The most exciting thing to come of that meeting was someone got a lap full of lukewarm coffee.
“Hello again, Dr. Curtis. Making any progress?” Detective Campbell gestured at the gurneys, most with more than just heads on them now.
“I said to call me…” she paused and looked at him. “Uh-oh, that’s not a good look. Something happened. It’s about Marissa Thomas, isn’t it? I told you everything I know, and that I logged it. You would’ve already checked that, which means you being here all stony-faced means something didn’t check out. What was it?”
“The call didn’t come from Pine Crest. They are under the impression they buried Marissa Thomas today, in fact.” He watched her reaction closely. She looked surprised, but recovered quickly. If it was an act, she was pretty good. He glanced over at Sergeant Riggs and saw he had the same impression. This was news to her.
“I… that would be highly unlikely, if they were supposed to have picked up the bodies on time. I know she was there yesterday, because we had an electrical glitch and had to move a few of the bodies while the repairmen worked. I moved her body myself.” She frowned. “But she doesn’t fit with the rest at all. Her autopsy was complete. There wasn’t anything unusual. Unless your theory that someone wanted us to take a second look is correct. That would explain it.”
“Can you tell me anything about the phone call?” Detective Campbell asked, still formal, but a little less hostile.
She chewed on her lip for a moment. “There’s not much I can remember, honestly. It was… a man, he sounded muffled and hurried, but that seemed completely normal, considering the circumstances. Or, at least, what I thought the circumstances were. He just said they’d had a sewer backup, and they had to temporarily shut down and would it be okay to postpone the pickup. I said sure, no problem, wished them luck, and that was it. I made a note on the computer, and went back to the case I was working on.” She shrugged. “Nothing really odd or unusual that I can remember.”
“Did you recognize the voice?” Detective Campbell asked.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”
“Okay, let us know if you think of anything else. Now, what have you found on the bodies?” Detective Campbell walked over to peer at the clipboard on the closest gurney. Sergeant Riggs hung back, his back pressed against the wall. The super chimichanga he’d snarfed down on the way over no longer seemed like such a great idea.
“Well, I’ve identified five of the positively. Thomas Creete, Jeff Baxter, Sarah Fischer, Nathan Johnson, and Diana Freemont are definitely here. I’m waiting for some dental records on some of the others, but so far it looks like I have five females and eight males.” She waited for him to do the calculations in his head.
“But you were only missing four females,” Detective Campbell said.
“Exactly. Not only am I missing a body in the overall count, I appear to have picked on up and am actually missing two.” She shook her head. “It’s going to take me a few days to get this all sorted out. I doubt, unless I want to run costly and time-consuming DNA tests on every body part, that I will get all the pieces matched up correctly, but I’ll do my best. There’s just too much damage, and too many tiny connective bits missing. And while that’s going on, I’ve asked permission to move my staff here. You do have better facilities, better security, and I can’t be running back and forth. They’ve agreed to temporarily move me here and divert the cases that would have gone to my morgue to surrounding ones. I think they partly agreed because it’s impossible to work there, anyway, with all of the SOCOs running around, looking for clues in the break-in.”
“No, we still haven’t gotten any lead there.” Detective Campbell anticipated her next question. “They’re still looking, but, frankly, we’re not holding out much hope. You’d have to be pretty incompetent to leave much physical evidence in a place with rubber gloves on every table, show covers at every door, and smocks hanging everywhere.”
“Plus,” Sergeant Riggs broke in. “If it was an inside job, any physical evidence would be explained.”
“Yes, I would expect my fingerprints and hair are all over the morgue,” Isabel said softly. “I realize I am not above suspicion in this case.”
Sergeant Riggs flushed slightly. “I’m not picking on you. Like you said, security is lax. I’m sure any number of people have legitimately wandered in and out of the morgue lately.”
“Yes, there are quite a few doctors, interns, and other hospital personnel that have been there. But we clean pretty often, so I wouldn’t expect to find much trace of anyone who hadn’t been there in the last week, unless they touched some weird, out-of-the-way spot. Even my desk, covered in papers as it is, gets a thorough cleaning once a week.” She turned back to the bodies. “If there’s nothing else?”
“No, nothing else for now, thank you,” Detective Campbell said. He strode out of the room, followed closely by Sergeant Riggs, who breathed a sigh of relief to be out of the room.
“There’s something… off about this case,” Detective Campbell said when they were out of earshot of the door.
“Just one thing?” Sergeant Riggs asked dryly.
“One main thing. Lots of little things. It’s just that nothing is adding up. I’ve never worked a case when nothing went our way. I mean, nothing. There are no leads, no motive… can we even pinpoint the crime? I mean, yes, copse theft and mutilation, but if it ends there I’m a monkey’s uncle.” He ran a tired hand down his face. “Have you heard anything from Porter and Jones?”
“No, nothing yet.” Sergeant Riggs checked his phone surreptitiously to make sure he hadn’t missed a call.
“Well, let’s run by the house again while we wait. Maybe they’ve found something else there. Goodness knows we need some sort of a break.”
They walked to the car and drove in silence, each working over the case in their own heads. At least, it started off that way, but part-way through the drive Sergeant Riggs got sidetracked when they passed a Home Depot, and he started mulling over his new bathroom remodel. He was envisioning a weekend off putting up the brand-new tile he’d bought, a line of limited edition tiles they’d come out with just last month, with fused glass accents, when Detective Campbell spoke up.
“I still think she’s in on it,” he said. “I don’t know why, and I can’t prove it, but there’s something up there.”
“What?” Sergeant Riggs asked, confused. He was picturing the helpful, and very attractive, woman at Home Depot who’d helped him pick out the tiles, and couldn’t figure how she might be in on anything. He shook his head to clear his daydream, which did involve his new bathroom, and tried to focus on what Jack was saying.
“Isabel Curtis. There’s something about her. It’s too perfect. Suspicion, but not too much or too little. Her perfect reactions to everything. It’s too…”
“Perfect?”
“Exactly.” He pulled into the driveway and sat with the engine idling for a moment. Then he sighed heavily. “I don’t know why she bothers me so much. It’s just a feeling I have.” He turned the car off, grabbed his cooling coffee from the cup holder, and got out of the car just as a crime scene tech hurried over. The car door rebounded and hit Detective Campbell, splashing the coffee all over the his pants.
Sergeant Riggs suppressed a snort. The tech turned bright red and apologized profusely. Detective Campbell sighed again and waved off assistance in cleaning it up. “Maybe I’ll absorb the caffeine straight through my skin,” he said flippantly.
“I am sorry, sir,” the tech stammered. “I was just running back to the van to get a tape measure. Grant thinks something’s off with the measurement of the house.”
“Right, then, carry on,” Detective Campbell said, and once the tech had moved on they walked slowly to the front of the house, Campbell grimacing as the now-cold fabric of his pants stuck to his legs. “Let’s make this a short visit, shall we?”
They ducked under the tape and entered the house, which was ablaze with high-powered lights and still full of people in white suits scurrying about. The wandered over to the person in charge, a wiry older man named, very unfortunately, Grant Grant. No one knew quite what his parents were thinking when they did that, the only excuse was that it was the 60s.
“Grant! How goes?” Detective Campbell stuck out a hand and the older man grasped it firmly.
“Jack, old boy. Same old, same old, really. Come by to check up on me?” He made a note on a clipboard, then motioned for some techs to start taking measurements with the tape measure that had been procured. They chatted about old times, Grant pointed ignoring the wet splotch on Jacks pants, while the rooms were measured and the measurements noted and tallied.
“Definitely something off here,” Grant said, pointing at a bedroom wall. “Even taking into account room for ductwork, this room is too small. There’s a good three feet between this wall and the wall in the next bedroom.” He ran his hand along the wall. “But this doesn’t feel like new plasterwork.”
They went to the other bedroom, but it was the same story. The wallpaper had been up long enough to start to peel, so even if there was extra room, it wouldn’t have bearing on the case.
“Hey, guys?” A muffled voice came from up above. Jack and Grant turned to see Sergeant Riggs’s face peering down from the attic opening. “It might be an old space, but it’s been put to recent use.”
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