The Bone Chamber (3 page)

At precisely 9:53
P.M
., Sydney’s plane touched down
at the marine base at Quantico. She looked out the window and saw a lone jeep waiting on the tarmac. SAC Harcourt and Special Agent Griffin stood by the jeep. Other than that, the airstrip seemed surprisingly empty, especially considering the grounds were shared with the marines…

She grabbed her overnight bag and briefcase, exited the plane, bracing herself against the chill of the mid November air. Patches of dirty slush lined the runway, remnants from the early fall snow promising that it wasn’t about to get much warmer, even come morning. How had she ever thought of San Francisco as being cold during the few months she lived there? She was definitely going to miss the West Coast.

The men standing by the jeep watched her, and as she approached, SAC Harcourt put his hand on her shoulder. “Thanks for interrupting your vacation and coming at such short notice.”

“Not a problem,” she said. “So we’re starting first thing in the morning?”

“Tonight,” Griffin said. “A lot to cover and little time. You brought what you need for the sketch?”

“Never leave home without it.” She patted the soft-sided briefcase slung over her shoulder.

“Good,” Harcourt said. “We have a room ready for you.”

“I have a place in D.C.,” she said, slinging the overnight bag onto her shoulder, trying to sound pleasant. Okay, so it was the standard apartment in the standard building used for temporary housing for agents. But even with the bare white walls and rented furniture and still-packed boxes, it was a damned sight better than what they had at Quantico in the academy dorm, which consisted of a twin bed with a shared bathroom. “I’d rather be able to go home tonight.”

Griffin held the jeep door for her. “Like I said, very little time and a lot to get through, so if you can manage one night here…”

She stood there a moment, looked him right in the eye. “Just out of curiosity. Why me?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Of all the forensic artists, in all the towns, in all the world, you call me. Why?”

“The gin joints were closed, and you came recommended. Any more questions?”

“Not yet.” Unless one pointed out that there were plenty of good artists on the East Coast, so why the hell fly her all the way from the West when she was on vacation?

They drove her to the main building at the FBI Academy, had her check in her gun as was required with every agent, then escorted her to the basement, just down the hall from her own office. A sign on the door, one that hadn’t been there when she’d left for San Francisco, read: “Absolutely No Admittance.” Harcourt unlocked the door, allowing her to enter. Griffin stepped in behind her, placed his briefcase at his feet as she stopped before the only table in the center of the room where a skull sat, seemingly watching her.

“Something wrong?” Griffin asked, when she didn’t move for several seconds.

She shook her head, not willing to discuss her thoughts about working with the dead. In typical cases, when she was called, it was usually because the investigators had exhausted all leads in identifying the victim. She was often
the victim’s last hope, the last voice. That was not something one explained easily—not without sounding like some narcissistic nutcase. For the obvious reasons, she kept her beliefs to herself. She’d worked from skulls before, but her instincts told her that all was not as it seemed. In fact these same instincts had been telling her so from the moment she stepped off the plane in San Francisco, then was flown back via special FBI transport.

Whatever was going on, she had no idea, and she eyed the room. There was only one chair. A coffeepot had been set up, and someone had thought to bring a box of granola bars. Other than that, the room was empty. If not for the skull, and the absence of a second chair, the place could double for a damned interrogation room, and she turned toward the men to ask what the hell was going on, but hesitated when Harcourt handed the keys to Mr. Federal, then made some excuse about being late for an appointment before rushing off.

Sydney set her overnight bag near the door, then walked to the table, depositing her briefcase at its base, examining the evidence before her. The skull had been boiled clean, a standard procedure that in her mind always seemed to depersonalize the victim, by removing the last vestiges of his or her being. What was left, the empty orbs and corporeal grin, were never recognizable as who the person had been—though often in far better shape than how that person had been found. Ever since she’d been trained in forensic art, she’d never looked at a skull or skeleton the same. Before, she’d seen them as bones, simply bones minus the flesh, never imagining who they were or what they’d been thinking. Not so anymore.

She pulled on a pair of latex gloves from a box on the table, picked up the skull, examined it. There were no obvious signs of trauma to the head. “I thought you’d lined up a forensic anthropologist,” she said, turning the skull about in her hands. “Dr. Gilbert.”

“We have her notes and measurements,” Griffin replied, handing over several sheets of paper, handwritten. “We just need you to do the drawing.”

“We usually work in concert.”

“In this case, we, uh, made other arrangements.”

She glanced at the papers he gave her, saw the notations in pencil, some of them haphazard, as though these were the notes from a report that had yet to be completed. “These are Natasha’s notes?”

“She was the forensic anthropologist you recommended.”

It took a moment for his answer to register. Tasha Gilbert was neat, fastidious. “Are you sure you have the right report? This isn’t like her, never mind she’d want to be here.”

“Like I said, we had to make other arrangements. Time is of the essence, so how soon can you have a drawing done?”

“Hard to say until I know what I have to work with.” She looked over Tasha’s notations, the measurements of skin and flesh thickness, based on height, weight, race and approximate age of the victim, all things that a forensic anthropologist would relay to Sydney through the examination of the skeleton or remains, helping her to proceed in re-creating the victim’s face. It was a complicated process, certainly not an exact science, but a science nonetheless. She flipped through the few pages, curious as to why Tasha, a perfectionist if there ever was one, would allow her rough draft report to be turned over. “Crime scene photos?”

“In another file.”

“This is highly irregular.”

And Special Agent Griffin said, “For a reason.”

She glanced over at him, and for all his calm exterior, there was something about him that made her think he was worried, harried, not so unruffled after all. Interesting. “Clothing? Hair? I need a photo of the body as it was found. Blow it up, eliminate whatever you don’t want me to see, just get it to me if you want me to do my job. If you can’t release that, a frontal shot of her, pre-autopsy, before the skull was cleaned, will suffice. Again, the same. It will help me finalize the drawing, make sure it’s accurate.”

He nodded, unlocked and opened his briefcase, and pulled a single photo from a manila folder. “Crime scene only. I can get you the other tomorrow. This I’ll need back.” He handed it to her, then started pacing the room.

Apparently this was a case that wasn’t to be discussed, wasn’t to leave this room. Maybe that’s why Tasha had agreed to pass on her notes as rough as they were. Even so, had Special Agent Griffin just presented the damned photo with the skull, then let Sydney do her drawing at a normal hour, she wouldn’t have given any of it a second thought—probably wouldn’t even remember it as anything significant. At least that was her train of thought up until she viewed the crime scene photograph. It wasn’t as if anyone could view such a photo with hopes the image would fade. One look made it easy to understand why it was necessary to boil the skull. The victim’s face—along with her fingertips—had literally been removed. Peeled away. And it was more than someone simply not wanting the victim ID’d. There was something clearly ritualistic about the way the face had been removed, the shape of the wound. A triangle with its point at the top of the forehead, its base at her chin.

Damned hard to make that pattern on a skull, but there was no doubt about the shape, and she forced herself to look beyond it to what she needed for her work. The woman had dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair. Her shirt had been ripped open, exposing well-developed breasts, which put her past the age of puberty. The condoms trailing from her front jeans pocket gave her the appearance of being at least near the age of consent, and Sydney glanced at Tasha’s report and found that the victim was probably in her mid-to-late twenties.

She took out a pad of lined paper, started writing her own notes, when Griffin stopped his pacing, looked at her. “What are you doing?”

“Taking notations for my drawing. From there I intend to do a rough sketch of the victim’s hair length, noting the color, details about it, as well as the clothing. If that’s okay?”

He stepped back, didn’t ask any more questions, and she told herself that it wasn’t her place to decide how the drawing was done, or why the drawing was done. She was here to follow orders—something she used to be good at.

Three hours and five cups of coffee later, leading to sev
eral
escorted
trips to the restroom, she decided there wasn’t enough caffeine in the world that was going to allow her to concentrate on the developing sketch. At the moment it resembled a scientific study one might find in a scholarly journal. She’d drawn the frontal view of the skull on her sketch pad, then overlaid it with vellum, upon which, with the aid of a small metric ruler, she drew precise markings to indicate the specific measurements given in Tasha’s report to note the thickness of the flesh upon the skull. The vellum, like tracing paper, would simply overlay the drawing of the skull, then once the sketch was finished, be removed for photocopying and distribution to the investigators—whoever they might be.

Sydney stifled her umpteenth yawn, stared at the skull, the orbs that seemed to watch her in return, wondering about the victim, hoping she hadn’t suffered greatly before death—before she’d been disfigured. One could only hope it had all been done postmortem. She thought of the condoms, wondered if they were brought there by the victim, or left by the suspect. “Was this a sexual assault?” she asked.

And just as Zachary Griffin had avoided answering every other question she’d posed that might directly lead to the case, he didn’t respond to this one, either.

Fine. He might not need sleep, but she did, and if he wasn’t willing to talk to her, help her keep awake, then tough. “I’m sorry,” she said, pushing her chair back. “I can’t work any longer tonight.”

“You’re certain?”

“So you do remember how to communicate?”

He didn’t reply.

“Yes, I’m certain. I’ll need
several
hours of rest if you want a decent drawing, and then I’m going running. I presume you want everything to remain here?”

“Yes.”

Sydney left her briefcase, drawing tools, and sketch pad behind, walked over, picked up her overnight bag, then stood there, waiting for him to unlock the door, let her out. When he hesitated, she held up her arms. “Either search me, or open the damned door. I’m tired.”

He glanced back at her things on the table, perhaps to assure himself she took nothing with her, then unlocked the door, letting her out before locking it behind him. And if that wasn’t secure enough, he escorted her to the elevator, then to the front lobby, where the guard who had taken her gun for safekeeping gave her the key to her room for the night. When it seemed her self-appointed escort intended to accompany her to her dorm, she held up her hand. “I can take it from here, thank you. Know the place well.”

A nod and he stepped back, allowing her to enter the elevator on her own. In her entire twelve years in law enforcement, the last four in the FBI, she wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced security this tight. Definitely not for a drawing, she thought, feeling the agent’s gaze on her even as the elevator door slid shut and she began her ascent.

Her room was on the third floor, a short walk through one of the many glass-enclosed hallways that connected each of the buildings. The glass enclosures reminded her of the tubes in a hamster cage and were often referred to as the same by the recruits housed there. Outside, a light dusting of snow covered the moonlit landscaping below, and all looked peaceful—as long as she didn’t think about the crime scene photo. It bothered her. She’d seen plenty of crimes over the years, plenty of violent scenes and photos. But this one was different. Forensic artists weren’t usually ushered into Quantico under cover of darkness, secreted away to a room where no one had entry, then guarded the entire time…

So who was the woman? Clearly someone of significance. Or a case of significance.

The photo had showed a woman who was made out to be a prostitute—or something similar, if the condoms were to be believed. Over the years, Sydney had seen dozens of sexual crimes, and this had all the earmarks of such a case. Until one thought of the overkill on security while she did her drawing.

Which certainly made her think twice when she unlocked her door, stepped into the room.

She tossed her bag on the twin bed, then shut and bolted
the door behind her, slipping her phone from her belt and calling her former partner, Tony Carillo, back in San Francisco. He answered on the second ring, his voice sounding as though she’d woken him. She glanced at the clock, after two
A.M
. Eastern time.

“Sorry,” she said, then looked around the room, taking stock of the spartan surroundings. “Just missing everyone back home. How are you?”

A slight hesitation. “Fine. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just trying to unwind. You know. If I can’t sleep, why should you,” she said, walking into the bathroom, closing the door. She checked the door leading to the dorm room on the other side, made sure it was empty, told herself she was just being paranoid, then locked it, before turning the shower on full force, trying to keep her voice low. “You ever hear of a guy named Zachary Griffin? Special Agent?”