Chapter 7
NOELLE
Working at the San Antonio office of the Texas Rangers was a strange kind of pleasure. She used her pass, with its questionably acquired ID image and got into the inner sanctum of the Texas Rangers with ease.
If people looked at her, they nodded.
Some smiled.
And the officer in the evidence room was ready to receive her when she arrived. “Miss Garcia, I have a release for you to sign before you start.”
“A release?”
He handed the paper over and she looked over the three paragraphs written on the paper.
As she read it, she murmured the gist of the words written out on the paper.
“Not allowed to take the evidence out of a controlled area.” She looked up at the clerk and smiled. “So I can’t walk out of the offices with the skull under my arm or in my hand doing my best Hamlet impression?”
The clerk shook his head. “No, Miss. Remember,” he winked, “women weren’t allowed to act in Shakespeare’s plays.”
She snapped her fingers and grinned. “You’re right! I guess the skull will just have to stay here.”
He shrugged, smiling.
“I’m not allowed to..” she squinted at the words, frowning, “post pictures of the skull on social media, not limited to, but including… selfies?”
The clerk held his hands up in surrender. “I guess they think you’re a part of the Tik Tok generation?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I don’t even have social media that I maintain with any regularity. I doubt I remember my passwords or have a device that remembers them for me.”
The clerk shrugged. “My wife does, but that’s about it.”
She looked down at the third paragraph and found what she expected to read.
“The techs have already sampled the skull for any kind of available dna, organic particles, or other possible evidence.” She sighed, happy.
“That’s what I needed to know.” She looked up at the clerk.
“The last thing I want to worry about is making things difficult for the investigation.”
She took up the pen that was chained to the counter and signed her name. She added the date before sliding the paper to the clerk on the other sides of the counter. “Could you make a copy of that for me? I’ll pick it up when I’m done for the day.”
The clerk nodded. “I’ll have it here at the desk, ready for you.”
Then he gestured to the door to his left.
“I’m going to bring the skull out through the side door and I’ll take you to the room they’ve booked for you.”
“Thanks.”
He smiled. “It’s my job, but I have to tell you, this is kind of exciting for me.”
She frowned, a little concerned. “How so?”
“My wife and I are huge fans of Bones, that TV show?”
She nodded, smiling. “I’m not an anthropologist. Just an artist.”
He shook his head. “No just about it, Miss Garcia. I looked you up online and I’m crazy impressed with your work.”
When he excused himself to get the skull from the evidence room, she couldn’t help the smile that touched her lips. She was proud of her work, but it was nice to hear someone give her a compliment. What she did tended to be a very solitary work life.
The room where she was working was quiet and cool.
The sounds of the air conditioner was soft, but droned on and on so she took out her phone and set it on the table behind her and started her iTunes on shuffle just to give her something to listen to that wasn’t a mechanical drone.
It didn’t take long to settle in and get to work.
The skull still had a large chunk missing on the top but that wasn’t the part that concerned her work.
It was the front and side views that she needed.
She had unpacked a small revolving stand and secured the skull to the top making it easy for her to view the skull straight on without having the slouch or lean over.
From there, she got out all of her tools. Paper and pencil were the last to come out of the travel case she brought with her to work.
A knock at the door turned her head and a Texas Ranger was standing outside with a paper in his hand.
Pushing back her chair, Noelle stood and crossed to the door.
She didn’t open it up, but look through the glass at the man. “Yes?”
He gestured at the doorhandle. “Open the door.”
She looked back at the skull on her turntable and then turned back to the door. “Sorry, I have evidence in here.”
The area around his eyes tightened and his smile fell just a hair.
This happened a lot when she told people no.
For some reason, people expected her to just agree to things because, she’d been told, ‘You look nice.’
But in this case when they said ‘nice’ what they meant was easy or compliant.
That might have been true before.
Before she lost Ciela’s father.
Now, she was a little less giving.
A little more guarded.
She gestured at the paper, but the ranger on the other side of the glass just tipped his head and looked at her.
Blowing out a breath she unlocked the door and opened it a crack. “Ranger?”
He put out his hand, working his forearm through the narrow opening.
Noelle tensed but didn’t try to close the door on his arm.
With her muscles tensed, the door didn’t open more at first.
But after he had his arm through the gap, he pushed in and opened the door using his shoulder and then his back.
Noelle stepped back putting herself between the ranger and the skull on the table.
A quick look up into the corner of the room told her that the security camera was on, making it a little easier for her to breathe.
He chuckled as he righted himself, squaring his shoulders to her. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
She didn’t smile at him. “It’s not about nice, sir. I have evidence in this room. Evidence that I’m responsible for.”
He lifted his free hand and pointed to his badge. “I’m a Texas Ranger, Miss. This is where I work. I’m aware of the evidence in this room.”
She nodded and darted her gaze to the table. Her phone was out of reach. Not that she knew who to call.
911 seemed like an odd choice, but who else-
Oh! Her last call was to McCrae from the night before. Maybe she could-
“So, they brought you in for this… art project?”
Wow.
She’d had people dismiss her before, but to do it with a big smile and that kind of syrupy sweet voice was one of the worst.
“I’m… I’m a consultant for the Rangers.”
Before she could lift the ID he reached out a hand to pick it up.
She flinched back almost stumbling when the back of her thigh came into contact with the rounded corner of the table.
Her heart lurched up into her throat.
She worried that she might knock the skull off of the table.
That would be catastrophic for the investigation.
Even worse, the man reached for her with both hands, the paper he’d been holding falling down toward the ground at her feet.
“Douglas! Get the fuck away from her!”
Noelle sucked in a breath, instinctively trying to get as far away from him as she could, but he seemed to keep coming at her.
And then he was moving in the opposite direction.
“What the hell?”
Douglas, the name echoed in her head, swung to the side and she saw why he was moving.
“McCrae?”
He had a fistful of the man’s shirt in one hand and as she stood there staring, he clamped a hand down on Douglas’ shoulder.
“What are you doing in here, Douglas?”
The ranger McCrae was holding onto turned one way and then the other, probably trying to get free, but McCrae had a grip on him that wasn’t going to turn loose.
As the tide of fear rushed away, draining from her body, she felt like laughing.
Not just because of the rush of anxiety in her veins but because the way McCrae was handling the other man it looked like he was the puppeteer and the other ranger was an oversized ventriloquist dummy.
McCrae turned his head toward her.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
“Words, Noelle. Tell me.”
She nodded and tried to smile. “I’m fine.”
He narrowed his gaze at her for a moment, looking at her as if he could see straight into her head.
It was strangely comforting for her, but she didn’t say that, not with that other man in the room.
McCrae gave her a reassuring look. “I’m going to take Douglas here to talk to someone and then I’ll come back to see how you’re doing. Do you need something?”
She looked down at the paper at her feet and picked it up.
It was a report from the crime scene technicians identifying the body as that of a woman.
Noelle nodded and looked up. She gestured to the paper. “I was waiting for this from the Crime Scene Technicians. I’m good for now. Thank you.”
He gave her a quick nod and then tipped his head toward the door. “I’ll come back just to check on you after I have someone talk to Douglas here.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
The look in his eyes said that he’d be happy to do more than ‘talk’ to Douglas.
“I’ll be here when you’re done,” she explained. “I can get started in earnest now.”
“Okay,” he dipped his chin in a hint of a nod, “lock the door when I leave.”
He turned then and crossed to the door, pulling the heavy glass and metal door open. He held it and moved Douglas through the opening.
It had to be an impressive show of strength. Douglas wasn’t a small man and he wasn't really cooperating.
Noelle waited until both men were out of sight down the hallway before she moved to the door and locked it again.
With a slow exhale she leaned her hip and shoulder against the door until she was out of air.
She used her next indrawn breath to push herself off of the door and back to work.
She had to have steady hands to work. The next stage of her recreation was to place depth markers to indicate the height of the skin away from the skull.
General characteristics that belonged to men versus women. Caucasian or other races differed. Everything from eye shape to how prominent of a chin a person has was all determined with anatomy and genetics.
There would always be room for error and variation, but she always started with the basic building blocks of a person’s facial features.
The depth markers that she used had a printed number on the top of each and a tacky, sticker adhesive on the bottom. She used them to give herself that base to begin from.
From there, it was a little like an art project.