“No,” Del Campo answered. “Because that was about the time McNamara got this really blank stare on his face, like he wasn’t there anymore.” He must have realized that Brianna was taking this seriously. “Hey, Bri, this was all just in the guy’s head.”
“Yes, but maybe some of it got in his head because of something else,” Jackson suggested.
Johansson made a face as he shook his head. “That’s reaching. You should have seen him. The guy was three sandwiches short of a picnic.”
Brianna didn’t doubt it. It sounded like McNamara had dementia—but even dementia patients had their lucid moments. As the other two detectives went over to their desks, Jackson remained standing next to hers. He had a knowing look on his face.
“You’re thinking of going to see him, aren’t you?”
She didn’t have to ask who Jackson was referring to. “Wouldn’t be a bad idea. If we don’t find anything else to go with,” she qualified. “Right now, we have at least three construction companies and subcontractors to look into. I want to find out just what sort of services these companies rendered.”
Jackson gave voice to what was obviously on both their minds. “You think one of these companies’ contractors sealed those bodies into the wall?”
“Well, they didn’t get there by themselves,” she pointed out. “And unless the killer was also a contractor, someone had to seal the victims into the walls and do it well enough not to have those bodies detected all these years.”
Jackson pointed out, “You’re forgetting one thing.”
Offhand, she couldn’t think of anything, but she was willing to listen. “Which is?”
“Some of those bodies are not as old as the others,” he reminded her.
That opened up the possibility of more than one killer—certainly more than one person sealing those bodies into the walls. “Oh damn,” Brianna exclaimed. “I did forget.”
Jackson snapped his fingers. “And just when I was thinking you were perfect,” he said, doing his best to keep a straight face.
“That’ll be the day,” she laughed drily.
Her eyes sparkled when she laughed, he noticed. There was something almost compelling about the way that looked. Annoyed by that thought, he shifted his attention.
“Well,” he said, “maybe close to perfect.”
Brianna couldn’t help noticing the way Jackson had almost sounded sincere.
She knew he wasn’t, but still... Knock it off, Bri. It’s too early in the day for fantasies, and you’ve got a killer—or killers—to catch. Killers with their own contractor in tow, Brianna thought sarcastically, momentarily feeling overwhelmed.
Doing her best to rally, she decided to drop by the morgue.
“I’m going to see Kristin to find out if she has a final body count yet,” she told Jackson as she rose to her feet. She made a split-second judgment call. “Want to come along?”
Rather than say yes or no, Jackson thought about it. “The morgue, huh?” he asked.
“That’s where the bodies are,” she told him flippantly.
Jackson never liked being stuck behind his desk. He preferred being out in the field, even if that field, in this case, turned out to be the morgue.
“Sure. Why not?” Jackson answered. “I guess I can’t say you never take me anywhere,” he quipped.
Bemused, she walked out of the squad room with him.
“Are you forgetting yesterday?” she questioned. “The road trip? Mrs. Jessop?”
There was a long pause before he responded by saying, “I never forget a thing.”
She had no idea why, but the expression on his face made her feel as if he was putting her on some sort of notice.
Again she told herself that her pace was getting to her. She had to stop reading into things. Jackson was just talking to hear himself talk. He didn’t mean anything by what he said.
So why say it? Brianna questioned.
She hadn’t a clue.
* * *
When they walked into the morgue, which was located in the basement of the building across the street from the precinct, there was music playing softly. Rather than something somber, or the classical music one of the other medical examiners enjoyed when he was on duty, Kristin Alberghetti-Cavanaugh had classic rock on the sound system, just loud enough to keep the somber thoughts surrounding the business at hand at arm’s length.
There were only two gurneys out today, unlike the last time she and Jackson had visited the morgue. Kristin was working on a body on one gurney while an assistant made written notations about the other.
Also unlike the first time, when all the gurneys had held fragments of bones, the bodies currently awaiting autopsies still had flesh on them, still bore striking resemblances to actual people rather than disintegrating cadavers.
“More bodies from the hotel?” Brianna asked.
“As far as I know, these are the last of them,” Kristin replied. “The CSI team has gone through everything in that building and says there are no more bodies to be found in the debris.”
“No more in the walls?” Jackson questioned.
“No more walls,” Kristin replied. “And no more bodies anywhere else on the hotel grounds.”
“So what’s the final tally?” Brianna asked, even as she shook her head at the sound of her own words. She almost shivered. “Is it just me, or does that sound really gruesome?”
“It sounds gruesome, all right,” Kristin agreed. “But someone has to speak for the dead.” She had taken this job, rather than working in a hospital the way her mother had wanted her to, because she saw herself as an advocate for those who no longer could speak for themselves. “And this is the only way that’s going to happen.
“And,” Kristin continued, “to answer your first question, there were nineteen bodies in total. Fourteen people were murdered sometime between thirty-five and fifty years ago.” She frowned slightly, looking down at the body she was about to autopsy. “Five were killed within the last year or so. The one I did before this one met her death about six months ago.”
“Her death,” Jackson
