Jack Daniels Six Pack (33 page)

The temperature hovered at fifty degrees, fans blowing around the frigid, foul air. It chilled my sweat in a most unpleasant way.

To the right, in an adjacent room, an autopsy was being performed. I focused on the figure holding the bone saw, didn’t recognize him, and continued to look around.

I found Phil Blasky near the back of the room, and walked up to him carefully; the floors were sticky with various fluids, and all of them clashed with my Gucci pumps.

“Phil.”

“Jack.”

Phil was leaning over a steel table, squinting at something. I stood next to him, trying not to gape at the nude body of a toddler, half wrapped in a black plastic bag, lying next to him. The child was so rigid and pale, he appeared to be made out of wax.

“I went through every stiff in the place a second time. No one is missing arms.”

I glanced down at the table. The arms were severed at the shoulder, laid out with their fingertips touching, the elbows bending in a big
M.
They belonged to a female, Caucasian, with fake pink nails. A pair of black handcuffs connected them at the wrists. There was very little blood, but the jagged edges to the wounds suggested they didn’t come off easily.

“I suspect an axe.” Phil poked at the wound with a gloved finger. “See the mark along the humerus, here? It took two swings to sever the appendage.”

“It doesn’t look humorous to me.” Benedict had snuck up behind us.

“Funny,” Phil said. “Never heard that one before, working with dead bodies for twenty years. Next will you make some kind of
gimme a hand
joke?”

“I did that one already,” Herb said. “How about:
It appears the suspect has been disarmed?
”

“She was always such a cut-up?”

“Would you like a shoulder to cry on?”

“Can I go out on a limb here?”

“At least she’ll get severance pay?”

Phil cocked an eyebrow at Herb.

“Severance?” Herb said. “Sever?”

I tuned out their act and got a closer look at the arms. Snapping on a latex glove, I pushed back the cold, hard fingers and peered at the handcuffs. They were Smith and Wesson model number 100.

“Those are police issue.” Benedict poked at them with a pencil. “I’ve got a set just like them.”

So did every other cop in our district, and probably in Chicago. They were also sold at sporting goods stores, sex shops, and Army/Navy surplus outlets, plus a zillion places over the Internet. Impossible to trace. But maybe we’d get lucky and the owner had etched his name and address on the . . .

I inhaled sharply.

This couldn’t be right.

On the cuffs, next to the keyhole, were two small initials painted in red nail polish. I tugged out my .38, holstered under my blazer, and looked at the butt. It had the same two red letters.

JD.

“Herb.” I kept my voice steady. “Those handcuffs are mine.”

CHAPTER 2

I treated the morgue like a crime scene, calling in the CSU, cordoning off the area, gathering a list of employees to question.

No one had seen anything.

The Crime Scene Unit, consisting of Officer Dan Rogers—tall, blond, goatee—on samples and Officer Scott Hajek—short and compact, blue eyes hidden behind glasses—on photographs. They were young, but knew their stuff.

Rogers scanned the arms with an ALS, and they glowed flawlessly pale under the high-intensity light.

“Not a thing.” Rogers scratched at his beard.

Unusual. Under Alternate Light Source, even the tiniest bit of foreign matter glowed like a hot coal. Particles, hair, dirt, bone fragments, blood, semen, bruises, bite marks—they all fluoresced.

Dan bent down, his nose to one of the wrists.

“They’ve been washed. Smells like bleach.”

“Are you sure? The whole morgue smells like bleach.”

Rogers, in a move characteristic of his thoroughness, touched the tip of his tongue to the arm.

“Tastes like bleach too. Probably diluted with water, or it would have mottled the skin.”

“Get a sample to burn. And go brush your teeth.”

Rogers dug into his breast pocket for some cinnamon gum. After popping three pieces, he moved the soft blue light closer to the fingers on the right hand.

“I have a slight indentation on the index finger. Looks like she usually wore a ring.”

Hajek brushed past me, zooming in on the fingers. He snapped a close-up.

“I missed the taste test.” He playfully shoved Rogers. “Can I get one with you sucking on the fingers?”

Rogers showed him a finger of a different kind. Hajek’s shutter clicked.

“When you’re done scraping the fingernails, I need one of the fakes.”

“Finished already, Lieut.”

Rogers snapped off a pink press-on nail, bagged it, and handed it to me. Then he used a scalpel to take skin samples from each arm, putting them into glass tubes.

“Nothing on the handcuffs?”

“Wiped clean. I can take them back and fume them to make sure.”

“Do it. You’ll need these.”

I took the cuff keys from my ring, where they’d been attached for the last year. Rogers undid the handcuffs and placed them in an evidence bag. Then he brought the ALS around.

“No abrasions on the wrist.”

Hajek moved in, shooting a few frames.

“Thanks, guys,” I said. “If you can get the pictures on my desk tomorrow, along with the prints.”

“I’m on it.”

Rogers dug into his bag, removing fingerprint ink and two sets of cards. I left him to his work and went off in search of Herb.

Benedict stood in the lobby, talking to one of the attendants. Herb’s hand cradled a snack-size potato chip bag, half full. The other half was in his mouth.

He must have noticed the question on my face when I approached, because he said, “They’re fat-free.”

“Herb—it’s a morgue.”

“My Pilates instructor told me to eat small snacks several times a day to keep my metabolism up.”

He offered the bag.

“Try one. They’re baked. One-third less sodium too.”

I politely declined. “Get anything?”

“They run three eight-hour shifts, twenty-four hours. I questioned the four attendants here, and no one saw anything. Full list of employees is in my pocket.”

“Won’t help.”

The thin black man standing next to Herb offered his hand. I took it.

“And why won’t it help, Mr. . . . ?”

“Graves. Carl Graves. All them bodies come here in bags. Cops and EMTs wrap them up before dropping them off. Be real easy to put some extra parts in a bag, wheel it in, then sneak them out. No one would see a thing.”

“How many bodies are dropped off every day?”

“Depends. Sometimes, five or six. Sometimes, a few dozen.”

“Who has access to the morgue?”

“Cops, docs, morticians. Some days fifty people sign in.”

“How many employees?”

“Around twenty, with the ME’s staff.”

I frowned. If the arms had been here for a few days before being discovered, we could be dealing with several hundred suspects.

“Thanks, Mr. Graves.” I handed him my card. “If you hear anything, let us know.”

Graves nodded, walked off.

“Anything with the arms?” Herb asked, lips flecked with bits of greasy potato.

“Nothing, other than the fact that they’re my handcuffs.”

“Should I read you your rights?”

“Not yet. First you have to trick me into confessing.”

“Gotcha. So . . . was the rest of the body hard to dispose of?”

“Yeah. I’ll never get those stains out of my carpet.”

My cell rang, saving me from further interrogation.

“Daniels.”

“Ms. Daniels? This is Dr. Evan Kingsbury at St. Mary’s Hospital in Miami. Mary Streng was just admitted into the Emergency Room. You’re listed on her insurance as a contact.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“She’s my mother. What happened?”

“She’s sedated. I know you’re in Chicago, but is it possible for you to get here? She needs you right now.”

CHAPTER 3

I hadn’t realized how fragile my mother had become until I saw her in that hospital bed, an IV cruelly jabbed into her pale, thin arm. She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds, eyes that were once bright and active now sunken and sparkless.

This couldn’t be the woman who raised me, the tough-but-loving beat cop who played both mother and father in my upbringing. The woman who taught me how to read and how to shoot. The woman with such inner strength that I modeled my life on hers.

“The doctors are overreacting, Jacqueline. I’ll be fine.” She offered a weak smile in a voice that wasn’t hers.

“Your hip is broken, Mom. You almost died.”

“Didn’t come close.”

I held her hand, feeling the fragile bones under the skin. My veneer started to crack.

“If Mr. Griffin hadn’t made the police break down your door, you’d still be lying on the bathroom floor.”

“Nonsense. I would have gotten out of there soon enough.”

“Mom . . . you were there for four days.” The horror of it stuck in my throat. I’d called her yesterday—our twice weekly call—and when she hadn’t answered, I assumed she was out with Mr. Griffin or one of the other elderly men she occasionally saw.

“I had water from the bathtub. I could have lasted another week or two.”

“Aw, Mom . . .”

The tears came. My mother patted the back of my hand with her free one.

“Oh, Jacqueline. Don’t be upset. This is what happens when you get old.”

“I should have been there.”

“Nonsense. You live a thousand miles away. This is my dumb fault for slipping in the shower.”

“I called you yesterday. When you didn’t pick up, I should have . . .”

My mother shushed me, softly.

“Sweetheart, you know you can’t play the what-if game, especially in our profession. This isn’t the first time this has happened.”

She couldn’t have hurt me more if she’d tried.

“How many times, Mom?”

“Jacqueline—”

“How many times?”

“Three or four.”

I didn’t need to hear that. “But you never hurt yourself, right?”

“I may have had a cast on my elbow for a while.”

I fought not to yell. “And you never told me?”

“I’m not your responsibility.”

“Yes . . . you are.”

She sighed, her face so sad.

“Jacqueline, when your father died, you were the only family I had left. You were also the only family that I ever needed. I would never, ever allow myself to become a burden to you.”

I sniffled, found my center.

“Well, get used to it. As soon as you’re released, you’re moving in with me.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Please, Mom.”

“No. I have a very active social life. How could I get intimate with a gentleman when my daughter is in the other room?”

Reluctantly, I played my trump card.

“I spoke with your doctors. They don’t feel that you’re able to take care of yourself.”

Mom’s face hardened.

“What? That’s ridiculous.”

“They’ll only release you from the hospital into my custody.”

“Was it that Dr. Kingsbury? Smarmy little bastard, talking to me like I’m a three-year-old.”

“You don’t have a choice, Mom.”

“I always have a choice.”

“It’s either me, or assisted living.”

I watched my words sink in. My mother’s biggest, and only, fear was going into a nursing home. Before meeting my father, she worked briefly as an activity director in a continuing care facility, and swore that she’d jump in front of a bus before ever checking into one of the “death hotels,” as she called them.

“No way in hell.”

“Mom, I can invoke power of attorney.”

“My mind is sound.”

I made myself keep going, even though I hated this.

“I have friends in the courts, Mom.”

My mom turned away, shaking her head.

“You wouldn’t do that to me.”

“Look at me, Mom. How far do you think I would go to protect you?”

Mom continued to stare at the wall. Tears streaked down her cheeks.

“Bullying an old lady. Is that how I raised you, Jacqueline?”

“No, Mom. You raised me to care. Just like you said: You’re the only family I’ve ever had. You took care of me for eighteen years.” I squeezed her hand. “It’s my turn to take care of you.”

Mom pulled her hand away.

“I’d like to be alone.”

“Please. Don’t be like this.”

She pressed the button to page the nurse.

“Mom . . . please.”

A white-clothed figure poked her head into the room.

“How are we doing, Mrs. Streng?”

“I’m very tired. I’d like to take a nap.”

The nurse looked at me, sympathetic.

I stood up, briefly fussed with the get-well flower arrangement I’d brought, and then turned to leave.

“Nurse,” Mom’s voice cracked. “Please make sure I don’t have any visitors for the next few days.”

“Perhaps you’ll feel differently tomorrow, Mrs. Streng.”

“No. I’m sure I won’t.”

The tears came again. I took a deep breath and stopped my chest from quivering.

“I love you, Mom.”

For the first time ever, she didn’t respond with “I love you too.”

The nurse put her hand on my shoulder, giving me a gentle push.

I took one more look at my mother, and walked out of her room.

CHAPTER 4

Mom lived in Dade City, a pleasant town that seemed out of place in Florida. Rather than tourist-crammed beaches and mega theme parks, Dade boasted gently rolling hills, actual woods, and so many antique malls you couldn’t spit without hitting one.

The night had arrived, hot and thick like a soggy blanket, but I kept the windows down. The rental had decent air-conditioning, but I didn’t feel I deserved it.

I’d been to her place twice before, and always missed the turn onto her street. Tonight was no exception. I pressed through three lefts and found it on the second pass.

Her condo had a matching numbered space in the parking lot. Overnight bag slung over my shoulder, her keys in my hand, I was just about to enter the lobby when I stopped, mid-step.