Читать книгу Sleep Softly - Gwen Hunter - Страница 10

He entered the mega-store, whistling Vivaldi. The notes were classic and quick, spare and tripping. A good omen for today’s business. He trailed through the grocery aisles, buying things she liked. Blueberry yogurt, bagels, soft cheese in a wheel, pears, caramels, frozen pizza. Because he had to keep her healthy, he added baby spinach—organic, of course—and tomatoes, apples. Big, red, seedless grapes. For himself, he tossed in a bag of shrimp and a couple of thick steaks, baking potatoes. Sour cream. A bottle of merlot, an underappreciated label but a very good year. Surprising to find in a superstore.

Dawdling, enjoying himself, he pushed the buggy through the clothing section, picking up a pair of jeans, a few T-shirts in vibrant pinks and purples. Satiny nightclothes. The ones in her room were getting worn. He wasn’t sure what underwear size she had worn, so he added three packets in different sizes, each containing several pairs. Socks. There were athletic socks with pink stripes and fuzzy socks for sleeping. He selected a half-dozen packets. She had no need of shoes.

In the toy section, he picked through the dolls until he found a nine-inch-tall, plastic, teenage doll wearing a soccer outfit. He added casual clothes and dress clothes for the doll and a new lunch box with a picture of a girl kicking a soccer ball on the top. Perfect. She would love it.

A quick trip through the cosmetic department allowed him to replace the shampoo and bubble bath the other one had liked. This one was independent, outgoing. She’d probably like a fresh scent, not floral. He added a perfume with a sporty name.

And finally the jewelry section. He bought the bracelets. The rings and earrings had already been delivered from eBay. All he had to do was pick up the black velvet throw from the cleaners and he would be ready to begin. This time he had managed all the variables. This time it would work. He was quite certain.

Paying cash, he exited the store and stowed his purchases in the back of his Volvo, still whistling Vivaldi.

The afternoon wore away as all the surface evidence was collected in bags, labeled and stored. As the hours passed, my eyes grew heavy, gritty from lack of sleep, and my limbs seemed to take on a distant buzz, as if they had a current flowing through them. Exhaustion was setting in.

The numbers of federal investigators grew and diminished as the need arose and as Jim dispatched them to question neighbors. With the discovery of a human body, a child, this had officially become an FBI investigation. The locals were here because it was their turf, but everyone knew they were mostly errand boys, not the stars of the investigation. Jim disappeared once to question Hoddy Jr. and his significant other. Hoddy had been out shopping earlier, when a special agent had gone by, and the second attempt fell to Jim.

He left again to oversee the questioning of my nana and Aunt Moses. He was gone a lot longer that time but was back by the designated hour the grave was to be opened and the body recovered. I didn’t ask about the session with Nana. I knew she’d tell me soon enough and would want to know why I hadn’t warned her about the problem on her land. The fact that I was trying to protect her would not be an acceptable reason. Nana wanted her finger in every Chadwick Farm pie.

Around 4:00 p.m., they were ready to open the grave. I might have felt a spurt of excitement or fear except I was too tired to feel energy of any kind. Skye looked up from the ground in her position two feet from the body. Her knees were protected from contaminating the evidence by a layer of special paper and she had an open evidence kit beside her. She was gloved, her blond-streaked hair pulled back and secured. Across from the body knelt Steven, his pate glistening, though the heat of midday had passed.

It was warmer than usual for April, the temperature near eighty in the sunlight. Under the canopy of trees, leaves still not at their summertime fullness, it had reached the seventies. As the sun moved off to the west, it grew cooler fast, and I was glad of the flannel shirt I wore. On the damp earth, Skye shivered.

Using a brush that looked a lot like one I had under my sink to sweep up dry spills, she began pushing the sand away. Behind her squatted another cop, holding what looked like a huge sieve. As Skye moved the earth, he scraped it up and placed it in the sieve. When it was full, he handed it off to yet another cop, who took it to the sidelines, held it over a plastic mat and shook it till all the soil was gone.

Everything that remained after the dirt passed through the sieve was placed in an evidence bag marked with the square of grid from which it came, the depth, the date and time, and the initials of everyone who had touched it. Anything that looked interesting was mentioned and tagged for special attention. Paperwork in triplicate, the Chain of Custody forms were carefully filled out and proofread by one of the cops on the periphery.

It was remarkably like an archeological dig. The evidence collection seemed much more intensive and comprehensive than what the local cops were used to doing, the action choreographed by Jim and another FBI man named Oliver.

“Got something,” Skye said several times. Once it was a hair; once it was a fold of foil, the kind gum came wrapped in. Twice it was an unknown, something she shrugged over without identifying. After an hour, the loose soil around the child was gone, all of the earth that had been disturbed by the person who had buried her removed, sifted and set aside. An indentation remained around a small mound, far too small to be a human. Yet, clearly it was a child. One with blue-painted toenails.

The skull and left leg bones had been disarranged by whatever had dug her up—I assumed by my dogs, although the cops wouldn’t accept that without more evidence—but the rest of the body was positioned carefully, hands crossed on her chest, right leg straight. She was wearing a red sneaker on her right foot, a schoolgirl’s pleated skirt that might once have been blue, green and red, and a T-shirt. All the colors were darkened by death fluids and damp earth except the red in the skirt, which was still vibrant. Scraps of blond hair still clung to the skull. Her hands were folded around a book and other objects.

The buzzing along my nerves that marked an advanced case of exhaustion seemed to grow, becoming almost a sound, like bees in the distance, a hornets’ nest nearby when there was nothing. I sat down just outside the crime-scene tape, rubbery legs folding under me.

When the body was fully exposed, two dozen photographs were taken, some close-ups, some to document the remains in situ. Jim and the other cop, so slender he was almost emaciated and who dressed and moved like FBI—meaning expensive and as if he walked on water—stepped to the center of the site and knelt down on paper mats as well. They looked like pagan supplicants bowing before a little godling, hoping for enlightenment or worldly gifts.

I could hear some of the conversation between Jim and the other FBI guy. My exhaustion seemed to improve my hearing, the buzzing in my ears seeming a magnet for sound waves, drawing them in, clarifying words and phrases I might have missed were I more alert.

“Same positioning of hands and feet,” Jim murmured. “Same binding of the wrists.”

“But none of the missing girls were wearing this style of clothing.”

“We don’t know how long he keeps them. Maybe he buys them new clothes when he buys them the dolls.”

“What about the book? The other one didn’t have a book. And the clothes are ordinary—”

“The other one was wearing the leotard when she was taken from the dance rehearsal. What’s this?” Using tweezers, Jim lifted something off the body to get a better look at it and returned it to its place.

“Looks like a pointed stick. And maybe a melted candle on a tray?”

“I don’t see a wick. And why bury her with a candle?”

“Why the flute on the last one? She didn’t play the flute but was buried with one.”

“This one had schoolbooks when she was taken. There’s a book.” Jim tapped it.

“Can you see the title?”

“Too water damaged.”

“What about the paper?”

Jim bent over the body as if he would kiss the rounded skull and did something I couldn’t see. My hands twitched as if to stop him, before settling in my lap like broken twigs. The breath burned in my throat.

“Got something in the pocket. Folded and mashed. It could be paper.” Jim sat back on his heels.

“So we got positioning, graveyard burial, ethnicity, age and the folded paper. I think that’s enough. I’ll get a pair down from Quantico.”

Jim checked his watch. “If you book it with lights and siren, you can upload the digital photos and e-mail them, so the analysts can study them tonight and on the flight tomorrow.”

“Let’s get her to the medical examiner and get a postmortem and ID process started. See what the lab can do with the folded paper.”

“I’ll handle that. You get on back and see about upgrading us to full task-force level.”

“Who you want locally?”

Jim raised his voice only slightly, the tone too cold to be teasing. “Skye, you think Gaskins would give you part of the action?”

“Not me,” she said sotto voce. “First, I got the wrong kind of genitalia. Gaskins is only going to appoint a man to a task force. And second, honestly, I got a baby at home. A 24/7 thing isn’t what I’m after right now. Ask Ash. She wouldn’t cost the county diddly. She did a great job getting here, preserving all the evidence on the way, and she knows the local history, the local people, everyone in law enforcement in the county. And she’s trained as a forensic nurse, in case you get a splinter in your finger or find a live one as you go.”

“We need law enforcement,” the other cop said.

“Take Steven, too,” Skye said. “He’s up to take the detective test this fall.”

“Steven?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, trying to sound only half as interested as his shining eyes suggested. “If the sheriff approves.”

“Gaskins?” the other cop called out. “We need a local guy to liaise in Columbia with the task force. Steven’s willing.”

C.C.’s nose hair twitched in the lengthening shadows. “Long as you don’t ask for one of my investigators, you can have who you want. But I’m shorthanded starting in the second week of May. I need Steven back by then.”

“It’s not full-time we’re talking here. Only a few hours a week, unless more bodies show up in this county. The other one was in Calhoun County, so our killer’s not sticking close to home with them.”

“Even better,” Gaskins said.

“Ash, you willing to take part in this?”

I wanted to say no and even opened my mouth to say no. “Yes. I’ll do it.”

“Let’s get our vic out of here. Get everything we collected back to the lab by dark-thirty. I’ll schedule a meeting for noon tomorrow. That’ll give the NCAVC guys time to get to the local FBI office from the airport.

“Steven?” Jim asked.

“I’ll be there.”

“Ash?”

My hands twitched again and a cramp was starting in my foot. I would never make it back to the trucks. “I’ll be there, too. Someone will have to give me directions.”

“Get them from the agent who does your interview.” Jim’s expression was hard, a cop look that gave nothing away.

“Interview?” I asked stupidly.

“You’ll be interviewed later on today by a special agent.”

I blinked at him. Interviewed? That was a fancy word for questioned. I had to be questioned in the case. “Well. I hope he can question me while I sleep, ’cause I’m dead on my feet.”

“We can start now if you like, Miz Davenport.”

I looked up into the blue eyes of a young looking cop.

“I’m Special Agent Julie Schwartz.”

“Well, dantucket,” I said.

Julie Schwartz found that remark inordinately funny.