Scott concluded by asking Steelie, ‘Now, what is it you were going to tell us?’
Jayne spoke without turning from the screen. ‘Hang on a sec. Mark, can you run the slides back and pause the show?’
He got up and punched a few keys at the computer. ‘How far back do you want to go?’
‘Go back two.’
The photo she was interested in was a close-up of a foot but it hadn’t been taken in situ at the streambed. It had been taken on a table covered with a green surgical drape. Lighting had been used to illuminate the cut portion of the ankle. A ruler was placed in the photograph for scale, along with a label that read UNCP #7-0193.
Steelie got up to join Jayne at the screen. ‘Can we see the others in this section? Did Gerrit say where they took these shots?’
Mark replied, ‘He said that all the material came back to UN HQ and they did the detail shots there, at your guys’ temporary morgue.’
They looked at the photographs; separate ones of each dismembered finger, then the group placed in rough anatomical position to the palm. There were images of all surfaces of the hand and each shot was lit perfectly to show the cross-section of the cuts.
Jayne reached up, pointed at one of the cuts, and looked at Steelie, who nodded. They communicated silently like this two more times before Scott said, ‘Thirty-two One, there are other people in the room. What are you seeing?’
Jayne replied, ‘Gene wasn’t inspired by these cuts.’
Scott threw up his hands in exasperation. ‘You can’t rule out that he photographed them, came back here and copied them.’
She shook her head. ‘No, I mean . . . or at least, I think I mean that he wasn’t inspired by them. He made them.’
Both agents stared at her and she looked to Steelie for back-up.
Steelie elaborated, ‘We’ve seen these cuts before. We saw cuts just like this at Critter Central. Patterson’s arms. Same going between the joints, same careful approach toward not nicking bone. Dismemberment with hand tools – fine tools – not just going in with a bone saw.’ She drew breath to say more but Scott interrupted.
‘Are you seriously telling me that King killed this woman in Rwanda and then photographed her for the investigation?’
Steelie appeared to be choosing her words carefully, sounding more like a lawyer than ever. ‘All we’re saying is that there’s a strong possibility that the same person who was responsible for cutting off Patterson’s arms also dismembered this woman in Kigali. We don’t know who that person is and it could be that it’s actually two killers . . . though they’d be two peas in a pod.’
‘What, the woman was killed by some other perp King met over there, who then taught him how to do this kind of dismemberment?’
Steelie shrugged.
Mark had been flipping through his notes. ‘This is making sense. Listen to this: Gerrit knew that the cuts were precise, particularly compared to trauma inflicted during the genocide with a machete or scythe. He said he later developed some suspicions about people with access to the UN HQ because when they went to open a new supply kit for the morgue, about half the blades for the scalpels were missing, plus a few handles. Let’s see.’
He scanned a page and then pointed at it. ‘Yeah, here. He said he questioned the Logistics guys but they confirmed that the supplies had arrived from the European Union boxed up on a pallet.’ Mark looked up at Scott. ‘But Gerrit stressed that his suspicion that someone had stolen from their supplies was just a personal opinion and he didn’t have any proof.’
Scott questioned Jayne. ‘Could King have accessed a pallet?’
‘Easily. If you were UN personnel, you could get access to almost anything that would be legitimate. Of course, we had to sign in and out and list how much of whatever item we took.’
‘Was someone guarding the pallets or controlling the sign-in sheet?’
‘The Logs guys had way too much to deal with to be able to guard anything. The sign-in sheet hung on a clipboard at the edge of the supply area.’
Scott swung his chair toward Mark, putting his back to the women, and lowered his voice. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think we gotta get them over to King’s house ASAP, Houston. They can see things we can’t.’ He gestured at the slide on the screen.
Jayne called out: ‘What’s the problem with taking us to the house? That’s why you flew us out here.’
Scott swung around again. ‘The problem is that now, we know that you know the suspect. We need to make sure our case isn’t screwed by taking you to his house.’
‘Oh.’
‘Mark, check on whether it’s going to be a conflict to have them over there. And if you find a conflict, make it go away.’
TWENTY-SEVEN
Eric felt like he was being garrotted by his seatbelt as Angie brought the Crown Victoria to a lurching halt in front of a building in a suburb of Athens. He glanced at her and saw her grin as she put the car into park.
‘Soft brakes,’ she said, mock-defensively. ‘Gotta stamp on ’em like that or they don’t work.’
He released his seatbelt and twisted to lower its anchor point on the car’s frame. ‘I don’t remember you doing any “stamping” earlier.’
‘And I don’t remember asking you to comment on my driving.’ She leaned forward to look out of his window. ‘Looks like this one has a security system at the door.’
Eric turned to look and saw that the only feature differentiating the façade of the brick row house from its neighbors was the discreet metal panel encompassing a doorbell and keypad alongside holes for a speaker and microphone. He got out of the car and looked up at the building, noticing the small camera mounted above the door but beneath the windows of the second story. Railings painted a glossy black flanked a staircase that led up to the front door and down to a basement. The brick on the building looked clean, as though recently sandblasted.
They mounted the stairs together and Angie pressed the bell. A woman’s voice came through the speaker.
‘Yes?’
Eric instinctively looked up at the camera above them and Angie held her badge open toward it.
‘Special Agents Nicks and Ramos, Federal Bureau of Investigation. May we come in?’
‘Just a moment.’
They heard the lock turn and a person who reminded Eric of the nuns who had run his elementary school opened the door. This woman wasn’t wearing any religious adornment but there was something familiar in the cut of her grey dress and her air of friendly rigidity. As she inspected their badges and identity cards, he noticed a streak of white hair just to the left of the midline of an otherwise very dark brown bob. When she looked up from their badges, he saw brown eyes that were neither impressed nor curious about why they were there.
‘Come in.’ She held the door open, then closed it after them.
Eric knew that the front door of most row houses would let into a hallway that would run to the back of the house, but this one had been remodeled to put them into a reception room that prevented further entry. There was a window to an office-like room that could be reached through another door flanked by its own access panel.
The woman in grey said, ‘I’m Aviva Goldsmith, co-director of Sanctuary House. How may I help you?’
Angie spoke. ‘We’re trying to ascertain whether you, at any time, have had a resident or visitor by the name of Eleanor Patterson. She would have come to you from Oregon.’