No One Heard Her Scream (3 page)

"The feeling's mutual, gorgeous," she whispered. "But I'm not in the mood."

Becca shifted her gaze to the Imperial. The theater bore a certain dignity, even covered in layers of soot. The fire had consumed much of its striking architecture and intricate detail with no regard for history. Prior to the blaze, she believed the theater had been left derelict.
A real shame.

Seeing it now from the outside—nothing more than a blackened carcass—provoked her already sullen mood. She read somewhere that the recently declared historic building had been slated for restoration, but the work hadn't begun yet. Now, it never would.

From what she remembered of the theater, Baroque, Mediterranean, and Spanish Mission influences had inspired the design. Conveying theater patrons to a fanciful villa, arches with ornate columns, tile rooftops, and a bell tower surrounded the stage. Walls were transformed into steeples with colorful glass windows. Rising above the quaint setting, a vaulted "sky" in deep blue twinkled with endless stars and clouds drifted overhead like mist. On a balcony railing, a rare white peacock perched next to doves caught in midflight, all part of the architect's illusory world.

With a young Danielle in tow, Becca had been in the theater as a teen, the treasured memory of an outing with her late grandmother. The experience had forever left its mark. At the time, she and Dani imagined the Imperial to be a grand palace, home to a legendary king and queen with magical powers. Crystal chandeliers soared high above the plush seats, making the gilded walls glisten in the pale light. She remembered holding her breath when the lights dimmed, eyes wide. With its elaborate brocade borders, the velvet curtain rose over the stage. Elegant ballerinas performed
The Nutcracker,
looking even more enchanting on the ornate stage.
Pure magic.

Now all that was gone, and so was Danielle. Her heart ached with profound loss.

Ignoring GQ, still standing by his pricey car, Becca crossed the street and walked through what remained of the front door. After she flashed her badge to the uniform stationed at the entrance, he handed her a protective helmet with Plexiglas visor, standard-issue. She reached into the pocket of her jacket for a fresh pair of latex gloves and made sure she had her casebook, pen, and flashlight.

Inside, a dank smoldering odor filled her nostrils. Water damage fused with the fire's destruction. Squinting, Becca adjusted to the dark interior and hit the switch to her Kel-light. The beam of light stretched into the void, capturing fine particles of dust in its wake—a reminder why the air felt thick and smelled stale. The scorched shell captured her attention, a macabre landscape in black and gray. Past the lobby, an eerie hum drifted through the cavernous space, leading her like a beacon.

She heard voices ahead, the words garbled by the distance and the steady whir coming from a portable power generator. With the electricity out to the building, the generator would allow them to work by floodlights. Crime-scene techs were hard at work, bagging and tagging evidence and taking digital photographs.

But one section of the theater caught her eye. Bright lights flooded a murky and gaping cavity in a stone wall to the right of the stage. A group of men gathered near the opening, their silhouettes casting elongated shadows with every flash of the camera. As she approached, one of the men turned.

"Hey, Becca. Was wondering who'd get the short straw." Team leader for the crime-scene technicians, Sam Hastings grinned as Becca snapped on her latex gloves.

Tall and lanky with curly brown hair receding at his temples, the senior CSI stepped aside for her to get a closer look. Details of his face faded from view as he moved deeper into the shadows.

"Short straws are all I get lately." Skeletal remains were uncommon. Becca crooked her lips into a reasonable facsimile of a smile. "Before I forget, have one of your guys record the crowd outside, especially the suit by the Mercedes. And get his tag."

"Good idea. Firebugs like to watch the aftermath of their handiwork. The guy look suspicious?"

"Let's just say he stands out from the crowd, but I want the license tags and faces of everyone out there." She bent to get a closer look and dropped to a knee.

One of the techs knelt by the masonry and removed another stone, setting it on the floor beside him. A couple of bricks were already bagged. She knew anything could be evidence, including the mortar used. It might give some indication of a time line.

With flashlight in hand, Becca kept her eyes focused on the dark hole. She found herself staring into the hollow eyes of a skull. Its jaw gaped open in a grotesque scream. The smell of old death lingered enough to fill the tomb with a stale earthy stench, nothing more.

"So, tell me something I don't know, Sam."

"Okay." He took a moment to think. "When I was ten, a kid half my size made me cry when he threatened to hit me."

Becca turned toward him, an eyebrow raised.

"Not exactly what I had in mind, but thanks for sharing." She fought a smile. "How did they find the body?"

"Firefighter swingin' a mean ax took out the first bricks, enough to find somethin' staring back."

Once again, Becca glanced over her shoulder. Before she made a smart remark, Sam beat her to the punch, "Hey, if I'd gone the fireman route, I would've had to make a trip home to change my shorts. But I'm your basic jaded CSI guy. Nothing much surprises me anymore."

"I hear ya." Becca shifted focus deep into the hole and noticed something disturbing. "What do we have here? He's got no fingers?"

"Phalanges are the first to go. Over time, small bones drop off," Sam replied. He nudged close to her shoulder and used his flashlight to locate the bone fragments in the bottom of the cramped space. "It's gonna take us a while to remove the skeleton. We'll extricate the rest in one piece if we can."

He changed direction of his beam to reveal the skull and spoke aloud as if he were making a mental checklist.

"We don't get many skeletal remains to ID. We may have to bring in a specialist—a forensic anthropologist—maybe try and reconstruct facial features. We'll collect some mitochondrial DNA and retain it to compare against any known relation to the deceased. That'll be your job to find next of kin."

"My best hope to speed up the ID process will be to check into missing persons. The body had to be buried in this theater while it was under construction or during some kind of renovation. Maybe that'll help narrow the time period for my search. We could get lucky."

She made notes in her casebook. With a grimace, she rested an elbow on her knee, and said, "I came here as a kid to see a ballet once. It really creeps me out to know that while the crowd gave a standing ovation, this guy was buried in the wall near the stage."

"Yeah, back in the day, I heard it was murder to get a front-row seat."

Becca shut her eyes and shook her head. A collective groan rumbled through the techs standing behind her.

"Everyone's a critic." The CSI team leader shrugged.

"Hey, Sam. Wouldn't the smell of the body be detected once it was time for curtain call at the Imperial?"

"Yeah, but construction or renovation work takes time, right? Crews coming in and out. Time for a body to decompose depends on temperature, moisture, and accessibility to insects. In the summer, an exposed human body can be reduced to bones in nine days. Now granted, this type of setup would've taken longer, but it's conceivable only bones attended opening night. No tux required."

With more of the wall removed, he craned his neck and directed his flashlight into the makeshift tomb. "Looks like we're gonna have to rethink the gender thing. Check out those hips."

With a tilt of her head, Becca turned to stare at the senior CSI. "You need to hang out with people who're partial to breathing. In case you haven't noticed, this is a pile of bones. What hips?"

"I used the word 'hips' for your benefit. I didn't think—'Hey, check out that sciatic notch'—would get your attention. Am I right?"

When she scrunched her face, Sam explained and pointed to the lower vertebrae.

"The sciatic notch spreads as a woman gets older, allowing the pelvis to make room for childbirth. If I had to guess, this sacrum and pelvic rim are from a young female. And the partially erupted molars back me up. I'd say the victim was late teens to early twenties at time of death." He pointed a finger to the brow of the skull. "Another thing, check out the forehead. It's almost vertical. Men's tend to slant more, develop a browridge. And with the narrow mandible, definitely female."

"So my 'he' is a 'she'?"

"Yep, looks like it."

When Becca peered deeper into the stone vault, markings caught her eye.

"Hey, what's this?" She inched closer and directed her flashlight to the left. "Oh, God. Are those what I think they are?"

Jagged scratches lined the inside of the stone vault. Layers of them overlapped in no discernible pattern. Thin striations mixed with deeper gouges. She felt the group of men move closer. Silence made the air feel thick and oppressive. Motionless. With her discovery, it became harder for her to breathe. Finally, Sam confirmed what she already suspected. By the solemn tone in his voice, she knew it struck him, too.

"Scratches. Probably from her fingernails. Looks like she was buried alive."

Becca closed her eyes to block the images, a gruesome strobe effect triggered in her mind. Tortured screams. A mouth gasping for air. Sheer panic. She pictured Danielle dying an unthinkable death, walled away in darkness with no one to hear her cries for help.

"No one heard her scream." She hadn't realized she'd spoken the words aloud until Sam consoled her with his reply.

"Until now." He sighed and stared into the hole.

Danielle's face haunted her. As a homicide detective, Becca had witnessed the perverse nature of the human condition, carried to the extreme. But the varying degrees of cruelty one human being inflicted upon another never ceased to amaze her. The day it did would be the day she'd quit. Still, she knew this case would brand her psyche for years to come.

"You all right?" Sam nudged her shoulder, his voice quiet and reassuring.

It took her a long while to answer.

"Yeah. I'll be okay." The words coming from her mouth sounded trite and mechanical, lacking any real conviction.

"Think I found something to cheer you up." He reached into the tomb and navigated through the tight space. After shining a light on what he retrieved, he said, "Maybe a lucky charm."

Sam held a thin necklace with a trinket dangling from it. The metal had been discolored with the years, and dirt clung to the delicate chain.

"What's that?" She narrowed her eyes to get a better look at the jewelry she took from his hand. Holding the evidence toward the light, she answered her own question. "In the shape of a heart. If this isn't some cheap bauble, it might lead somewhere. Good eye, Hastings."

Sam smiled. "Yeah, my wife says I have an eye for the expensive stuff. It's pretty tarnished, but it doesn't look cheap to me. And if I'm not mistaken, there are small diamond chips on it, too."

Becca stood and handed the necklace back, making another note in her book.

"Who's the arson investigator?" she asked.

"Rick Gallegos is workin' lead. You know him?" When she nodded, he pointed to the far wall. "Try over there."

Before she left, the CSI grabbed her arm and pulled her aside, out of earshot from his crew. Concern lined his face.

"You and your family are in my prayers ... if there's anything I can do."

She smiled. "With what we do, prayers seem like a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage."

"Don't get me wrong. I come from a long line of scuba-diving Protestants. Most of my family only surface on church holidays. But I found it . . . helps me."

"Thanks, Sam. You're a good friend, but really, I'm all right. I'll be in touch on our Jane Doe."

Complete denial. She heard it in her voice.
'I'm
all right,' my ass.
Her life had mired in her sister's tragedy and she knew it. But the murder victim's family needed her to function on all cylinders. They deserved her best.

"Guess prayers can't hurt," she muttered as she walked away. "Maybe God still listens to other people."

Gallegos was one of the best arson investigators with the city. The man had extensive experience and training, with an education in chemicals. He'd also been part of a bomb squad at another police station. With the pairing of Rick Gallegos and Sam Hastings on this investigation, maybe she hadn't drawn the short straw after all.

Rick was her height, with thick dark hair and skin the color of rich mocha. His eyes were almost black, and he possessed a piercing stare, the kind that unnerved the guilty. But for those having the pleasure to work with him, he showed warmth and good humor in his gaze. A diligent investigator and a thorough one. She liked him from the first day they had met, several years ago.

"Hey, Rick." She lowered the beam of her flashlight, leaving his face partially lit. "This case is gonna be tough enough. Glad you're working the fire. How's it coming?"

"Getting close to wrapping up, but I've got something for you to see. Follow me, Becca." He waved a hand and led her through the burned rubble.

He took her toward a back door and into the bright sunshine. Becca shielded her eyes with a hand, but it felt good to be out from under the oppressive darkness of the charred Imperial. Parts of her skin were caked with a layer of dust. Feeling gritty, she ran a hand over her chin, only to find her gloves smeared with soot. No telling what she'd find on her white blouse.
J
ust great!
She'd clean up in the car. It wasn't her day. Becca filled her lungs with fresh air and let Rick talk.

"Arsonists believe fire destroys evidence, but not if an investigator knows what to look for. They forget only the vapor burns, not the liquid part of the fuel. So if any material is saturated with an accelerant, the wetness prevents the cloth from burning, leaving behind evidence for us to connect the dots. If we match the fabric to something on the premises of a suspect, we've got a link to the crime scene."