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They drove through winding backstreets toward the junction of 19th and Pat D’Arco Highway. Temeke felt a twitch of impatience as Luis turned north, doing fifty-eight in that nice black charger to cut through the Friday night traffic.
If it wasn’t the smoke stack from the semiconductor factory or the stench from a nearby sewage plant, it was the chimney of the bloody crematorium. Lucky for the pine tree air freshener hanging from the rearview mirror, Temeke only caught a whiff now and then.
“Would have been five days prior to exhumation according to the Environmental Health Office,” Luis said as he made a sharp right on Sarah Road. “Someone’s at the site now checking the nameplate on the casket corresponds to the one on the license. I hope we’re right about this one. Miss Kapoor’s parents are understandably upset. Gave us permission to exhume their daughter on the condition we don’t tamper with her casket.”
“Can’t the DA override that?”
“If we need to take a look inside, then, yes.”
It was that once yawning pit that bothered Temeke, the notion that Malin’s nightmares had been fueled by a girl running blindly in the night. It was where she was running to that interested him. “The Kapoors... what type of people are they?”
“Father was a landowner and a trader. Married an American Caucasian in 1972 which threw any kids outside the Indian caste system. He was a Viasya, third tier if that’s what you call it. They won’t be present.”
It explained why the girl was buried in a conventional plot. A single thought gnawed away at Temeke. What if Asha Samadi’s remains weren’t there?
“You and I haven’t talked in a while,” Luis said, seeming to hesitate for a moment. “About personal stuff. Is there anything you need?”
Temeke wanted to talk about Serena but he knew it was off limits. Do you miss me? he asked her in his head. And then he thought, to hell with it. “I’d like my wife back.”
Luis brushed one hand over the dash at a pile of dust only he could see. Tidy squirrel.
“Last time I saw her was Thursday,” he said. “I remember it was Thursday because there was a two dollops for the price of one at Cold Stone Creamery. So I got in line. She was a few cars ahead shaking a fist at the talking menu board. I love my sister, bro, but I’m not sure you want her back. She’s put on at least fifty pounds and the back tires of that little Scion are flatter than a gunny sack.”
Temeke felt the tremor in his gut, rubbed his mouth to hide a smile. He gazed at Luis without blinking and before he could explore that disturbing thought he realized the big guy was serious. “I like big girls, Luis. Always have.”
“Give it time.”
They pulled in past two flag poles on an emerald hill, turning right at the split in the road where four parking spaces had been allotted to invalid drivers. The main parking lot was devoid of visitors, taken over now by the criminalistics motorhome, an environmental health minivan, a fleet of law enforcement and Dr. Vasillion’s team.
Temeke felt a rush of hope as he got out of the car, glancing up the hill at a forensics tent. The sun streamed red and gold through a billow of massing clouds on the horizon and the sound of screeching pulleys from the crane-lift announced the start of the exhumation. He switched off his phone.
Making his way up the hill, he wondered how Malin was doing at Adel Martinez’s house, whether she was watching her back. While here he was staring at silent mounds of earth, headstones connected by green paths; an idyllic setting. He noticed a dust devil spiraling between two stone angels in the rising wind and a soft keening as if he could almost hear the trumpets they were playing.
He suited up in coveralls while listening to an eerie silence as the rig shut down. Temeke tensed as he walked into the tent, saw the casket and clods of dirt spilling from the lid. The glimmer of a brass nameplate coupled with a bilious stench almost made him gag.
“Nothing in the topsoil,” cried a voice from behind a hazmat mask. “Checking underneath.”
Temeke stepped forward a few paces, suddenly floodlit by inspection lamps and feeling as if he was standing on a dangerous precipice. An overpowering burn-your-hair-off odor wafted up from the pit and he slapped a hand over his mouth.
The photographer began shooting overviews and close-ups, and two field examiners descended in protective suits to begin their careful examination. It was ten agonizing minutes before the sight of blue vinyl burst through the earth in the shape of a seventy-two inch shower curtain.
They laid it on a stretcher and Dr. Vasillion unwrapped the gruesome package, verbalizing each tiny observation for his assistant to record. Temeke felt the whump of blood from his head as he staggered against Luis.
“It’s her,” Temeke said, voicing her full name, date of birth and last known address.
What he saw was a young woman in a black sheath dress, head turned sideways from the weight of the casket. Her neck was draped with pearls and there was a smear of dried blood at her throat. White nubs of cartilage peeked out from the right third and fourth finger. Made Temeke tremble, made him nauseous. Her hair had been tied in a chignon and the wind tugged at a lock above her forehead, giving the impression of life for one false second.
She didn’t deserve to be dumped.
“Was she already...?” Temeke’s mind hesitated at finishing the sentence. He recalled the amount of blood at the primary scene on Cornell Drive, but he had to know for sure.
“I’ll send the report over tomorrow,” Dr. Vasillion said.
The first woman to disobey shall be buried alive... The sight of her lying there called to mind the recital at Popejoy Hall, ten fingers flitting gracefully over the piano keys where now there were eight.
The question was, did she fight back?
Temeke peeled off his coveralls, leaving the technicians to process the scene. Silent thoughts echoed in his head as he staggered back to the car, until his attention snapped back to Luis’ voice.
“You OK?”
Temeke wasn’t sure he was, but he was darn sure about one thing. “This wasn’t a chance encounter or a one-night-stand gone wrong. It wasn’t a symbolic sacrifice either. It was a druggy, burnt-out psycho on a revenge kick and with any luck the perp might have left traces of himself all over her. Unless he was suited up.”
“Chemical tape and goggles...” Luis jutted his chin at the crime scene techs and nodded as if he noted the ingenuity of it. “’Course, you’d need to work in a place like that. Storm’s coming.”
Luis looked up at the clouds, hair flattened by a sudden gust of wind.
Temeke wasn’t worried about the storm. It was a face that suddenly came to mind. A face in a white suit, a face he recalled on his last case. Pauline Bailey’s former intern.
The car radio burst through his thoughts, a plaintive voice trying to raise them. He slowly lit a cigarette before announcing his whereabouts into the microphone.
“I’ve been trying to call you for ages,” It was Malin. “Adel Martinez... she’s missing.”
