Slater had agreed to meet Patch at the coroner’s office, located in the basement of the hospital, a place Cruz had never been. Wilson waited for them at the wide swinging doors and led them to the autopsy table which held the body. The girl’s hair hung over the edge of the shiny table and a sheet covered her legs, but her torso lay open, the flaps of the Y-incision pulled back so they could view the interior organs.
Cruz leaned closer, looking over Slater’s shoulder, but didn’t voice the thoughts in his head. A ripple of queasiness raced along his nerves at what he saw.
The body cavity gaped like the maw of a gigantic cavern.
“Where the hell are her organs?” Slater demanded.
Patch nodded. “Good point. I drained the fluids, removed her intestines and lungs, other minor material, but – ”
Suddenly, Cruz realized something as he looked back and forth between the open body and the stainless steel containers resting on a set of scales. There were no organs from the body. Kidneys, heart, liver – all missing.
Slater glanced at Cruz’s blanched face. “You see it?”
“Hell, yes.”
Patch confirmed their worst fears. “The body has been stripped of vital organs, neatly and precisely, likely someone with medical knowledge, however scant. Organs that are both vital and valuable,” he added.
“Holy shit,” Slater exclaimed. “Do you know what these particular organs go for on the black market?”
Chapter 36
Roger Milano met the next day with his attorney in a privacy room at Folsom Prison. John Wright came straight to the point. “Someone assaulted Frankie Jones in the prison parking lot after work night before last.”
“Jesus mother-fuckin’ Christ,” Roger shouted, clamoring up and knocking his chair over with a loud crash. He saw the security guard glance through the observation window and quickly sat down. Wright raised his hand, signaling that everything was okay.
Roger swiped at his damp forehead, saw the tremor as he clasped his hands together. “How is she? Is she hurt? How bad? Was she – ” The words had tumbled out of his mouth with the force of fear and panic, but now he couldn’t bring himself to say the word. “Was she ... assaulted?”
“No, no,” Wright assured him. “She’s okay. The guy threatened her. She’s shaken up, scared, skinned up a bit, nothing serious. Mad as hell.”
Roger managed a grim smile. “She’s a warrior.”
“She didn’t see her attacker,” Wright continued, “and has no idea who it was, but she’s taken an unspecified leave of absence from Pelican Bay.”
Wright looked inquiringly at Roger. He didn’t know Roger’s relationship to this Frankie Jones, but he’d been watching out for her on Roger’s behalf for the last dozen years or so. He suspected Frankie was Roger’s daughter, but he wasn’t sure. Last names were different, but a legal name change was easy to get. She’d never attended the trial, never visited the inmate until several years after he was incarcerated.
“She told the authorities her aunt was grievously ill.” Wright lifted one corner of his mouth at this bald lie.
Roger and his sister-in-law were not fast friends. An ironic understatement because his dead wife’s sister hated his guts and was completely sure Roger had murdered his wife in a fit of rage.
But Frankie ... the important thing was her safety.
“Why, then?” Roger asked. “If not – not rape – why was she attacked? What did they want? Why threaten Frankie? She’s nobody.”
Even though privilege was supposedly observed in the privacy room, the lawyer lowered his voice until it was barely audible.
“She called me, talked five minutes. She doesn’t know who attacked her, but says a murder went down in the prison yard a few days ago, and the inmate who confessed to it passed her a note. Cole Hansen. Last I heard he was suddenly paroled and released. Fell off the grid since then.”
“She thinks the attack has something to do with this – this Cole guy?” Roger scratched his head, frowning. “Why does that name sound familiar? Cole Hansen,” he muttered softly.
Wright looked pointedly at Roger’s right knuckles. “He’s LOD, too.”
Roger jerked back, astonished. “You think this has something to do with me?”
Wright lifted his hands, palms upward. “You tell me.”
Roger sat up straight, as if an iron bar had replaced his spine. He’d always had such stiff composure, Wright recalled, even during the arrest and all through the trial.
Roger hadn’t wanted Frankie to observe the proceedings, and the aunt hadn’t allowed it, but when she reached the age of consent, no one could stop her from visiting him in prison.
That was the first time he’d met Frankie Jones. Even at that young age, she was impressive – slender and composed with gray eyes calm and stormy at the same.