The First Victim

CHAPTER 61

Early Wednesday morning, Live-7, second in ratings to Channel Four news, led off its Morning Report quoting a ‘‘reliable source’’ that ‘‘police are involved in a massive surveillance operation directly linked to the illegals investigation.’’

The report infuriated everyone from Sheila Hill, upset over the apparent leak, to Jimmy Corwin, annoyed that KSTV had been scooped by the competition. Adam Talmadge complained vehemently through legal channels that the INS had not been informed of, nor included in, any such surveillance.

By 8:30 that morning, the trailing network affiliate identified security guard Clarence Stilwill as the source of the information. On the ‘‘advice of attorneys’’ Stilwill was in hiding, and unavailable for comment.

KVOW, public radio, reported not only that a possible suspect had been lost during the surveillance but that the King County medical examiner’s preliminary autopsy report on the most recent Hilltop Cemetery cadaver, ‘‘Jill Doe,’’ was due out that same day and was said to contain additional information pertaining to the illegals investigation.

Political shock waves ran through the system as denial upon denial was issued, no-comment upon no-comment echoed through the media and filtered down to coffee shops and the office copy room. Melissa Chow’s disappearance and possible abduction had become an emotionally charged issue stumped by would-be politicians running for office in November, and as word spread that police were possibly closing in on the people behind it, the radio talk shows buzzed with various leaks.

Boldt and LaMoia felt this pressure on both professional and personal levels. They were told to stop the leaks and solve the case. Sheila Hill summed it up for them both, ‘‘Get us something in time for the six o’clock news that will make both the mayor and the PA look good, something to feed the beast and satiate it. If you can’t come up with something, I’m going to feed them your reassignments, gentlemen, so don’t take this lightly.’’

Their pagers sounding, Boldt and LaMoia left Hill’s office and headed directly to the ME’s basement offices in the Harborview Medical Clinic. The bear of a man led them with huge, hurried strides into his office and closed the doors.

‘‘I don’t know where that leak came from,’’ he apologized, ‘‘but if Ifind out, that person will never work again. Not ever! Not anywhere!’’ Not a man to lose his temper, this particular Ronald Dixon was a rare sight.

‘‘I thought you said it was the leaks you wanted to talk to us about,’’ Boldt complained. Although LaMoia was scheduled to return to the naval yard surveillance, there had been no activity at the location since Rodriguez’s escape. ‘‘As you can imagine, John and I are a little busy this morning, Dixie.’’

‘‘No, not leaks like that. .’’ Dixon corrected, losing his anger to a smile. ‘‘Leeks!’’ he said. ‘‘The kind you eat.’’

‘‘Leeks,’’ LaMoia repeated.

‘‘Exactly,’’ said the medical examiner.

‘‘Exactly what?’’ Boldt asked.

‘‘Jill Doe,’’ Dixon answered. ‘‘It’s always the first victim,’’ he ruminated. ‘‘The mistakes, the haste.’’

‘‘What mistakes?’’ Boldt answered.

Pointing to Boldt, Dixon said to LaMoia, ‘‘Take lessons from him. He’s the best there is. Knows when to interrupt and what to ask. Knows when to keep his mouth shut and let a man talk.’’ He looked at Boldt. ‘‘So let me talk.’’ He moved to behind the security of his large gunmetal gray desk. ‘‘They froze her, same as Jane. But they had more time. They froze her hard. . solid, and I’m guessing they forgot to take that chain off ahead of time, so that by the time they realized, if they realized, it was still attached, they had little choice but to leave it there. They then buried her over ten feet deep in relatively cool soil, a week, maybe even two or three ahead of Jane Doe. You see where I’m going with this?’’

‘‘She stayed frozen,’’ Boldt guessed.

‘‘Gold star. For a while. Yes. And that helped not only preserve her, but severely retard her decomposition.’’

‘‘She stayed frozen down there?’’ LaMoia asked.

‘‘Are you listening? No, she didn’t. But she was in forty-degree soil. Her extremities thawed first, followed by the epidermis in general. The heat moved from both ends toward the center like defrosting a leg of lamb. But you know how long that takes: You put a twenty-pound turkey or a six-pound leg of lamb on a seventy-degree kitchen counter and it takes all day-sometimes longer-to defrost. Try putting it inside a forty-degree refrigerator! You pull it out the next day, the thing has barely begun to thaw. Now try it with a hundred-andseventeen pound human being-’’

‘‘Pass,’’ LaMoia said. ‘‘Do we learn anything from all this fascinating detail?’’ he quipped.

Dixon said sadly, ‘‘In other ways, you’re more like him every day.’’

‘‘The Cliff Notes, Dixie,’’ Boldt said.

‘‘Stomach contents relatively intact. Plenty of organic matter to work with.’’

Boldt wondered if he’d wasted his morning.

Dixon continued. ‘‘Did it occur to either of you brilliant investigators that if these people have a hundred women locked up sewing polarfleece pullovers for a dime a day, they still need some way to feed them?’’ He grinned widely. ‘‘Ah, ha! I can see it did not! No, you overlooked the obvious, did you not? So locked, like me, into the dead-the dead evidence, the dead witnesses, the dead ends, that you never extrapolated the situation out to the obvious: These women have to eat. And this woman, Jill Doe, did eat. Not only did she eat, but she ate a tuberous root, an edible bulb, similar to our own leek. She also apparently consumed brown rice. But it’s this leek that interests you, this leek that’s the best evidence you’ve had in this case. Asian, and not sold in your typical Safeway if the few phone calls we’ve made are any indication. We can’t find one for comparison.’’

‘‘Asian groceries,’’ Boldt muttered, stung by this information.

LaMoia followed suit. ‘‘Mama Lu is the Asian grocery queen. What do you want to bet that she has the contract to provide the food for these people? That’s how she knows so much about it and yet isn’t directly involved to where she has to fear us.’’

‘‘A humble businesswoman,’’ Boldt repeated at a whisper. ‘‘She kept flaunting it right under my nose.’’