"God dammit!"
Bob slams the receiver down. He doesn't care who else in the station hears. Everyone knows all the gory details anyway. Hell, Janet and Shelby still meet his ex-wife for drinks, for chrissakes.
Bob stares at the phone. He's tired of her games. Her little tricks amused him when they were courting. Now she's using their son as a weapon. Bobby's only seven years old. It makes him sick.
Or maybe it's just the nicotine gum. The wad tingles between his cheek and gum.
Shelby's voice crackles over the intercom: "Hey, Bob. We've got FBI here. He wants to talk to you."
"FBI? Aw crap. Send him through."
Bob leans back in his chair and props his boots on his desk. No point in trying to spiff up for the goddamn Feds. He waits for the clop-clop of expensive leather shoes in the hall.
Instead, a tall blonde man in a sad gray raincoat walks through his office door.
Must be wearing sneakers, Bob thinks.
The Fed steps up to Bob's desk and holds out his hand: "Chief Detective Lindfors?" His other hand reaches inside the coat and pulls out a thin wallet.
"Yeah, that's me."
"I'm Special Agent Winegard." The wallet flops open.
Bob drops his boots from his desk and leans forward to study the ID. Winegard is fatter in the picture. His white-blonde hair and watery blue eyes look just as washed out in person.
"Well, what can I do you for Agent Winegard?"
"I'd like a chance to examine the evidence in the murder of the sonogram tech."
"Really. Why?"
"I'm a profiler. From what I've read, the murder might fall within my specialty"
"There's no Fed jurisdiction on this. Maybe County, but not Federal. It's a straight-up homicide. Weird, but just homicide."
"Please, Detective Lindfors. I'm not pulling rank. I've just come here to do some research."
"OK. Still, this is weird. Why didn't I get a call?"
"Sometimes investigations move quickly. You, Detective, should know the value of getting at the evidence as soon as possible."
"Do you mind if I call your supervisor to confirm all this?"
"If I did, would it make any difference?" Winegard cracks a wry smile, reaching again into his coat to produce a business card.
"Probably not," Bob says stabbing numbers into the phone.
"Ask for Director Phoebus," Winegard offers.
While the detective talks on the phone, Winegard studies the office. Clean. Tidy. The Detective is a disciplined man. Middle-aged enough to let himself go to seed but in good shape. Pictures of fishing trips. An outdoorsman. Not surprising out here. Pictures of a son, the resemblance obvious. No snaps of the mother. Winegard noted the shrunken band of skin on the detective's ring finger. Divorce then.
"Thanks, Mr. Phoebus." Bob hangs up the phone with a gentle rattle. "Sorry for being so ornery, Mr. Winegard. We're a small department. It's not often we get an interesting case."
Winegard smiles back. He can feel the coldness between them starting to thaw. "It's all part of the business, Detective Lindfors." Winegard pauses. "Lindfors. Is that Swedish?"
"You'd think, but actually my folks are from Finland. After getting squeezed by Hitler and Stalin, they bugged out for the ol' USA. Hey, and call me 'Bob'." The Detective holds out his hand.
Winegard takes it with a firm clasp. "I'm Will."
"Now that we've got all that worked out, let's get on it. Since I'm the principal on the case so I'll take you down to the evidence room. And we may be a small department, but we do have our own cooler."
"Excellent. I'd like a look at the body first."
*
Winegard throws open the latch to the little two-body fridge and swings the door aside. He reaches in and pulls at a frosty handle. The stainless-steel body tray rolls out smoothly.
McKaela Beatty's corpse lays with eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar. A clumsy Y incision slashes across her chest and stomach. Next to her shoulder, a sealed plastic bag holds a chunk of flesh.
Winegard leans close to the dark hole at her throat.
"Yeah, I haven't ever seen anything like that. We've had a few cut throats, shotgun wounds, but nothing like this."
Winegard grunts noncommittally.
"And what do you make of those dark, vein things around the wound?"
"Probably material from the weapon. I'd like to take some swabbings, if I may."
"Sure. Be my guest. Anything you can do to help."
*
The two men stare at a TV showing a fly's eye view of the exam room in black and white. McKaela runs the probe over the woman's belly.
"You can see that she's getting a good image. Look, the tech leans in there and then…"
The woman on the table snatches at McKaela with her hand. Black gouts splash and spurt on the walls. McKaela stumbles out of frame grabbing at her throat.
The woman on the table just watches. Her right hand clutches something dark.
"The ultrasound place has their customers initial a clause about the security camera. They don't want to be hit with sex harassment lawsuits. So the lady there should know she's on tape."
The woman gets up and looks at the camera.
Winegard grins. "Oh, she knows. Do you have any idea who she is?"
"No idea so far. The name she registered under is a fake. She paid cash for the ultrasound. None of the witnesses recognize her. I'd like to know what she used to rip out that girl's throat. No one noticed anything weird about her hands and you can see on the tape that she doesn't put anything on."
"Yes. It is a mystery."
Bob crinkles his eyebrows at the back of the agent's head. "How much does the FBI pay again?"
"Very funny, Bob. I'm not a wizard, just a government grunt. All I can do is study what I've gathered here. I'll let you know if I find anything. You have my card, so I'm hoping you can do the same."
"Sure thing. So are you done for now."
"Yes, that should be… wait a moment." Winegard points at a computer on a tall, wheeled cart. "Is that the machine that was in the room?"
"Yep. The boys brought it down here yesterday on my say-so. The manager of the ultrasound place was pissed."
"Mind if I take a look?"
"Uh, yeah, sure. You know what you're doing?"
Winegard walks to the back of the machine. "Actually we have a model quite a bit like this one at the lab, a Sequoia 512."
The power cord is already plugged in.
Winegard presses a key on the keyboard and the machine powers up with a gentle whir of discs and fans.
The detective's cell phone chirps at his side.
"Damn. OK, just a sec." Bob strides towards the door, already forgetting Winegard.
"No problem. I'll wait for you." Winegard turns to the monitor and lays his hand on a trackball next to the keyboard. He navigates the file system, finds the latest image files and opens them.
Five tightly curled fetuses crowd against each other. Each has a thin tail that wrapped through their hind legs.
Winegard shakes his head slightly. "Oh, Lyssa. What have you done?"
He reaches into his coat and extracts what looks like a cigarette lighter. He pops the top off the flash drive and pushes it into the USB port on the front of the machine. Working quickly, he moves files from the machine to his flash drive. Then he changes the timestamps of the next-to-last group of files.
It's quick and dirty, but you haven't left me much choice, my girl, he thinks.
Winegard removes the drive as the detective enters the room.
"You find anything?"
"Nothing very interesting," Winegard places the drive inside his coat and gestures at the monitor. "These are the last images on the machine."
"Ah, well, looks like a bouncing baby boy. You have any kids, Winegard."
"No, detective. Not yet."
"Well, when you do, make sure the mother isn't a psycho. Damned women will rip your heart out."
"Yes," Winegard grins again, "I know quite a lot about that."
"Oh, heh, guess you're right. Look, I've got to get going. Are we done?"
"Yes, Bob, we're done."
The detective looks a little relieved as Winegard walks past him and out the door into the hall.
Bob notices that the agent isn't wearing sneakers. He's wearing expensive leather shoes and he hardly makes a sound as he walks down the corridor.
Pakeha