Hold Tight
“You get an ID yet?” she asked.
“No. No wallet, no purse.”
“Probably stolen,” one of the uniforms volunteered.
Lots of male head-nodding.
“Gang got her,” Tremont said. “Look at that.”
He pointed to a green bandana still clutched in her hand. “Could be that new gang, bunch of black guys who call themselves Al Qaeda,” one of the uniforms said. “They wear green.”
Muse stood and started circling the corpse. The ME van arrived. Someone had police-taped the scene. A dozen hookers, maybe more, stood behind the line, each stretching her neck for a better view.
“Have the uniforms start talking to the working girls,” Muse said. “Get a street name at least.”
“Gee, really?” Frank Tremont sighed dramatically. “You don’t think I already thought of that?”
Loren Muse said nothing.
"Hey, Muse.”
“What, Frank?”
“I don’t like you being here.”
“And I don’t like that brown belt with black shoes. But we both have to live with it.”
“This isn’t right.”
Muse knew that he had a point. The truth is, she loved her prestigious new position as chief investigator. Muse, still in her thirties, was the first female to hold that title. She was proud. But she missed the actual work. She missed homicide. So she got involved when she could, especially when a seasoned jackass like Frank Tremont was on the job.
The medical examiner, Tara O’Neill, came over and shooed the uniforms away.
“Holy crap,” O’Neill whispered.
“Nice reaction, Doc,” Tremont said. “I need prints right away so I can run her through the system.”
The ME nodded.
“I’m going to help question the hookers, round up some of the leading gang scumbags,” Tremont said. “If that’s okay with you, boss.”
Muse didn’t respond.
“Dead hooker, Muse. There isn’t really enough of a headline for you here. Hardly a priority.”
“Why isn’t she a priority?”
“Huh?”
“You said not a headline for me here. I get that. And then you added, ‘hardly a priority.’ Why not?”
Tremont smirked. “Oh, right, my bad. A dead hooker is priority number one. We treat her like the governor’s wife was just whacked.”
“That attitude, Frank. It’s why I’m here.”
“Right, sure, that’s why. Let me tell you how people look at dead hookers.”
“Don’t tell me—like they’re asking for it?”
“No. But listen and you might learn: If you don’t want to end up dead by a Dumpster, don’t turn tricks in the Fifth Ward.”
“You ought to make that your epitaph,” Muse said.
“Don’t get me wrong. I will get this sicko. But let’s not play games about priorities and headlines.” Tremont moved a little closer, so that his belly was almost pressing against her. Muse did not back up. “This is my case. Go back to your desk and leave the work to the grown-ups.”
“Or?”
Tremont smiled. “You don’t want that kind of trouble, little lady. Believe me.”
He stormed off. Muse turned back around. The ME was concentrating very hard on opening her work case, pretending not to have heard.
Muse shook it off and studied the body. She tried to be the clinical investigator. The facts: The victim was a Caucasian female. Judging by the skin and general frame she looked to be about forty, but the streets had a way of aging you. No visible tattoos.
No face.
Muse had only seen something this destructive once before. When she was twenty-three, she spent six weeks with state troopers on the New Jersey Turnpike. A truck crossed a divider and smashed head-on into a Toyota Celica. The Toyota driver had been a nineteen-year-old girl coming home from college break.
The destruction had been mind-blowing.
When they finally pried the metal off, that nineteen-year-old girl had no face either. Like this.
“Cause of death?” Muse asked.
“Not sure yet. But man, this perp is one sick son of a bitch. The bones aren’t just broken. It’s almost like they were ground into small chunks.”
“How long ago?”
“I would guess ten, twelve hours. She wasn’t killed here. Not enough blood.”
Muse already knew that. She examined the hooker’s clothes—her pink bra top, her tight leather skirt, the stiletto heels.
She shook her head.
“What?”
“This is all wrong,” Muse said.
“How’s that?”
Her phone vibrated. She checked the caller ID. It was her boss, County Prosecutor Paul Copeland. She looked over at Frank Tremont. He gave her a five-finger wave and grinned.
She answered. “Hey, Cope.”
“What are you doing?”
“Working a crime scene.”
“And pissing off a colleague.”
“A subordinate.”
“A pain-in-the-ass subordinate.”
“But I’m in charge of him, right?”
“Frank Tremont is going to make a lot of noise. Get that media on us, rile up his fellow investigators. Do we really need the aggravation?”
“I think we do, Cope.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he has this case all wrong.”
8
DANTE Loriman came into Ilene Goldfarb’s office first. He gave Mike a little too firm a handshake. Susan came in behind him. Ilene Goldfarb stood and waited behind her desk. She had the glasses back on now. She reached across and gave them both quick handshakes. Then she sat down and opened the manila folder in front of her.
Dante sat next. He never looked at his wife. Susan took the chair next to him. Mike stayed in the back of the room, out of sight. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. Dante Loriman began carefully to roll up his sleeves. First the right sleeve, then the left. He placed his elbows on his thighs and seemed to beckon Ilene Goldfarb to hit him with the worst.
“So?” Dante said.
Mike watched Susan Loriman. Her head was up. She sat hold-your -breath still. Too still. As if feeling his gaze, Susan turned her lovely face toward him. Mike aimed for neutral. This was Ilene’s show. He was just a spectator.
Ilene continued to read the file, though that seemed more for show. When she was done, she folded her hands on the desk and looked somewhere between the two parents.
“We ran the necessary tissue typing tests,” she began.