“A crowbar or a claw hammer?” Maggie offered.
“Either’s a possibility. It didn’t splinter. Something metal makes sense. There’s a bit of residue inside the nasal cavity, or what’s left of it. Something oily. Hard to tell with all the caked blood. I’ve sent a swab to the lab.”
“If her fingerprints aren’t on file and we don’t have teeth, you’re not giving me much to work with, Stan,” Racine told the medical examiner. “No one’s going to be able to make a visual ID.”
Stan shrugged. That wasn’t his problem. He was finished with the outside for now. He walked over to the counter, where he had left the extracted organs. He was methodical in processing the body. It was up to Maggie and Racine to take those facts and piece them together as evidence of what happened.
Maggie watched him take what looked like a bread knife and slice open the stomach, tugging back the lining.
“Full house here,” he said.
Racine covered her nose while both she and Maggie stepped closer.
“So she’d just eaten,” Maggie said.
“Within two hours of dying.” Stan poked at the contents, slipping a glob of it onto the tray. “Actually I’d say within an hour. Kind of an odd combination here. Looks like maybe doughnuts. I’m guessing until we can test it. Maybe potato chips.” He pushed a red piece around the tray. “Licorice.”
“Licorice?”
“Sounds like road food,” Racine said.
Stan and Maggie both stopped to stare at Racine.
“I eat crap like that when I drive up to see my dad,” she explained. “Stop for gas, pick up something to munch.”
The automatic door wheezed open and Stan’s diener hurried in with the X-rays.
“Dr. Wenhoff, I think you’ll want to take a look at this.”
He slapped the pieces of film onto the front of a light box. Secured them in place and turned on the light.
Maggie immediately noticed the white oval in the chest X-ray.
Stan tapped it with his pen. “The killer evidently didn’t know the victim very well.”
“Is that what I think it is?” Racine asked.
“But there’s only one,” Maggie said.
“A single breast implant usually indicates cancer rather than just cosmetic surgery. Good news is, we should be able to figure out who she is. It’s considered a surgical device, so it’ll have the manufacturer and a serial number.”
“So they can match it in a database?” Maggie asked.
“The bastard didn’t count on that when he was bashing in her face and teeth.”
“Should be able to give us the name and address of the surgeon,” Stan said. “You’ll need to convince him to give you the patient’s name.”
“Simple as that,” Racine said.
“Not quite so simple. I’ll need to cut it out completely. The serial number’s on the other side.”
CHAPTER 37
Tully settled into the editing studio, surprised at how small it was. His long legs folded uncomfortably, his knees against a panel of knobs, switches, and keyboards. The space reminded him more of a cockpit than a television news studio.
The engineer Samantha Ramirez introduced as Abe Nadira was not pleased to have Tully beside him. He glanced at Tully, eyes only, head straight forward. His lips pressed together, a thin line that barely moved when he talked. He gave one-word replies most of the time. Tully was relieved that Sam stayed. He didn’t get the whole story of what had happened last night at Maggie’s, but it had changed the young camerawoman’s attitude. Suddenly she was willing to do whatever she could to help them.
She stood behind them, directing Nadira like a backseat driver, only with a quiet and gentle patience.
“I think you might need to go back all the way to a minute, forty seconds. I did a brief test,” Sam said, “then a full sweep of the area.”
She was referring to her film footage from the fire, the minutes before the rescue teams arrived. Tully still didn’t buy her reason for getting to the fire so quickly. She claimed she and Jeffery Cole were supposed to meet for a late dinner after finishing up what she called a “puff piece” on the District’s homeless. They had spent several hours shooting in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, where the evening buses unloaded the homeless who had commuted downtown for the day and were returning.
That he believed.
Racine had mentioned the program. He had checked and found that the last bus dropped off passengers at about six thirty. Even if Sam and Jeffery had hung around to do more filming, the time stamp on her footage displayed 11:10. That was a pretty late dinner for a thirty-two-year-old woman who had a six-year-old son at home.
He’d checked out Samantha Ramirez last night, too. As remorseful as she seemed about switching cartridges on him, there was something this woman wasn’t telling him. Something she didn’t want him to know.
Nadira had started playing the film and Tully sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, since they were up to his chest anyway. He pushed his glasses up and settled his chin on his fists. The position pulled at his shoulder, reminding him that it was still tender from his fall in the alley.
There were very few people in Sam’s initial sweep with the camera. She caught them wide-eyed, crawling up off the sidewalk or wandering into the street from the alleys and door wells. The first flames were encased behind the windows, which were still intact. It was almost as if the fire had just started. Was it possible that they had been there that soon?
“Do you know who called in the fire?”
“No idea.”
“How did Jeffery find out?”
“He has a police scanner. He always knows stuff before anyone else. Sometimes I think he must be psychic.”
“Jeffery psychic. That’s a scary thought,” Nadira said, and he and Sam laughed.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Sam asked Tully. “Some guy jerking off? Isn’t that what Berkowitz did?” But she didn’t wait for Tully to answer and continued, “Or that arson investigator in California during the 1980s where the fires were always close to conventions he just happened to be attending.”
“Seriously?” Nadira asked. “Criminals can be such stupid bastards.”
“Who was the guy in Seattle that started like seventy-some fires before his father turned him in?”
“Paul Keller,” Tully said, and turned to look at her. “How do you know so much about all these cases?”
“Are you kidding? Haven’t you watched any of Jeffery’s investigative pieces on these fires? He has more background trivia than Nadira will ever be able to squeeze in.”
Tully saw Nadira smile, if you could call it that. The corner of his mouth lifted a notch.
“He’ll be able to use some of it in his behind-bars documentary,” Nadira said. “Because he’s already pushed Big Mac to the limit on these arsons.”
“Big Mac?” Tully asked.
“Donald Malcolm. Our bureau chief,” Sam explained. “He’s lost interest in the fires. They’re not a big enough story.”
“Really? How can this not be a big story?”
“No body count.”
Tully checked his watch. They would already be started on the autopsy. He didn’t agree with holding back the information that they had found a body in the alley and a skull inside one of the buildings. It wasn’t his call. Instead, he watched the chaos unfold on the monitor in front of him.
He wondered who called in the fire. Then he realized Racine had never really told him how the body in the
