The Death Box(47)
“I’m aiming straighter today,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching. Never experienced an on-site operation.”
“If Rayles sees you he’ll probably boot your ass back to Miami.”
“Rayles wouldn’t come here, Big Ryde. He’d get too much dust on his shiny shoes. He’d prefer to read the reports. Or maybe have the flunkie read them to him.”
Morningstar walked up, her knee-length lab coat flapping open to show jeans and a gray tee. Her hair was cinched back in a ponytail and her knees were dusty from kneeling beside the column.
“Morning, Ryder. I hear you had difficulty accepting the loss of the case last night.”
I looked at Gershwin, mouthed Snitch. He grinned.
“You said something about seams, Doctor?”
She cranked a finger in the follow-me motion and we entered the pit. A pair of techs were carefully ticking matrix from a human form, now half-removed from the concrete. The body wore what appeared to be a dress suit, much degraded.
“There was a discernible seam between JDMS and the Honduran layer,” Morningstar said, “averaging two-point-one meters in depth.”
“JMD …?”
“JDMS for John Doe, Middle Stratum.” Morningstar knelt beside the circle of concrete and remains and I knelt beside her. “We’re calling it middle stratum because another seam indicates a bottom layer of concrete. It’s actually a bit different here, more sand in the conglomerate.”
She pulled a small LED flashlight from a pocket and shone it twenty centimeters above the base. I saw a defined separation between the concrete, the lower layer having dried before the upper portion was added.
“Keep me posted,” I said.
“It’s not your case, Ryder. It belongs to Homeland Security and Rayles. You’re long gone, remember?”
I checked to make sure no one was within hearing range. “Is it possible to send me daily reports, Doctor? Maybe without Rayles seeing where they’re going?”
“Having trouble letting go?”
I looked at her without reply.
“I guess sending a few reports is within the realm of possibility,” she said.
“Yo-ho-ho,” called a voice from above. We looked up to see Vince Delmara’s nose coming down to the pit, followed shortly thereafter by the man himself, usual dark suit and fedora.
“What brings you here, Vince?” I asked. “Didn’t you hear the case has been expropriated by HS?”
He nodded at the short column. “This case, maybe. I wanted to ask the Doc if she’d found anything new I could use in the Carosso murder. Maybe match the concrete here with stuff at Carosso’s home.”
Confusion. “The Carosso case went back to Miami-Dade? What?”
“Those HS guys don’t want the Carosso investigation, can you believe that?” Delmara said. “They said the Carosso killing was Miami-Dade’s responsibility.”
“Homeland Security didn’t want a case that might have a link to the Hondurans?”
“That’s what I got from Rayles’s flunkie. He was like, ‘Screw Carosso, what does a dead truck driver have to do with NatSec’s investigation?’ That’s bureaucratese for national security, by the way, not insect love.”
I shook my head. “Like I figured, the only reason they wanted the Hondurans was for the Importance Portfolio.”
“Carosso’s now Miami-Dade’s problem. It seems like his next-door neighbor’s back from a trip, and I’m going to see if she can add to what you guys dug up when the case was FCLE’s. Jeez … I can’t keep up any more.”
“I’ve got nothing I can add, Vince,” Morningstar said, answering Delmara’s question. “No way I can connect the concrete here to anything Carosso might have had on his clothes. It’s been months, years.”
“Hope springs eternal, Doctor,” Delmara sighed.
Gershwin and I followed him from the tent. A hawk circled above, as if hoping we’d keel over and provide breakfast. Delmara pushed back his hat and wiped his sweating brow on the sleeve of his blue suit.
“It ain’t even ten and I’m wilted.”
“Maybe the suit? The dark fedora?”
“It’s a summer suit. The hat provides shade. This has gotta be global warming.”
Heat shimmered from the flat ground and I toed a half-buried iron nut from the parched sand, the nut now crusted with scaly rust. I suddenly recalled a question I’d had for Delmara.
“That first day, Vince. You said you were checking the provenance of this land tract. Anything come of that?”
“Yeah,” Gershwin added. “Someone knew the cistern was here.”