11th hour

Chapter 13

That night we all met in Claire’s domain, the Medical Examiner’s Office, which is right behind the Hall of Justice.

All four of us — Claire, Cindy, Yuki, and me — sat around the large round table Claire used as a desk, ready for a four-way brainstorming meeting of what Cindy had dubbed the Women’s Murder Club.

Normally when we meet to talk about a case, we worry about Cindy reporting something she isn’t supposed to know. If you forget to say “Off the record,” your words could be tomorrow’s headline. But tonight I was more worried about Yuki.

Yuki is an assistant DA and I knew anything we said was off the record — but was it off the pillow?

Yuki was dating Jackson Brady.

Yuki was sleeping with my boss.

I said, “Don’t tell Lieutenant Wonderful, okay? He wouldn’t like this.”

“I hear you,” Yuki said, grinning at me. She patted my arm. She promised nothing.

Claire turned up the lights, passed out bottles of water, told us that the six skulls were in paper bags to prevent condensation and that the long-haired Jane Doe’s remains were in the cooler so that the soft tissue didn’t decompose further.

Claire said, “I’m going to give all seven heads a thorough exam in the morning, but I also hired a forensic anthropologist to consult. Dr. Ann Perlmutter from UC Santa Cruz. You’ve heard of her. She was a special consultant identifying bodies in mass graves in Afghanistan. If anyone can work up identifiable faces on bald skulls, Ann can.”

“How long will that take?” I asked.

Claire shrugged. “Days or weeks. Meanwhile we’ll work with Jane Doe’s face. Photoshop her a little bit. Put her on our website.”

“I can create a Facebook page for her,” said Cindy.

“Not yet,” I said, trying to rein in Cindy’s racehorse tendencies. “Give us a chance to ID her in real life, keep her parents from finding out that she’s dead by seeing her page on the Web.”

I told Cindy and Yuki about the numbers 104 and 613, showed them a photocopy of the index cards we’d found with the first two heads. No numbers had been found with the other heads.

“So, two numbers only. Maybe it’s a game,” said Yuki.

“So you think the killer is into Sudoku?” I said.

“You’re funny,” Yuki said, giving me a soft punch in the arm.

“But you said there were no numbers with any of the other remains,” Claire said.

“To me that means whoever dug up the heads left the numbers,” I said. “These are two distinct acts — burying and exhuming. They may have been done by different people.”

Cindy had been tapping keys on her laptop.

“I just ran the numbers through Google. Came up with a lot of stuff that doesn’t seem related to backyard burials. For instance, I’ve got numbers of committees on radiation, department numbers at European universities.”

“Gotta be some kind of code,” Yuki said.

“Maybe it’s an archive number,” I offered. “The head-and-flower tableau was set up almost like an exhibit.”

“Let me run with this part of the puzzle,” Cindy said. “I’ll let you know what I find, and what do you say, Linds? I have first dibs on the story if I find out what the numbers mean?”

“If you actually find something we can use.”

“Right.”

“I’ll have to clear it before you run it.”

“Of course. My usual penalty for being friends with you guys.”

“Okay,” I said to Cindy. “The numbers are yours.”

“Biggest issue for me,” Claire said, “is that we have no bodies. Without bodies, we may never be able to determine causes of death.”

“Well, at least it’s seven bodies we need to find, not six hundred and thirteen,” Yuki said.

“Not six hundred and thirteen so far,” said Claire. “There are many more backyards in Pacific Heights.”

We groaned as one.

It was raining when I ran out the back door of Claire’s office to my car. Reporters were in the parking lot waiting for me, calling my name.

I got into my car, started up the engine, turned on the lights and the sirens, and pulled out onto Harriet Street.

No bones, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I have no bones to throw you at all.