Nocturnal: A Novel

connected to? Verde was an asshole, sure, but he was good at the job. He would dig and dig hard. If he found info that could tie Bryan to this … Pookie could not let the man get this case.

“Chief,” Pookie said. “Oscar Woody is ours. We found him, we were first on the scene. Birdman just came over from Vice. He’s seen, what, four murder cases?”

Captain Sharrow stood. He held his folder at his side. His hands had stopped shaking. “Knock it off, Chang,” he said. “Pigeon is good. And Verde was busting murderers when you were still in diapers.”

“But, Cap, we want this case!”

Chief Zou straightened the report, making sure it paralleled the desk’s edges. “Inspector Chang, that’s enough.”

“But, Chief, you—”

“Done,” she said, slicing her hand sideways like a knife through air. “Chang, this time you are going to listen and obey. This isn’t going to be another Blake Johansson situation.”

She was bringing that up? “And by Blake Johansson situation, you mean the dirty cop that I uncovered, right?”

“You were told to leave that case alone,” Zou said. “You were told that Internal Affairs would handle it, but you wouldn’t listen. John Smith almost died as a result and his career has never been the same.” She glanced at Bryan. “Blake Johansson did die.”

Pookie ground his teeth, trying to keep quiet. Internal Affairs had seemed to be part of Johansson’s payoff chain — they ignored Johansson just as Johansson ignored the gangs who paid him off. Pookie had gone for the bust — it wasn’t his fault that Johansson decided to shoot it out instead of going quietly.

At least that’s what Pookie told himself every time he saw Black Mr. Burns stuck behind a desk instead of out chasing perps.

“Inspector Chang, this time, you will listen,” Zou said. “My orders are not open to debate. Go see Verde and Pigeon, give them everything you have. If that principal you talked to finds anything, he is to call them, not you.”

She turned her stare on Bryan. “And you, Clauser, let me hear it — let me hear you understand that you guys are off this case.”

Bryan stared back at her. Other than the fact that he looked like he might vomit at any moment, his eyes showed nothing.

“We’re off the case,” he said. “Our ears work just fine.”

Zou nodded once. “Good day, gentlemen.”

Bryan walked out of the office. Pookie stood to follow him. This didn’t make sense. Even if Verde and the Birdman ran both cases, Pookie and Bryan should have been assigned to support them, not booted to the curb altogether. Did Zou know something Pookie did not? Maybe something about Bryan’s dreams?

The thought made him stop and turn. He looked back, but Captain Sharrow, Chief Zou and Assistant Chief Sean Robertson didn’t notice him doing it. They had their folders open again. All three of them were staring at the symbols.

Robin Runs the Show

Three more bodies had come in that afternoon. Two looked like natural causes, while the other one was clearly from a gunshot wound to the temple. The morgue seemed busier than ever. Even with Metz gone, his policies and training were still in place and things ran fairly smooth.

Robin finished up one of the natural causes cases, freeing her up to finally check the STR results from Oscar Woody’s killer. She walked from the autopsy room to her desk in the admin area. She sighed and looked over at her pictures of Emma. It was almost seven o’clock. Robin wanted to get out of there, get back to her apartment, crawl into bed and have Emma curl up beside her. Sure, the dog would shed all over the bedspread and probably fart something horrible, but when it came to nap time, Emma was Little Miss Lights-Out. Emma couldn’t sleep on the empty side, of course, she had to lie right on top of Robin. But that was the point, really. Robin didn’t have a man in her bed anymore — Emma’s weight, her breathing (hell, even the farts in a weird way), they were comforting beyond anything Robin knew.

She turned to her computer and called up the STR results. Yes, confirmed — the saliva sample found on Oscar Woody came from a human, as did the material taken from the hair follicles. Due to the signs of mauling there had to be a large animal involved, but there was no longer any question that a human killer had left DNA on Oscar’s body.

The computer system had automatically submitted the STR test results to the CODIS system. That check didn’t produce a match; whoever the killer was, his DNA had never been entered into the FBI’s database.

But there was something strange about the sample. In addition to a genetic fingerprint, the test also indicated a person’s sex by detecting a gene known as AMEL. AMEL is on the male and female sex chromosomes, but it isn’t quite the same on both. Men have two sex chromosomes — X and Y — while women have two Xs. The STR test didn’t show the actual chromosome, only another test known as a karyotype could do that, but it did show spikes indicating the presence and relative number of AMEL genes on each sex chromosome. If the test only showed a spike for AMEL-X, the subject was female. If it showed two equal spikes, one for AMEL-X and one for AMEL-Y, that meant the subject was male.

This sample, however, showed AMEL-X and AMEL-Y spikes that were not equal. The X spike was twice as high as the Y spike. That suggested the presence of a second X, which would mean the killer could have three sex chromosomes.

It wasn’t a contaminated sample — she had run enough parallel tests to know, for certain, that the material came from just one killer. Robin felt a rush of excitement: either the killer was XXY, or he had an even more rare condition she had yet to identify.

She heard people approaching. She looked up to see Rich Verde and Bobby Pigeon walking toward her desk. Bobby smiled at her. Rich just scowled. Good God, but Rich was a horrible dresser.

“Hudson,” Verde said. “I’m here to talk to you about the Oscar Woody case.”

She felt a deep twinge of disappointment. “I thought this case belonged to Bryan Clauser and Pookie Chang.”

Verde shook his head. “Case is mine. Covered in piss, right?”

There was a question you didn’t hear every day. She nodded.

“Mine,” Verde said. “Normally Metz would handle a case like this.”

“Well, I assure you I’m perfectly qualified to—”

“Whatever,” Rich said. “This case will run a little different than maybe you’re used to. Special deal. Call the chief right now. She’s expecting to hear from you.”

Robin’s eyebrows rose. “Call Chief Zou?”

“That’s right,” Verde said. “And make it snappy, I got shit to do.”

Metz frequently talked to Chief Zou. Robin was the temporary head of the department, so it made sense she’d be the one to answer any questions Zou might have. Robin picked up her phone, then started scanning a list tacked to her cubicle wall to find the chief’s extension.

Verde reached across her and dialed the phone for her.

“There you go,” he said.

She glared at him as she waited for someone to answer. Like he couldn’t have just told her the extension number?

“Chief Zou’s office.”

“This is Robin Hudson from the ME department. I was told—”

“One moment, Doctor Hudson, the chief is expecting your call.”

Chief Zou came on the line, her words as terse and clipped on the phone as they were in person. “Doctor Hudson?”

“Yes.”

“Rich Verde is in charge of the Oscar Woody case,” Zou said. “This case is of particular interest to me. I don’t want anything getting out to the media, understand?”