kind of dismemberment?’
Steelie shrugged.
Mark had been flipping through his notes. ‘This is making sense. Listen to this: Gerrit knew that the cuts were precise, particularly compared to trauma inflicted during the genocide with a machete or scythe. He said he later developed some suspicions about people with access to the UN HQ because when they went to open a new supply kit for the morgue, about half the blades for the scalpels were missing, plus a few handles. Let’s see.’
He scanned a page and then pointed at it. ‘Yeah, here. He said he questioned the Logistics guys but they confirmed that the supplies had arrived from the European Union boxed up on a pallet.’ Mark looked up at Scott. ‘But Gerrit stressed that his suspicion that someone had stolen from their supplies was just a personal opinion and he didn’t have any proof.’
Scott questioned Jayne. ‘Could King have accessed a pallet?’
‘Easily. If you were UN personnel, you could get access to almost anything that would be legitimate. Of course, we had to sign in and out and list how much of whatever item we took.’
‘Was someone guarding the pallets or controlling the sign-in sheet?’
‘The Logs guys had way too much to deal with to be able to guard anything. The sign-in sheet hung on a clipboard at the edge of the supply area.’
Scott swung his chair toward Mark, putting his back to the women, and lowered his voice. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we gotta get them over to King’s house ASAP, Houston. They can see things we can’t.’ He gestured at the slide on the screen.
Jayne called out: ‘What’s the problem with taking us to the house? That’s why you flew us out here.’
Scott swung around again. ‘The problem is that now, we know that
‘Oh.’
‘Mark, check on whether it’s going to be a conflict to have them over there. And if you find a conflict, make it go away.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Eric felt like he was being garrotted by his seatbelt as Angie brought the Crown Victoria to a lurching halt in front of a building in a suburb of Athens. He glanced at her and saw her grin as she put the car into park.
‘Soft brakes,’ she said, mock-defensively. ‘Gotta stamp on ’em like that or they don’t work.’
He released his seatbelt and twisted to lower its anchor point on the car’s frame. ‘I don’t remember you doing any “stamping” earlier.’
‘And I don’t remember asking you to comment on my driving.’ She leaned forward to look out of his window. ‘Looks like this one has a security system at the door.’
Eric turned to look and saw that the only feature differentiating the facade of the brick row house from its neighbors was the discreet metal panel encompassing a doorbell and keypad alongside holes for a speaker and microphone. He got out of the car and looked up at the building, noticing the small camera mounted above the door but beneath the windows of the second story. Railings painted a glossy black flanked a staircase that led up to the front door and down to a basement. The brick on the building looked clean, as though recently sandblasted.
They mounted the stairs together and Angie pressed the bell. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.
‘Yes?’
Eric instinctively looked up at the camera above them and Angie held her badge open toward it.
‘Special Agents Nicks and Ramos, Federal Bureau of Investigation. May we come in?’
‘Just a moment.’
They heard the lock turn and a person who reminded Eric of the nuns who had run his elementary school opened the door. This woman wasn’t wearing any religious adornment but there was something familiar in the cut of her grey dress and her air of friendly rigidity. As she inspected their badges and identity cards, he noticed a streak of white hair just to the left of the midline of an otherwise very dark brown bob. When she looked up from their badges, he saw brown eyes that were neither impressed nor curious about why they were there.
‘Come in.’ She held the door open, then closed it after them.
Eric knew that the front door of most row houses would let into a hallway that would run to the back of the house, but this one had been remodeled to put them into a reception room that prevented further entry. There was a window to an office-like room that could be reached through another door flanked by its own access panel.
The woman in grey said, ‘I’m Aviva Goldsmith, co-director of Sanctuary House. How may I help you?’
Angie spoke. ‘We’re trying to ascertain whether you, at any time, have had a resident or visitor by the name of Eleanor Patterson. She would have come to you from Oregon.’
Aviva Goldsmith shook her head. ‘You may not be aware that at Sanctuary House we don’t know the names of the women who seek shelter. This is done for everyone’s protection so that if their abusive partner comes here looking for them, we can protect them without deceit.’
Angie resumed. ‘Ms Goldsmith, we’re in the midst of a manhunt for someone we believe may have harmed Eleanor Patterson. Could you look at this photograph and tell us if you recognize this woman?’
‘I can look at it but I won’t be able to tell you if it’s the person you’re looking for.’
Angie brought out a copy of the photograph Eric had used in the briefing room that morning. Eric watched Aviva Goldsmith closely as she looked at the photo and thought he detected relief under her calm exterior.
She said, ‘I don’t recognize her.’
Jayne spent the duration of the drive from the FBI building to Mead Street training her brain to think of their destination as a site, not Gene’s house. But when Mark parked the Suburban and she looked out the tinted back window, she just saw a house. A two-story Victorian building covered in siding that was supposed to look like bricks but didn’t succeed, topped with a chimney and an attic window in the peak of the roofline. A small porch above three concrete steps fronted the house and a large police tent dominated the unkempt yard.
Jayne got out of the car and waited for Steelie to come around from the other side. She looked down the street and saw a television crew and a small crowd of people on the other side of some yellow tape. She and Steelie joined Scott and Mark to cross the street toward the house.
Inside the tent, a police officer and an FBI agent logged them into the Site Visitor books, then gave them protective gear to put on over their clothes and shoes. Once everyone was suited up, Mark led the way from the tent to the front porch of the house. He greeted a police officer standing sentry on the door and then he addressed Steelie and Jayne.
‘The electricity was turned off here. We’re working on having it restored but take these flashlights. Use them. We’ll be going straight through the house to the back; the side access is barricaded. You’ll meet the Medical Examiner and it’ll be easier if you don’t make a reference to ever having met King.’
He handed them the flashlights and they entered the house.
On stepping over the threshold, Jayne felt like she’d walked into another climate zone. Where it was warm and humid outside, the house was cool and smelled of old carpet. Boxes and debris crowded a narrow hallway that led past a staircase. At the top of the stairs, voices and light emanated from a room off of the landing.
Mark called back, ‘The evidence techs are working off a generator upstairs.’
Past the base of the stairs, rooms came off to the left of the hallway but it seemed even darker. Jayne swung the beam of her flashlight across the floor and up the walls to make sure she didn’t bump into anything, until they emerged out the back door into the sunlight and a strong smell of decomposing tissue.
The back yard was narrow but long, and bare in the middle. Rangy bushes hugged the tall wood fence that separated it from the neighbors on each side. There was a concrete path leading to a clapboard garage whose double doors stood open, and Jayne could see floodlights set up on stands, their extension cords running to the generator humming on the path outside. Scott was going toward the garage but the decomposition smell was coming from the open section of the yard.
Mark said, ‘Let me introduce you to the doc and his team.’
Over by the right fence-line, there were four people working in different sections of a grid marked out by
