The Cold Room (9 page)

“Burns, maybe?” Taylor asked.

“Nope. I think it was something she was on. For a while. It created massive indentations in the skin, and once she died, the lividity settled in. That's the only reason we can still see it. She's been dead for a few days, you see the level of decomp. Lividity would have passed by now.”

Taylor looked at McKenzie. “What time did the neighbor call it in?”

He consulted his notebook. “5:30 in the evening. Said there was no body when she came over in the morning.”

The lab tech documented the scene, and Taylor moved closer to get a good look. Postmortem lividity was one of the most significant clues a cop had to determine whether a body had been moved or not. The girl's entire back, including her arms and legs, was a dusky black, much darker than her skin, with perfectly round, equally spaced cocoa-colored circles every few inches along her body. The circles were only an inch or two in diameter, and were equidistant from one another. It wasn't readily apparent at the scene, but her left arm had what looked like a seam down the outer edge, as if it were wedged against something sharp. This was past lividity, this was almost scarring.

Taylor had never seen anything like it. “It's like she has polka dots. What in the world would cause that?” she asked.

“That's something you'll need to figure out. She was certainly on her back for an extended period of time when she was still alive, lying on something that had these holes.” Sam nodded to the tech and they rolled the girl over onto her back.

“Why not on the back of her arms?” McKenzie asked.

“Good question. She was shoved up against something, that's what caused that line down her arm. Maybe they were crossed on her chest? I don't know.”

Taylor took a lap around the table, looking closer. The fishing line had cut into the girl's flesh and the marks were clearly visible, concentric circles around her body. “So the knife to the chest was just massive overkill? That didn't cause her death? What about the lack of blood?”

“The knife acted like an anchor. It helped hold the body up. There wasn't any blood to spill at that point; it was coagulated and her heart wasn't pumping.”

Taylor nodded. “Okay. I'm comfortable with the working theory that Love Circle was the secondary crime scene. There's no way the neighbor would miss the body if it was already in the house. She seems like the type to open a few cabinets and drawers, if you know what I mean. So Allegra was killed elsewhere, then strung up on the post. But why would you do that in someone else's house? I need to talk to the home owner. That's just fishy as hell.”

Sam moved toward the scalpel on the tray by her right hand. She used the blunt end to part the knife wound, pointing her finger at the meager layer of yellow just below the dermis. “This chick has zero subcutaneous fat. I mean it's less than an eighth of an inch. Starvation would certainly do that. What else did Baldwin say about this Mach guy?”

McKenzie perked up again. “II Macellaio. The Butcher. You say it like this—eel
matcha
lie o, emphasis on the
matcha
. Though why they call him that is lost on me. He doesn't cut them up or anything.”

Taylor gave the kid some points for getting the pronunciation correct.

Sam was moving along. She opened the torso and McKenzie stared in fascination at the dead girl's desiccated organs. “Are they supposed to be so gray?” he asked.

“Honestly, no. And they've atrophied, which is why they look so shrunken.” Sam moved through her work, dissecting, observing, taking samples and making notes. She talked to McKenzie the whole time, explaining how starvation worked, that your system breaks down proteins, carbohydrates and fat in different sequences, that the carbs are burned first, then the fat, then the proteins. When the body starts feeding itself on the protein, or muscle mass, death occurs. In someone so small, like Allegra, death would come quicker than a full-grown, nourished, healthy woman. Without water and sustenance, death could occur in as little as a week.

Sam moved to the girl's head and Taylor turned away, purposefully letting her mind wander as the Stryker saw buzzed to life. She went back to the crime scene. Why choose a house that isn't your own? To send a message. To frame someone. To obscure your true meaning.

“Brain is unremarkable,” Sam called out.

“Wouldn't the brain shrink up like the rest of the organs?” McKenzie asked.

“You'd think so, but no. Our histology slides should look relatively normal, comparatively.”

“What's it like to starve to death?” McKenzie looked sad, and Taylor knew they had him. She'd been wondering what kind of detective he was going to be—blustery
and sarcastic, deflecting the daily horror with sharp words, or compassionate and caring. A good detective needed to find the balance between reality and compassion. Overly involved and you burn out. Too cynical and you can't relate to the victims and can't find their killers. Finding the middle ground was something that couldn't be taught, but the look on McKenzie's face said everything. He was going to do just fine.

Sam began wrapping up. “I need to get all the tox screens back, and look at the electrolytes and the other readings. But if she did starve, it wouldn't have been pleasant. Hunger pains are one thing, but without water, she'd lose blood volume, and her blood pressure would drop. Headaches, rapid heartbeat, constant fatigue. Toward the end, muscle spasms and delirium. She would have been exceptionally sluggish, and dizzy. She wouldn't be in much of a position to fight back. T, I'll run everything, see if I can find any biologicals to test, but the body is pretty clean. Like she'd been washed, clean. Who knows, we might get lucky.”

Sam nodded at McKenzie and went to wash up. Taylor tapped him on the arm and said, “Let's get out of here. You did good. I need you to track down her particulars, find out an address, see if there's anyone to do a notification to. Then call the chaplain, we have to have him with us. Let's grab something to eat and get our ducks in a row. Meet me at Rippy's?”

“Okay. I'll see you there.” McKenzie left the autopsy suite dutifully, lost in thought. Taylor wondered what he was thinking.

Sam called out, “Hey, I'll get the lube tested first thing and call you later.”

Taylor waved at her. “Thanks. Maybe that will tell us something about who this killer really is.”

“O
h, fack off and die, why don't you?”

Detective Inspector James Highsmythe threw the phone down onto his desk. Another person who wasn't all that thrilled to hear from him, and another dead end. He'd been chasing down the murders of three of London's finer professional citizens, and was getting exactly nowhere. Calling up the known clientele of a lady of the night didn't exactly endear him, letting them know he was calling from the Met meant an immediate diatribe of invectives, about him, his mother, his education and his dog, in that order.

Well, there was nothing to be done for it. The consultation with the chap from Quantico was scheduled for three o'clock tomorrow, which meant his sorry arse needed to be at Heathrow sharpish. He'd been laboring under the illusion that he could solve the case and avoid the transatlantic flight, but that wasn't meant to be.

Nashville. He'd been through there once, as a child. His mother was an Elvis fan, and on a summer holiday his parents had taken him to Memphis to see Graceland. They had stopped in Nashville for a night, visited the Bluebird Café to hear John Hiatt sing. When he per
formed “Riding with the King,” Memphis remembered his dear mamma tearing up. He was too young to understand then, but he had an appreciation for the irony now. And of course, the visit had launched his nickname. He had fond memories of the state of Tennessee.

He wondered if the Bluebird was still open. Well, maybe he would find time to do a quick bit of sightseeing.

His door opened a crack, and a winning smile appeared in the darkness, a veritable Cheshire cat grin. Pen, his assigned DC on the case. She was a freshly minted detective constable, and he had high hopes for her. Adorable girl. Brown hair, soft as a wren's feather, firm body, compact and tight. Pert nose and a wicked tongue. Too bad she batted for the other team.

“Memphis, you need to leave. Now. Only a half-wit would try to get out of London during rush hour and it's already past five. There were no direct flights, but we found one that has a single stop. You'll be in before midnight. I've alerted the Nashville Police that you'll be stepping on their patch.”

“Wonderful. Be a darling and see if you can rustle me up some wheels, would you?”

Pen pushed her way into the office, the door swinging open and crashing into the wall behind. They both winced.

“Don't worry, I'll get maintenance to sort it out while you're gone. The car's been waiting downstairs for the last half an hour. Just promise me you'll come back? Don't get seduced by America. I don't think I have it in me to take on a replacement—not now I've got you so nicely house-trained.”

“Penelope, I promise you. I'll be back. The deepest darkest corners of the earth couldn't keep me from your side for long.”

“Jesus, Memphis. Do you have to call me that?” She
helped him into his coat, settling it on his shoulders. “My mum was bad enough.”

“I beg your forgiveness. I just like to see you all wound up.” He raised his eyebrows into what most women would interpret as an erotic leer, shed their clothes and present themselves to him. Pen simply shrugged.

“Oh, get off with you, then. Safe travels. Don't get pissed on the plane.”

“And me the Queen's representative? You must be joking, darling.” He grabbed his bag from the top of Pen's desk. “Cheerio.”

The ride to Heathrow was blessed quiet. The driver was his favorite kind, silent, nodding his head in time to some invisible beat. He debated shuffling through his papers, decided against it. He knew the files back and forth already. Going through them again, looking at the crime-scene photos, the posing, the bones jutting out from the girl's bodies, the blackened bruises across their necks, well, those images lived in his brain already.

Security was its usual pain in the arse, the government paperwork in his bag only lessening the grief slightly. No honor among thieves anymore, what with the terror situation so wholly out of control. He made it through unscathed and settled in with a Glenfiddich at the first-class lounge. When his flight was called, he went to the gate and boarded with the first-class passengers. His seat was luxurious and the attendant handed him a glass of champagne with an inviting smile.

“Anything else I can do for you, sir?” she asked.

He met her eyes and saw the blatant invitation in them. He wondered for a moment exactly what she could do for him, then simply smiled and said, “No. Thanks.”

She winked at him, then went back to the other seated passengers.

A mustachioed man in a black-and-white sailor shirt who looked suspiciously like an overweight gondolier shoved him a bit as he walked past down the aisle, and said, “Oi!” as if Memphis was at fault. Tamping down his annoyance, he distracted himself with the flight attendant, who was shooting smoldering glances over her shoulder at him. The mile-high club with a stranger, eh? The idea of it was probably much more exciting than the reality. Not like he'd really do that. Not now. Not after…well, that was no matter.

His mind was no longer there. It was lost in time, remembering a sweet smile, blond hair tickling his chest, and the fragrant scent of citrus. Damn, he missed her.

B
ack in the Caprice, Taylor accessed her voice mail. The department secretary had left her a message—Hugh Bangor, the owner of the house on Love Circle, was on his way back to Nashville on a red-eye from Los Angeles. He would be met at the plane and waiting back at the CJC within an hour. The message was left forty-five minutes earlier, which meant Bangor was already there, or close to it.

Damn. She was hungry. It was past noon. She speed-dialed McKenzie and told him to grab the sandwiches and bring them back to the homicide offices.

Flexibility. One of the most important components to being a cop. You needed to be willing to strike when the iron was hot. Self-deprivation was second nature.

She made it downtown in ten minutes flat. The supercharged engine had obligingly launched itself down the street; the drive left her feeling a little frisky. Despite the fact that Elm might be in the office, she felt good. It was always helpful to have information, to know what you were dealing with. She'd drawn a psycho, someone who'd most likely starved a woman to death, someone
who may have a number of murders under his belt, but at least they had something to go on.

Allegra Johnson's presentation fascinated her. What could she have been lying on that made her back and legs look like a spotted cow? Taylor ran through some of the possibilities then discarded them immediately. Who knew? They'd have to find the primary crime scene, then they'd have a chance at figuring out that piece of the puzzle.

She made her way to the homicide offices and stopped at her desk. A Post-it was stuck to her phone—
Bangor, Inter. 1.
She grabbed the note and balled it up. Her desk phone rang, but she ignored it. Her mind was already getting into the interview with Bangor.

She stopped at the whiteboard, erased her earlier status and marked that she was in the conference room. This level of accountability was going to drive her mad.

The walk to the interrogation room was short. She stopped at the soda machine and grabbed two Diet Cokes. Her cell rang, and she juggled the cans trying to get it out of her pocket. She didn't recognize the caller ID, but answered anyway.

There was static, and then a loud clanging. The scream of a bird rent the air. She had just enough time to think
seagull
before the phone went dead.

Damn it. She leaned back against the wall, stared down at the tiny screen of the cell phone, chills skittering through her body. What, the Pretender had her cell phone number, too? She bit her lip. When was this going to end?

The phone rang again, and she jumped. When she answered, she didn't say anything, just listened. The same noises, loud clanging, followed by a deep voice cursing, one that she readily recognized. Not the Pretender. Oh, thank God.

“Fitz? Is that you?”

Pete Fitzgerald, her former number two, was yelling, the background noise nearly drowning out his deep baritone. He was off with his girlfriend, sailing around the Caribbean islands while he decided whether to take the enforced retirement Delores Norris had arranged, or join the lawsuit and get his old job back. Sailing, for God's sake. That's what love did to you. It took a perfectly normal cop and put him on a forty-two footer with a rum drink and a bikini-clad cohort. Taylor couldn't begin to imagine that scene. Honestly, she didn't want to.

“Taylor?”

“I'm here. Is everything okay?” She was yelling, too, as if that would help him hear her.

“Yeah, think so. Just saw something strange, thought I should tell you about it. How's the fed?”

“Baldwin's fine. Working in town for the moment. What did you see?”

There was more squawking, another series of shrill sounds from the gulls. Fitz's voice was breaking up, the connection getting worse. She plugged her left ear, dropping the Coke cans with a clatter.

“What was that? I couldn't hear you. Where the hell are you, anyway?”

“…Ados.”

“Barbados? Nice work if you can get it. It's good to hear from you.”

The signal cleared at last, and Fitz came through like a foghorn.

“Yeah. It's beautiful down here. Listen, just wanted to give you a heads up. There was a guy following us. Gave me the creeps. Tall, tan, super-short jarhead bristle cut. Sound familiar?”

“Quit yelling. Yes, it does. The Pretender looks like that.”

“I know. I saw the composite you and Owens put together.” Fitz was forever calling Sam Loughley by her maiden name. Fitz wasn't a big fan of change. “This guy was pretty much a dead ringer.”

Taylor went back into the homicide office, leaving the cokes abandoned on the floor. A small frisson of panic started moving through her body. “Tell me everything. I can, well, I don't know what I can do, but…just tell me what you saw.”

“That's it, little girl. Don't have any more for you. Susie and I are docked in port, waiting on a part. Last stop was St. Lucia, last week. Didn't see him there, so this might just be a coincidence.”

Coincidence. Like she believed that.

“So he followed you around in port?”

“No. He followed Susie. She was looking for some sort of conch to make for dinner, was coming out of a shop. I was watching from the boat, through binoculars. He walked right up to her, bumped into her, apologized, helped her pick up her stuff. Then he looked right at me, and I swear to God the sumbitch smiled. I woulda shot his sorry ass, but he was too far away. Then he strolled around a corner and disappeared. I got Susie back on the boat, but we've got a broken raw water pump, are waitin' for a new impeller, which means we're stuck here until the damn thing clears customs. Had to ship it down from Fort Lauderdale.”

“Huh? Fitz, you know I'm not a boat person.”

“We got no juice 'cause we can't cool the engine. We can't sail until it's fixed—we got no GPS, no depth finder, none of that. We're anchored in the harbor, so we're safe enough, and I'm watching for him. No one can get to us without pulling up next to the boat. I left word with the local constabulary, but they can't do anything. We're safe,
no worries. He's probably already long gone. But I just wanted you to know.”

Safe. Like that word could ever be applied to the same sentence as the Pretender.

“You need to check in with me, let me know what's happening. Now you have me worried, old man. When are you due back?”

“Next week. I'll let you know if I see anything else. I gotta go, the connection's for shit on this crappy cell phone. And it's costing me four bucks a minute. Be good. And don'tcha worry. I can take care of myself.” There was a loud click, and her ear filled with static. She turned her phone off, slapped the cover shut.

Friend, mentor, father figure, Fitz was all these things and more to Taylor. Hitting him would be as close a blow as hitting Baldwin. The Pretender knew that. He was stalking her through her friends.

Rage bubbled into her mind, blackening the edges. One more instance of her life catapulting out of her control.

How had he known where Fitz was going to be? He was obviously keeping tabs on more than just Taylor. And how could he be cognizant of a murder in Nashville while in Barbados?

An itinerary. She went back to her desk, took out her directory. Bob Parks was one of her favorite patrol officers, and a good friend of Fitz's. She called his cell, and he answered with what she could tell was his trademark grin.

“Loot! How the hell are ya?”

“Wishing I was still a Loot, Parks. I need a favor.”

She gave him the instructions, thanked him and hung up. Parks could hit Fitz's house, see if anything had been disturbed, while she did her interview with Bangor.

She stared out the window for a long minute, then made two more calls. She got voice mail for both
Lincoln Ross and Marcus Wade, left messages asking them to meet her after work. If the Pretender wanted to start playing games, they needed to be wary as well. She called Baldwin too, left him a voice mail. Jesus, where was everyone? She had a brief, horrifying moment imagining that they were all gone, disappeared, then shook it off. That was silly. She didn't have to worry about them.

McKenzie appeared in the doorway to the homicide offices.

“Um, Jackson? Are you coming? I've got food in the conference room, and Bangor is getting antsy. I've talked to the chaplain, he can meet us after 3:00 to do a notification. I'm still tracking down the vic's address.”

She looked at McKenzie, wondered how much warning she should give him. Later, she decided.

Food. Suspect. Food. Suspect. She sighed.

“I'm coming,” she said, abandoning her troubles at her desk.

 

Hugh Bangor wasn't anything like Taylor was expecting. And here she'd been telling McKenzie not to make assumptions.

His presence filled the interrogation room with energy. He was in his early to mid-forties, small, dapper and prematurely gray. He jumped to his feet and greeted her with a warm handshake. She was immediately at ease with the man, a dangerous sign. Complacence could get her in serious trouble. But his smile was friendly, his face affable, and she'd spent her whole life reading people. Nothing set off her alarm bells, so she returned the handshake cordially and gestured to the chair for him to sit.

She rattled off the date and time, stated that she and Detective Renn McKenzie were in the room, and what
they were there for so the session would be duly documented. She felt a bit like Sam at one of her autopsies.

“Mr. Bangor, I'm Detective Taylor Jackson,” she started.

Bangor interrupted. “I know. I've lived in Nashville all my life. We've never met, but I've always been a fan.”

She bristled, went on the defensive, looked for the hidden innuendo behind his words. Was he joking with her? Had he seen the tapes? Seen her in flagrante delicto all over the evening news?

Bangor sat a little straighter in his chair. “This is being taped, correct? Let me just say, for the
record
, that I think your treatment has been deplorable, and the chief of police should be indicted for his incredible mismanagement of our police force. You don't deserve to be back at detective. I thought your demotion was petty and ridiculous.”

Oh, she liked this guy. Immensely.

But she restrained her smile. “Thank you. That's very kind.”

Bangor settled back in his chair with a satisfied nod. “Just so you know where I stand, ma'am.”

“Can you tell me a bit about yourself, Mr. Bangor?”

“I'm a screenwriter. Actually, I've become more of a script doctor these days.”

“What's a script doctor?” McKenzie asked.

“Just what it sounds like, Detective. I take scripts that have potential but aren't ready to shoot and make them sing. Not to brag on myself, but there it is.”

“What took you to California? A script?”

“Yes. I've been working on a piece for a friend, needed to give it a walk-through with the writers. I left last Monday, wasn't planning to return until this Friday. What exactly happened at my house, if you don't mind me asking?”

“What have you heard?” Taylor asked.

He raised an eyebrow. “Miss Carol, my neighbor, told me that a young girl was murdered in my home. I'm just sick about it. I don't know who did it, and I assure you, I can't imagine why someone would break into my house and leave a dead girl behind.”

“Where were you last night? I don't mean to be rude, Mr. Bangor, but can people corroborate your whereabouts?”

He gestured to a black leather briefcase that sat at his feet. “May I?”

“By all means.”

Bangor rooted in the briefcase for a moment, then brought out a green folder. “This is my travel folder, where I keep all of my receipts. I've been on my friend's dime, and I get a nice per diem, which means I need to keep track of the records for my income tax. I keep everything.”

He handed the folder to Taylor. She opened it and flipped through, speaking aloud to catalog the contents for the record. Bangor wasn't kidding; he was perfectly covered.

“Restaurant receipts, coded by date, people attending the meal, valet stubs, car-service receipts, all dated for the period in which Mr. Bangor states he was away from home. Wish I could be this organized.” She set the folder on the table. “I'm sure you understand that we'll still have to check these items out.”

“Of course. I've alerted my business manager, and my lawyer, that you'll be contacting them. I've included their phone numbers in that folder. You can keep it, I've got copies. Anal-retentive, that's me.” He laughed, and she fought the urge to laugh with him. Disarming, and charming as Mr. Bangor was, he was still a suspect.

“Thank you for making it easy for us, Mr. Bangor. Tell me, how does a Hollywood screen doctor find himself living in Nashville instead of Hollywood?”

“Who could leave? I'm a native. Born and bred. I've
been in and out of the house on Love Hill since I was a baby. It was my grandparents', they built it when they moved to Nashville. My parents moved in after my grandparents passed, and they left it to me when they retired ten years ago to Florida. I renovated and made it my own.”

“And the Picasso reproduction? Did you inherit that too?”

Bangor's eyebrows went higher, and Taylor noticed the fine shape of them, arching above his brown eyes. His nails were cleaned and buffed, his skin firm and tanned. The haircut was expensive, the clothes very fine. He was a well-kept man. Either the parents had been well-off, or he was good at his doctoring.

“
Desmoiselles D'Avignon?
Did the…person who invaded my home take it?”

“Not exactly,” Taylor said. “It is a beautifully done piece.”

“It is at that. You have a good eye. There's a great story behind it. The painting was done by a starving art student who made a great deal of money copying the works of the masters for a very well-heeled New York clientele. People who want the world to think they hold the original. This particular painting was part of a collection owned by the late George Wilson.”