Freezing

TWENTY-SIX

Mark Wilson plugged the flashdrive into the computer. He spoke as he tapped keys. ‘I just got off the phone with Gerrit Leuven. I think I know where King got his inspiration for the killings. Check this out.’

The projection screen at the end of the room switched to an image of a streambed bordered by tall reeds whose color was washed out to a pale yellow by bright sunlight. The clear sky above them looked almost white. Amongst the reeds was a black photo board. It looked out of place. Beyond it on the ground, a fluorescent orange plastic arrow pointed toward a plastic letter N.

Mark looked at Jayne and Steelie. ‘After you two left Kigali in ’ninety-six, Gerrit and King were called in by the Civilian Police to assist on a homicide investigation. At first, CivPol had thought it was related to the genocide but then they realized it couldn’t be because the body was fresh. So then they thought it was a retribution killing; like, a witness for the Tribunal killed so she couldn’t testify about the genocide. That was when CivPol called in Gerrit and he in turn asked King to photodocument. All right, look at this. Here’s the overall scene and the photo board’s right near the body parts.’

‘Parts?’ Scott asked.

‘She was dismembered.’

Scott muttered something but Mark continued: ‘Hang on. Look at this. I’m putting it on slide show.’ He pressed a button and the slide dissolved and was replaced by another, which stayed on the screen for a time before dissolving and being replaced. Each photo brought them closer to the reeds, but in the third shot, a body part was slightly visible. In the subsequent photographs, someone was holding back the reeds with a flat tool, exposing the body parts like eggs in a nest. Two feet, the brown skin mottled by decomposition and the soil beneath them darkened with dried blood. Two hands, each finger separated from the palm. Then a single body part that it took Jayne a moment to recognize as a neck.

Mark came to sit by Scott. ‘Remind you of anything?’

‘Yeah, the first body parts we found on the outskirts of Atlanta. The neck especially.’

‘And I don’t think it’s a coincidence. I think that when King was called in to photo these BP’s, it gave him ideas.’

Scott sounded doubtful. ‘But if he worked in the Bureau Lab, he’d have seen all kinds of stuff during his career. Why this particular case? Did they ID the body? Did they find the head?’

‘No, never. And they only made a probable ID – turns out there aren’t that many new missing persons in Rwanda. Most cases date to the spring of ’ninety-four when the genocide broke out. So the list of new mispers was small and most of the women on it were sex workers – and most of them weren’t even Rwandan. They came from elsewhere to cater to the peacekeepers and internationals. For this body, they liked a young woman from the Ivory Coast. She’d only been in Kigali for a short time but was already known to pick up Johns at a club called . . .’ He consulted his notes. ‘The Cadillac.’ He looked up interrogatively at Steelie and Jayne. ‘Heard of it?’

Steelie addressed Jayne. ‘Um, maybe now would be a good time to tell them.’

Scott held up an index finger as his cell phone rang.

Jayne could tell he was talking to Eric and the news wasn’t good. She looked back at the screen, where the slide show was progressing automatically. As she watched, she began to think, Something’s here . . .what is it? She went closer, pulled by that familiar professional curiosity again, which was quickly displacing the self-doubt that had put her on the back foot earlier. She only gave part of her attention to Scott as he relayed Eric’s news that the shelters used code words for clients and, therefore, Patterson’s name and photograph wasn’t getting them anywhere.

Scott concluded by asking Steelie, ‘Now, what is it you were going to tell us?’

Jayne spoke without turning from the screen. ‘Hang on a sec. Mark, can you run the slides back and pause the show?’

He got up and punched a few keys at the computer. ‘How far back do you want to go?’

‘Go back two.’

The photo she was interested in was a close-up of a foot but it hadn’t been taken in situ at the streambed. It had been taken on a table covered with a green surgical drape. Lighting had been used to illuminate the cut portion of the ankle. A ruler was placed in the photograph for scale, along with a label that read UNCP #7-0193.

Steelie got up to join Jayne at the screen. ‘Can we see the others in this section? Did Gerrit say where they took these shots?’

Mark replied, ‘He said that all the material came back to UN HQ and they did the detail shots there, at your guys’ temporary morgue.’

They looked at the photographs; separate ones of each dismembered finger, then the group placed in rough anatomical position to the palm. There were images of all surfaces of the hand and each shot was lit perfectly to show the cross-section of the cuts.

Jayne reached up, pointed at one of the cuts, and looked at Steelie, who nodded. They communicated silently like this two more times before Scott said, ‘Thirty-two One, there are other people in the room. What are you seeing?’

Jayne replied, ‘Gene wasn’t inspired by these cuts.’

Scott threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘You can’t rule out that he photographed them, came back here and copied them.’

She shook her head. ‘No, I mean . . . or at least, I think I mean that he wasn’t inspired by them. He made them.’

Both agents stared at her and she looked to Steelie for back-up.

Steelie elaborated, ‘We’ve seen these cuts before. We saw cuts just like this at Critter Central. Patterson’s arms. Same going between the joints, same careful approach toward not nicking bone. Dismemberment with hand tools – fine tools – not just going in with a bone saw.’ She drew breath to say more but Scott interrupted.

‘Are you seriously telling me that King killed this woman in Rwanda and then photographed her for the investigation?’

Steelie appeared to be choosing her words carefully, sounding more like a lawyer than ever. ‘All we’re saying is that there’s a strong possibility that the same person who was responsible for cutting off Patterson’s arms also dismembered this woman in Kigali. We don’t know who that person is and it could be that it’s actually two killers . . . though they’d be two peas in a pod.’

‘What, the woman was killed by some other perp King met over there, who then taught him how to do this kind of dismemberment?’

Steelie shrugged.

Mark had been flipping through his notes. ‘This is making sense. Listen to this: Gerrit knew that the cuts were precise, particularly compared to trauma inflicted during the genocide with a machete or scythe. He said he later developed some suspicions about people with access to the UN HQ because when they went to open a new supply kit for the morgue, about half the blades for the scalpels were missing, plus a few handles. Let’s see.’

He scanned a page and then pointed at it. ‘Yeah, here. He said he questioned the Logistics guys but they confirmed that the supplies had arrived from the European Union boxed up on a pallet.’ Mark looked up at Scott. ‘But Gerrit stressed that his suspicion that someone had stolen from their supplies was just a personal opinion and he didn’t have any proof.’

Scott questioned Jayne. ‘Could King have accessed a pallet?’

‘Easily. If you were UN personnel, you could get access to almost anything that would be legitimate. Of course, we had to sign in and out and list how much of whatever item we took.’

‘Was someone guarding the pallets or controlling the sign-in sheet?’

‘The Logs guys had way too much to deal with to be able to guard anything. The sign-in sheet hung on a clipboard at the edge of the supply area.’

Scott swung his chair toward Mark, putting his back to the women, and lowered his voice. ‘What do you think?’

‘I think we gotta get them over to King’s house ASAP, Houston. They can see things we can’t.’ He gestured at the slide on the screen.

Jayne called out: ‘What’s the problem with taking us to the house? That’s why you flew us out here.’

Scott swung around again. ‘The problem is that now, we know that you know the suspect. We need to make sure our case isn’t screwed by taking you to his house.’

‘Oh.’

‘Mark, check on whether it’s going to be a conflict to have them over there. And if you find a conflict, make it go away.’