I turned from the map to Galiano. His face was expressionless. I waited. He offered nothing.
“Are you going to level with me, or do we have to go through some elaborate pas de deux?”
“What do you mean?”
“Suit yourself, Bat.” I turned to go.
Galiano looked at me sharply but said nothing. Then his hand closed around my upper arm.
“All right. But nothing leaves this room.”
“Normally I like to float my cases in a chat room, get a consensus of who’s thinking what.”
He released his grip and ran a hand backward through his hair. Then the Guernsey eyes locked onto mine.
“Eighteen months ago Chantale Specter was arrested for cocaine possession.”
“Was she using?”
“That was unclear. She dropped a dime and was released without testing. But her buddies came up positive.”
“Selling?”
“Probably not. Last summer she was busted again. Same story. Police raided a candy party in a low-rent hotel. Chantale turned up in the net. Shortly after, Papa shipped her off to rehab—that spell in Canada. She reappeared at Christmas, started school in January, vanished a week into the term. The ambassador tried searching on his own, finally gave up and reported her missing.”
His finger moved to the maze of streets making up the old city.
“Both of Chantale’s arrests took place in Zone One.”
“Some kids go through a rebellious phase,” I said. “She probably got back home, went at it with Daddy, and took off.”
“For four months?”
“It’s probably coincidence. Chantale doesn’t fit the pattern.”
“Lucy Gerardi disappeared January fifth. Ten days later, it was Chantale Specter.”
Galiano turned to me.
“According to some, Lucy and Chantale were close friends.”
6
CRIME SCENE PICTURES PROVIDE A CHEAP PEEK INTO THE SECRETS of strangers. Unlike photographic art in which lighting and subjects are chosen or positioned to enhance moments of beauty, scene photos are shot to capture stark, unadorned reality in vivid detail. Viewing them is a jarring and dispiriting task.
A shattered window. A blood-spattered kitchen. A woman spread-eagled in bed, torn panties covering her face. The bloated body of a child in a trunk. Horror revisited, moments, hours, or days later.
Or even months.
At nine-forty Xicay delivered the Paraiso prints. With no bones to examine, these shots offered my only hope of constructing an accurate victim profile, of perhaps linking the septic tank skeleton to one of the missing girls.
I opened the first envelope, afraid, but anxious to know how much anatomical detail had been saved.
Or lost.
The alley.
The Paraiso.
The dilapidated little oasis out back.
I studied multiple views of the septic tank before and after uncapping, before, during, and after draining. In the last, shadows crossed the empty chambers like long, bony fingers.
I replaced the first set and switched to another envelope.
The top print featured my ass pointed skyward at the edge of the tank. The second showed a lower arm bone lying on a sheet in a body bag. Even with my magnifier, I could make out no detail. I laid down the lens and continued.
Seven shots down I found a close-up of the ulna. Inching my glass along the shaft, I scrutinized every bump and crest. I was about to give up when I spotted a hair-thin line at the wrist end.
“Look at this.”
Galiano took the lens and bent over the print. I pointed with the tip of a pen.
“That’s a remnant epiphyseal line.”
“The growth cap is fusing to the end of the shaft.”
