Nunn-of course it was Nunn-ripped the pistol from his hand. As Bob, writhing on the floor, reached desperately for the weapon, Nunn delivered an elbow to his nose. He collapsed, stunned and groaning in pain, blood spewing from his nose. Frank noticed him and spun around, shooting, but his aim was wild and he missed his target, instead shooting his partner, Bob, in the chest.
Nunn stood his ground, drew a target, and dropped Frank with three well-placed rounds. Then he immediately spun back to cover Bob, but Bob was already dead.
Being a cop is more about talking than shooting or chasing down criminals.
Well, not just talking: asking questions.
The next day, Jon Nunn was at the museum again. Captain Harvey Meyer, who was leading the investigation into the previous night’s attempted robbery, had called him earlier in the afternoon. The two men had known each other back when Nunn was still at the SFPD, and when Meyer heard Nunn had been there last night during the attempted robbery, he asked Nunn to be present while he questioned Justine Olegard at her office in the museum. Nunn knew from his time on the force that Meyer had a reputation for the unconventional and didn’t bother to question why Meyer would want an ex-cop there, he just showed up.
Justine, it seemed, had called both Tony Olsen and, to Nunn’s surprise and dismay, Stan Ballard to her meeting with Meyer. Justine explained Ballard’s presence by saying he was the only lawyer she knew. She hadn’t been accused of anything per se, but the number of felonies that had gone down in the tower yesterday meant that there were plenty of penal-code violations to go around for everyone. Nunn hadn’t even been aware that Justine and Ballard knew each other and realized it must have been from her time with Christopher Thomas. Still it was odd that Ballard, an estate lawyer, would agree to be there and not refer her to someone else. But Nunn suspected Ballard was there for Ballard only.
Justine was going out of her way to be cooperative, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could add to what Meyer already knew.
“I’m sorry,” Justine said. “I spent all night looking through security tapes and poring over reports about, you know, people casing out the museum over the past few months. I couldn’t find any pictures or descriptions of them.” Her voice was soft, eyes distant, and Nunn knew it was because she’d had to use as references the pictures shot last night of the dead thieves. Her boss, Alex Hultgren, had also been killed.
“Who called the police?” she asked Meyer.
Meyer pointed to Nunn.
Nunn explained how he’d been near the staircase after Haile had been hurt and looked down into the lobby and thought it was odd to have crime scene officers there. Then he heard the screams in the tower room and realized the museum was being hit.
Meyer asked Justine, “Are you sure you’ve never seen those men before?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve looked at those pictures so many times I can’t be sure of anything anymore.”
Meyer looked at Nunn questioningly, but Nunn’s mind was elsewhere. He kept thinking about the text message he’d received earlier in the day. It didn’t seem possible.
His BlackBerry buzzed, Nunn picked it up, then he looked at Meyer. “Can I talk to you outside for a second?”
They stepped out into the hallway. “Look, on my way over here I got a text from a friend which gave me a new theory about what happened here last night.”
“And?” Meyer asked.
“You’re going to think I’m nuts, Harvey.”
“Tell me.”
“My friend’s down in the lobby. I’m going to have him come up here. I’ll let him tell you. It’s quite a story.”
27 Kathy Reichs
Staccato footsteps clicked across marble.
Everyone’s eyes swung toward a figure framing up in the door.
The man wore a Duke sweatshirt and cargo pants tucked into platform boots. His left hand gripped a leather briefcase that looked as if it left Spain before the civil war.
Nunn made introductions. “Gentlemen, Justine-may I present Dr. Ignatius McGee.”
McGee was leading-man handsome, with a square jaw, blue eyes, and hair that left Brosnan in the styling-gel dust. Only one unfortunate base-pair sequence barred him from a star on the Hollywood walk. If he stood ramrod straight, which he was, Ignatius McGee was no more than four foot six. Two of those inches belonged to the boots.
Palms were pressed, then the group sat. McGee too, left ankle crossed onto opposite knee, right foot not quite touching the floor.
Everyone dragged chairs into a semicircle, grad-seminar style, except for Stan Ballard, who was leaning against the wall, stone-faced.
Nunn got right to the point.
“Dr. McGee is a forensic anthropologist. Everyone clear on what that is?”
“Bones,” Justine Olegard said. “But not old ones.”
Nunn swept an upturned palm in McGee’s direction. “Take it away.”
“The answer’s spot-on,” said McGee. “I’m a specialist in the human skeleton.” The accent was blue-collar Boston, the voice surprisingly deep for a man McGee’s size. “I work the dead too far gone for a Y incision-the burned, mummified, decomposed, dismembered, mutilated, and skeletonized. I dig ’em up, ID ’em, determine how they bought it and when.”
Olsen rocketed forward, fingers squeezing his armrests. “You exhumed Christopher Thomas.”
McGee studied him, then slid his eyes left.
“An exhumation wasn’t possible,” Nunn explained. “At my request, Dr. McGee analyzed the dossier compiled at the time of Thomas’s death.”
“Wasn’t everything written in German?” Olsen asked.
“I had the reports translated,” McGee said.
“And you found proof of Rosemary’s innocence!” Olsen said.
Irritation filed the edge of McGee’s rich baritone. “Who else thinks he knows how my movie ends?”
Olsen flicked an angry glance at Nunn. Who the hell is this guy?
Nunn raised two placating palms. “Let Dr. McGee walk us through his findings without interruption. Then you can ask all the questions you want, okay?”
Face locked into neutral, Olsen settled back.
Twisting sideways, McGee swung his case to the desktop and withdrew two folders, one brown and battered, the other bright pink and OfficeMax new. Setting the former aside, he flipped the cover on the latter.
“The original paperwork is here if anyone sprecht Deutsche. My comments will focus on my interpretation of the evidence.”
Not pausing to gauge reaction, McGee pulled a multipage document from the folder.
“According to the pathologist”-he flipped to the back-“one Bruno Muntz, the remains were soup and bones, rendering visual identification impossible. Most of the teeth were toast.”
McGee’s gaze crawled the faces of those fanned out before him. Frowning, he ran a hand across his perfectly formed jaw. “Muntz was unable to determine cause of death. Understandable. Due to decomp and damage inflicted by the maiden, the body was hamburger. No Germanic pun intended.”
The corners of McGee’s mouth twitched in what might have been a grin.
No one smiled back.
“Where Muntz erred big-time was in failing to solicit the opinion of a specialist. In going solo on the anthro he jumped into dung way over his head.”
McGee took a mustard-colored envelope from his briefcase, unwound the string, and fanned out a dozen autopsy photos onto the desktop.
Four chairs scooted forward as one.
“Fortunately, Muntz had a kick-ass photographer. This is a close-up showing what remained of the victim’s left hand. Missing from each digit is the distal phalange, the little arrow-shaped bugger that underlies the fingertip.”
McGee rotated a print for the benefit of those opposite. “Anything strike you as odd?”