characters of this book are fictional.

  – The statistics on unidentified bodies are fact.

  – Forensic profiles of missing persons are hope.

  www.mpid.org

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The first draft of this book was written in September 2004. Yes, that long ago. The only way you can be reading these words on this page or that e-reader is because of the people who made sure I didn’t give up on Freezing, or myself, for more than six years. This was a tall order at times. Some of these folks fed me, others bought the new computer I couldn’t afford on my own, almost everyone had to see me weep (both kinds of tears), and too many of them had to endure me quoting Jayne and Steelie like they were friends of mine, not just words on the page. I would like to name these very important, very real people.

  I am indebted to my constants since 2004: David, Msindo, and Kimera Koff, Sam Brown, and Suttirat Anne Larlarb. In ways unique to each of them, they propped me up, often literally. Between them all, they read every draft. Yet at every turn, they put the manuscript on a pedestal and illuminated it with the intensity of their conviction, keeping the light shining for as long as it took for me to stand up and reach for it again. Thank you.

  For 2005, I thank Isobel Dixon and Deonie Fiford, whose first impressions of Freezing sent me back to the keyboard with the transformative knowledge that what I had written could become a book. I was tremendously lucky to have two experienced people to whom I could entrust my long-held, private dream of becoming a writer of mystery novels.

  Early readers of Freezing in 2005 and 2006 were key. In those days, the manuscript was known as Freezing: The Pamphlet but Peter ‘In the shops in time for Christmas!’ Brown and Victoria ‘There’s a scary Portland connection!’ Bodell’s enthusiastic but considered responses remain a touchstone for me to this day. I also thank my grandmother, Geri Koff, for reading everything I had one magical weekend in Santa Barbara. It was her birthday but I was the one who received the gift.

  In 2007, George Lucas shared the important rules of crime fiction with me while Amy Uyematsu took me to Little Tokyo so I could meet a real, live writer of crime fiction. I dined out on that combination of education and inspiration for the whole year and thank Naomi Hirahara for encouraging me, both in person and through her mystery series.

  If a manuscript could have a pulse, 2008 was the year to call for a really experienced medic to check that Freezing still had one. The manuscript was post-op with an organ transplant that wasn’t quite taking and the surgical scissors might have been left inside. I was living in LA and didn’t have health insurance, so calling a medic was out. Then I had a conversation with Paul Crowther who told me in no uncertain terms, and not for the first time, to stand by my convictions: my book, my characters, my dream. His words were the right ones at the right time; my laptop became a triage unit and Freezing lived to fight another day, which was essential, given what happened next.

  I will be forever grateful to Michael Ondaatje for his unquestioning assistance and generosity of spirit in 2009. He changed the future of this book. Conrad Ketterer provided a refuge where I could write myself into that future; thank you for being sure of me and it. And I thank Pat LoBrutto for insisting I consider life, death, and the life to be had after death.

  Finally, I am still buoyed and emboldened by my agent Ellen Levine’s original, immediate, unwavering ‘Yes’ in 2009. Thank you for bringing me together with Severn House, of which I’m so proud to be a part. 2010 and 2011 are now inextricably linked with Ellen, Monika Woods and Trident Media Group, along with my publisher Edwin Buckhalter, editor James Buckhalter, and all at ‘Team Severn’, including the visionary Tony Mulliken of Midas PR. Thank you for talking about my characters like they’re real people, thereby letting me finally stand, in fact, through fiction.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Titles by Clea Koff

  Freezing

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  A Note for the Reader

  Acknowledgements