Holgersen cursed and put his head back as Angie drove, wipers squeaking. After a while he said, “She’s kinda cute, though, all that spiky black hair, pale skin, if not for those bad teeth and all.”
Angie shot him a glance. “How would you know about spiky hair? She was wearing a ball cap.”
“Seen her around.”
“Didn’t know you had a type, Holgersen.”
“Ooh, Pallorino’s getting nosy now.”
Irritation tightened her hands on the wheel. “Someone’s been tipping that woman off. No way she could get the stuff she does without a source on the inside.”
“What? It’s notmewho’s tipping her off—you heard her. She got the scoop from the scanner.”
“I heardyousay she was listening to a scanner.”
CHAPTER 5
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
One of the uniforms handed Angie a coffee from the 7-Eleven across the street.
“Cream, no sugar,” the officer said.
She took it and absently sipped while trying to form a mental picture of what had happened here last night. The day was dawning dark and bitterly cold, low with cloud and mist blowing up from the sea and sifting through the gnarled graveyard trees. Yellow crime scene tape cordoned off the various cemetery entrances and flapped in the icy wind.
The Ross Bay Cemetery, opened in the late eighteen hundreds, had the oldest surviving formal landscape design in the province. Angie knew this from her father. It was, he’d told her, a prime example of a Victorian-era burial ground with its winding carriageways, unusual flora, and intriguing marble, sandstone, and granite monuments, all standing sentinel over the dead.
She’d ordered a covered staging area to be set up right outside the stone perimeter walls. It would serve as a consultation space for the crime scene techs and other personnel, and for their equipment.
She’d also established a secure temporary storage area for any evidence that might be found, in accordance with chain of custody protocol. She was the primary investigator on this case, and she was working fast to put her stamp on this. As Holgersen had so succinctly noted, this could turn into a full-blown homicide investigation, and if so, she was going to push to stay on the case.
Angie had called her sergeant in charge of the sex crimes unit, Matthew Vedder, at his home, and she’d given him the rundown. He’d okayed her request for overtime if necessary, and allowed her as many uniformed officers as she might need. He wanted a full briefing when she returned to the station in a few hours. Already she’d sent patrol cops out with questionnaires to start canvassing residents who lived adjacent to the cemetery. Most of the stores in the shopping complex across the street behind her were still closed, but she’d have officers in there as soon as they opened. Depending on their business hours, someone might have seen something last night. A person behaving oddly. A vehicle. A man carrying a heavy load. Perhaps someone heard something—a woman’s screams. She also had a uniform inquiring about the closed-circuit surveillance system at the 7-Eleven. She’d noted a camera outside the store, and there was a chance it had picked up something along this road.
Holgersen was on his phone with the hospital, checking on their Jane Doe’s condition. He killed his call and came over.
“Not looking good,” he said. “Still unconscious and vitals going downhill.”
Damn. She didn’t want Jane Doe to die yet. Not until she had her claws firmly into this case.
“And still no ID?” she said.
“Nah. No active missing persons cases match, either, and no new reports have come through. Her prints and DNA are not going to be much use unless she’s in the system. Same with dental records—pretty damn useless unless yous gots something to match them with.”
“It’s still early,” she said. “Parents, friends, might not have noticed her absence yet. By the time schools open and the day gets under way, we could start getting calls.”
“Or when news of our mutilated, comatose cemetery girl hits the front page of theCity Sun.”
She glanced sharply up at him, then checked her watch, urgency twisting through her. One of the forensics techs approached them. “We’ve established a path of entry,” he said. “You ready for a walk-through?”
“Let’s do it.” She handed her unfinished coffee to a uniform, tugged on crime scene booties, and turned her collar up against the cold. They stepped out from under the makeshift cover and she walked alongside Holgersen into the teeth of the frigid salt wind, grateful that she lived downtown and that she’d managed to swing by her apartment for a change of clothing. She’d also quickly scrubbed off her makeup.
Constable Hickey—the patrol officer who’d responded with Tonner—met them at the stone entrance. He stood shivering in his waterproof poncho, which flapped in the wind. He wore a plastic cover over his hat. The young man had been out in the cold most of the night. Angie had already interviewed him, as well as the EMTs. The ghost walkers and their tour guide, Edwin Liszt, would be coming into the station later.
They signed the crime scene sheet offered to them by a patrol officer and entered the cemetery grounds, Hickey and the tech leading them down the path. A fine layer of snow crunched beneath their covered boots. They passed white marble cherubs on plinths, the milky eyes of the statues seemingly tracking their progress among the gravestones.
“At least the precip is holding off, for now,” Hickey said, ducking as pinecone debris was flung at him in the wind.
“Global warming,” said the tech. “There’ll be more and more like it. Increasingly violent weather.”
