visiting their relative’s grave for the rest of their lives.
The lack of those rituals tortured survivors; individuals who perhaps never came into contact with their torturers. It was in this way that the killers planted seeds of disruption that would germinate well into the future. And in the meantime, bodies lay in the ground, mingled with friends and strangers, teachers, lovers, the person standing next to them when they were pulled off the bus and shot, the person they fell on to when they were hit across the forehead. Jayne saw them all in her mind’s eye, the bodies they’d been unable to identify. She’d never known whether subsequent teams had identified them. Yes, it was torture to not know.
She knew where these thoughts could take her but she was still surprised to hear the sob escape. It came from so low down that she clutched her abdomen, thinking she could stop the next one. But it erupted, always stronger than her will, and caught her breath, forcing tears. She wiped them away impatiently and looked at the open drawer of closed cases. The dark recess of the empty section felt like a reproach. She slammed the drawer closed.
‘Pull yourself together,’ she muttered. Then, louder, ‘And stop talking to yourself.’
‘Hey, that’s my line.’
Jayne whirled. Steelie was in the doorway. ‘Did you have to creep up on me like that?’
Steelie walked into the room. ‘Oh, please! Most of LA heard that file drawer slam shut. I was just the one who pulled the short straw to go investigate.’
Jayne wiped her face and went to sit at her desk.
Steelie looked down at her. ‘Look . . . we just helped get one person home. Right? Focus on the positive.’ Her cell phone rang and she looked at the readout.
Jayne listened to Steelie say, ‘Eric! How ya doin’?’ and then decided to follow Steelie’s advice. She tapped out a short email to Gene, almost boasting that the Agency had closed another case. She pressed
‘Yeah. Can we make it Cafe Tropical on Sunset? Do you know it? ’Kay, see you there.’ Steelie hung up and turned off Jayne’s desk lamp. ‘Come on, let’s get some food in you.’
TWELVE
Diving along Hyperion towards Sunset Boulevard, Jayne kept checking her rearview mirror. ‘Another dark Chevy or maybe a Lincoln Town car.’
‘You’ve got to look for a spotlight on the driver’s side,’ said Steelie, turning around to look out the window behind the truck’s bench seat. ‘I think whatever you just saw turned into the parking lot at a bank.’
Jayne glanced at Steelie. ‘You say you’re not scared by what happened last night and yet you didn’t want to put your car on the road today.’ She looked in her rearview mirror before glancing over again. ‘I think maybe you are a little scared.’
Steelie jerked a thumb out her window. ‘You just missed the shortcut to Sunset.’
‘Oh, damn.’
Forty minutes later, they were finished with a dinner consumed under an umbrella on the sidewalk outside Tropical. Inside, the Cuban cafe was busy, diners crowding around varnished pine tables after moving potted spider plants to windowsills to make more space.
Steelie had just gone inside to order coffee when Jayne saw Scott and Eric drive past, looking for a parking space on the adjacent residential street. She ducked inside the door and told Steelie to increase the coffee order.
The Suburban parked at the end of the block. When Scott and Eric came up the street, Jayne noticed that they were still wearing their office clothes: dark pants and white shirts, the latter now open at the neck. They’d removed their jackets and ties but still didn’t quite fit in with the Friday evening crowd at the cafe with its mix of sandal-wearing academics, kids wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, and people who were either too cool or too broke to go to the Westside for entertainment. As she watched the agents advancing, she realized they’d probably never fit in to a cafe culture because they were too watchful; they took in rooflines and locations of cars, their posture looked more alert than most, and they walked in step with each other without looking like they meant to do it.
Steelie came out as they arrived. They shook hands. ‘How you guys doing?’
‘Glad it’s Friday,’ Eric replied, taking a chair.
‘I’ll second that,’ said Scott, putting his hand out towards Jayne.
She took his hand but was afraid he would be able to tell she’d been crying less than an hour earlier, so she addressed Eric. ‘Long week?’
‘Oh yeah. But next week’s going to be a doozy.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Steelie.
‘Well, we’re going to Arizona and if it wasn’t bad enough to lose a day driving there, we’re on stake-out for a couple of days.’
‘And nights,’ said Scott, waving his finger. ‘Can’t forget the nights.’
‘What’s in Arizona?’ Jayne asked, stealing a look at him over the top of her mug.
‘Ironically, it’s where the Georgia license plate takes us.’ He settled in his seat and told them about tracking down the van through body shops near the freeway.
Steelie said, ‘OK, so you’ve got this description of a guy and his van and you know he tried to call someone in Arizona. What does that add up to?’
‘Well, we initiated a search of campgrounds between LA and Tucson, figuring that if he headed out there he had to rest at some point.’
‘And,’ interjected Eric, ‘given he’s got a freezer in the back, he’d need to stop at a place where he could hook up power or recharge a battery.’
‘We got a hit at a KOA campground nine miles west of Phoenix. The old guy who runs the ground doesn’t hold much stock in keeping records of license plates but told us that a van matching our description hooked up there last night for just a couple of hours. Seems this old guy had a nice chat with the driver of the van who mentioned he was heading over to Mesa.’
‘Old guy reckons he can learn more about people from talking to ’em, not taking down their ID,’ Eric added.
‘Turns out he might be right,’ said Scott. ‘We put out a request for Phoenix PD to look out for the vehicle in Mesa and it seems they’ve found it parked in a suburban side street. The van’s the right make and model, the right color, and has a padlock on the back door handles.’
Steelie and Jayne looked at each other.
‘That sounds like the one, right?’ said Jayne, turning to Scott.
‘Maybe,’ replied Scott. ‘But it’s not wearing a Georgia plate. That may or may not be significant because it’s easy to flip a plate. But there’s enough to warrant checking it out.’
‘I hope it’s the right one,’ Jayne said, then had to avert her eyes when she had a sudden vision of the body parts by the freeway. A leg, a midriff, Mrs Patterson’s arms. Jayne pictured the van in Arizona leading to the rest of Mrs Patterson.
Steelie pushed her chair back. ‘Anyone for more coffee?’
‘I’ll get it,’ Eric said, joining her as she turned into the cafe’s side door.
Jayne hoped that by looking upwards, the tears welling up in her eyes would just slide back to where they came from. Music from the cafe’s outdoor speakers was suddenly more audible, a live recording of Ruben Blades’
‘Hey,’ Scott said gently.
Jayne chanced a look at him. The tiny movement gave a waiting teardrop its big break and it scudded down her cheek before she could brush it away. But something in his expression made her feel like she might be able to leave the wet trail, that when it was dry, it would be as though it had never happened.
‘Hey, yourself,’ she replied. It was their traditional phone greeting and the fact that he’d used it now comforted her.
‘Thinking about Mrs Patterson?’
Her lips parted in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
