CHAPTER FOUR

Forty minutes later, Avery stepped into the central conference room in the A1 headquarters. It was already filled with an assortment of officers and experts, totaling twelve in all, and she knew most of them, though not as well as Ramirez or Finley. She supposed that was her own fault. After Ramirez had been assigned to her as a partner, she had not gone out of her way to make friends. It seemed like a silly thing to do as a Homicide detective.

As they all took their seats around the table (except for Avery, who always preferred to stand), one of the officers she did not know started passing out printed copies of the scant information they had so far – pictures of the crime scene and a sheet of bullet points of what they knew about the scene. Avery scanned one and found it succinct.

She noted that as everyone started to take their seats, Ramirez sat in front of her. She looked down at him and realized that she had instinctively stepped closer to him. She also found that she wanted to rest her hand on his shoulder, just to touch him. She backed away, noticing that Finley was looking oddly at her.

Shit, she thought. Is it that obvious?

She went back to busying herself with rereading the notes. As she did so, O’Malley and Connelly entered the room. O’Malley closed the door and went to the front of the room. Before he started speaking, the murmurs and conversation within the room died down. Avery watched him with great appreciation and respect. He was the sort of man who could take charge of a room by simply clearing his throat or letting it be known that he was about to speak.

“Thanks for scrambling together so quickly,” O’Malley said. “You have in your hands everything we know about this case so far with one exception. I had city workers pull everything they could from traffic light cameras in the area. Two of the four cameras show a woman walking her dog. And that’s all we got.”

“There’s one other thing,” one of the officers at the table said. Avery knew this man’s name was Mosely, but that was about all she knew about him. “I got word two minutes before stepping into this meeting that dispatch fielded a call this morning from an elderly man claiming that he saw what he described as ‘a creepy tall man’ walking in that area. He said he was tucking some sort of a bag under a long coat. Dispatch took note of it but assumed it was just a nosy old man with nothing better to do. But then when this burn case kicked off this morning, they pinged me on it.”

“Do we have this old man’s contact information?” Avery asked.

Connelly shot her an annoyed look. She supposed he thought she was speaking out of turn – even though he had told her no more than forty-five minutes ago that this was her case.

“We do,” Mosely answered.

“I want someone on the phone with him the moment this meeting is over,” O’Malley said. “Finley…where are we on a list of places that sell chemicals that can burn this fiercely in such a short time?”

“I’ve got three places within twenty miles. Two of them are e-mailing me a list of chemicals that could do such a thing and whether or not they keep it in stock.”

Avery listened to the back-and-forth, taking mental notes and trying to sort them into the appropriate slots. With each new bit of information, the more sense the odd crime scene from this morning started to make. Although, really, there wasn’t too much sense to be made at this point.

“We still have no idea who the victim is,” O’Malley said. “We’re going to have to go on dental records alone on this one unless we can make some sort of connection with the footage from the traffic cameras.” He then looked to Avery and gestured her to the front of the table. “Detective Black is the head on this one so everything you find from here on out will go directly to her.”

Avery joined him up front and scanned the table. Her eyes landed on Jane Parks, one of the lead investigators on forensics. “Do we have any results from the broken glass shards?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Parks said. “We know for certain that there were no fingerprints, though. But we’re still working to find out what the object was. So far we can only imagine it might have been some sort of knickknack that is in no way related to the crime.”

“And what is the opinion of forensics in regards to the fire?” Avery asked. “Are you also in agreement that this was no casual burning?”

“Yes. The ash is still being studied, but it’s obvious that no standard fire could burn human flesh so thoroughly. There were barely even any charred remains on the bones and the bones themselves almost look pristine, showing no signs of scorching.”

“And can you describe to us what the usual process of a body burning might be?” Avery asked.

“Well, there’s nothing typical about burning a body unless you’re cremating it,” Parks said. “But let’s say a body is trapped in a burning house and is lit on fire that way. Body fat acts like a sort of fuel once the skin is burned away, which keeps the fire going. Almost like a candle, you know? But this burn was quick and very succinct…probably so intense that it vaporized the fat before it could even act as a fuel.”

“How long would it take a body to burn down to nothing more than bone?” Avery asked.

“Well, there are several determining factors,” Parks said. “But anywhere between five to seven hours is an accurate number. Slow and controlled burns, like the ones used at crematoriums, can take up to eight hours.”

“And this one burned in less than an hour and a half?” Connelly asked.

“Yes, that’s the assumption,” Parks said.

The conference room was awash in murmurs of disgust and awe. Avery understood it. It was hard to wrap her mind around it.

“Or,” Avery said, “the body was burned elsewhere and the remains were dumped in that lot this morning.”

“But that skeleton…that was a new skeleton,” Parks said. “It wasn’t without its skin, muscle, tissues, and so on for very long. Not long at all.”

“Can you make an educated guess as to how long ago the body was burned?” Avery asked.

“Surely no more than a day or so.”

“So this took planning and some head knowledge on the killer’s part,” Avery said. “He’d have to know a lot about burning bodies. And being that he made no attempt to hide the remains as well as killed the victim in such a startling way…that denotes a few things. And the thing that I fear the most is that this is likely the first of many.”

“What do you mean?” Connelly asked.

She felt all eyes in the room turn to her.

“I mean that this is probably the work of a serial killer.”

A heavy silence blanketed the room.

“What are you talking about?” Connelly asked. “There’s no evidence to support that.”

“Nothing obvious,” Avery admitted. “But he wanted the remains to be found. He made no attempt to hide them in that lot. There was a creek right along the back of the property. He could have dumped it all there. More than that, there was ash. Why dump ash at the scene when you could easily dispose of it at home? The planning and the method of the killing…he took great pride and pleasure in this. He wanted the remains found and speculated over. And that holds the marks of a serial killer.”

She felt the room stare back at her, felt a solemn air descend, and she knew they were thinking the same thing she was: this was evolving from an odd case involving an impromptu cremation to a time-sensitive hunt for a serial killer.

CHAPTER FIVE

After the tension of the meeting, Avery was glad to find herself back behind the wheel of her car with Ramirez in the passenger seat. There was an odd bit of silence between them that made her uneasy. Had she really been so naïve to think that sleeping together was not going to alter their working relationship?

Was it a mistake?

It was starting to feel like it. The fact that the sex had been pretty close to mind-blowing made it hard to accept, though.

“While we have a second,” Ramirez said, “are we going to talk about last night?”

“We can,” Avery said. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, at the risk of sounding like a stereotypical male, I was wondering if it was a one-time thing or if we were going to do it again.”

“I don’t know,” Avery said.

“Regretting it already?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “No regrets. It’s just that in the moment, I wasn’t thinking about how it would affect our working relationship.”

“I figure it can’t hurt it,” Ramirez said. “All jokes aside, you and I have been dancing around this physical chemistry for months now. We finally did something about it, so the tension should be gone, right?”

“You’d think so,” Avery said with a sly smile.

“It’s not for you?”

She thought for a while and then shrugged. “I don’t know. And quite frankly, I’m not sure I’m ready to talk about it yet.”

“Fair enough. We are sort of in the middle of what looks to be a majorly fucked up case.”

“Yes, we are,” she said. “Did you get the e-mail from the precinct? What else do we know about our witness other than his address?”

Ramirez looked to his phone and pulled up his e-mail. “Got it,” he said. “Our witness is Donald Greer, eighty-one years of age. Retired. He lives in an apartment roughly half a mile away from the crime scene. He’s a widower who worked for fifty-five years as a shipyard supervisor after getting two toes blown off in Vietnam.”

“And how did he happen to see the killer?” Avery asked.

“That we don’t know yet. But I guess it’s our job to find out, right?”

“Right,” she said.

Silence fell on them again. She felt the instinct to reach out and take his hand but thought better of it. It was best to keep things strictly professional. Maybe they would end up in bed together again and maybe things would even progress to more than that – to something more emotional and concrete.

But none of that mattered now. Now, they had a job to do and anything evolving within their personal lives would just have to be put on hold.

***

Donald Greer showed all eighty-one years of his age. His hair was a frazzled shock of white atop his head and his teeth were slightly discolored from age and improper care. Still, he was clearly glad to have company as he invited Avery and Ramirez into his home. When he smiled at them, it was so genuine and wide that the unsightly condition of his teeth seemed to disappear.

“Can I get you some coffee or tea?” he asked them as they came in.

“No, thank you,” Avery said.

Somewhere else in the house, a dog barked. It was a smaller dog, and one with a bark that suggested it might be just about as old as Donald.

“So is this about that man I saw this morning?” Donald asked. He plopped himself down into an armchair in the living room.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Avery said. “We were told that you saw a tall man that appeared to be hiding something under his – ”

The dog that was located somewhere in the back of the apartment started to bark even more. Its yaps were loud and sort of grizzled.

“Shut it, Daisy!” Donald said. The dog went silent, giving a little whimper. Donald shook his head and gave a chuckle. “Daisy loves company,” he said. “But she’s getting old and tends to pee on people when she gets too excited, so I had to lock her up for your visit. I was out walking her this morning when I saw that man.”

“How far do you walk her?” Avery asked.

“Oh, Daisy and I walk at least a mile and a half just about every morning. My ticker isn’t as strong as it used to be. The doctor says I need to walk as much as possible. It’s supposed to keep my joints in top order, too.”

“I see,” Avery said. “Do you take the same route every morning?”

“No. We switch it up from time to time. We have about five different routes we take.”

“And where were you when you saw the man this morning?”

“Out on Kirkley. Me and Daisy had just come around the corner of Spring Street. That part of town is always empty in the mornings. A few work trucks here and there but that’s about it. I think we’ve passed two or three people on Kirkley in the last month or so…and they were all walking their dogs. You don’t even get any of those masochistic people that like to run out in this area.”

It was obvious by the way he chatted that Donald Greer did not get many visitors. He was overly chatty and spoke very loudly. Avery wondered if it was because age had affected his hearing or if his ears were shot from listening to Daisy raise hell all day.

“And was this man coming or going?” Avery asked.

“Coming, I think. I’m not sure. He was a good ways ahead of me and he seemed to sort of stop for a second when I got on Kirkley. I think he knew I was there, behind him. He started walking again, sort of fast, and then just sort of disappeared into the fog. Maybe he took one of those side streets along Kirkley.”

“Was he maybe walking a dog?” Ramirez asked.

“Nope. I would have known. Daisy goes ballistic when she sees another dog or even smells one in the area. But she stayed just as quiet as always.”

“Do you have any idea what he might have been holding under that jacket you say he was wearing?”

“I couldn’t see,” Donald said. “I just saw him shifting something under it. But the fog this morning was just too thick.”

“And what about the coat he was wearing?” Avery asked. “What kind was it?”

Before he could answer, they were interrupted by Ramirez’s cell phone. He answered it and stepped away, speaking quietly into it.

“The coat,” Donald said, “was like one of those long fancy sort of black coats that businessmen wear sometimes. The kinds that come down to their knees.”

“Like an overcoat,” Avery.

“Yeah,” Donald said. “That’s it.”

Avery was running out of questions, feeling pretty certain that this interview with their only witness was a bust. She tried to find another relevant question as Ramirez stepped back into the room.

“I need to get going,” Ramirez said. “Connelly wants me as an extra set of hands with some matter over near Boston College.”

“That’s fine,” Avery said. “I think we’re done here anyway.” She turned to Donald and said, “Mr. Greer, thank you so much for your time.”

Donald walked them out to the apartment building entrance and waved them off as they got into the car.

“You tagging along with me?” Ramirez asked when they were headed back down the street.

“No,” she said. “I think I’m going to go back to the crime scene.”

“Kirkley Street?” he said.

“Yeah. You can take the car to do whatever errand Connelly has you running. I’ll catch a cab back to headquarters.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It’s not like I have anything else to – ”

“To what?”

“Shit!”

“What is it?” Ramirez asked, concerned.

“Rose. I was supposed to hang out with Rose this afternoon. I made this huge deal about a girls’ day out. And it looks like that’s not going to happen. I’m going to have to let her down again.”

“She’ll understand,” Ramirez said.

“No. No, she won’t. I always do this to her.”

Ramirez had no reply to that. The car remained in silence until they reached Kirkley Street. Ramirez pulled the car to the side of the street directly across from the morning’s crime scene.

“Be careful,” Ramirez said.

“I will,” she said. She surprised herself when she leaned over and kissed him briefly on the mouth.

She then got out of the car and started studying the scene immediately. She was so focused and in the zone that she barely noticed when Ramirez pulled away behind her.