“This warrant says he is,” said Diaz. “Pack everything for transport to the central morgue.”
Not a synapse fired in any muscle in Galiano’s body.
Diaz raised the warrant to eye level. Galiano ignored it.
Diaz pressed tinted glasses to nose. Everyone else remained frozen in place. Behind me I heard movement, then the pump cut off.
“Now, Detective.” Diaz’s voice sounded loud in the sudden stillness.
A second went by. Ten. A full minute.
Galiano was still staring when his cell phone shrilled. He clicked on after four rings, never taking his eyes from Diaz.
“Galiano.”
He listened, jaw clenched, then said one thing.
Galiano shoved the phone into his pocket and turned to Diaz.
“Be careful, senor. Be very careful,” he hissed with a low, steady venting of air from his diaphragm.
With a jerk of his hand, Galiano gestured me from the body bag. I pushed to my feet and started to step back, reversed myself, knelt next to the skeleton, and peered intently at the skull. Diaz took half a step and started to speak, then bit off whatever he had intended to say and waited until I arose again.
Lucas approached and glanced at the array in the body bag. Satisfied, he pulled gloves from his pocket, tucked the sheet inside, and ran the zipper. Then he stood, a look of uncertainty on his face.
Diaz strode from the yard, returned with two men in gray coveralls, “Morgue del Organismo Judicial” stenciled on their backs. Between them they carried a gurney, legs collapsed beneath.
Under Lucas’s direction, the morgue attendants lifted the pouch by its corners, placed it on the gurney, and disappeared in the direction from which they’d come.
Diaz tried once more to deliver the warrant. Galiano’s arms remained crossed on his chest.
Diaz circled to me, eyes fastidiously avoiding the tank. Sighing, he offered the document.
As I reached to accept the paper, my eyes met Galiano’s. His lower lids crimped, and his chin raised almost imperceptibly. I understood.
Without another word, Diaz and Lucas hurried from the yard.
Galiano looked at his partner. Hernandez was already gathering the bagged clothing.
“How much is left in there?” Galiano tipped his head at the tanker truck.
The operator shrugged, waggled a hand. “Ten, maybe twenty gallons.”
“Finish it.”
Nothing else showed up in the screen. I was squeezing the last of the muck through my fingers when Galiano joined me.
“Bad day for the good guys.”
“Isn’t the DA supposed to be a good guy?”
“Stupid little rodent didn’t even think of clothing.”
I felt too ill to reply.
“Does it fit the profile?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“The skeleton. Does it fit the description of one of our missing girls?”
I hesitated, furious with myself for not thoroughly examining the bones, furious with Galiano for allowing them to be taken.
“Yes and no.”
“You’ll know when you’ve examined it.”
“Will I be doing that?”
“I
I wondered who the loser would be.
5
THAT NIGHT I BATHED IN TAHITIAN VANILLA BUBBLES FOR ALMOST an hour. Then I warmed pizza slices in the microwave and dug an orange soda from the mini-fridge. Snickers and an apple for dessert. Hotel room gourmet.
As I ate, the curtains breathed in and out the window on a halfhearted breeze. The metal pull chain clicked against the frame. Three floors below, traffic honked and rumbled. Overhead, a ceiling fan whirred. On the screen
