Chapter Five #2
Ethan explained.
“That’s her having an out-of-body experience where she arrived at a scene, and no one fucked it up. In fact, it was done one hundred percent correctly for a change. She doesn’t know where she is.”
Tora laughed.
“Well, like I said, they were my idols, so I read a lot of books. I wanted to be a Fed, but it’s not easy to become one. God knows I tried.”
That she knew.
They either recruited you out of college, or you had to jump through work hoops to even qualify. Luck was a big part, or who you knew.
When she saw Tony, she sighed.
He was not far from her, dancing from foot-to-foot.
“What?” she asked. “Do you have to pee?”
He was doing a little dance, and she was busting his ass because he looked ridiculous.
“You know what I want. Can I go look at the skulls?” he asked, finally.
Elizabeth made the introductions.
“Lady and gentleman, this spectacle is Doctor Anthony Magnus, my anthropologist, and when he hears there’s bones—especially skulls, he loses his mind. Prepare for the madness that is Tony.”
He rubbed his hands together, but still didn’t move. He knew better. Chris had been sent in, so she was the boss on the scene now.
“Come on, Elizabeth. Let me have at them. Don’t bone tease me.”
She warned him.
“First, never say bone and tease to me ever again,” she warned. “Secondly, Anthony…Don’t. Annoy. Christopher. Got. It. Nut?”
He nodded.
Well, then, it was time to set the man free to see what he could find for them.
“Go.”
When he raced off, Gene laughed.
“Well, we know what he’s been praying for lately. More bones. Like the reservation case wasn’t enough. A wendigo and one hundred and six skulls weren’t enough for him, clearly. You’d think he’s praying to the bone Gods again.”
Mac was confused.
“Wendigo?” he asked. “Bone Gods?”
She stopped him.
“Don’t ask. Trust me when I say you don’t want to know,” she admitted. “I don’t want to know, and I have no choice in the matter.”
Then, she pointed, so they could get this done. They were burning daylight.
“Detectives, walk me through this.”
Mac sighed.
“We will, and then, we’ll get out of your hair. We told the captain we’d be back in after you were done getting the scene handed over to you.”
She stopped walking.
“Pardon?” she asked.
Tora was confused.
“We’re tagging you in, and like Mac said, we’re getting out of your hair. The captain said not to annoy you, get in your way, or to ask to help no matter what.”
Oh, well, she had a surprise for them.
Elizabeth could do whatever she wanted. That was the beauty of taking over a scene. She could commandeer living people to help if they wore a badge.
“I’m going to have you both help. You found them, you get to see how it gets resolved.”
They stared at each other.
Then, back at her.
“Really?” Tora asked. “We’re not getting booted off this case?”
She shook her head.
That was all it took.
Tora grinned and jumped up, wrapping her legs around Elizabeth’s waist this time.
“If you kiss me, we’re married in Utah,” Elizabeth said. “Let that be your warning. I’m a freak in bed.”
That amused her, and the men around her.
“She’s not lying,” Gene said. “I’ve seen some shit.”
Tora laughed.
“Oh, my God! This is the best day of my whole life, minus the one when a gay man turned me down for a lap dance!” she said.
Gene laughed.
Oh, and for a few reasons.
Security didn’t know what to do with this, and Elizabeth wasn’t kicking anyone’s ass. It was funny to see a grown ass woman plastered to the front of Elizabeth Blackhawk as Ivan just gawked in horror.
Gene was to the point.
“For the record, you were a child. That’s just gross, and all the men who paid you for them should be shot. I stand on that.”
Ethan agreed.
“Same.”
Elizabeth just shook her head as Tora hopped down.
“I don’t know what you’ve heard about me, but clearly, it’s all wrong. I have to work on my street cred again. You’re a little too comfortable with my body armor. I like to save that until the second date.”
Tora was amused.
“We heard you don’t like cops helping you, so we just assumed we were out. I don’t know if our boss is going to let us. He’s…difficult.”
Oh, well, she did difficult for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She liked her difficult with a side of ‘make my day’. Her difficult tended to run home crying to mommy.
She’d handle him.
Maybe she was getting softer in her old age, but Gene and Ethan were happy to see Tora again, and she liked the cops already.
They were decent.
“Okay, show us the place.”
They headed into the building, ducking under the police tape, and just like the Feds, both detectives had their gloves out and on before they were five feet in the door.
They also had shoe coverings on.
Wow.
This was like walking into a parallel dimension. She liked it a lot, but it was crazy she’d finally found detectives who understood the importance of forensics as they did their jobs.
This.
Was.
Wild.
Elizabeth waited for the cops to make the introductions, and she didn’t have to wait long.
“This is our doctor,” Tora said. “Doctor Alexi Redmond, this is the FBI.”
He stood.
He’d been talking to Chris, and he pulled his glove off to shake her hand.
“Director Blackhawk, your reputation proceeds you. Thank you for coming here and helping. We’ve kept the scene intact for you.”
Elizabeth went there.
“Thanks. What’s the COD and TOD on the dead dude?” she asked.
The man paused.
But he recovered quickly.
“TOD is seven last night. I can’t give you COD until I open him up. That would be irresponsible of me to guess. We don’t guess as MEs.”
Chris actually giggled.
And giggled.
And giggled.
It was when he stood up, shook his scrub-covered ass, and did a little dance as she stared at him.
Yep.
He’d finally lost his damn mind.
It was a long time coming, but this was the proof.
Clearly.
“Uh, do you need a moment, Christopher?” she asked, knowing exactly what he was excited about. “Because we can give you one.”
He was to the point.
“I need a few moments. I’m about to celebrate that I’ve met an ME that understands the process. He just cockblocked you from COD. That’s a beautiful thing in my world. Zane would never. He would have stared at the victim, pointed at the stab wounds to the heart, and told you he bled out.”
She smiled.
As soon as he saw that, Chris gasped.
“Oh, my God! You just Uno reversed the shit out of me, and tricked me!”
She snorted.
Yeah, she did.
Sometimes, he forgot what games she played all day long, and how she played games at night with the kids, too. She was an all-around game player.
“Did I?” she asked. “So, COD is likely bleeding out. Gotcha, Doc.”
He sighed.
“Damn it. She got me again.”
Yeah, well, it was a gift.
It took twenty-plus years to get to this point, and she was proud of that journey. Elizabeth would be lying if she pretended that she didn’t sit around and think up ways to trick him into compliance.
Sue her.
“Uh-huh, maybe we can continue?”
The man beside Chris looked confused, and that was the other amusing part for her. Chris was way too giddy for her own good.
Doctor Redmond continued.
“We found him just like this, and he was stabbed in the chest. The blood is all around him, and not disturbed.”
Corbin went there, since it was clear that the ME wasn’t going to add anything else to that statement.
“So he dropped, and no one moved him. That’s where he died, or there would be droplets on the ground, leaving a trail.”
Alexi shrugged.
“I mean, I give you the facts, and you make that call. I’m not here to solve it. I’m here to share what I know to be true. It looks to be one stab to the chest, and the rest will be after we open him up—or the doctor opens him up.”
Chris just smiled.
Uh-oh.
Elizabeth knew that look.
Someone was going to steal a city ME right out from under Holladay.
Bet.
On.
It.
There was going to be not-so-felonious napping of an ME before this case was up.
That was his ‘I’m going to make my life so much easier by cloning myself in a younger version’, and she knew it.
“I’d love if you’d help me, Doctor,” Chris said, grinning. “I could use all the help I can get.”
All of the Feds knew this game. He was definitely a little too happy.
The man acquiesced.
“I’d love to, Doctor,” he admitted. “Thank you for the opportunity.”
Well, that was solved.
Apparently, Chris had a new friend—or as Elizabeth called them, allies she would eventually corrupt.
“Okay, show me the room. I can tell I’m not getting anything more from these two,” she said.
And she wouldn’t.
“While Chris handles this, I want a walkthrough so I can get a feel for the person we’re dealing with now. Gene, can you get me more information on the building owner outside of the name of the LLC that owns it? I want personal information.”
Gene lifted a brow.
Uh, they just had that conversation in the car. If she was asking again, that meant one thing.
“So we are meeting him?” he asked.
Elizabeth nodded.
“Yeah, that’s a big, heavy lock. I need to know if it was put on by the real estate company that owns this, or if our killer did it. Curiosity has the better of me.”
Tora was also curious, but there was no shock there.
“Could it be by a homeless person?” she asked.
Elizabeth warned her.
“We don’t know if that homeless person was placed here with a purpose, or if it’s completely coincidental. We’ll have to talk to the owner to get the feel for this before we assume anything. I’ve had wild cases where they caught you off guard.”
The town ME chimed in.
“Coincidences are rare in forensics.”
The second he said it, she pointed at Chris, knowing he was going to start dancing at any second.
He’d found the antithesis of Zane Legend.
“Don’t enjoy this too much,” she said, knowing he was in his glory.
Oh, but that was the plan.
Chris was going to celebrate all the way to HR to get an employment packet for the city ME.
As they headed toward the stairs, and up them, at the top, Benjamin was standing there with bolt cutters in his hand.