“I can vouch for him,” Teagan said quickly. She should’ve remembered the tight security at the lab, and she knew Drew didn’t carry his real ID while undercover. He couldn’t very well display his Dylan Crane driver’s license for Pete.
“No can do, Ms. Steele.” Pete sounded honestly apologetic. “Kelsey will have to be the one to vouch for you. Wait here.”
They were left standing outside in the covered area as Pete headed in to the front desk to make the call.
Teagan gave Drew an apologetic look. “I should’ve told you about the security here. With all the law enforcement work they do, they take security of evidence very seriously. Pete’s a former patrol officer, so he’s a stickler for procedure.”
“No worries. Kelsey will take care of it, and we’ll get in to talk to her.” He tapped his foot and stared through the glass door until Kelsey entered the lobby through the back door
“I’ll vouch for them both, Pete,” she called out. “Let them in.”
Pete stepped back. “Come on over to the desk, and we’ll get your visitor passes issued.”
They trailed him to the reception desk, where they filled out a form on an iPad, and Pete issued security passes clipped on lanyards. Teagan hung hers around her neck and took off after Kelsey, who was moving at a much faster clip than that morning. She led them to a stairwell and jogged down as if she’d taken this route many times per day.
At the end of a brightly lit hallway, she pressed her fingers onto a keypad outside a door labeledOsteology Unit, and the door snapped open.
A display of labeled animal bones filled the main wall ahead. That was upsetting enough, but when Teagan caught sight of the human skeleton filling one of the long stainless steel tables, her dinner threatened to come up.
Kelsey waved a hand at the bones. “Victim from the first grave.”
Drew didn’t seem fazed but went closer to the table and turned to look around the clinically clean room. “No offense, but your lab is smaller than I thought it would be.”
“No offense taken. This is only my dry lab.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “My wet lab is on the other side of the glass door.”
She pointed at a glass-and-metal door sealed tight. “You can look inside but don’t open the door. You’ll release a very unpleasant odor if you do.”
Teagan might be feeling queasy, but she had to take a look in the other room. The larger space held a pair of the same metal tables but were placed against the wall and connected to large stainless sinks. On the other wall, she spotted a huge burner and large pots. Another wall held tools. Some she recognized, like trowels, others she didn’t.
She looked back at Kelsey. “I can only imagine why you need a wet lab.”
“For the most obnoxious part of the job unless you don’t consider maggots obnoxious.” Kelsey chuckled.
“I do. Especially at a murder scene.” Drew shuddered.
“So what do you do in there?” Teagan asked, half afraid to know the answer.
“The remains almost always must be macerated or boiled to remove flesh and connective tissue clinging to the bones so we can better examine them.” She lifted a hand. “The smell is awful, which is why we have an industrial air handling system installed. We’re currently cleaning the bones for the male found in grave two.”
Teagan couldn’t really connect this delicate and petite woman to such a gruesome job, but as a law enforcement officer, Teagan had learned people weren’t always what they appeared to be.
“And what are the tools used for?” Teagan asked.
“For recovering remains like we did today. We sterilize them in the wet lab as well.”
Drew tilted his head. “You sterilize digging tools?”
Kelsey nodded. “Like any other crime scene, we don’t want to contaminate it with soil or debris from a past scene.”
“Of course,” Drew said. “Guess I don’t think of digging in dirt as something that could cause contamination.”
“Most people don’t.” She nodded at the skeleton. “I believe this is the man, Smiley, who you’re looking for. Nothing official, mind you, but I have given a DNA sample to Emory for all four victims. Sierra has taken a toothbrush from Smiley’s home for comparison. The process will take twenty-four hours. I’ll have my assistant try to hunt down his dental records first thing in the morning.”
“But you’re positive it’s a male now?” Teagan asked.
“Most definitely. I estimate he was thirty-seven when he died, and he died in 2016. He was also five-foot-nine and Caucasian.”
“All of which fits Smiley,” Drew said. “No ID with the body, then?”
