Odontologist was a fancy word for dentist. Dodge had looked it up once. There were forensic odontologists who specialized in identifying remains from dental work, but they were used only as consultants, called in when the regular MEs were out of their depth.
'Okay,' he said. 'When you get the records, give me a ring pronto, okay? I need to know if this is Scott Maple. His folks are probably a little curious too.'
'As soon as they arrive, I’ll be on it,' Winston said, but she was still looking at Agent McCallum, maybe hoping for more of an explanation.
If so, she was disappointed. McCallum walked out the door. Dodge followed, taking his time about it, just to get her steamed.
It worked. 'Will you put a move on, please?' McCallum snapped.
'Sounds like this Mobius character has been active for a while. Another few minutes won’t make much of a difference.'
'It could make all the difference. He’s on a tight schedule, I think. He’s planning something, and he intends for it to go down soon.'
'And what’s this big thing he’s got planned?'
She didn’t answer, but Dodge found himself walking faster anyway. He was thinking of the activity around City Hall, the extra squad cars on the streets. He had a feeling that whoever this Mobius was, he was the reason for all the excitement. Which meant this was something big. Something Myron Levine would fucking kill to have as an exclusive.
Maybe this weekend wasn’t turning out so bad, after all.
He waited until they were on the Santa Monica Freeway, McCallum at the wheel of her bureau sedan, Dodge in the passenger seat. Then he asked, 'Care to fill me in?'
She frowned and looked at him. He knew she was measuring him as a potential partner, trying to judge if he was someone she could count on. He also knew that she would have to trust him, because time was tight and she had no choice.
'Can you keep a secret?' she asked.
28
At four o’clock they arrived at the Life Sciences Center. By then Tess had summarized the situation.
'And you’re serious about this?' Dodge asked as they got out of her car, parked behind his.
She found the question bizarre and somehow offensive. 'Is there anything funny about it?'
'It’s just a little hard to believe. I mean, no offense, but this is a fairly long chain of reasoning and some of the links look a little rusty.'
'Which links?'
'Well, the chem lab connection, for one thing. A knife wound isn’t exactly an uncommon finding at the morgue. There are all kinds of reasons a kid might’ve been stabbed-drugs being the most obvious.'
'Fair enough. But look at it this way. Mobius disappears from the hotel sometime after midnight. The fire starts a few hours later, less than four miles away. Mobius uses a knife that leaves a three-millimeter wound channel. The victim dies as a result of an injury inflicted by the same kind of knife. A chemical agent is taken from the hotel room. The victim is working alone in a chemistry lab, the perfect place for analyzing unknown substances. Time line, location, weapon, even motive-it all fits. If there’s no connection, then it’s one hell of a coincidence.'
She expected him to put up further resistance, but he surprised her by nodding. 'Okay, Special Agent. So what will he do now?'
'He?'
'Mobius.'
'How should I know?'
'You seem to have guessed his tactics pretty well so far. Connecting him to the lab fire-that was sharp, Special Agent.'
'It was obvious.'
'Not to your colleagues, evidently. At least, I haven’t heard from this antiterrorist expert. What was his name again? Tennant?'
'True. You haven’t, have you?'
'Not a peep.'
'Which means I know something Tennant doesn’t know.'
'Sounds like leverage. Though I doubt that you need it. You bureau folk don’t play petty political games like us underpaid municipal workers.'
She smiled. 'Of course not.'
The arson unit was gone, as were the campus security guards. All that protected the Life Sciences Center was a length of crime-scene tape around its perimeter, some hastily attached boards on the basement windows, and the lock on the door.
Tess went to find a guard with a key. She returned with a man in tow just as Dodge was putting away his cell phone. 'Called Winston,' he said. 'No dental X rays yet. But I’m betting the deceased is Scott Maple.'
'If he is, are you the one who’ll tell his parents?'
'My partner will get to do the honors. He’s good at that kind of thing. He’s a compassionate guy.'
And you’re not, Tess reflected. She was glad Mr. and Mrs. Maple wouldn’t be hearing the news from Detective Dodge.
The guard unlocked the door. Before entering, Tess examined the lock. 'I’ll bet he got in this way.'
'Can he pick locks?' Dodge asked.
She thought of the house in the Denver suburbs, the door swinging open under her hand.
'Yes,' she said with a catch in her voice. 'Yes, he can do that.'
Dodge was looking at her strangely. She ignored him. Together they descended to the basement lab.
The boarded-up windows shut out the daylight. Tess took out a flashlight, and Dodge did the same.
'We should have boots,' he said. 'And gloves.'
'I have plastic evidence-handling gloves.'
'I meant heavy gloves to protect our hands from all this crap. And boots to keep our feet dry.'
But most of the water had drained off or been pumped out. The concrete floor was slick, but there was only a thin film of water, not enough to penetrate their shoes.
The two flashlight beams explored the darkness, roving over heaps of debris and blackened wood and smashed, melted glass.
'Where did they find him?' Tess asked. 'Did they tell you?'
'They didn’t have to tell us. We saw for ourselves. The body was never moved.'
'Firefighters didn’t carry it out?'
'There was no point. It was a lost cause.' He signaled with his flash. 'Over there. That’s the spot.'
They approached the center of the room, moving carefully around sharp obstacles and sodden ashes.
'He was partially protected by some of this insulation that fell from the ceiling,' Dodge said. 'Otherwise the remains would have been in even worse shape.'
Tess poked around for a minute or two, but the area had already been thoroughly picked over by the arson investigators. She had a thought.
'Just because he died here doesn’t mean he and Mobius spent most of their time in this part of the lab. Mobius night have lured him or dragged him to the middle of the room, so he could start the fire where the body lay.'
Dodge shrugged. 'Maybe. But if they were somewhere else in the lab, how are we going to know?'
'Mobius wanted to identify an unknown substance. How do you do that?'
Her question was rhetorical, but Dodge surprised her with an answer. 'Mass spectrometer, maybe. Or a gas chromatograph.' He smiled at her raised eyebrow. 'I’ve spent a little time in the police lab.'
'You see anything here resembling that equipment?'
