Ten yards down I entered a room identified as 2101: Homicide Cold Case Unit.
A gray table and six chairs took up most of the square footage. A copy machine. File cabinets. White erasable board and brown cork-boards on the walls. In the rear, a low-rise divider set off a desk holding the usual phone, mug, withered plant, and overfilled in-and out-baskets. A window threw rectangles of sunlight across the blotter.
Not a soul in sight. I glanced at the wall clock. 7:58.
Seriously? Only I had arrived on time?
Head pounding and slightly peeved, I dropped into a chair and placed my shoulder bag at my feet.
On the table were a laptop, a cardboard carton, and a plastic tub. Both containers bore numbers on their covers. The ones on the tub were in a format familiar to me: 090431070901. The file dated to April 30, 2009. A single call had come in at 7:09 A.M.
The numbering system on the carton was different. I assumed the case was from another jurisdiction.
A bit of background.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department had roughly five hundred unsolved murders dating back to 1970. Recognizing that this was a lot of bodies and a lot of folks waiting for justice, in 2003 the CMPD established a cold case unit.
Honor Barrow, twenty years at the murder table, had run the CCU since its inception. The other full-timers included a police sergeant and an FBI agent. A volunteer review team composed of three retired FBI agents, a retired NYPD cop, a civilian academic, and a civilian engineer provided support in the form of pre-investigation triage and analysis. The cold case unit regulars gathered monthly.
As a forensic anthropologist, I work with the not so recently dead. No secret why I was sometimes invited to the dance. But I usually got a heads-up about why my presence was being requested. A query concerning a set of remains. A question about bones, trauma, or decomposition.
Not this time.
Impatient, and curious why I’d been summoned, I drew the tub to me and pried off the lid. Inside were hundreds of pages separated by dividers. I knew the headings on each of the tabs. Victimology. Summary of the Crime. Crime Scene Report. Evidence/Property Recovered/Analyzed. Medical Examiner’s Report. Witnesses. Related Investigation. Potential Suspects. Recommended Follow-up.
Lying across the files was a case review summary written by Claire Melani, a criminologist and colleague at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I flipped to the first section of her report. And felt my neck muscles tense.
Before I could read further, voices sounded in the hall. Moments later, Barrow appeared with a guy looking like something off the cover of a survivalist manual. Washed-out jeans. Faded army jacket over long-sleeved red tee. Dark hair curling from below a neon-orange cap.
I replaced the report in its tub. “Everyone stuck in traffic?”
“I didn’t invite the volunteer team.”
Though that surprised me, I said nothing.
Barrow noticed my gaze shift to the survivalist and introduced him. “Detective Rodas is down from Vermont.”
“Umparo. Umpie to my friends.” Self-deprecating smile. “Both of them.”
Rodas extended a hand. I took it. Umpie’s grip matched his appearance, rough and strong.
As Barrow and Rodas took seats, a familiar figure framed up in the doorway. Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, cop legend in his own mind.
Can’t say Slidell’s presence thrilled me. Since Skinny works homicide, and I work the morgue, we are often thrown together. Over the years our relationship has had more ups and downs than a polygraph chart. His manner is often grating, but the man clears cases.
Slidell stretched both hands in a “What gives?” gesture and drew in one wrist to look at his watch. Subtle.
“Glad you could pry yourself free from the computer porn.” Smiling, Barrow hooked a chair free from the table with one foot.