“I don’t know,” said Garnett, “but the meth lab explosion is pretty much at a standstill, and guess who’s getting the heat?”
“I hope the commissioner,” said Diane.
“He is. I think he’s feeling betrayed at the moment,” said Garnett. “And we are taking some pretty heavy hits ourselves.”
“We have some information on Stanton that might be of use to you.”
“Oh? Tell me,” said Garnett.
“Why don’t you come over to the crime lab here? Perhaps we can share information.”
“Share?”
“I want to wrap the cases up as much as you do. I feel like Councilman Adler is going to have something to hold over me if I don’t. I realize that I’m not a credible suspect, but the guy deals in rumor and innuendo and not facts,” said Diane.
“I’ll be right there,” said Garnett.
“We’ll be waiting for you.” She hung up the phone. “OK, guys, maybe this will break something loose.”
Diane and her crime scene crew stayed busy in the lab catching up on work while they waited on Garnett for over an hour. Still no sign of him. Diane looked at her watch.
“I think we’ve been stood up,” she said.
As she pulled her cell phone out of her jacket pocket to call him, it vibrated in her hand. She looked at the display. Garnett.
“Traffic bad?” said Diane.
“They found Marcus McNair’s truck and the evidence-such as it is-in a warehouse off Nowhere Road. You and your team get up here.”
Chapter 34
The old redbrick warehouse looked like it was built when cotton was still king. It should surely be on the list of historic sites. She remembered it from when she was a kid as a place where no one-meaning kids-was supposed to go. Naturally that was a challenge, but attempts to investigate the building or use the place as a make-out spot were met with a series of ill-tempered night watchmen. It now stood like a derelict from another age, overgrown with weeds and invasive plants, the red bricks weathered and crumbling.
Diane parked the crime scene van beside one of the police cars and she and her crew piled out. They left their kits in the van and walked to the warehouse, entering through the large open doors. Pools of the fading sunlight shined through high broken-out windows, illuminating little. The flashlights carried by Garnett and the police were the only other effective source of light. The large truck Marcus used to haul away the evidence was parked in the middle of the room.
“What do we have here?” asked Diane, looking around at shadowy piles of twisted metal and rubble dumped on the ground.
“Jeez, what a mess,” said Jin. “Is this our evidence he hijacked?”
“Looks like it.” Garnett was all smiles. Diane would have thought he’d be thoroughly pissed at finding the meth lab evidence in such a state.
“Apparently McNair wanted to have a look at the evidence before he turned it in.” Garnett played his flashlight over a pile of bones. Diane winced at the blackened and broken fragments that had been cast aside.
“He was making sure we couldn’t identify the cook, wasn’t he,” said Diane. He was going to remove all the bones, repackage the other evidence, and then take it to his lab.”
“That’s what it looks like, but somebody shot him first,” said Garnett.
“Why are you so happy about this?” asked Diane.
“Because this warehouse and property belong to Councilman Adler. Oh look,” he said as another car drove up and parked outside the warehouse. “I think it’s the media. I wonder how they got wind of this?” He grinned and went out to meet them.
Diane and her crew looked at each other, eyebrows raised. “Payback’s a bitch,” said David. “Wow, did I use another word that starts with a p?”
“OK,” said Diane. “David, you and Neva take the truck and warehouse. Jin, I want you to scout the whole area around the warehouse to make sure that there isn’t some ravine he’s been throwing bones in. I’ll have a look at this pile of bones over here. Do we have lights in the van?”
“Yes. I’ll hook them up,” said David.
Diane left the others to do their work and, going over to the pile of bones, squatted beside them to take a look. She pulled on a pair of gloves and picked up one of the bones-a fragment of skull. The bones, like the others in the greatest heat of the explosion, were badly burned. Some were almost white, others were blackened and cracked. However, there was one thing she saw immediately even in the dim light of the huge warehouse. In the pile of bones there were two left femora. There had been another person in the basement with the unknown victim whose skull she partially reconstructed.
Diane retrieved a flattened box from the van, put it together, and began packing the bones carefully inside. She was about to pack the last few bones when suddenly the section of warehouse was awash with light.
She stood and gave the scene another look. The entire floor was filled with piles and piles of rubble from the fire. He had brought all of the evidence here to go through himself before taking it to the arson lab to be processed. What was he looking for? Anything else beside the bones, or just anything that might incriminate him? Looking around at the compromised evidence, Diane had no doubt that McNair had been up to his eyeballs in methamphetamine dealing.
She finished packing the bones just as Garnett brought several members of the media in to take pictures of the dumped evidence. Diane ducked out before anyone could get a picture of her. Outside, David was standing near the van staring up at the ridge that overlooked the warehouse site.
Diane loaded the box in the van, then followed his gaze. “What are you looking at?” She held up a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.
“I’m trying to figure out what Jin is up to,” said David. “He’s been up on that ridge, taking pictures and walking back and forth.”
Diane looked up on the ridge at Jin, who was squatting, looking at something on the ground. “He must have found something,” said Diane.
“Looks like it,” said David.
“Let’s go see what it is,” said Diane.
“You’d better go. If we all disappear, the media will get suspicious and follow us,” said David.
“Good thinking.” Diane got a flashlight from the van and walked alone up the rocky snow-covered ground to the ridge where Jin was taking pictures.
“What did you find?” asked Diane.
“Hey, Boss. Look at this.” Jin showed her a place among the weeds and bushes that was disturbed. There were no footprints, but the ground and vegetation were flattened.
“I found these.” Jin held up a bag with cigarette butts. “We can get some DNA from these.”
“Did you find any bones or evidence?” asked Diane.
“No, but this is interesting.” He gestured toward the warehouse.
Diane viewed the brick structure looking more and more like an ancient ruin as the sun’s rays faded into twilight. She saw nothing unusual. “Why were you photographing the building?”
“Look for yourself.” Jin gave her the camera. He had screwed on a telephoto lens.
Diane looked through the lens of the camera at the warehouse. Through one of the upper windows she had an almost perfect view of the lighted inside. She saw clearly McNair’s truck and the piles of defiled evidence.
“This is interesting. You think someone was up here spying on McNair?” said Diane.
“Yeah, I think so. There was a light snow the night McNair was murdered and there hasn’t been one since. The butts I found had a light covering of snow. They are recent, but not after the murder.”
Diane looked through the lens again. She could see the reporters photographing the scene; she saw Garnett standing by watching. She saw Neva open the door to the truck. It was a good vantage point for spying.