Chapter Twenty
The Morgue
Same Time
Tuesday Nine A.M.
The Clock Is Ticking…
As they approached the morgue, ready to get updated and dig into the interviews for the day, Elizabeth was thinking about one thing, and one thing alone. Oh, and it caught her off guard when she realized someone was missing.
Someone important.
Her.
Son.
“Uh, EJ, did you forget someone this morning?” she asked, curiously.
Her husband knew who she was talking about, and he clued her in.
“Oh, so you realized Takoda isn’t here?”
She nodded.
Oh, not that she minded. Her idea of funsies was not having any of her kids near her when the shit had the potential of hitting the fan.
That was her biggest fear, and if this person was going to start targeting people around her to throw her off of her game, the further Koda was from her, the better.
“Well, I called him.”
Elizabeth waited.
“What happened?” she asked.
Ethan actually laughed.
“Apparently, a baby happened. It seems that Oliver was croupy all night, so neither he, nor half of the house, slept. When we were heading out, I called him, and he mumbled something about being dead asleep and hung up on me.”
She snorted.
“Oh, I remember those days.”
Ethan too.
“So, I called Caryn, and she shared the rest. They were both up all night trying to soothe a baby, and cursing your name. Apparently, Gigi wasn’t there to be the baby whisperer. At one point, Koda was quoted as saying, he was going to kill the lunatic you were chasing.”
That amused her.
Babies were NOT easy.
“So, he’s not helping.”
As soon as he said that, she reacted. Elizabeth got down on her knees, crossed herself, and prayed out loud for everyone, including God to hear her.
“Dear not-so-baby Jesus, thank you for giving my grandchild a cranky belly. I don’t need my son playing this game today and being at risk. Amen.”
Ethan helped his wife up, and he was amused.
“I think that makes you a bad grandma for wishing that on a baby, and your son.”
Oh, probably, but it was better to have a cranky baby than a dead son. She was taking the lesser evil on this one, and running with it.
Sue.
Her.
“Are you done praying?” Ethan asked, grinning at her. “Because I’m sure the techs are terrified about you showing up.”
Elizabeth got giddy.
Why?
Christina.
She’d not told Ethan who appeared graveside last night, just because if there was one Native she liked teasing, it was Ethan Blackhawk.
“Yeah, let’s see what turned up,” she stated.
When they headed into the morgue, it was silent, and everyone was working. That was definitely new, and Ethan knew it.
What caught him off guard was that familiar voice.
“Oh, Mr. Yummy showed up today,” Christina said, amused.
Ethan saw her and stared.
“Uh, is that the ghost of Christina past? How did you pull this off?”
Chris raised his hand.
And now, Ethan sighed.
“You outdid all of us. You gifted her a head tech! None of us can beat that when it comes to our anniversary or Christmas!”
Chris hugged his husband, and he was well aware.
“Oh, I know. It looks like, and I’m going to steal a Tony thing, so forgive me, but King of the Husbands.”
Elizabeth just laughed.
Yeah, well, she hoped her husband was still just as amused when she had to tell him that the ME not far away was getting booted from this case since his father was a criminal.
Oh, and they had a dead soldier missing an organ.
That was a little too close to home.
But for now, she’d wait. What she wanted was all she could get from the team, and then, she’d crush Chris’ hopes and dreams.
“You all know why I’m here, and it’s not to see if you’ve had breakfast.”
Chrissy rolled by.
“Did you bring breakfast?” she asked. “Asking for my rumbly tumbly.”
Elizabeth sighed.
“Chris, did you tell her that along with the role of managing this shitshow, she gets to be in charge of feeding them, too?” she asked, making that shit up, but she was so grateful to have Chrissy back, she’d give the woman her spleen.
Yeah, it was too soon to go there.
Christina looked surprised.
“So I get to stare at Ethan, get a title, and now I am in charge of feeding time at the zoo?” she asked, a little too giggly. “This is my dream.”
Ethan laughed.
“That’s going to bite us in the ass. Christina is bottomless. She can eat her weight in food. I’m not sure we can afford that,” he joked.
Chris wasn’t playing.
Everyone was on their best behavior, shit was getting done, and Tony wasn’t raising hell.
“I’ll get a second job,” Chris stated. “It’s worth it.”
They’d take the man’s word for it. He was the last one they wanted stressed.
“Well, team, tell me about last night’s ‘victim’,” she said, using the term loosely.
“And before you tell me she’s not a victim, I’m going to call bullshit.
Because if I was dead and in the box, and someone dug me up, that gives victim status for lopping off a head, and violating the sanctity of death. ”
No one argued.
Chris went there.
“Do you want the new information, or would you like the old information that I happened to find?” he asked.
Elizabeth moved closer to him, and he looked tired. In fact, he looked exhausted, and she didn’t like that.
“I’m going to take the old information, then the new information, and you’re going to be clocking out.
You’re on dog duty,” she said, pointing at Shadow, who was over by Tony, getting scratches.
“Because the dog can’t stay in the morgue.
There’s far too many bones on Tony’s table, and he looks suspicious. ”
Tony gasped.
“Is that why he came over here?”
She rolled her eyes.
“No, Tony. He’s over there because nuts like to hang out together. Of course, it’s the table of remains that are all bones. He’s a dog. If you turn away, something is going missing, and then, you’re losing your mind.”
Tony eyed up the dog suspiciously.
It amused her.
Chris was, honestly, good with checking out. He was tired, and he could use a nap. He had a feeling that this was going to escalate after last night. Yes, he caught a short nap around two that morning, but two hours vertically on a crap-couch in a small room was not bed with his family.
He missed Callen’s snoring, and Elizabeth’s cuddling.
“Well, then, let me say this. I went back through the police database regarding old cases and cold cases. Well, I say I did, but it was MATE. Who am I kidding?”
She didn’t care who did it.
As long as it got done.
“And what did you find?” she asked.
Chris got MATE to pull it up on his tablet.
“Show the lady,” he said, and the tablet began projecting a hologram for Elizabeth to see.
Alexi was right there, and he was watching in fascination.
“Oh, that’s cool,” he said.
Chris glanced over.
“Yeah, it’s one of the best systems out there, and MATE is exclusively ours to use at the FBI. I’ll show you more later.”
When MATE appeared, hearing her name, she put herself between Chris and Alexi, and Elizabeth warned her.
“Don’t,” she said.
It was clear that MATE was worried about Chris, and she didn’t blame her, but the last thing she wanted was information getting out about the man in the morgue.
That was a private conversation.
“Yes, Mother.”
MATE still stuck close to Chris, like she could stop a person rushing him.
She.
Could.
Not.
But Saint was also there, and he was watching the situation closely. Everyone on their team was aware, except for Chris. That he couldn’t read a room told her how tired he truly was.
“Anyway, there are twenty other cold cases scattered throughout the US. I had MATE run it with the parameters of hit and runs, overdoses, and then, triangulated the area. Utah is full of them. Now, will we be one hundred percent sure this is the same person? Not unless we exhume. I did find one case that did have an exhumation, but it was just by luck.”
She was curious.
“What happened?”
“The husband moved, and he was moving his wife’s grave to go with him. When they dug her up, the cemetery staff noticed that the casket had been tampered with. When they opened it, her head was missing.”
Yeah, they had the same MO. She didn’t doubt that. As for the rest, she wasn’t going to do an exhumation.
Not.
Yet.
Her phone chimed, and she received a report of all the cases that piqued MATE’S parameters and the information Chris used.
“Does this include that case?” Elizabeth asked. “The one you just told us about?”
Chris nodded.
“How far back are we talking?” she asked. “Our timeline for these skulls are two to three years.”
He shared.
“Close to two decades ago, around fifteen years.”
Well, shit.
This person had been doing this for a while, then.
“It’s safe to say that if we have a similar case over fifteen years ago, that this has been an ongoing thing, and this person has been able to hide it.”
Blackhawk interjected.
“And perfect it,” Ethan admitted. “That’s why when you found Steph’s remains last night, you definitely changed the trajectory. This person is accustomed to getting away with murder, and post-mortem assault. You were faster than most investigators who were suspicious, if there were any.”
Yeah, she saw that.
“Can I ask a question?” Alexi asked.
Chris glanced over.
“Sure.”
The man pointed at MATE.
“Why does she look like one of our detectives?” he inquired.
Elizabeth laughed.
“Yeah, don’t ask. She likes to play dress up. Chris, continue,” she said, controlling the narrative so nothing leaked out. MATE was a computer, and didn’t always know when not to offer up information.
She had diarrhea of the mouth, much like Tony.
Elizabeth considered what Chris had given her. If MATE matched up the details, there was definitely going to be more.
“Someone has really been at this a long time. That’s going to make it more difficult, not easier. The amount of time it would take to prove that the cases Chris tagged are connected, would bog me down.”
Chrissy was listening.
“You’re going to let forensics slide?” she asked. “Because what if it gives us something?”
This was a tough position to be in.