Chang gave a little nod to Nielsen. 'Get up there and see to it Miss Lourdes's parts are bagged and put in the refrigeration van, Dr. Nielsen.'
'I can handle it, Leonard,' said Patterson.
'You've got your hands full here, Frank. Trust me, we've got enough autopsies to go around.'
With Nielsen gone and the saw renewing its work at the top of the stairs, Chang stepped over the bodies and surveyed the basement-a lovely rec room with a Ping Pong table, a bar with a neon Coor's sign over it, lit and blinking, and on the bar a family photo of the Brodys on holiday in a snowy Christmas scene with skis-Aspen, Colorado, Chang guessed.
He continued examining the basement area. A washer- and-dryer unit at one end, little windows high overhead looking out on the earth. One comer sported a lounging area and a reading nook, with a bookshelf filled with dogeared paperbacks, assorted magazines, and a hardcover crime novel entitled Unnatural Instinct lying on one chair, a marker indicating the reader was halfway through the book. When Chang slipped it open, he saw the expensive bookmark was engraved with the name of Candice, the daughter.
Patterson had shadowed Chang. 'Frank, life is too short. I came down here from upstairs, from Candice's room. I saw what's been hanging there all this time.'
'What's the big deal, Leonard? I made the call. Priority one, the basement, two, the sweep of the kitchen- lotta things disturbed in the kitchen. Didya see that overturned, broken dining room table? And three, the upstairs rooms- not just Candice's but the master bedroom too. One that looks out on the forest out back.'
'You lied to me, Frank, and you didn't follow my orders either. Look, we both know you're unhappy working under someone you feel superior to, Frank-a slant-eyed Chink.'
'I never said anything of the kind. Who told you that?'
'You tell me that, Frank, every day.'
The silence between them was rocklike. Chang broke it. 'Look, I don't want to argue this here, not now. When this case settles, once all the reports are in, all the dots dotted and Ts crossed, you can defend your actions involving this case in a full rebuttal, okay? But Frank, I say it's time you started floating your resume.'
'What? Whataya mean, Leonard? Are you firing me? You can't fire me, not without the approval of the board.'
'I have their okay, Frank.'
'You son of a-'
'My mother is descended from a royal Chinese princess, Frank. You never knew that, did you? So I'll forgive your calling her a bitch.'
'You think this is the last word on this, Leonard? You couldn't be more wrong.'
'See if ATF or FBI is interested in your talents, Frank.'
'I'm a good M.E., Leonard.'
'That's the shame of it, Frank. That's the shame of it. You are a kick-ass clinician. No one can touch you in the lab, but there's more to this job than slides, test tubes, and microscopes, and I've got to be a pragmatist. You're never going to be the people person you need to be, to deal with the public, the families, the detectives, your own peers in the lab.'
'You want me out so you can put Nielsen in my spot. Whataya doing, Leonard-a good family man like you? You two sleeping together? Have a fucking good time at the Longhorn Inn down the road?'
'I've got a friend at County General lying in a coma, Frank, a man who may or may not live through the day. I've got another friend sitting at his side, holding his hand, talking him through. I'm finished here for the day, and I suggest you quit making graphs and measuring the distance from the top of the stairs to the bottom, and close this scene down.'
'Fuck you, Chang. I'll say when it's time to close my crime scene down and not before. How many times've I listened to you, shut down a scene, only to wish I had taken more time at the scene? Too many to count, so it's when I say it's time.'
'This place has given up all the clues it has to give, Frank, and as for the table, the legs were ripped off by Lucas and Meredyth to use as weapons. We found one at the stable where Lucas was shot.'
'I still have say-so on how long we hold this place for forensic analysis. That much is still my call. That much you can't take away from me.'
Chang looked over his notes, trying to collect his thoughts, how best to say what he must to Dr. Patterson to get it through to him that his career in the HPD Crime Lab was over. 'Frank, you didn't just go over my head this time around; this time you went behind my back.'
'What?' His look of exaggerated shock Chang thought laughable.
'You leaked sensitive information from my crime lab to the press, including Meredyth's and Lucas's names as the ones targeted by the Post-it Ripper, and-'
'That's a lie. Who's feeding you all these lies about me?'
'— and in the bargain, you told the city the name of the victim whose parts have been scattered all over this county by Blodgett. Christ, did you give one damn thought to Mira Lourdes's family, their wishes, Frank?'
'Captain Lincoln might have something to say about all this bullshit. Doctor.' Patterson contemptuously spat his final word.
'Captain Lincoln has had something to say about this, Frank, and he agrees with my decision.'
'We'll just see about this.' Patterson lifted his cell phone and speed-dialed Lincoln.
Chang stormed up the stairs, where the blood-spattered wall had been completely removed and lay now on the kitchen island block. Two men worked at spraying a clear plastic preservative and adhesive over its surface.
Frank always had a problem working with women. He would handpick those working under him, but Tory had been foisted on him at the last by Chang, who wanted her, like Lil, to gain some experience in the field.
Chang watched the two men spending so much time over the section of wall. He thought it an awful lot of effort to go through, preserving the blood- and brain-spatter evi-dence in such an old-fashioned form. The space it would take up alone threw it into question since a single state-of- the-art series of high-resolution photos could tell them the same thing in the hands of the right man, though in this case, it was Jeannie Wyatt, the right woman. But this was Frank's scene and so Frank's call.
Leonard found Nielsen had dealt with the remains of Mira Lourdes-bagged and in the caravan now. Chang ordered the van to take what they had directly back to the lab in Houston, calling for another larger vehicle to accept the Brodys when and if Frank ever finished inside.
'Best you not be here when Frank emerges from the basement,' Chang told Nielsen. 'I just fired his ass. Fool had the gall to suggest you and me were having an affair, and that I wanted to give you his job in return for sexual favors.'
'That's so like him, Leonard. I can't tell you how I relish the idea of one day walking into the lab and finding him gone.'
Together, they climbed back into Chang's car, preparing to leave the Brody home. 'I'm placing you in charge of all the evidence collected on Meredyth's side of the lake, Lynn.'
'What? Really?'
Chang drove back for the Sanger house. 'See to it all the bodies and anything that's been bagged from all the various grids, the photos, the vehicles-that it all gets back to the crime lab and the morgue, and whatever you do-'
'Do not break the chain of command, I know.'
'That goes without saying, but also do not turn anything over to Frank if he should have the impudence to try taking command.'
She smiled widely at this. 'You won't be disappointed, Leonard, I promise you. Count on me. But where're you going to be?'
'Hospital. Check up on my friends.'
He dropped her at the Sanger house and heard her commands carrying all the way down the drive, and likely across the lake, as he made his way back toward the Interstate and Houston. As he drove, he punched on his radio, searching for music to get the images of this day out of his mind. Ads filled the airways, and the search button stopped on a news report: An army of FBI, ATF, Houston, and Harris County law-enforcement personnel descended on Madera Lake in the early hours of this morning to investigate multiple murders at two crime scenes there. Too
