As in any full autopsy, the scalp had been cut at the top of the head and flipped forward to reveal the skull. Christine moved it back into place. “When someone’s down and having their head pounded into the pavement, it usually leaves injuries to the face. He has none, which makes me think this attack was quick and brutal, with massive force applied to the skull. He died before he had time to fall.”
Jason sidled toward the door. “I’m going to-”
“Come with me.” Don led him out.
“What about time of death?” Theresa persisted.
“From the rigor I’d say four to eight hours before he arrived here. So any time between midnight and four A.M.? Of course, if he died inside and they had the air-conditioning on, the time of death could be last evening. If he stayed outside the whole time, with this heat, he could have died only an hour before you found him. I can’t be sure.”
Theresa thanked her and rejoined Don and Jason. Under the receptionist’s watchful eye, they continued through the lobby and punched the button for the elevator. The woman had come with the building and meant to stay there until the walls fell down.
The doors slid shut, and Jason asked if there was a men’s room handy.
The third floor housed the trace evidence and toxicology departments, decorated in the same worn 1950s linoleum and shabby paint as the rest of the building. At least the air-conditioning had been having a good day, and the temperature hovered around sixty-five. Theresa felt clammy in her sweat-soaked clothing but didn’t complain. If anyone tried to adjust the thermostat, it would turn off, and tomorrow they would all swelter. A happy medium could not be found.
“Oliver had something to tell you,” Don said as they stepped off the elevator. “You want to see him first?”
“Yeah.”
Jason lunged for the door labeled MEN.
Theresa knocked for admittance to the toxicology department and made her way past a row of plastic bottles- gastric contents, something she avoided whenever possible. She found Oliver, the overweight, ponytailed toxicologist, in his usual lair at the rear of the building, protected by a fortress of compressed air tanks and scarred countertops.
“I suppose you want to know about your dirt. Seems an appropriate summary of my professional life: I work with dirt.”
“Dirt is important,” Theresa told him. “It’s what the earth is made of. Can you tell me something about the stuff from the floor mat?”
“Aluminum and silicon, mostly. Clay. Clay with a little rust in it. That tell you anything?”
“Not really. Any industrial applications?”
He snorted with enough force to ruffle the papers on his desk. “About a million, from bricks to paper to toothpaste. But the grains are coarse and the sample is anything but pure, so my extremely well-educated guess would still be dirt.”
She sighed. “Okay. Thanks.”
“You find anything more useful, bring it back.”
“Volunteering for work, Oliver? You’re going to ruin your reputation.”
“Good point.”
“What about the stuff from the victim’s suit jacket?”
“Again, dirt. I can’t get enough of the stuff today.” He patted the dusty beige box that housed the mass spectrometer, possibly the only physical entity in the universe to receive his affection. “It’s running as we speak. I’ll page you if it’s interesting.”
“Call me even if it isn’t, okay?”
Oliver nodded and turned back to his desk without another word, and she went to find Don and the coffeepot. En route she rang Frank for an update, which he could not provide. The robbers were pacing in front of the hostages, but their body language did not seem particularly agitated.
“Actually,” he said, “they seem to be the coolest guys in downtown Cleveland today.”
“I know you’re trying to make me feel better, but that doesn’t make any sense. We assumed at first that they thought they were robbing a regular bank and could grab the cash and run. But if they know there are stacks of it in the basement, then they know exactly where they are.”
“Lucas never mentioned the basement. He just knows there’s a lot of money somewhere, and that’s hardly a tough deduction once you’re in the building.”
“If they thought they were hitting the local savings and loan, then they’re not the deducing type. I think they know exactly where they are,” Theresa said. “Did you notice that Lucas’s demand is exactly half the amount to be shredded?”
“But then why not all? Besides, if they knew it was the Fed, they’d have expected the tight security. They’d have had a better plan.”
“Yeah, but all they had to do was get close enough to grab a clerk and put a gun to her head. No security force in the world can do much once that has happened.”
“Hell of a chance,” Frank grumbled.
“It worked.” She wondered why they were even debating it. It didn’t matter whether the suspects meant to hit the Fed, a regular bank, or the corner 7-Eleven. All that mattered now was getting them to come out without killing anyone-except she still couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that all was not as it seemed.
“I don’t know,” Frank was saying. “These guys aren’t even smart enough to bring a driver.”
“If they did get the setup from Ludlow, they knew that the money wouldn’t take long to come up the elevator. Is it risky? Sure. But it could have worked. If they hadn’t lost the car, they could have been in and out in ten minutes. I sure wish they had been.”
“Hang in there, baby.”
Hopelessness flooded her, trying to seep into her bones, and she snapped the Nextel shut. Her cousin’s calling her anything other than her name could not be a good sign. All might be calm for the moment, but they had a long way to go.
10
10:23 A.M.
Theresa grabbed a coffee, for once not for the caffeine but for the heat. She’d gone from sweltering to shivering in a flat ten minutes, the silk blouse having cooled to a wet shroud.
Don sat in front of a computer terminal, explaining the images to Jason. “Of the prints we got from the car, seven fingers and the palm match Robert Moyers. Ten other prints don’t match anyone in our database.”
“There’s ten other people on this car?”
“No, it could be ten fingers from one person or, more likely, ten fingers from two or three other people. There’s no way to tell for sure.”
“That doesn’t help much,” Theresa admitted. “Moyers owns the Benz- Wait a minute. Why is he in the database?”
“Armed robbery.”
“So that could be him in there.” Theresa sipped, letting the scalding liquid aggravate an already fluttering stomach. She had begun to think these crooks were smart, but who would use their own car for a burglary? “Is there still no one at his house? Do we have a work address or anything?”
“CPD just called Jason about that. The address is old-the woman living there bought it last spring. Doesn’t know anything else about him, not even what he looks like. CPD checked her out, and she’s, like, Snow White: a fashion designer, two kids. Not the type to be an armed robber’s moll.”
“So where’s he been since last spring? He sure hasn’t been living in that Benz, unless he’s a neat freak of the highest order. It’s
“You keep saying that,” Jason said.
