Home > The North Face of the Heart(7)

The North Face of the Heart(7)
Author: Dolores Redondo

She dusted the body with desiccant and turned her attention to the hair. She checked the photo they’d given her for reference and noted with real regret the deceased’s abundant mane of chestnut hair. The woman in the picture was smiling at the camera and hugging one of her boys. She remembered him well; the Miller boy had died six months earlier in the big storm, along with his parents, his grandmother, and his two siblings.

Most of the family had been buried almost immediately, as was often the case after disasters. But Mrs. Miller’s mother, who was in Spain, had a heart attack when they informed her of the catastrophe, and she had moved heaven and earth to make sure her daughter wouldn’t be buried until she’d recovered enough to see her one last time. Now the authorities had delivered a body that had been in the deep freeze for six months, and they expected the Wards to perform a miracle.

Mary used a hair dryer to blow away the desiccant. After testing various pigments, she mixed up a sticky flesh-colored paste and applied it to Mrs. Miller’s face. She smiled in satisfaction as she spread it first with a sponge and then with a fine brush.

As she daubed the mixture along the jaw line, she noticed a little lump, probably a broken or dislodged tooth, not uncommon in such deaths. She sighed and put aside the bowl and the brushes. She inspected the subject’s oral cavity with a flashlight, probed with forceps, and was surprised to find everything intact. She ran her fingers along the jawline again. There was definitely something there, a loose fragment of some kind. She worked it along the lower jaw and trapped it against a rear molar. She knew she had to be careful, or the object, whatever it was, would vanish down Mrs. Miller’s throat. With great care, Mary inserted tweezers and guided them along the rear teeth. She held the object in place with pressure from her fingers until she was sure she had it firmly gripped. She extracted it and held it up to the light.

It wasn’t the first time Mary Ward had seen a bullet, but God knows she hadn’t expected to find one in the mouth of the late Mrs. Miller.

 

 

5

INSOLENT

Quantico, Virginia

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Amaia followed Agent Emerson along the corridors. He hadn’t explained; he’d only told her to follow him. She knew she wasn’t going to get any information out of him. He’d refused to meet her eyes, and now he was walking a yard ahead of her. Their tenuous rapport had been irreparably damaged the day before, so she asked no questions and concentrated instead on memorizing the labyrinthine path she was taking. Her guide was probably trying to disorient her. She was almost certain of it by the time they reached the end of a narrow hallway and took an elevator down to the basement.

The doors opened onto a large space with cubicles, desks, and agents absorbed in their work. Emerson gestured toward a couple of straight-backed chairs by one of the offices off the central space. He rapped lightly on the door and went inside, leaving her outside alone. Several of the busy agents watched her with interest. One of them made eye contact with her, then glanced toward the ceiling. She followed his gaze and saw the blinking red light of a closed-circuit video camera. She was being watched.

On the other side of the door, Emerson greeted his colleagues but received no reply. He settled into a chair in the corner. He’d expected to see Dupree, Agent Tucker, and Agent Johnson, but he was surprised to find two other men next to Dupree, also studying the monitor showing the woman waiting outside.

Assistant Inspector Amaia Salazar was a good-looking young woman with long blond hair that she put up in a ponytail, unobtrusive earrings, and polished shoes. She sat with her back straight and her head held high. Dupree saw her glance up at the camera. She didn’t seem bothered by the knowledge that they were observing her. He read that as a sign of authentic, hard-earned self-confidence.

Agent Johnson, standing at one side of the desk, opened a folder and read aloud from it. His voice was deep and his tone was calm and knowledgeable. His bristling but neatly trimmed and prematurely white mustache and beard gave him the air of a Victorian physician. He hadn’t gained an ounce of fat in the thirty years since he’d entered the FBI Academy. He might even have lost a few. He was proud that he could still wear the same suits as he had back then.

“Amaia Salazar, twenty-five years old, graduated summa cum laude from Boston College. Law, sociology, and behavioral science—specialization in criminology, with a minor in nonverbal communication. Finished her MS, returned to her country, joined the police.”

One of the men next to Dupree nodded, unimpressed. Jim Wilson was the director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division (CJIS), overseeing the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which he had helped establish. NCIC files contained data not only on murders, rapes, and armed robberies, but also information about parole violators, gang members, terrorists, missing persons, stolen identities, and more. He’d persuaded law enforcement agencies from across the globe to contribute files to his compendium. All told, the database contained at least twelve million records.

The other man was Michael Verdon, director of the Criminal Investigative Division. Everyone knew he and Wilson were old friends. Both were close to sixty, had been in the same class at the Bureau, and wore matching comb-overs that did little to hide their increasingly shiny pates. The similarities ended there. Michael Verdon had the figure of an athlete and a deep tan like that of a marine. He could have easily still passed the physical tests required of incoming trainees. In contrast, Wilson was one of those men who looked in shape only from behind. His potbelly was as big as a six-month pregnancy. Wilson and Verdon had collaborated in the 1980s on the Descriptive Index for Latent Identification (DILI), a pioneering program that collated features of any given crime with information already in the system, flagged similarities, and linked them to possible suspects. In the beginning, the DILI had access to fingerprint data only if an individual had been in prison or was incarcerated. The DILI was prehistoric by today’s standards, but it had established the parameters used subsequently for forensic databases around the world.

Michael Verdon put into words the question that was bothering all of them. “Why didn’t we recruit her straight out of college? Boston’s been the source of some of our best agents.” Wilson nodded, studying his copy of Salazar’s file.

Johnson also nodded. “The boss took a look at her.” He jutted his chin toward Dupree, who was still watching the monitor. “And we tried. Everything fit—good background, adopted by an elderly American couple, educated in the US from the age of twelve at some of the best boarding schools, dual citizenship: Spain and the US. A couple of boyfriends, nothing long term. No drugs, no weapons, no scandals. The dean contacted us about her. Salazar presented a brilliant thesis on . . .” Johnson checked the file. “Here it is: ‘Scientific Interpretation of Nonverbal Communication Relevant to Minor Children at Risk.’ But when we approached her, she said she wanted to go back to Europe.”

“To Spain,” Dupree added, breaking his silence.

“To northern Spain. Pamplona. Even though the National Police or the Guardia Civil would have been glad to have her, she opted for a smaller force, Navarra’s Judicial Police. Not much more than a bunch of backwoods state troopers.”

“And now we’ve got her back,” Verdon mused aloud, not speaking to anyone in particular. He left Dupree’s side and took one of the chairs by the door.

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