“I don't, sir. No TV. Come in and have a look!” Giles stepped aside, inviting the man into the apartment, pointing to the interior. “A war could be going on and I wouldn't know. It's all negative vibes I just don't allow into my life.
“There is a goddamn war going on! We're sitting on a terror alert stage orange, fella! Get this out to the media, Tom,” said the older firefighter to the younger fireman, “and round up everybody.”
“Code thirteen, sir?”
“What the fuck else? We're done here! Christ, this is going to bite the budget.”
“Yes, sir, Chief. Right away, Chief.” The younger firefighter rushed off with the rags in hand. Giles heard him on the landing, shouting to other firefighters up and down the stairwell, “All's clear! That's a Code thirteen. We're outta here!”
The older man did a quick walk through of Giles's apartment, cursorily looking here and there. He noticed the ornate box on the kitchen table, commented on what a nice-looking box it was, and continued on. Giles popped open one of his crates and told him to have a look at one of his sculptures. The big fireman leaned in over the crate almost as tall as he, and stared down at the statue of a woman. “Looks inter-estin',” was his comment.
“Oh, it is, sir. And fulfilling, very fulfilling if you don't mind not eating that is.”
“The mop head, young man.”
Giles had been carrying the mop around with him, and now he stood with it and stared at the chief. “What?”
“Remove it and hand it over.”
“Oh, yes… absolutely… and I truly am sorry about this.”
“You might wanna get yourself to a hospital, kid.”
“Sir? I'm fine, really, but thank you for your concern.”
“Concern? Damn you, fella, I'm talking about when my boot goes up your ass. We're both going to need a medical professional to get my foot out your hole! Now give me the fucking mop head.”
Giles pushed the entire mop, handle and all, into the fire chiefs hands. “Take it. I'm moving out anyway. Won't need it.”
“Weird is what you are, kid. Who cleans up a dump like this while moving out?” He started away, in his huge boots, white biohazard suit, holding his visor in his right hand like the helmet of a knight, and the mop head flowing over his enormous gloved left hand as a scepter. If all of this incident hadn't so terrified Giles, he thought it would be laughable.
“Just my own concoction of cleaning fluids,” Giles said to yet another passing fireman.
“Some concoction, son.”
“My cleaning cocktail, I call it.”
This fireman also carried his helmet in his gloved hands, perspiration dripping from his face. “Enough kick in it to knock over a horse,” the stranger replied.
Giles closed his door on the retreating army. He took a whiff. It didn't seem so bad to him. Maybe the fire chief was right. Maybe he had blown out his olfactory senses.
The other side of the door remained noisy as more men filed out and the first brave souls of those who lived in the building began to trickle back. Giles pictured Mrs. Parsons as she'd looked going down those stairs. He'd never known the woman to move so fast. The image made him smirk and shake his head.
UPS would be here soon.
He still had as yet to clean out his bathroom medicine cabinet. As he did so, he breathed a sigh of relief. Things could have gone badly, but it seemed fate remained his friend.
Later the same morning in Milwaukee
Exhausted but so over tired he could not readily sleep, still pumped up from the excitement of discovery at the cemetery, Richard Sharpe telephoned from the privacy of his room at the best motel in Millbrook, the Minnesota Motorlodge. He stood staring out at the flat terrain overlooking a calm stretch of water the shape of an hourglass here in the land of ten thousand lakes, wondering what the locals had named the hourglass lake, or if they were in the habit of renaming their lakes like they did their cemeteries. What a spin they had put on the potter's field.
No answer at Jessica's end. Where the hell was she? Already out, at the crime lab in Milwaukee, he assumed. Still she should have her phone with her, and if so, on vibrate in her pocket.
Richard continued to stare out at the calming water, his thoughts going back to the lone meadowlark on the branch overlooking Louisa Childe's remains. How ironic, given her predilection for feeding birds. The exhumation and “theft” from the body concluded, he had an insistent urge to contact Jessica, to let her know of his progress, but mostly just to hear her voice.
The phone rang a fourth and a fifth time. The thing must be out of Jess's ear shot, ringing incessantly somewhere. Perhaps she was in the shower or otherwise indisposed. He flashed on the notion of seeing her in the shower via her cam-phone.
Finally the ringing ended and she was on, sounding a little winded as if she had just finished climbing stairs. Clearing her throat, getting her bearings. Another noise he could not place, an incessant knocking on a door, and then a sound like a grunting animal.
“Richard, it's you again!”
“Surprise, yes. Just got into my room here,” he replied. “Why is your cam off? I want to see you.”
“Ahhh… food is… room service just arrived.”
“That's a good thing normally.”
“And I'm running late. Lots to do at the lab. Lots to process, and I want to go over the evidence gathered and the body once again.”
“I'm going to sack out for a few hours, catch up, but I wanted to see you again before doing so. A funny thing…”
Something crashed to the floor at Jessica's end like silverware hitting one another.
“Please! Keep it down,” he heard Jessica say.
“Busy place you have there,” he commented. “Want me to call back?”
“No, no, dear. Just my breakfast, room service. I must have laid back down. Fell asleep after your last call… showered… almost missed your call.”
“Great to hear you, love. Strangest thing happened on my way to an exhumation today.”
“Can you hold that thought a moment, darling?” she said. “Didn't eat much last night,” she lied, “and-and I am so famished.”
“Switch on your camera, so I can see what you're having.”
Jessica feared him finding Darwin in her room at this early hour-despite her innocence, she told herself-but then she knew that her thoughts hadn't been entirely guilt free, and that this was making her sound erratic. Finally, she said, “Oh… ahhh… appears Darwin is here, too. He's brought over autopsy files on the Millbrook and Portland cases for me.”
“Then it does sound as if you are busy there. I'll just bugger off then and get some much-needed sleep.”
“No, no, Richard, hold on just a moment.”
Her camera came on. She panned around the room, showing the breakfast cart and cutting quickly to the table where folders lay stacked neatly. It panned to Agent Darwin Reynolds who smiled at Richard and lifted a tentative hand.
“Say hello to Agent Reynolds, dear. He wants to personally thank you for doing what you can from there.”
The two men exchanged pleasantries.
She had just moments before shushed Darwin after he had barreled past her to exchange their dinner dishes for breakfast, resulting in a lot of clanking noise. He had taken the hint. Darwin now grimaced and, like a bad actor, woodenly said to Richard via the cam-phone, “I brought Dr. Coran the latest toxin and serology reports over from Dr. Sands. He says basically there was nothing whatsoever in the woman's system. The bastard didn't even give her the benefit of a sedative.”
Jessica returned the camera focus to herself and smiling, said, “Why don't you get that well-earned sleep, Richard. I'll call you later before we fly out to Portland.”