Part 7 (2/2)
”Yeah, wow,” Frank said. ”Can we get back to the dead person, please?”
”Mm-hmm, okay-hey.”
”What?”
Out on the tarmac, the air made hazy by the dust and heat the planes kicked up, something appeared to be moving toward them. Not a plane. A person.
She squinted. Two people, strolling across the runways with complete disregard for the dozen planes possibly taking off or landing at any moment. ”Should they be doing that?”
The Port Authority guy looked, swore, but stayed by their side as he radioed the situation to his colleagues. ”What kind of nuts are these?”
”Probably drunk bigwigs,” Angela Sanchez guessed. ”They came from the VIP tent.”
”Why didn't you say something?”
”I thought it was part of the show.”
The Port Authority guy scowled, moved out in front of them, and put his hand on the b.u.t.t of his gun.
Neither of the two people appeared to be Brandon Jablonski, so Theresa left him to it and returned her attention to the body. Four inches below the dead woman's right elbow, on the outside of the forearm, something triangular and very thin had left a light singe mark in the skin and pale hair. Not torture-right on the surface, as if she had brushed up against something small and hot, rather than its being pressed into her flesh.
A voice made her look up. The two walking people had crossed the road nearest them and wound past their vehicles. A car with flas.h.i.+ng lights-Theresa a.s.sumed it to be the Port Authority reinforcements-came tearing up the entry road from the far west edge of the airport but would not reach them before the people did. Not that this gave her any cause for concern, since the two people approaching them did not appear threatening: a young woman in a body-hugging miniskirt, making impressive time in strappy platform sandals, and a man wearing a well-cut suit and tie. He did not seem as enthusiastic about their little jaunt as his girlfriend and scowled at her back.
”Stop right there,” the Port Authority cop said. Frank said nothing, only watched with a tight face. They were on the port department's turf, Theresa realized. You don't poach another man's authority, no matter how tempted.
”OMG,” the woman said, p.r.o.nouncing each initial. Her face seemed familiar, as if Theresa might have seen it on the society pages or a billboard. ”What's going on? Did you find a bomb? Or is it a dead body?”
”You just walked across an active airfield, ma'am,” the cop said.
”Don't you think that's a little dangerous?”
”There weren't any planes coming or going. The Thunderbirds are going to be up for the next fifteen minutes.”
As if to emphasize her point, the team of jets zoomed overhead again, and again Theresa could not resist watching them until they became minimized by distance.
Unfortunately they proved equally irresistible to the Port Authority officer, and the woman advanced another five feet before he noticed and said, ”This is an active crime scene, ma'am. You'll have to leave.”
”It's okay,” she a.s.sured him with the confidence of the clueless and waved a hand at her companion. ”This is Councilman Greer.”
The man in question said, ”Tasha-”
”I don't care who he is.” The Port Authority officer had run low on patience, or perhaps he also didn't care for the councilman's voting record. ”You're leaving the area. Now. This car pulling up will give you a ride back to the bleachers so you don't have to walk across the tarmac-”
Tasha had pointed the toes of her impressively long legs, and the extra few inches were all she needed to see down the slope. ”Oh my-look, Benjy, it really is a body! Look at that! It's all torn up!”
The Port Authority officer waved to his colleague, who was now crossing the gra.s.s, and repeated his order that they leave the area immediately.
”Oh, for heaven's sake, she's just looking,” the councilman snapped. He was a handsome man of indeterminate age, indeterminate race, and, if today's exhibition gave any indication, indeterminate sense.
Tasha had grasped his arm, but not for support or comfort. She nearly jumped up and down in excitement. ”This is so cool! It's so gross!”
At this Theresa stood up and planted her feet directly in front of the body. ”This isn't TV, ma'am. This was a person, not an object for you to gawk at just to put a thrill into your perfect little life.”
Tasha had apparently made a lifetime habit of simply ignoring anything unpleasant and only twisted her body to see around Theresa. The councilman flushed. ”There's no need to get insulting. You do this for a living-how ghoulish does that make you?”
The second Port Authority officer reached them, a.s.sessed the situation with one glance, and took Tasha by the forearm. ”This way, ma'am.” She could have moved or been gently pulled off her feet, so she walked, her face still turned toward the water, while dipping and turning to get one more glimpse of the mutilated corpse.
When the first officer tried the same technique on Councilman Greer, however, the man snapped his arm away. ”Get your hands off me. I have an honorary badge, you know.”
”That's the only reason I'm not putting you in cuffs, sir.”
”Fine, I-” The man turned. Moving away from the officer brought him one step closer to the sh.o.r.e, and suddenly the councilman, too, caught sight of the dead body. The blood left his face and it turned a ghastly sort of orange.
”Better catch him,” Frank said. ”I think the good councilman's going to faint.”
Greer didn't, though, merely turned away and took a few unsteady steps. The Thunderbirds did a vertical climb over the lake, their engines whining, their sharp outlines silhouetted against the cobalt-blue sky. The cops present watched, of course, as anyone would, but Theresa stopped to swat a late-season mosquito and therefore witnessed the councilman drop to one knee and lose his lunch onto the gra.s.s.
Theresa wrinkled her nose, grateful that the planes drowned out the sound of retching. Talk about gross.
The man glanced up, wiping his mouth, noting that the three officers were turned away from him. Then his eye fell on Theresa.
She couldn't resist. She smiled.
He gave her one malevolent glare before bounding up to be escorted away by the officer with his girlfriend, as if the officers would not be able to conclude how a cup or two of vomit had suddenly appeared on the turf.
Men and their egos.
Theresa went back to the body, lifting the left hand and turning it over. Still no signs of defensive wounds. She had a tattoo of a bleeding rose on the inside of her pale wrist.
Frank leaned over her shoulder. ”Finding anything? Other than that she liked roses?”
”No bruises or sticky residue around the wrists-no indication that she was bound.”
”So she must have been unconscious when he took her head off, or already dead. Right?”
”That would be my guess. We should at least be able to get some tox results, see if she'd been drugged.”
Angela crouched near the woman's shoulder. With the Thunderbirds in the distance a quiet fell over the sh.o.r.eline, broken only by the lapping waves and the occasional gust of wind. ”Kind of weird, isn't it?”
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