* * *
We checked into the rooms at the motel about ten miles down 111 from Bombay Beach and then drove into Niland. Niland was the closest town, about twenty miles from the ghost town that was the beach. Compared to the minuscule population of Bombay, Niland was a thriving metropolis with around a thousand souls living in the community. We found a coffee shop to have breakfast and wait for the coroner’s office to open. Nico had a huge plate of scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, bacon, home fries, and coffee. I had coffee.
“You do all that jogging, you should be able to eat like you got some hair on your balls,” Nico said around a mouthful of food.
“Because that’s a life goal,” I said. The waitress walked up. Her name tag said PATTY. She refilled our coffee.
“Go on, ask her,” Nico said. Patty smiled and looked at me, a little confused.
“Were you this annoying to your other partners?” I asked.
“They came to appreciate me like a fine wine,” he said, “or a stinky cheese. Speaking of wine, go on, you haven’t tried here before.”
“Um, ma’am,” I said, my West Virginia showing, “do y’all carry Cheerwine?” Patty looked puzzled, like she was trying to decipher the language I was speaking. I got this a lot in L.A. My country would slip out no matter how hard I tried to blend in. Nico loved to give me crap about it, and he loved my never-ending quest for my favorite soda.
“Is that soda, hun?” Patty asked. “’Cause, like, we can’t carry any wine or beer here, y’know…”
“It’s soda,” I said and sighed. “Thanks anyway.” Patty gave me a smile with perhaps a little pity in it. She placed the check on the table and went on her way.
“Another county heard from,” Nico said. “You sure they don’t make that shit in a still?”
“I’m glad I amuse you so much,” I said.
“Me too,” Nico said, grabbing the check. “God knows, I need a little laughter in my life.”
* * *
The Imperial County Coroner’s Office was, like most coroner’s offices, in the basement of the government building. When Nico and I arrived a little after nine, Rosaleen was waiting for us, sitting on a long, wooden bench in the hallway outside the office door, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup. Rosaleen Goossens-Main was five foot three and slight. She had a youthful appearance that made it hard to peg her age, but I figured her for being in her late twenties. She wore her long, thick, brown hair straight, in defiance of the trend of “big hair,” and it fell almost to her hips. Her ears were prominent, and she tucked her hair behind them. She dressed a bit like a hippie, in a tie-dyed T-shirt and bell-bottoms that hugged her body in a way that was hard to ignore. An old, brown, suede coat over her shirt completed the image of someone wandering the Haight circa 1972. Her brown eyes peeked out behind wire-rimmed glasses. She stood and pushed her glasses back on her nose as we approached.
“Hiya Rosie,” Nico said, and shook her hand. She smiled; her teeth were a little bucked but were white, and her smile made her look more like a mischievous Elf than a forensic savant. She tried not to smile much at work, but it was hard not to smile around Nico.
“Mr. Flores, Mr. Ballard,” Rosaleen said in her clipped Australian accent. She had come to the States to work for the Maven. She was supposedly related to an infamous Australian witch and a disgraced English composer who was into the occult. “Good morning. I trust your examination of the crime scene was productive?”
Nico shrugged.
“A little,” he said. “We’re the right folks to be looking into this. So who are we today, Rosie?”
Rosaleen removed a slim leather ID case from her jacket. “Feds,” she replied. I found my badge wallet in my jeans pocket that identified me as F.B.I. Special Agent Laytham Ballard. Nico didn’t bother digging his out. He had the role down to a science. “Part of an occult crime taskforce,” she added.
“Trendy,” I said. Rosaleen smiled.
We walked into the office like we owned it. The coroner’s assistant was a gangly man with tufts of white hair on a liver-spotted pate. His rubbery lips were an odd color that made me think of squid tentacles. We caught him in mid breakfast, egg biscuit and coffee, so we already had him off balance. Nico did most of the talking, big surprise there. After a few phone calls to check our bona fides, the assistant took us down to the cold room and we got to meet our Jane Doe.
Rosaleen had her kit with her, a large, square, forensic field kit slung over her shoulder. The kit had all the standard stuff and few things most forensic scientists wouldn’t carry. The tech clicked on the lights in the lab and pulled the victim out of her steel drawer, an impersonal filing cabinet of loss. She was covered by a sheet with an unzipped black plastic body bag under her. He rolled her over to the examination table, and then he and Rosaleen slid her over onto the table.
About this time, the county coroner arrived. He was a stocky man in a suit straight out of JCPenney. He had steel-gray hair in a high and tight, and he talked and acted more like a politician than a doctor. He wanted to chat us up and make sure we knew he and his office had cooperated. Nico gave him the right amount of glad-handing and then shooed him and the assistant off with a bunch of talk about reports, deadlines, and bosses chewing up his ass. They laughed and left us alone with the girl. Rosaleen slid back the sheet, and I was introduced, face to face, with “Jane Doe.” I audibly gasped. I thought I was more jaded, tougher than that. I wasn’t. Nico whispered, “Santa Madre,” crossed
