peri or post.’
‘So, I’m looking for the usual perimortem signs; radiating fractures, lifting and bending?’
‘Yes.’ She looked at Greg, who was getting to his feet. ‘And Greg can cover what’s familiar to him with postmortem breaks from the archaeological setting.’
Steelie said, jovially, ‘You guys are a dream team.’
‘Actually,’ he replied. ‘I’ve just realized it takes two of us to do what just one of you can do.’
‘Perhaps, but neither of us can tell what’s a stone tool and what’s just a battered rock, nor could we analyze stomach contents.’
‘Nor would you want to,’ Greg commented, as he slapped Dr Penman on the back.
Just then, Scott walked over on the step stones. ‘What’s going on?’
Dr Penman explained the apparent disturbance of the burials.
Scott looked serious. ‘Do you know how many people you’ve got so far?’
‘A minimum number of three, based on the fifteen body parts we’ve exhumed so far. We’ve had two right clavicles with the sternal end fused and one left clavicle with a fully unfused sternal end.’
‘In English?’
Steelie answered him. ‘Collarbones. Two right collarbones, so that’s two people, and they’re both fused at the business end, so both people are probably over twenty-five years. Then one left collarbone from someone under twenty-five, which makes three. Minimum. Though only one cranium so far.’
‘OK,’ replied Scott. ‘From the garage, we’ve got ID cards or driver’s licenses from eight different people, all female. We’re going to be working on cross-checking to see if any of them have missing person reports – besides Eleanor Patterson and the two names I recognize of local missing prostitutes. Not all the trophies may be from women he killed; there could be some assault victims we don’t know about yet. But I came over here to tell you to keep looking.’
‘Say no more,’ said Greg, who went to give instructions to his graduate students.
‘And I’m afraid, Doctor Penman, that I’ve got to take away these two ladies. They’ve got a plane to catch.’
The ME shook Jayne and Steelie’s hands as though they’d known each other for years and then the women gained the concrete behind Scott. He turned and spoke under his breath. ‘Look at this.’ He was holding a set of clear evidence bags, which he fanned out in his hands. ‘King made copies of those photos from Kigali.’
Steelie flicked on her flashlight and concentrated it on the corner of the top photograph. ‘Look at the photo board, though. The others had a UN CivPol case number. These are different.’
He turned the photos toward him. The board read
‘A perfect trophy,’ Jayne muttered.
‘Yeah,’ agreed Steelie. ‘These aren’t copies; they’re fresh photos and anyone seeing them thinks they’re legit crime scene or case photos. He can explain them away; after all, he worked for the FBI and who knows what you weird Bureau employees carry around.’
Scott dropped the photos to his side. ‘All right, I’ve got your ride out front. He’ll take you back to your motel, drop you with some dinner, then we’ll be sending an Agent Carter to take you to the airport. He’ll have your boarding passes.’
Steelie detoured to say goodbye to Greg’s students while Jayne preceded Scott into the house. As she mounted the back stairs, she noticed it was getting dark. She turned on her flashlight and felt the chill of that house go into her bones again. She could barely believe she actually knew the person who lived here or was responsible for what was in that yard. That partial hand bothered her. Where was the rest of that person?
She came out the front door of the house and was halted by the scene in the street directly ahead: men, women, and children, dressed in exercise clothes, school uniforms, suits. They were holding lit candles and something else . . . Jayne gradually perceived that they were photographs but only photos of women. Some portraits were big, while others were snapshots; women holding children, women laughing, women looking dubiously at the camera, women in graduation clothing. Women who were alive. Alive but missing.
Then Scott was in the doorway next to her. ‘They already know, Jayne. Or they suspect. I recognize some of the relatives of the women who went missing on my watch.’ He set off for the tent.
Jayne looked at the relatives one last time. She felt they were identical to a group who’d waited for the bodies strapped down in the back of their UN truck in Kigali in 1996 after an exhumation.
She hesitated and Scott said, ‘Follow me. When I stop to talk to the relatives, keep going to my right. The black Suburban down the street has an agent in it, waiting for you. Just get in.’
Jayne followed him out into the deepening darkness. She noticed a television camera when a bright lamp came on to focus on Scott. She heard Scott announce his name and title and tell them that there was no official information yet. She kept walking, focused on the dark bulk of the Suburban in the distance. Then a hand pulled her to the side.
THIRTY
Half-empty pizza boxes sat in the middle of the conference table in the FBI briefing room. Agent Mark Wilson chewed anti-gas pills as he watched the CCTV tape of King’s van pulling away from the airport with Eleanor Patterson in the passenger seat at 5.08 p.m. He had lost track of how many times he’d examined the footage but he kept doing it in the hope that he would glean some clue as to where King was now.
Agent Angela Nicks watched Mark from her seat at the head of the table as she tapped a pencil against the papers in front of her. She had drawn circles around King’s name and the names of the missing women and what they knew about each. She was looking for ways the circles might overlap and give them a lead on where King could be hiding now. So far, it wasn’t working too well. The modus operandi that King had displayed at the airport with Eleanor Patterson appeared to be the only time he had used it. They didn’t know how he might have adjusted the MO when he wasn’t at the airport but he had got the women back to his house somehow. Angie switched to tapping the eraser end of the pencil against the tip of her nose. She knew that sometimes worked.
Agent Scott Houston was temporarily not thinking about King as he used the computer to connect to the Internet and check on the status of the return flight Jayne was due to board that evening with Steelie. The Internet connection was slow and he waited, emptying his brain as he stared at the screen. He was about to ask Angie and Mark if the connection was always this slow these days and then he realized something.
‘Did anyone check the Agency Thirty-two One email account for the messages from King?’
He was met with silence, which was enough to get him to bail out from the airline website and switch to the Web-based 32/1 account. Mark came over with the password that Jayne had left with them and Scott typed it in. After a pause, the inbox appeared.
‘Jesus.’ Scott sat up straighter.
‘What time zone is that stamp?’ Mark pulled up a chair.
Angie and Eric immediately came over.
Mark explained, ‘King sent them a message today. Depending on what time zone the account’s set to, he might have sent it just a few hours ago.’
Scott had clicked on the message, whose subject line was, ‘Hi from SF.’ They read the message on screen.
Angie leaned in closer to the screen. ‘That’s not an email; it’s a text message.’
Scott gestured at the screen. ‘It’s an email. It came on email.’
‘But it came from a cell phone,’ she persisted. ‘Look, hit
