11th hour

Chapter 111

Claire was in the basement of number 2, standing with Clapper in front of the chest-type freezer. They’d been staring at it for at least a full minute. She said, “What are you waiting for, Charlie? Christmas?”

“It was Christmas for someone. See how nicely the presents are wrapped?”

When the condensation blew off, Claire could clearly see that the freezer was packed to the brim with body parts. There was no order, no organization. Parts had been loaded into the chest helter-skelter, all loosely wrapped in plastic.

Clapper said, “I’m going to be the first to state the obvious. This killer had no respect for the dead.”

“What brass to leave all of this right here in an unlocked chest. I just hope we’ve got proof positive of whodunit in here. I’m praying.”

“We’re going over this freezer for prints as soon as you’re done here. There will be prints. I can almost see them with my naked eyes. We’ll swab for DNA too.

“And listen, Claire,” Clapper added, “you’re not going to like this, but we need to know how many bodies we’ve got here. So can you go through it here? Count the pieces?”

It was better to load the freezer onto a flatbed truck and then take it and its contents back to the lab. But if counting pieces was a priority, it had to be done.

Claire turned to her assistant and said, “Bunny. We’re going to do a five hundred series.”

“Like this was a plane crash or something like that,” Bunny said.

“Right. Disaster numbering system. You know how it goes?”

“Sequential numbers from five hundred up.”

“Right. So that all of these individual parts are logged in one file.”

Bunny laid a sheet down on the floor. It was blindingly bright in the gloom. Clapper placed a wrapped body part on the sheet, and Claire took photos.

Bunny unwrapped the plastic, tagged the arm with the number 501, and Claire put it back on the sheet; she took a couple of pictures before she wrapped the sheet around the limb. A CSI zipped the arm into a body bag.

A new sheet went down and Clapper lifted another part out of the freezer, and once again they tagged and bagged. There were dozens of parts, and Claire saw that processing this chop shop would take many long hours; first here, then a repeat of every step in the lab.

Clapper lowered a body part to the sheet. It was half a chest, sawed lengthwise between the breasts.

Bunny moaned. “I’m going to pass out,” she said. “Excuse me.”

“No, no, don’t — ”

But the girl scrambled to her feet, found a corner of the basement, and heaved.

And then she started to cry.

Claire went over and put her arm around her assistant. “It’s okay, Bunny.”

“No, it’s not. I contaminated the crime scene.”

“Everyone does it at one time or another. I threw up on a body once. Go upstairs. Take a break.”

“I’m okay,” Bunny said. “I’m here for the duration.”

“That’s good, because I need you. Go upstairs and wash your face. Then please call our husbands. We’re not going home tonight.”