WHOEVER HAD FIRST established how much paperwork police departments had to generate had been a bureaucrat or possibly a lawyer, Horatio speculated, but not a cop.
He understood the reasoning behind it. To get convictions meant keeping precise, accurate records of every aspect of an investigation. Defense attorneys would—rightfully—attack any gaps or shortcomings in those records. And as supervisor of the lab, Horatio had to read everybody else’s reports in addition to generating his own, to make sure he had all the bits and pieces of every case straight. The CSI team was like his family, and as head of the household he had the ultimate responsibility for everyone else’s work.
But handling all those records meant spending hours in his office that might otherwise have been spent out on the street, actually solving crimes instead of merely documenting them. Tonight he sat at his desk working through what seemed like hundreds of sheets of paper. He was lost in them when a knock on his door brought him back into the world.
“Horatio?”
He looked up and saw Alexx standing in his doorway, tentative, her fingers clutching the jamb. They’d known each other for a long time and she was comfortable with him, but she didn’t like to interrupt when he was involved in a task. “Yes, Alexx?” He smiled and waved her toward a guest chair. “You’re working late.”
“So are you,” she replied, remaining standing. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m finished with the post on Wendy Greenfield.”
“Any surprises? The COD looked pretty straightforward on that one.”
“Her cause of death was the slit throat, no question about that. But there was still a surprise, at least to me.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, her tox screen came back clear. She’s a clean-living woman. She hasn’t always been—her liver was not in the best shape, for one thing. But there were no signs of recent drug abuse or excessive alcohol use. The big surprise was in her hCG beta test.”
Horatio knew she meant human chorionic gonadotropin, or hCG, a peptide hormone produced in pregnancy to maintain progesterone production. It was the hormone that home pregnancy tests checked for. “She was pregnant?”
“That’s right. Somewhere just over twelve or thirteen weeks, I’d say. Her husband didn’t tell you that?” He caught a faint accusatory tone in her voice, as if she thought he’d been holding out on her.
“No, Alexx, he didn’t. Which means,” he said, “that Sidney Greenfield was not as forthcoming as I thought. He definitely seemed surprised, but not too surprised to remember something that significant.”
“Pregnancy doesn’t seem like something that would slip your mind,” Alexx said.
“No, it doesn’t. It’s not impossible, of course. People in shock can forget their own names.”
“You’re going to have another talk with him, I take it?”
“Yes, I am. I think I’ll let it wait until tomorrow, though. If he did keep her pregnancy a secret on purpose, then he’s guilty of something, and I want to let him stew in it overnight. If he didn’t, if he just forgot to say anything because of the shock, then I don’t want to bother him a second time today. I don’t think he’s much of a flight risk.”
“Celebrities seldom are,” Alexx agreed. “They have the money, but they’re too easily recognized.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Thank you, Alexx, for the report. That definitely puts a different light on things. That’s good work.”
“I’m going home to my kids, Horatio,” she said.
“You should get out of here too.”
Alexx had two children, a husband, and a nice house in Coral Gables. Horatio didn’t have kids or a wife. But he understood the necessity of having a life away from the lab, even though he sometimes wished he didn’t. “I will, Alexx. Thanks.”
She left his office and he returned to his paperwork, his mind turning over the news she had brought him. A couple of minutes later, he heard the distinct click click of a woman walking in the hall and thought it was Alexx returning for something else.
But it wasn’t. Instead, Calleigh Duquesne poked her head in. “Horatio, you’re burning the midnight oil?”
“No rest for the wicked,” he said with a grin.
“You have anything going on tonight, Calleigh?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Do you remember Nina Cullen?”
“I do indeed.” When Calleigh spoke the name, Horatio pictured a slender thirteen-year-old girl with long brown braids and a shy smile that, when it reached full radiance, could illuminate the darkest Florida night. Nina Cullen had been targeted for death because she had witnessed a double homicide, and when it turned out that one of the people after her was her own estranged father, the case had turned even more personal for Horatio. Calleigh had taken a deep interest in the girl too, and Nina had spent a few nights in protective custody at Calleigh’s condo. Calleigh had eventually been able to identify bolt cutters Nina’s father had used to cut a padlock on the gate to Nina’s backyard, in a final attempt against her life. Horatio had found the bolt cutters locked inside the man’s residence, where no one else had access to them. With her father’s fingerprints all over them, and Calleigh’s definitive tool-mark evidence, they had been able to force a confession from the man. Nina and her mother had moved to the Midwest, but Calleigh and Horatio still heard from her now and again.
“She’s coming into town tonight for a couple of days,” Calleigh said. “I’m going to pick her up at the airport.”
“Just her?” Horatio asked. “Her mother’s not coming with her?”
“Horatio, she’s nineteen now. She’s going to Northwestern. And majoring in forensic science, I’m happy to say.”
“What’s the occasion for this trip?”
Calleigh’s expression softened, the smile fading. “Actually, Nina’s pregnant. Her mom asked if I would spend some time with her, try to impress upon her how difficult it is to be a single workingwoman, even without a child. I told her that I’d be at work most of the time—workingwoman, right?—but that Nina could stay with me and we could be together whenever I wasn’t on duty. Her mom thought that would be fine, that the more I was gone the more it would drive home her point.”
“She doesn’t want Nina to carry the child to term?” Horatio asked.
“Either that, or to put it up for adoption right away. She kind of has a point—nineteen is very young, and Nina’s got years of school ahead of her if she wants to be a criminalist.”
Horatio had long wanted children of his own, most recently with Marisol Delko. Although Marisol’s cancer had been in remission when they married, the disease would have made childbirth difficult and risky. They were both willing to try, but her murder had made it impossible. “That’s true, Calleigh. On the other hand, she might never have another chance. Life is unpredictable, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is. I don’t know that I’m comfortable making her mom’s case for her, but I’m happy to have Nina visit anyway. I just wish she could stay longer.”
“I hope she’ll come around the lab.”
“I’m sure she’ll want to do that first thing. Maybe not first thing tonight—you should go home, after all, and I don’t think she knows anyone on the night shift. But at her first opportunity.”
“I’ll look forward to seeing her,” Horatio said. He meant it—he bonded easily with children, appreciating their unshielded forthrightness and often little-noticed courage. And those bonds, he had found, tended to hold up remarkably well over the years.
Calleigh left, and he returned once again to his paperwork, wanting to get through one more stack before he went home to a late dinner and bed.
Calleigh loved her work, but there were times when it began to feel all-consuming and she had to back away from it. It was too easy to dwell on the job constantly, to wake up thinking about a case from the day before and to drift off to sleep running through the day’s events in her mind. She knew that wasn’t healthy. A person needed other interests, something to occupy her attention besides weapons and blood spatter and tox reports.
In her case, family offered only so much relief. Her parents had divorced more than a decade ago, and she had to make an effort not to be drawn into taking sides, but to provide both her mother and her father with a neutral listener. Her father’s drinking problem exacerbated that situation, and while she loved him dearly, spending time with him was often more draining than satisfying. She could talk to her brothers, and sometimes went to a target range with one or another of them—but there again, she wound up with a firearm in her hands. She had been drawn to law enforcement, and specifically forensic science, because of her long interest in guns, but guns as a hobby had to be kept separate from her working life. She dated—usually men in law enforcement, as it happened—she went out, she read glossy Ocean Drive magazine in addition to professional journals and popular gun magazines, and she had a rarely discussed addiction to Southern writers, from Eudora Welty and Thomas Wolfe to Pat Conroy and Anne Rivers Siddons.
But anything that promised a more complete distraction from the job, like the imminent arrival of Nina Cullen (in spite of the fact that she had met Nina on a case, that had been long ago and years of letters, holiday cards, emails and phone calls had built enough of a bond separate from that first meeting that she didn’t consider Nina a work-related friend), was more than welcome.
Calleigh reached Miami International a little after eight, about twenty-five minutes early for Nina’s flight. She browsed one of the gift shops, bought a paperback novel by the always-delightful Fannie Flagg, then sat down on a bench to read and wait.
When the display board showed that Nina’s flight had landed, she put the receipt into the book as a bookmark, tucked it into her purse, and stood up, waiting with a throng of others for the passengers to make their way from the gate toward baggage claim and ground transportation. She always got a kick out of watching people at airports, and did so now, enjoying a family with young children in pajamas, stifling yawns while they angled for the first glimpse of Grandma, a young man laden with flowers and balloons for an arriving girlfriend, and a pair of proud parents waiting anxiously for a son or daughter in uniform.
Halfway through the flood of passengers from the Chicago flight, Calleigh spotted Nina. She wore a coat far too heavy for Miami weather, but it had been cold in the Midwest for the last several days, the advance of spring notwithstanding. Taller than Calleigh since her fifteenth year, Nina wore jeans, a snug sweater, and sneakers, and she strode down the ramp with a confident spring in her step. Her slender face was framed by brown hair in a pixie cut, and it went from solemn and a little sleepy to vibrant and joyful when she saw Calleigh wave.
Nina broke into a jog, shouldering past other passengers, and threw her arms around Calleigh. Her canvas messenger bag swung from her shoulder and bumped into Calleigh’s hip, with enough force that it might have been packed full of rocks. A light, vaguely aquatic perfume wafted from her. “Calleigh!” she shrieked. “It’s so great to see you!”
“Welcome back to Miami,” Calleigh said. “You look great, Nina.”
“So do you! Look at you, girlfriend! You are so beautiful!”
Calleigh felt a blush wash over her cheeks. “I love your haircut,” she said. The last time she had seen Nina, the girl’s hair had fallen most of the way down her back, and she’d still been a gangly, awkward high school student. She had, in the interim, become a woman, and the changes in her, from posture to self-confidence, were remarkable. “How was the flight? Are you hungry?”
“I could eat something,” Nina admitted. “Unless Miami rolls up its sidewalks early these days.”
“If that ever happens, it’ll be a sure sign of the apocalypse,” Calleigh said. “Come on. I bet you haven’t had any decent Southern food since the last time you were here.”
“Not unless you count pizza from south Chicago.”
“I don’t. Let’s get your luggage and go.” She hadn’t counted on dinner, but she realized she should have; airplane food was nothing to rave about these days. It would make for a later night than she had anticipated, but she had plenty of late nights. At least this one wouldn’t involve any dead bodies.
There would, she was sure, be plenty of those to deal with tomorrow.